I think it’s plausible that some major funders stopped funding some groups (like farm sanctuaries) in favor of ACE top charities, for example, but I doubt that it has happened with large numbers of smaller donors. But, it’s hard to know how much EA is responsible for this. For example, when GFI was founded, I think a lot of people found it to be really compelling, independent of it be promising from an EA lens. While it’s a fairly EA-aligned organization, in a world without EA, something like it probably would have been founded anyway, and because it compelling, lots of donors might have switched from whatever they were donating to before to donating to GFI. My impression is also that a lot of funding that has left charities is going into investing in clean / plant-based meat companies. I also expect that would have happened had EA not existed.
I’m arguing with the OP rather than you here, but this seems...straightforwardly good? Like, if a lot of other donors are switching to things more in line with EA priorities, that suggests that EA priorities (in this domain) are broadly convincing, which seems like it makes it much harder to argue that “EA was having a damaging influence on animal advocacy”.
if a lot of other donors are switching to things more in line with EA priorities, that suggests that EA priorities (in this domain) are broadly convincing, which seems like it makes it much harder to argue that “EA was having a damaging influence on animal advocacy”.
I may have misunderstood you, but I don’t think this follows. There are some additional assumptions needed to make this true, for example (non-exhaustive):
if you have a moderately strong prior that convincingness correlates with positive effects on the world. or
if you believe in the procedural justice/distributed decision-making of donors satisfying their preferences.
If something is broadly convincing – that is, convincing to altruistic donors with a range of different values and priorities – that is a pretty good sign that it is, in fact, solid. In the case of animal welfare, if a lot of non-EA donors have shifted their funding towards priorities that were originally pushed mainly by EAs, that seems like good evidence that shifting towards those priorities is good for animal welfare across a wide range of value systems, and hence (under moral uncertainty) more likely to be in fact a good thing. In that case,
There are certainly ways this could not be true, but I do think the above is the most likely / default case, and that the ways it could not be true are more complex stories requiring additional evidence. You need some mechanism by which EA funders influenced non-EA funders to change their priorities in a way that went against their values, or alternatively some mechanism by which EA funding “deprived [activists] of significant funding [etc]” despite the pre-existing non-EA funders still being around. And you need to provide evidence for that mechanism operating in this case, as opposed to (IMO the much more likely case of) people just being sad that other people think that their preferred approach is less good for animals.
I think it’s plausible that some major funders stopped funding some groups (like farm sanctuaries) in favor of ACE top charities, for example, but I doubt that it has happened with large numbers of smaller donors. But, it’s hard to know how much EA is responsible for this. For example, when GFI was founded, I think a lot of people found it to be really compelling, independent of it be promising from an EA lens. While it’s a fairly EA-aligned organization, in a world without EA, something like it probably would have been founded anyway, and because it compelling, lots of donors might have switched from whatever they were donating to before to donating to GFI. My impression is also that a lot of funding that has left charities is going into investing in clean / plant-based meat companies. I also expect that would have happened had EA not existed.
Thanks for this perspective.
I’m arguing with the OP rather than you here, but this seems...straightforwardly good? Like, if a lot of other donors are switching to things more in line with EA priorities, that suggests that EA priorities (in this domain) are broadly convincing, which seems like it makes it much harder to argue that “EA was having a damaging influence on animal advocacy”.
I may have misunderstood you, but I don’t think this follows. There are some additional assumptions needed to make this true, for example (non-exhaustive):
if you have a moderately strong prior that convincingness correlates with positive effects on the world. or
if you believe in the procedural justice/distributed decision-making of donors satisfying their preferences.
Presumably the OP does not believe either.
If something is broadly convincing – that is, convincing to altruistic donors with a range of different values and priorities – that is a pretty good sign that it is, in fact, solid. In the case of animal welfare, if a lot of non-EA donors have shifted their funding towards priorities that were originally pushed mainly by EAs, that seems like good evidence that shifting towards those priorities is good for animal welfare across a wide range of value systems, and hence (under moral uncertainty) more likely to be in fact a good thing. In that case,
There are certainly ways this could not be true, but I do think the above is the most likely / default case, and that the ways it could not be true are more complex stories requiring additional evidence. You need some mechanism by which EA funders influenced non-EA funders to change their priorities in a way that went against their values, or alternatively some mechanism by which EA funding “deprived [activists] of significant funding [etc]” despite the pre-existing non-EA funders still being around. And you need to provide evidence for that mechanism operating in this case, as opposed to (IMO the much more likely case of) people just being sad that other people think that their preferred approach is less good for animals.