I think animal causes are more human capital constrained.
That would surprise me. While GiveWell has billions (e.g., Good Ventures) and AI Risk reduction has millions (e.g., Elon Musk), EA animal causes have maybe hundreds of thousands at most. (Note that this ignores PETA, which does have tens of millions, but I’m not sure it’s really going to animals as EAAs would define the cause area.)
Maybe animal causes are just talent constrained and funding constrained, but I’ve heard more “I wish we had more money to make our salaries more competitive” and “I wish we could hire for a position X but we don’t have the money” than “We have $50K lying around for this job offer but can’t find anyone to take it”.
This also makes sense given that I think animal causes have a good capacity to hire from outside EA—there are lots of motivated animal activists who haven’t heard of EA yet (though they may be hostile to the idea). If I recall correctly, Jon Bockman was this kind of hire.
My thinking was that (and show me the holes in this—it may affect major life decisions!) animal causes are more human capital constrained because more people willing to borderline starve would be useful. You definitely hear more people say “I wish we had more money...” than “We have $50K lying around...” but there are two ways to solve that—more money or someone willing to live on less than $50K, and I think the latter is likely to be more important. Given the record of the movements that seem to me to most resemble animal rights, it seems the vast majority of the work will be done by volunteers, so the primary need is more volunteers rather than more money.
Someone who would take a $25K salary instead of a $50K salary is effectively “donating” $25K. So if you think you could ETG more than that, you’d be beating that, from that perspective.
The stronger perspective is the perspective that we need more people in the animal rights movement to steward the money we already have, to create new funding opportunities, or to do good work such as to inspire more respect and thus more funding.
I’m not involved with the animal rights movement outside of its intersection with effective altruism, so I don’t know much about it. However, among other things, I’d think the evaluators at ACE are involved with the AR movement, and would come out and said at there EAG talks that the community is just as, if not more, constrained by lack of volunteers than lack of funds. They didn’t prioritize raising awareness of a greater volunteer need than a greater funding need. Of course, they were optimizing for an effective altruism audience. So, maybe the most the average effective altruist can do, one who has or will have a career which is not primarily low-paid or volunteer work for animal liberation, and who is already planning on earning to give or whatever, is donate to, e.g., ACE’s top recommended charities. That’s not necessarily an argument for the rest of the AR movement as it exists, or anyone new who joins it, to mostly go earning to give, rather than volunteering.
My thinking was that (and show me the holes in this—it may affect major life decisions!)
+1 to this sentiment. I too would like to know if I’m ignorant or wrong about the future or present status of the animal rights movement.
That would surprise me. While GiveWell has billions (e.g., Good Ventures) and AI Risk reduction has millions (e.g., Elon Musk), EA animal causes have maybe hundreds of thousands at most. (Note that this ignores PETA, which does have tens of millions, but I’m not sure it’s really going to animals as EAAs would define the cause area.)
Maybe animal causes are just talent constrained and funding constrained, but I’ve heard more “I wish we had more money to make our salaries more competitive” and “I wish we could hire for a position X but we don’t have the money” than “We have $50K lying around for this job offer but can’t find anyone to take it”.
This also makes sense given that I think animal causes have a good capacity to hire from outside EA—there are lots of motivated animal activists who haven’t heard of EA yet (though they may be hostile to the idea). If I recall correctly, Jon Bockman was this kind of hire.
My thinking was that (and show me the holes in this—it may affect major life decisions!) animal causes are more human capital constrained because more people willing to borderline starve would be useful. You definitely hear more people say “I wish we had more money...” than “We have $50K lying around...” but there are two ways to solve that—more money or someone willing to live on less than $50K, and I think the latter is likely to be more important. Given the record of the movements that seem to me to most resemble animal rights, it seems the vast majority of the work will be done by volunteers, so the primary need is more volunteers rather than more money.
Someone who would take a $25K salary instead of a $50K salary is effectively “donating” $25K. So if you think you could ETG more than that, you’d be beating that, from that perspective.
The stronger perspective is the perspective that we need more people in the animal rights movement to steward the money we already have, to create new funding opportunities, or to do good work such as to inspire more respect and thus more funding.
I’m not involved with the animal rights movement outside of its intersection with effective altruism, so I don’t know much about it. However, among other things, I’d think the evaluators at ACE are involved with the AR movement, and would come out and said at there EAG talks that the community is just as, if not more, constrained by lack of volunteers than lack of funds. They didn’t prioritize raising awareness of a greater volunteer need than a greater funding need. Of course, they were optimizing for an effective altruism audience. So, maybe the most the average effective altruist can do, one who has or will have a career which is not primarily low-paid or volunteer work for animal liberation, and who is already planning on earning to give or whatever, is donate to, e.g., ACE’s top recommended charities. That’s not necessarily an argument for the rest of the AR movement as it exists, or anyone new who joins it, to mostly go earning to give, rather than volunteering.
+1 to this sentiment. I too would like to know if I’m ignorant or wrong about the future or present status of the animal rights movement.