Hi Toby, that's a fair comment. I dictated a reply to the post to my LLM and then it put together into something less rambley and slightly more cohesive. I then edited it manually, but I guess some of the AI-stink remained! I do think I added something new to it, as my professional experience as an animal rights activist is that the animal space is quite under developed. So content was all mine (a human with experience in the field, albeit mostly agreeing with both pieces!), but the formatting and copywriting was handled by AI.
I really like this framing, especially the push against “problem hunting” when there’s already an overwhelming amount of neglected suffering in front of us. Animals are not “one issue” but instead, the majority of moral patients. This is underappreciated, even within EA.
What struck me about the original article was the idea that we don’t yet have the ecosystem to absorb a huge influx of capital. I think that applies here too. Even if we take the case for prioritising animals as seriously as we can, it’s not obvious the field is currently set up to productively deploy funding at the scale you’re pointing to (multiple interventions, geographies, and organisations) without hitting bottlenecks or diminishing returns.
That seems less like a reason not to prioritise animals, and more like a reason to invest heavily in building out the space itself. The animal space doesn't have nearly enough people, enough organisations, and needs better-developed intervention areas, and especially more work on neglected animal populations (which is why what we're doing now at Myrias feels particularly valuable).
Overall, I agree with the core concern. There’s a real risk that a wave of new funding ends up looking for new, legible problems while continuing to underinvest in ones that are already vast, tractable, and unsolved. Making sure that doesn’t happen for animals seems like one of the key challenges for this next phase.
Thanks, Sofia!
God bless you Billi Marcus for donating $316 for the animals out of your $5bn fortune
Hi Toby, that's a fair comment. I dictated a reply to the post to my LLM and then it put together into something less rambley and slightly more cohesive. I then edited it manually, but I guess some of the AI-stink remained! I do think I added something new to it, as my professional experience as an animal rights activist is that the animal space is quite under developed. So content was all mine (a human with experience in the field, albeit mostly agreeing with both pieces!), but the formatting and copywriting was handled by AI.
I really like this framing, especially the push against “problem hunting” when there’s already an overwhelming amount of neglected suffering in front of us. Animals are not “one issue” but instead, the majority of moral patients. This is underappreciated, even within EA.
What struck me about the original article was the idea that we don’t yet have the ecosystem to absorb a huge influx of capital. I think that applies here too. Even if we take the case for prioritising animals as seriously as we can, it’s not obvious the field is currently set up to productively deploy funding at the scale you’re pointing to (multiple interventions, geographies, and organisations) without hitting bottlenecks or diminishing returns.
That seems less like a reason not to prioritise animals, and more like a reason to invest heavily in building out the space itself. The animal space doesn't have nearly enough people, enough organisations, and needs better-developed intervention areas, and especially more work on neglected animal populations (which is why what we're doing now at Myrias feels particularly valuable).
Overall, I agree with the core concern. There’s a real risk that a wave of new funding ends up looking for new, legible problems while continuing to underinvest in ones that are already vast, tractable, and unsolved. Making sure that doesn’t happen for animals seems like one of the key challenges for this next phase.