Hello- first of all I think you verbalised a bunch of very interesting and useful ideas about EA, its role and strategy. However as someone who currently donates 10% of my salary to addressing farmed animal welfare, I have some criticisms of your conclusions. I know that youâre not ruling out donating to animal charities, but requiring people to donate >10% of their salaries to charity is just putting the bar insanely high for the vast vast majority of people. So in effect your proposal means ceasing support to farmed animal welfare in favour of global poverty focused charities
One of the issues with this argument to my mind is that the same basic form can be made compatible with nationalistic rhetoric. âBefore we donate a single dollar/âpound of aid, we need to make sure no child is hungry in our own country, etc.â If we accept an argument for partiality towards some strangers over other strangers (beyond questions of effectiveness)- why draw the line to contain all humans rather than humans of a specific nationality, ethnicity, eye colour etc.
I completely get the âopticsâ rationale for not prioritising nematode welfare, but I think saying that we need to solve all major causes of human sufffering before addressing factory farming is too conservative. Quite a lot of people are against factory farming in a way which is not true about wild animal suffering (or farmed invertebrates suffering for that matter). After all it is fear of public opinion which makes farmed animal welfare charity campaigns so unreasonably effective (particularly caged hen corporate campaigns). This is why factory farming and wild invertebrate suffering are in different leagues as far as optics are concerned. In essenceâI agree that emphasising certain âfar outâ aspects of EA can be off-putting, but I donât think that factory farming is so beyond the Overton window.
Also- the Overton window is malleable, many ideas (abolitionism, womenâs suffrage, AI safety) sounded completely nutty when they were first floatedânot to mention âimmoralâ. One of the historic missions that EA is currently fulfilling is pushing this circle outward, not by solving all issues for people within the circle first, but by challenging where most people draw the boundary in the first place. It canât be done all at once (weâre not going to convince most people about shrimp anytime soon) but we can move the line inch by inch over decades- which is pretty much how all moral progress has worked up till this point. Iâm fairly confident it will continue working this way (barring future existential catastrophes)
Another thing I would like to add is, that even in my framework farm animals are in the second circle, that is, right next to humans. They are not the same category as insects or soil nematodes. And they indeed live in horrendous conditions. I think every effective altruist should allocate some money to them.
My intention was to try to keep those 10% to humans sacred, to prevent value drift, and trains to crazy town. I made a case for it. Am I right? I donât know.
I am quite confident about the priorities thing. But perhaps there shouldnât be such a harsh cutoff.
Perhaps we can do it like this donate 1 unit to the first circle, 1â2 to the second circle, and 1â4 to the third circle.
Translated into percentages it would be roughly 57% of donation money to the 1st circle (including X-risks), 29% to the second circle (farm animals) and 14% to the third circle (wild animals).
I outlined a lot of reasons for prioritizing humans, some, but not all of them are based on emotions and gut feelings. Many other are based on rational considerations. Iâm not sure if these rational considerations are correct or if they might be misguided.
Youâre right that asking people to donate more than 10% is too much. But hereâs the thing. Animal charities are way more effective than human charities. So giving just another 1 or 2 percent to animal charities can be incredibly effective.
For this reason I love animal charities, they are extremely cheap ways of doing good.
But can we call ourselves philanthropists if we donât donate anything to people?
According to Wikipedia: The word philanthropy comes from Ancient GreekÏÎčλαΜΞÏÏÏία (philanthrĆpĂa) âlove of humanityâ, from philo- âto love, be fond ofâ and anthrĆpos âhumankind, mankindâ.
Everyone can decide about percentages for themselves. My idea of preserving 10% for humans + existential risks, is just how I feel about it, perhaps to ensure weâre not losing our focus and not forgetting why weâre doing this in the first place.
So perhaps we can donate 10% to human charities and existential risk prevention, and another 2% to animal charities. (12% total)
Or if you really think that animal welfare is extremely important, perhaps you can donate 5% to human charities and 5% to animal charities.
I think by allocating less than 50% of donation money to humans and existential risks (which is 5% if you donate 10% in total) we risk losing focus.
When it comes to donation for existential risk prevention it can be counted in the same category as donations to human charities, because those donations help everyone, humans and animals, and the whole planet.
So 50% of donation money to humans + X-risk is in my entirely subjective opinion, a minimum.
