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.
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.