First (half) year of being introduced to EA, super exciting to finally know that my donations have an impact :).
Hence I started this year very low with about 2% of my pre-tax income monthly to a local animal shelter, not knowing about EA.
Since August, I started my 10% pledge and donate to the German âcenterâ Effektiv Spenden with an even spread for their three funds for global health, climate change and animal welfare, and a very small part to the platform directly.
On top of that I gave away 50% of bonuses I will receive beginning of next year for tax purposes early, thatâs 4200⏠evenly spread between Against Malaria Foundation, Hellen Keller Int. and GiveDirectly. Global Health still has the strongest pull for me and I personally feel the strongest connection to GiveDirectly for how unique it is and how transparent their process is. Really makes you feel your impact and I like the idea of also improving lives dramatically instead of âjustâ keeping people alive under bad conditions, if that makes any sense. Some perspective for people on top of just getting by, if you will.
That being said, I will definitely think more about what causes to donate to. Especially democracy initiatives are something I am increasingly considering with the current situation in Europe, but maybe that will be on top of my 10% since I really donât know how effective that is and I might be a bit more ego-centric here wanting to do this locally.
Another âpain pointâ I will think about more is animal welfareâI read from many vegans that donating to it when not being vegan is hypocritical and I really get their point. Since I donât see myself becoming vegan in the near future, I might also drop that support since Iâm apparently not really behind the cause. But I will have to think about this a bit more. Maybe combining it with Climate Change by supporting The Good Food Institute or something like that, Iâm really not sure.
Could you provide some examples of people who have said that this is hypocritical? Iâve never seen anyone in the EA community say this, and if they did, theyâd be wrong. There are plenty of non-vegan EAs who donate to animal welfare.
I havenât engaged with this topic much with relations to EA, this was more in a vegan context several years ago so that I donât have specific sources in mind off the top of my head. But itâs typically in the direction of âItâs like someone holding slaves while donating money against slaveryâ; or arguing that there is no such thing as merciful killing, so that just improving conditions is meaningless if we still hold them in cages and breed them just to eat/âexploit them. Like kicking dogs for fun and then doing things to âkick less dogsâ instead of stopping altogether, etc.
So itâs still stuck in my head as a hypocritical action from me, redirecting money from other causes to one I donât even personally live up to. I can imagine seeing more nuanced takes in an EA context, hence I want to read up on this more.
Hey Christoph, I think it would be a real shame if you let not helping some amount of animals through diet change stop you from helping any animals at allâespecially when you can actually help far more animals though donating than you can through diet change. Making being vegan the price of admission to being a part of the solution to factory farming is a sure fire way to ensure that we never solve this problem. Far more helpful is to allow everyone to do what theyâre willing to do to solve it, regardless of their diet.
I donât think the animals who would experience drastically less suffering because of your donations care whether youâre being hypocritical in the eyes of some. Those animals, and I, think that you and the world are far better off if you eat meat and donate to help animals than if you just eat meat â¤ď¸
By the way, weâve made a tool just for people like you, to figure out how much youâd need to donate to do as much good for animals as going vegan (https://ââwww.farmkind.giving/ââcompassion-calculator). If you want to do the same amount of net good as doing vegan, you can offset your meat consumption twofold
Very happy to talk this topic through with you some more if youâre interested as Iâd hate to lose you as animal donor for this reason
As a non-vegan, I noticed myself becoming at least somewhat more aware of my dietary consumption choices after pulling the trigger on my first animal-welfare donation (and likely because of doing so). I donât have a great explanation of why, but it might be worth seeing if you experience the same effect.
First (half) year of being introduced to EA, super exciting to finally know that my donations have an impact :).
Hence I started this year very low with about 2% of my pre-tax income monthly to a local animal shelter, not knowing about EA.
Since August, I started my 10% pledge and donate to the German âcenterâ Effektiv Spenden with an even spread for their three funds for global health, climate change and animal welfare, and a very small part to the platform directly.
On top of that I gave away 50% of bonuses I will receive beginning of next year for tax purposes early, thatâs 4200⏠evenly spread between Against Malaria Foundation, Hellen Keller Int. and GiveDirectly. Global Health still has the strongest pull for me and I personally feel the strongest connection to GiveDirectly for how unique it is and how transparent their process is. Really makes you feel your impact and I like the idea of also improving lives dramatically instead of âjustâ keeping people alive under bad conditions, if that makes any sense. Some perspective for people on top of just getting by, if you will.
That being said, I will definitely think more about what causes to donate to. Especially democracy initiatives are something I am increasingly considering with the current situation in Europe, but maybe that will be on top of my 10% since I really donât know how effective that is and I might be a bit more ego-centric here wanting to do this locally.
Another âpain pointâ I will think about more is animal welfareâI read from many vegans that donating to it when not being vegan is hypocritical and I really get their point. Since I donât see myself becoming vegan in the near future, I might also drop that support since Iâm apparently not really behind the cause. But I will have to think about this a bit more. Maybe combining it with Climate Change by supporting The Good Food Institute or something like that, Iâm really not sure.
Lots of things to think about next year.
Could you provide some examples of people who have said that this is hypocritical? Iâve never seen anyone in the EA community say this, and if they did, theyâd be wrong. There are plenty of non-vegan EAs who donate to animal welfare.
I havenât engaged with this topic much with relations to EA, this was more in a vegan context several years ago so that I donât have specific sources in mind off the top of my head. But itâs typically in the direction of âItâs like someone holding slaves while donating money against slaveryâ; or arguing that there is no such thing as merciful killing, so that just improving conditions is meaningless if we still hold them in cages and breed them just to eat/âexploit them. Like kicking dogs for fun and then doing things to âkick less dogsâ instead of stopping altogether, etc.
So itâs still stuck in my head as a hypocritical action from me, redirecting money from other causes to one I donât even personally live up to. I can imagine seeing more nuanced takes in an EA context, hence I want to read up on this more.
Hey Christoph, I think it would be a real shame if you let not helping some amount of animals through diet change stop you from helping any animals at allâespecially when you can actually help far more animals though donating than you can through diet change. Making being vegan the price of admission to being a part of the solution to factory farming is a sure fire way to ensure that we never solve this problem. Far more helpful is to allow everyone to do what theyâre willing to do to solve it, regardless of their diet.
I donât think the animals who would experience drastically less suffering because of your donations care whether youâre being hypocritical in the eyes of some. Those animals, and I, think that you and the world are far better off if you eat meat and donate to help animals than if you just eat meat â¤ď¸
By the way, weâve made a tool just for people like you, to figure out how much youâd need to donate to do as much good for animals as going vegan (https://ââwww.farmkind.giving/ââcompassion-calculator). If you want to do the same amount of net good as doing vegan, you can offset your meat consumption twofold
Very happy to talk this topic through with you some more if youâre interested as Iâd hate to lose you as animal donor for this reason
As a non-vegan, I noticed myself becoming at least somewhat more aware of my dietary consumption choices after pulling the trigger on my first animal-welfare donation (and likely because of doing so). I donât have a great explanation of why, but it might be worth seeing if you experience the same effect.