Hello- first of all I think you verbalised a bunch of very interesting and useful ideas about EA, its role and strategy. However as someone who currently donates 10% of my salary to addressing farmed animal welfare, I have some criticisms of your conclusions. I know that youâre not ruling out donating to animal charities, but requiring people to donate >10% of their salaries to charity is just putting the bar insanely high for the vast vast majority of people. So in effect your proposal means ceasing support to farmed animal welfare in favour of global poverty focused charities
One of the issues with this argument to my mind is that the same basic form can be made compatible with nationalistic rhetoric. âBefore we donate a single dollar/âpound of aid, we need to make sure no child is hungry in our own country, etc.â If we accept an argument for partiality towards some strangers over other strangers (beyond questions of effectiveness)- why draw the line to contain all humans rather than humans of a specific nationality, ethnicity, eye colour etc.
I completely get the âopticsâ rationale for not prioritising nematode welfare, but I think saying that we need to solve all major causes of human sufffering before addressing factory farming is too conservative. Quite a lot of people are against factory farming in a way which is not true about wild animal suffering (or farmed invertebrates suffering for that matter). After all it is fear of public opinion which makes farmed animal welfare charity campaigns so unreasonably effective (particularly caged hen corporate campaigns). This is why factory farming and wild invertebrate suffering are in different leagues as far as optics are concerned. In essenceâI agree that emphasising certain âfar outâ aspects of EA can be off-putting, but I donât think that factory farming is so beyond the Overton window.
Also- the Overton window is malleable, many ideas (abolitionism, womenâs suffrage, AI safety) sounded completely nutty when they were first floatedânot to mention âimmoralâ. One of the historic missions that EA is currently fulfilling is pushing this circle outward, not by solving all issues for people within the circle first, but by challenging where most people draw the boundary in the first place. It canât be done all at once (weâre not going to convince most people about shrimp anytime soon) but we can move the line inch by inch over decades- which is pretty much how all moral progress has worked up till this point. Iâm fairly confident it will continue working this way (barring future existential catastrophes)
Another thing I would like to add is, that even in my framework farm animals are in the second circle, that is, right next to humans. They are not the same category as insects or soil nematodes. And they indeed live in horrendous conditions. I think every effective altruist should allocate some money to them.
My intention was to try to keep those 10% to humans sacred, to prevent value drift, and trains to crazy town. I made a case for it. Am I right? I donât know.
I am quite confident about the priorities thing. But perhaps there shouldnât be such a harsh cutoff.
Perhaps we can do it like this donate 1 unit to the first circle, 1â2 to the second circle, and 1â4 to the third circle.
Translated into percentages it would be roughly 57% of donation money to the 1st circle (including X-risks), 29% to the second circle (farm animals) and 14% to the third circle (wild animals).
I outlined a lot of reasons for prioritizing humans, some, but not all of them are based on emotions and gut feelings. Many other are based on rational considerations. Iâm not sure if these rational considerations are correct or if they might be misguided.
Youâre right that asking people to donate more than 10% is too much. But hereâs the thing. Animal charities are way more effective than human charities. So giving just another 1 or 2 percent to animal charities can be incredibly effective.
For this reason I love animal charities, they are extremely cheap ways of doing good.
But can we call ourselves philanthropists if we donât donate anything to people?
According to Wikipedia: The word philanthropy comes from Ancient Greek ÏÎčλαΜΞÏÏÏία (philanthrĆpĂa) âlove of humanityâ, from philo- âto love, be fond ofâ and anthrĆpos âhumankind, mankindâ.
Everyone can decide about percentages for themselves. My idea of preserving 10% for humans + existential risks, is just how I feel about it, perhaps to ensure weâre not losing our focus and not forgetting why weâre doing this in the first place.
So perhaps we can donate 10% to human charities and existential risk prevention, and another 2% to animal charities. (12% total)
Or if you really think that animal welfare is extremely important, perhaps you can donate 5% to human charities and 5% to animal charities.
I think by allocating less than 50% of donation money to humans and existential risks (which is 5% if you donate 10% in total) we risk losing focus.
When it comes to donation for existential risk prevention it can be counted in the same category as donations to human charities, because those donations help everyone, humans and animals, and the whole planet.
So 50% of donation money to humans + X-risk is in my entirely subjective opinion, a minimum.