I am sure this has been answered somewhere and it really is a question of more historical relevance but if there’s one thing that people with any knowledge of “original” effective altruism knows, it is that anti-malarial bed nets are either the most or nearly the most effective global health intervention. (I believe anti-malarial vaccination may have inched past bed nets by some calculations). AMF has been at or near the top of the charts as a recommended organization tackling this for several years. There are many very wealthy people who claim to have an interest in effective altruism, so how was this not a near-fully funded issue back before 2024 when US and other major donors dropped out? Was it in part just a difficulty in scaling up capacity to meet new funding? What proportion of the total amount of funding available through the AMF or through the international bed net effort can be said to have come via the effective altruism movement?
I just wanted to second this comment and would love to be pointed to good resources on the reasons.
I stopped being involved in EA during 2016ish era conversations around starting to target mostly whales (the most wealthy funders) and a shift towards x-risk as the most important cause area. It was repeatedly promised this strategy would lead to such a wellspring of funds from aligned billionaires that the most important short-term cause areas would not suffer from any relative decrease in funding than if those (public health, global poverty, etc.) had remained the focus.
I am sure this has been answered somewhere and it really is a question of more historical relevance but if there’s one thing that people with any knowledge of “original” effective altruism knows, it is that anti-malarial bed nets are either the most or nearly the most effective global health intervention. (I believe anti-malarial vaccination may have inched past bed nets by some calculations). AMF has been at or near the top of the charts as a recommended organization tackling this for several years. There are many very wealthy people who claim to have an interest in effective altruism, so how was this not a near-fully funded issue back before 2024 when US and other major donors dropped out? Was it in part just a difficulty in scaling up capacity to meet new funding? What proportion of the total amount of funding available through the AMF or through the international bed net effort can be said to have come via the effective altruism movement?
I just wanted to second this comment and would love to be pointed to good resources on the reasons.
I stopped being involved in EA during 2016ish era conversations around starting to target mostly whales (the most wealthy funders) and a shift towards x-risk as the most important cause area. It was repeatedly promised this strategy would lead to such a wellspring of funds from aligned billionaires that the most important short-term cause areas would not suffer from any relative decrease in funding than if those (public health, global poverty, etc.) had remained the focus.
Does anyone know what happened to that?