I think âEA orthodoxyâ pretty strongly supports this conclusion, so the main question is whether the orthodoxy is trustworthy on this question. One possible concern is that GiveWellâs estimates tend to follow a highly skeptical methodology, and I worry that most comparisons with GiveWell arenât comparing apples to apples on that front. I could imagine there being orders of magnitude in this, but from skimming the other comments on the thread I would guess not enough orders of magnitude to bridge all of the gap (i.e. even a GiveWell-skeptical assessment of animal welfare interventions would still put them in the lead, though perhaps much less so). I havenât used any quantitative methodology for this, though, so I donât feel very comfortable with it.
I would be much more skeptical that the gap could be so large if I believed that a lot of quantitative analysis and prioritisation had gone into animal welfare already (like, why is everyone missing this?), but my impression is that really no-one is interested in doing it, so it seems plausible that a huge gap would have gone unnoticed. (This is in contrast to global health where I think it would be suspicious if GiveWellâs analysis was totally unlike any of the work done by government global aid departments, consultancies, etc. -- their work was much less unprecedented.)
I think âEA orthodoxyâ pretty strongly supports this conclusion, so the main question is whether the orthodoxy is trustworthy on this question. One possible concern is that GiveWellâs estimates tend to follow a highly skeptical methodology, and I worry that most comparisons with GiveWell arenât comparing apples to apples on that front. I could imagine there being orders of magnitude in this, but from skimming the other comments on the thread I would guess not enough orders of magnitude to bridge all of the gap (i.e. even a GiveWell-skeptical assessment of animal welfare interventions would still put them in the lead, though perhaps much less so). I havenât used any quantitative methodology for this, though, so I donât feel very comfortable with it.
I would be much more skeptical that the gap could be so large if I believed that a lot of quantitative analysis and prioritisation had gone into animal welfare already (like, why is everyone missing this?), but my impression is that really no-one is interested in doing it, so it seems plausible that a huge gap would have gone unnoticed. (This is in contrast to global health where I think it would be suspicious if GiveWellâs analysis was totally unlike any of the work done by government global aid departments, consultancies, etc. -- their work was much less unprecedented.)