I agree that animal welfare is underfunded, but who is this post trying to convince? If funders should fund the most cost-effective interventions or cause areas, then the argument needs to be made on the merits, which are not covered here. Animals don’t just automatically win because there is lots of animal suffering today (unless maybe you are a fairly near-termist negative utilitarian).
If you’d like to read some arguments, I argue here that the most cost-effective neartermist interventions are in animal welfare. If you lean longtermist, I argue here that under many EAs’ risk aversion, marginal animal welfare donations still make more sense than marginal AI safety funding. If you’re a pure total utilitarian, I would still argue that direct efforts to improve the future for all sentient beings (future-oriented digital minds/​animal welfare work) are plausibly higher EV even than x-risk reduction.
I agree that animal welfare is underfunded, but who is this post trying to convince? If funders should fund the most cost-effective interventions or cause areas, then the argument needs to be made on the merits, which are not covered here. Animals don’t just automatically win because there is lots of animal suffering today (unless maybe you are a fairly near-termist negative utilitarian).
If you’d like to read some arguments, I argue here that the most cost-effective neartermist interventions are in animal welfare. If you lean longtermist, I argue here that under many EAs’ risk aversion, marginal animal welfare donations still make more sense than marginal AI safety funding. If you’re a pure total utilitarian, I would still argue that direct efforts to improve the future for all sentient beings (future-oriented digital minds/​animal welfare work) are plausibly higher EV even than x-risk reduction.
(I have already read these posts and much prefer them over the post we’re commenting on here.)
I also recommend engaging with RP’s new cross-cause work here. Curious to hear takes.