Aidan Alexander

Karma: 2,055

Aidan Alexander 28 Nov 2025 12:01 UTC
5 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Historical EA funding data: 2025 update
One very important problem (that I don’t have the solution to) is that being “an EA funder” is not binary—all sorts of funders make grants to charities that would be considered EA (and “EA charity” is a fraught definition itself but let’s bracket that). It seems entirely plausible to me, nay perhaps probable (given that the Randomstas and evidence-based GHD predates EA) that the majority of “EA funding” is coming from grantmakers that aren’t being counted here. This would render any trends we see in the data in this post not reflective of what’s actgually happening with “EA funding”.
A bottom-up charity (or specific project or even grant) based method would probably be a lot better (although very hard and not your responsibility to create).
Anyway, meta is hard. Good work for creating this resource!

Aidan Alexander 25 Nov 2025 3:21 UTC
32 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Shrimp Welfare Project’s path to helping 100 billion shrimps per year
For those excited about Shrimp Welfare Project, FarmKind is hosting a fundraiser for them from International Shrimpact Day™ (25th November, 2025) through until Giving Tuesday (2nd December, 2025).
There will be ~25 blog posts on Substack making the case for donating to shrimp, as well as a live debate between Jeff Sebo and Lyman Stone (moderated by Peter Singer) on whether donating to shrimp is a good idea, and a light-hearted debate between Bentham’s Bulldog and Jeff Maurer (moderated by Josh Szeps) on whether donating to SWP or GiveDirectly is a the better idea.
You can follow the fundraiser here :)
We hope to raise $100k (and redeem $50k in contingent matching funding from a generous Anthropic employee) 🦐📈

Aidan Alexander 20 Oct 2025 10:50 UTC
4 points
2 ∶ 0
on: The Time of Moral Circle Calibration, Not Expansion
Thanks for writing this! It seems all the more important to get this right given the trend that the beings on the edge of our moral circle tend to be the most numerous, meaning that if we take the possibility of their sentience seriously, we may spend quite large amounts of resources trying to help them. Seems worth trying to figure out whether beings on the edge of our moral circles are basically all that matters or don’t matter at all!

Aidan Alexander 9 Oct 2025 2:05 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Midtermist12’s comment on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
Agreed! We’re trying to find people with audiences who are sympathetic the cause but unwilling or unable to change their diet (e.g. Sam Harris) and provide them with a non-diet-related solution that they can speak to their audience about without having to fear backlash due to perceived moralising about people’s diets

Aidan Alexander 5 Oct 2025 10:55 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Fai’s comment on: Charity Entrepreneurship is bottlenecked by a lack of great animal founders
I have no idea about that. I’m not talking about whether cage free or broiler work is a better idea for a new organization — I’m answering your question about whether an org that started off doing caged free might expand to broiler :)

Aidan Alexander 5 Oct 2025 10:53 UTC
7 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Midtermist12’s comment on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
No, not to many animal advocates and vegans. I’ve had plenty reach out to check my “vegan credentials” to determine whether (in their view) I’m “on their side”

Aidan Alexander 3 Oct 2025 20:54 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Fai’s comment on: Charity Entrepreneurship is bottlenecked by a lack of great animal founders
It’d be up to the founders, but I’d guess it would make sense to focus on layers in the Middle East until hitting diminishing returns there. After that, how to scale would likely depend on what the team’s comparative advantage is: Expertise and connections within the Middle East context (such that different asks in that context makes sense) or expertise at cage free campaigns specifically (such that the same ask in a different context makes sense)

Aidan Alexander 2 Oct 2025 18:54 UTC
30 points
11 ∶ 1
in reply to: SiobhanBall’s comment on: Charity Entrepreneurship is bottlenecked by a lack of great animal founders
It is valid but I think it’s being downvoted because (a) Vasco posts the same point so often and so widely that some people come to view it as spam, (b) this is on a public forum and is the kind of view that is perfect to be used by bad-faith EA critics and journalists to paint EA in a negative light in media.

Although, to Vasco’s credit, this comment is much improved on the optics front compared to previous ones

Aidan Alexander 30 Sep 2025 8:35 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: We mapped the EA Forum’s intellectual landscape—read about epistemic quality analysis, forum vibes, author networks, and a new writing tool we developed
Finally, some quantitative analysis to confirm a nagging suspicion I’ve had, but have been unable to prove: Vasco likes to write about soil nematodes <3

Aidan Alexander 29 Sep 2025 19:24 UTC
24 points
5 ∶ 0
in reply to: Henry Stanley 🔸’s comment on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
Good question! I think (a) having to think about which is the 10% and “should I eat this” every meal uses too much bandwidth. I find a simple rule easier overall. It’s kind of like how I don’t calculate the consequences of my actions at every decision even though I’m consequentialist. I rely on heuristics instead. (b) I found it really hard to get to my current diet. It took me many years. And I think that personally I’ll find it hard to re-introduce 10% of the animal products without being tempted and it becoming 50%. (c) I think the things I say about veganism to other vegans / animal people are more credible when I’m vegan [as I’m clearly committed to the cause and not making excuses for myself].

