I think a focus on absolute values seems misleading here. You’re totally right the absolute value of funding has gone up for all cause areas (see this spreadsheet). However, there’s also a pretty clear trend that the relative funding towards global health and animal welfare has gone done quite a lot, from global health going from approximately all of EA funds in 2012 to 54% to 2022. Similarly for Animal Welfare, which seemed to peak at 16% in 2019, might only be 5% in 2022.
I think this relative shift of attention/priorities is what people are often referring to when they say “EA has changed” etc.
I agree. It seems obvious that effective altruism has changed in important ways. Yes, some characterisations of this change are exaggerated, but to deny that there’s been a change altogether doesn’t seem right to me.
Yeah I agree with that—I guess I was using funding amounts as a proxy for general EA attention which includes stuff like EA Forum posts, orgs working on an issues, focus of EA intro materials, etc etc.
I wish, it’s so interesting! I found it linked (very surprisingly) in the Time article about Will/longtermism. From this quote below:
The expansion has been fueled by a substantial rise in donations. In 2021, EA-aligned foundations distributed more than $600 million in publicly listed grants—roughly quadruple what they gave five years earlier.
I think a focus on absolute values seems misleading here. You’re totally right the absolute value of funding has gone up for all cause areas (see this spreadsheet). However, there’s also a pretty clear trend that the relative funding towards global health and animal welfare has gone done quite a lot, from global health going from approximately all of EA funds in 2012 to 54% to 2022. Similarly for Animal Welfare, which seemed to peak at 16% in 2019, might only be 5% in 2022.
I think this relative shift of attention/priorities is what people are often referring to when they say “EA has changed” etc.
I agree. It seems obvious that effective altruism has changed in important ways. Yes, some characterisations of this change are exaggerated, but to deny that there’s been a change altogether doesn’t seem right to me.
It may be more about how much of the conversation space is taken up with different topics rather than the funding amounts (relative or absolute).
I think even if there had been a larger animal funder keepings the percentages the same, but no change in topics, people will still sense a shift.
Yeah I agree with that—I guess I was using funding amounts as a proxy for general EA attention which includes stuff like EA Forum posts, orgs working on an issues, focus of EA intro materials, etc etc.
That’s an amazing spreadsheet you linked there! Did you collect the data yourself?
I wish, it’s so interesting! I found it linked (very surprisingly) in the Time article about Will/longtermism. From this quote below:
https://www.givewell.org/about/impact GiveWell apparently has different (higher) numbers