There's recently been increased emphasis on "principles-first" EA, which I think is great. But I worry that in practice a "principles-first" framing can become a cover for anchoring on existing cause areas, rather than an invitation to figure out what other cause areas we should be working o

I don't quite see the link here. Why would principals first be a cover for anchoring on existing cause areas? Is there a prominent  example of this?

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/poZwKfPPtgCmTQcBk/unjournal-eval-of-caviola-et-al-2022-population-ethical

"The vast majority of Americans, if they donate at all, can maybe give a few hundred dollars a year without getting into financial problems."

By the source you cite (pasted below), the average American is giving either nearly $1k or $2.5k per household.  But I don't think they tend to give it to highly effective charities. The data I've seen and analyzed finds that most of it is domestic, a lot of donations to fund one's own church and local community things.  Relatively little to global health and development, animal welfare (other than companion animals), or catastrophic risk reduction.

My impression (the data is somewhat hard to come by) is that a larger share of the income of billionaires goes towards causes that might be seen as global priorities relative to income for non-hyper-rich Americans.  

At least in the current political environment, I'd be fairly confident that large tax increases on billionaires mostly be redistributed towards lower and moderate-income Americans, and towards services for us, and not go towards global priorities. 

 

I asked GPT 5 -pro about the links between these , and it shared this, which looks to be correct to me, at least from my side, at least for the first list. I slightly paraphrasr/format the output below

[GPT] 

Evaluated by The Unjournal → matching sections in Better for Animals

Rethink Priorities (2022): “Forecasts estimate limited cultured meat production through 2050” — Unjournal evaluation package (2025).
Section match: Evidence Review: Alternative proteins 
Why it matches: Both assess the prospects and constraints for cultivated/alternative proteins (costs, adoption, near‑term pathways). Unjournal’s evaluators discuss TEAs, shifting costs, and framing choices; the PDF synthesizes impacts and price‑parity considerations. (forum.effectivealtruism.org)

Green, Smith & Mathur (2024): “Meaningfully reducing consumption of meat and animal products is an unsolved problem: A meta‑analysis” — Unjournal evals (2025).
Section match: Corporate & institutional vegn outreach* (pp. 32–47), Social media campaigns & online ads (pp. 173–181), Vegn pledges* (pp. 187–194), and Books, documentaries/films & podcasts (pp. 7–14).
Why it matches: The meta‑analysis synthesizes RCTs on meat‑reduction interventions; the PDF reviews the same intervention families, their effect sizes, and limitations. (The Unjournal)

Epperson & Gerster (2024): “Willful Ignorance and Moral Behavior” — Unjournal evaluation summary & two reviews (2024).
Section match: Social media campaigns & online ads ; Media outreach & journalism 
Why it matches: The paper studies information avoidance and the impact of an animal‑advocacy video on consumption; the media/online sections discuss message framing, short‑lived effects, and pathways to behavior change. (The Unjournal)

Bruers (2023): “The animal welfare cost of meat” — Unjournal evaluations (2025).
Section match: Research – Effective animal advocacy and Research – Farmed animal welfare.
Why it matches: Methodological work on valuing animal welfare (WTP/WTA, interspecies comparisons); the Presearch sections highlight the need for credible measurement and decision‑relevant welfare research. (The Unjournal)

[DR: I'm slightly less confident in this second list below] 

In the Unjournal Database/research we're considering evaluating

“Cultured meat: A comparison of techno‑economic analyses” 
Section: Alternative proteins 
Notes: TEA synthesis & forecasting align directly with the assessment of cultivated/plant‑based options and price‑parity dynamics (incl. survey price sensitivity on p. 203).

“A survey on inter‑animal welfare comparisons” (working paper)
Sections: Research – Farmed animal welfare (pp. 157–161); Research – Wild animal welfare (pp. 162–168).
Notes: Exactly the methodological gap the report flags (measurement/aggregation across species and contexts).

“Interventions that influence animal‑product consumption: A meta‑review”
Sections: Corporate & institutional vegn outreach* (pp. 32–47), Social media campaigns & online ads (pp. 173–181), Vegn pledges* (pp. 187–194).
Notes: Closely parallels the intervention taxonomy and effect‑size discussions in those sections.

“Giving farm animals a name and a face (identifiable victim effect)”
PDF sections: Media outreach & journalism (pp. 93–97); Social media campaigns & online ads (pp. 173–181); Celebrity/influencer outreach (p. 15).
Notes: Messaging psychology and emotional appeals are treated as potentially stronger levers within media/online tactics.

“Concentration and Resilience in the US Meat Supply Chains” (NBER w29103)
Sections (adjacent): Corporate outreach for welfare improvements (pp. 23–31) and Government outreach (pp. 64–74).
Notes: The PDF focuses on welfare‑commitment supply‑chain policies and public‑policy levers, not industrial concentration per se—so this is adjacent, not a direct treatment.

Epperson and Gerster's "Willful Ignorance and Moral Behavior" seems relevant to your review of "Social media campaigns and online ads". See our evaluation package on this here.
  

Our evaluations of "Meaningfully reducing consumption of meat and animal products is an unsolved problem: A meta-analysis" also seems relevant. Both the paper and the evaluations provide some caution on how meta-analyses should be used and some insights into the potential for these to be done more carefully.  And I believe the meta-analysis covers itself covers several of the papers you cite.  

Quick impression -- the Gdoc is a bit challenging to navigate. I'd love to have a menu bar letting me see each of the interventions covered and jump to them, as well as tables comparing them. Could this potentially be turned into a Notion or Coda.io page?

Also would be nice if there were comment access so people could note additional evidence, critiqus of the evidence etc.   

I just wanted to note quickly that The resource discusses at least one piece of research evaluated by the “Pivotal questions”: an Unjournal trial initiative  -- see  https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yqy6d9sydTHujMw8B/rethinking-the-future-of-cultured-meat-an-unjournal 

I'll try to follow further on this project. And how it might be informed by unjournal's evaluations and pivotal questions work

Maybe reach out to Nick Fitz and Ari Kagan about their experience with the earlier versions Sparrow/Momentum app if you haven't already. It's not the same deal but their are some parallels. (I'm also happy to chat about this.)