Thanks for writing this up! Despite the title I found it very informative and interesting.

It might be helpful if you could share what types of data you are able to collect, and your best-effort at producing a BOTEC for your cost-effectiveness so far.

If the phenomena you are highlighting is that Animal Welfare gets a smaller share of funding than people would prefer, it seems very strange to 'blame' AI messaging, since AI risk also gets a smaller share of funding that the surveys suggest would be preferred. Based on your methodology, the phenomena to explain is why does global welfare get so much more.

No-one in this thread is the target audience for the campaign. And you are clearly attacking another group's effort right here!

Because the author's objective is to promote animal welfare. They are jettisoning that which is unnecessary, but you need the payload.

There doesn't seem to be anything gained by being negative about veganism though, and not doing that would seem robustly better.

Being seen as honest about the problems with veganism raises their credibility with their other recommendations. "Oh yes, we're not like those annoying people you've already rejected, we have a different view".

This feels like a very negative take on a lighthearted campaign that is trying to get across an important point. It's important to do outreach to people who disagree with you - even people who think vegans are annoying.

If donors thought the other thing was more valuable than GiveWell, they should donate there instead, and that other group could then pay higher salaries and attract the talent.

Thanks for finding! If it was new to Toby and Ryan in that thread this was probably the earliest EAs had come across it.

This was named the Meat-Eater Problem in this article in the Journal Of Controversial Ideas by @MichaelPlant.

The name is much older than this, though it has generally been refered to as 'The Poor Meat-Eater Problem' which I think is a better name; I remember discussing it in 2012 and I don't think it was new then. On the forum with a quick search I found this from over 9 years ago.