Fantastic post, thank you for writing it! One challenge I have with encouraging effective giving, especially with a broader non-EA crowd, is that global health and development will probably be the main thing people end up giving to. I currently don’t support that work because of the meat eater problem. If you have any thoughts on dealing with this, I’d love to hear them.
Some arguments to support global health work despite the meat eater problem that I see are:
“People in low-income countries that are being helped with Givewell-style interventions don’t actually eat many animal products.” (I think this is true relative to people in high-income countries, but I don’t think the amounts are negligible, and are very likely sufficient to override the positive impact of helping people. This post is the type of analysis I’m thinking of. Some commenters rejected the whole line of reasoning, but I do think it’s relevant here.)
“Some interventions improve lives more than save lives, so those that benefit don’t eat more animal products.” (Which ones are most in this category? Will I end up getting people to donate to these, or would they still end up donating to the others?)
“People are more likely to accept arguments focused on nonhuman animal welfare when they have healthier and more stable lives.” (This one feels a bit fluffy to me despite some plausible degree of truth. I think some people will change in that way, but not enough to compensate for the added harm.)
“Those that start doing effective giving with global health nonprofits will be more likely to engage with animal advocacy and other suffering-focused work in the future.” (This argument is more convincing than any of the others. Personally I haven’t seen someone who didn’t learn about effective global health giving through EA do it, but I could see myself buying into this idea with more evidence, even some anecdotes.)
I think there’s room for subject-specific giving advocacy campaigns. A single broad-based effective giving organization isn’t likely to be effective at reaching all populations.
Fantastic post, thank you for writing it! One challenge I have with encouraging effective giving, especially with a broader non-EA crowd, is that global health and development will probably be the main thing people end up giving to. I currently don’t support that work because of the meat eater problem. If you have any thoughts on dealing with this, I’d love to hear them.
Some arguments to support global health work despite the meat eater problem that I see are:
“People in low-income countries that are being helped with Givewell-style interventions don’t actually eat many animal products.” (I think this is true relative to people in high-income countries, but I don’t think the amounts are negligible, and are very likely sufficient to override the positive impact of helping people. This post is the type of analysis I’m thinking of. Some commenters rejected the whole line of reasoning, but I do think it’s relevant here.)
“Some interventions improve lives more than save lives, so those that benefit don’t eat more animal products.” (Which ones are most in this category? Will I end up getting people to donate to these, or would they still end up donating to the others?)
“People are more likely to accept arguments focused on nonhuman animal welfare when they have healthier and more stable lives.” (This one feels a bit fluffy to me despite some plausible degree of truth. I think some people will change in that way, but not enough to compensate for the added harm.)
“Those that start doing effective giving with global health nonprofits will be more likely to engage with animal advocacy and other suffering-focused work in the future.” (This argument is more convincing than any of the others. Personally I haven’t seen someone who didn’t learn about effective global health giving through EA do it, but I could see myself buying into this idea with more evidence, even some anecdotes.)
I think there’s room for subject-specific giving advocacy campaigns. A single broad-based effective giving organization isn’t likely to be effective at reaching all populations.