Last month we asked you, 80,000 hours members and readers: what questions do you have about making a difference? Over half of the responders on the thread noted a glaring lacuna in information available within the Effective Altruism movement – an evaluation of the best ways to do good within the cause of non-human animals.
Among the goals of 80,000 hours is to provide resources to our community on the issues that matter most to us. As a result, we took the initiative to launch a new web-page dedicated to Effective Animal Activism: http://effectiveanimalactivism.org/, as a part of 80,000 hours, for our members to research, share, and act upon the most effective forms of giving our time or money to help animals.
All 80,000 hours members have pledged to use the time or resources we give effectively to help others. In pursuit of this goal, members are involved in a variety of causes, such as raising money for malaria nets – a highly effective, evidence-based way to fight global poverty. Some of our members are interested in exploring other options for doing a lot of good. The animal cause is one such area, mostly because of the magnitudes involved. A staggering 60 billion non-human land animals (1) are killed every year for food alone. A large proportion of those animals are factory farmed, living in extreme suffering. Luckily, it turns out there are some very effective ways to reduce this suffering: for example, promoting reduction in animal-product consumption is a very cheap and highly-effective means of saving a large number of animals from suffering on factory farms. So we believe reducing animal suffering deserves further investigation as a cause for effective altruists.
EAA was launched for this purpose: investigate the best ways to help non-human animals and provide a forum for the community to discuss these issues with one another. And similarly to developing world charities, our research has found that by giving to some charities over others we can do hundreds or even thousands of times more good in reducing animal suffering.
Among the resources we offer are:
- Charity evaluation, including top charity recommendations, and thorough analysis of other candidates.
- Career Paths to help animals. Advice, information, and opportunities to network with and receive mentorship from other 80,000 hours members who are further along in their careers.
- Optimal volunteering opportunities with top charities.
- A blog featuring new Effective Altruism content relating to the animal cause.
- Further resources and results of our original research on effective giving to animals.
- A community forum to discuss all of the above.
We hope you visit the project and join our community!
(1) “The Meat Crisis: Developing More Sustainable Production and Consumption” Edited by Joyce D’Silva, John Webster, (2010) Routledge http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781844079032/
Comments
Exciting times! I suspect this will be the GiveWell of animal charities :)
Yes, it’s hard to believe this is all happening so quickly! The movement to emphasize cost-effectiveness in animal advocacy (including potentially a long-term focus on wild animals) has grown faster than I ever imagined. Many thanks to Eitan, 80K Hours, and all the volunteers who helped to jumpstart this project.
The site name uses the general term “animal activism” and talk of “animal charity” but your criterium is the narrowed “reduced suffering”. There is need for a justification for that narrowness. Mass killing and confining of animals is from an animal rights perspective a grave problem in its own regard, in addition to whatever suffering killing/confining practices bring. If you disagree that killing and/or confining animals can in itself be a highly important goal then please explain why and clearly post that on the page. Also consider pointing users of the site to other resources if the user do harbor such animal rights values. Cheers.
Laudable goal as this is, it is a long way from career choice research - rather, it offers, as Boris suggests, a (no doubt good!) charity evaluator focusing on animal charities.
Congrats Ilan and the team. I’m amazed at how quickly this has been pulled together.
As a veggie, but not a vegan, one thing I’d be interested in is an analysis of the additional benefit to animal welfare of switching from vegetarianism to veganism.
Thanks Niel! If you download our Animal Welfare analysis chart here: http://www.effectiveanimalactivism.org/veg-ads You could calculate that by reducing consumption of eggs for one year, you prevent about one year of suffering on a factory farm; and by reducing consumption of dairy for one year, you prevent about a week of suffering on a factory farm.
Hi Ion, Thanks for your comment! If you look at a previous blog post: http://80000hours.org/blog/19-practical-ethics-given-moral-uncertainty We have some important considerations to take into account if, as you say, it may be that we have further ethical obligations to animals beyond reducing their suffering. Although in theory taking this into account may lead to divergent practical conclusions, as you point out it seems that at the moment, our recommendations of charities and careers are likely to hold equally for both approaches (given most plausible accounts of rights), since work to reduce suffering on factory farms is also work to reduce the infringement of the rights of the individual animals on those farms. EAA certainly aims to accommodate these considerations, and while reducing suffering seems to be an important metric under every plausible ethical viewpoint, we do intend to make clear and take into account when considerations along the lines that you suggest have important implications for substantive practical conclusions.
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