Aidan Alexander 26 Sep 2025 11:07 UTC
13 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Moving to a hub, getting older, and heading home
This couldn’t be more salient for my partner and me, literally trying to decide between staying indefinitely in London and returning to Australia, with kids and aging parents being key considerations. We’ve been staring the abyss dead in the eye and it’s not backing down! :S

Aidan Alexander 26 Sep 2025 10:57 UTC
9 points
3 ∶ 0
in reply to: JamesÖz 🔸’s comment on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
They’re probably less judgmental than average. Also perhaps poorer social skills on average. Do I back us to have the required tact? :P
But in all seriousness, the answer to “is it positive for social signalling to have an extra vegan EA forum reader” could defs be different to “is it positive for social signalling to have an extra vegan”. I had the latter in mind when I questioned the signalling value

Aidan Alexander 26 Sep 2025 6:20 UTC
16 points
4 ∶ 1
in reply to: Tristan Katz’s comment on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
To be clear, I want to see factory farming ended, I’m vegan (except occasional bivalves), and co-founded an animal welfare charity.

I’m with you on the goal.

But while all the vegans I know seem to take it as self-evident that being vegan is the best diet choice in terms of social signalling, I’m not convinced.
You’re right that it’s possible to be a non-judgmental strict vegan, and everyone should aspire to be. But in my experience, the average vegan doesn’t meet this standard. And so rather than assuming a marginal vegan will be the best case scenario, I assume they’ll be average, and I think that could be negative.

[Of course, I don’t have good data on how judgmentally the average vegan behaves — but neither do the people who assume they’re positive signaling value. It’s also likely that my and most people’s perceptions of vegans is skewed by a vocal minority. But the result is that omnivores are often very defensive around vegans, even when the vegan isn’t being judgmental and is just silently being a strict vegan. I suspect that for someone to know that you’re a strict vegan and not feel judged would require you to actively demonstrate to them that you don’t judge them. And that’s actually quite hard to do]I’m

Aidan Alexander 25 Sep 2025 20:13 UTC
7 points
1 ∶ 0
on: GoodWallet: Scaling Effective Giving Through Everyday Payments
What are transaction fees? If sufficiently low, this could enable some use cases I’ve had personally where I want to, for example, donate $2 to charity at the click of a button every time I’m begged for change, or if I find myself somewhere remote and unable to access vegan food or something

Aidan Alexander 25 Sep 2025 19:59 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Dan_Keys’s comment on: Alcohol is so bad for society that you should probably stop drinking
This! I think an important way this posts’ recommendation can backfire is if non-drinkers become like vegans: socially isolated from drinkers, judgmental of drinkers.. this will likely be counterproductive and knowing human nature, I think people are at significant risk of becoming socially isolated from drinkers if they quit.
My guess is that the signaling value of 2 people halving their drinking is higher than the signaling value of 1 person quitting

Aidan Alexander 25 Sep 2025 19:49 UTC
100 points
38 ∶ 2
on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
I agree that removing the 10% of animal products from your diet that causes the least suffering is not that important, and otherwise clear-headed EAs treat it like a very big deal in a way they don’t treat giving 10% less to charity as a very big deal (even though it only takes small amounts of base giving for the latter to be a far bigger deal). There is a puritanical attitude to diet that is surprisingly pervasive on the forum which I think is counter-productive.
Another commenter (Tristan) is right to point to other and second-order benefits of veganism, but some of the common ones I hear I don’t find persuasive. For example, it’s not clear to me whether the signaling value of being 100% vegan and strict about it (which many people now pattern match with being shrill and judgmental) is positive, or at least more positive than being 90% vegan (signaling that change doesn’t have to be all or nothing, that taking intermediate first steps is good etc.)
But this post’s title that ‘you SHOULD eat meat if you hate factory farming’ goes too far. I don’t find the case compelling. So upvoting and disagreeing :)

Aidan Alexander 25 Sep 2025 19:39 UTC
9 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate factory farming
You might like this diet offset calculator, Kat: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Bc6E6AeWesmeobeKq/beyond-go-vegan-a-video-introducing-omnivores-to-another

Aidan Alexander 24 Sep 2025 4:58 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Krimsey’s comment on: Beyond ‘Go Vegan’: A video introducing omnivores to another effective way to help animals
I totally relate with the emotional difficulty of putting aside feelings about others harming animals in order to best enable them to make the world better, in whatever ways are both realistic and most impactful for them. It’s hard! But I think it’s really important and I think is making me a more effective advocate within my real-world social interactions

Beyond ‘Go Vegan’: A video introducing omnivores to another effective way to help animals

Aidan Alexander22 Sep 2025 20:42 UTC

74 points

9 comments1 min readEA link

Aidan Alexander 12 Aug 2025 20:20 UTC
19 points
20 ∶ 1
on: Should I have been asked to stop posting about soil animals on Hive’s Slack?
Yes

Aidan Alexander

Beyond ‘Go Ve­gan’: A video in­tro­duc­ing om­nivores to an­other effec­tive way to help animals

Beyond ‘Go Vegan’: A video introducing omnivores to another effective way to help animals