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Effective Altruism and Animals�

Using evidence and analysis to do the most good we can do

Effective Altruism

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Outline

Charity evaluation activity – initial choices
Effective (and ineffective) altruism
Why animals?
Animal focussed effective altruism
Charity evaluation activity – final choices

Effective Altruism

Effective Altruism at Georgia Tech is giving you $10 each to donate to the animal charity of your choice today. You get to choose between three different charities, and through this choice you’ll get a taste of what effective altruism is.��But there are a huge number of charities, and not all charities are created equal. I’m assuming you have a limited amount of money to give right, or a limited time to volunteer—so it makes sense to choose one of the best charities—one that is going to make the best use of your donation. But which charity is going to make the biggest difference?

�Now, many people that donate to charity do basically NO research before donating. They just give because someone asks them on the street, or in the supermarket, or because it was on an ad on TV. So their decision is based on very little information. So today we are going to simulate this situation by giving you a very small amount of information about our three charities. You then get to vote which charity you’d like your $10 to go to based on that information. ��After that we’ll learn more about effective altruism and how it relates to animal advocacy, then learn more details about our three charities – perhaps information that they wouldn’t tell you on the street…. And you get to have a second and final vote. ��If you have any questions throughout this session please just ask!

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Effective Altruism

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Effective Altruism

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Effective Altruism�

Effective Altruism

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Image courtesy of PlayPumps at www.playpumps.co.za

Effective Altruism

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Image courtesy of PlayPumps at www.playpumps.co.za

Effective Altruism

PlayPumps are like regular merry-go-rounds but underneath the PlayPump is a well. The kids spin the merry-go-round and it creates force that pumps water up into an overhead tank, so that the people in the village can get water whenever they want.

What do you think about playpumps? Have a really quick chat to the people around you.��These devices were invented by a South African pair back in the 90s, and their invention got a lot of attention. It received a lot of celebrity endorsements, from the rapper Jay-Z, who donated the proceeds of a world tour to PlayPumps, to former U.S. President Bill Clinton. This led to tens of millions of dollars being raised for PlayPumps in a very short space of time, which allowed them to roll-out their program on a wide-scale very quickly, installing dozens of pumps across several countries in Southern Africa. �

Sounds pretty good, right?��Well, after a few years, it became apparent that things really hadn’t turned out as well as PlayPumps had hoped, and a group from the United Nations investigated them and produced a pretty damning report. It turned out that there were many problems with these PlayPumps.

Firstly, the PlayPump isn’t all that fun to play on. A regular merry-go-round spins freely, which means that a little push can make it spin for a long time. But the energy of a spinning PlayPump is used to pump water, so there is a lot of resistance, making it really hard to push, and not at all fun. This meant that kids might play on it for a couple of minutes and then give up.

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Effective Altruism

Sometimes the community chose to pay children to pump the water, but usually the task of pumping water was relegated to the older women in the community, who found it uncomfortable, and also quite demeaning.�

In some cases PlayPumps removed a functional handpump and installed their own pump, often without even asking permission! And the playpumps weren’t very reliable. In several cases, the PlayPump broke down. In some of those cases, it took several months before a maintenance team arrived to fix the pump, leaving that village without its own source of clean water. ��So, for many reasons, what started out sounding like a brilliant idea in theory turned out to be harmful in practice - making people’s lives worse. ��Now, to be fair on the people who started PlayPumps, it seems they really did have the best of intentions, and had a huge amount of support. But clearly, good intentions are not enough.

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Effective Altruism�

Using evidence and analysis to do the most good we can do

Effective Altruism

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Scared straight

Effective Altruism

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Treatment Control

Effective Altruism

To see whether it worked they did a randomised controlled trial. They selected a large group of troublesome kids, randomly put them into two groups. One group went to prison for the day – that is the treatment group. The other group didn’t – the control group. They just did whatever they’d be doing anyway, say playing computer games. �Then the researchers monitored both groups. ��Lo and behold, the treatment group’s crime rate did drop in the months after going to the prison. Good aye! That means it worked right?��Well.. No… Because when the researchers looked at the control group, their crime rate ALSO dropped… in fact their rate dropped MORE than those who got sent to prison. Turns out if you select the worst behaved kids in the neighbourhood, their crime rate will just naturally drop. ��So the upside is that Scared Straight actually CAUSED crime. One study suggested that for every $1 spent on Scared Straight, the program caused $200 worth of damage. What is even scarier, is that despite this damning analysis, the program still runs in some states of the USA. ��So scientific studies like randomised controlled trials can tell us whether a program works or not – good intentions are not good enough to know. ��

Any questions or thoughts?�

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But you and I have a limited amount of time and money to improve the world, so not only do we want to choose actions that do good, we really want to do AS MUCH good as we can with the resources we have. We call this the “Cost-effectiveness” of a charity. ��You might be surprised just how much variation there is between charities. For example lets take this charity – Make a wish. They help very sick children, often kids with terminal illnesses, live out their dream day. Any guesses how much it costs per wish?�About $10,000.��Make a wish is a lovely charity, it is nice for those kids to have a special day – but what else could we do with that money?��On the other end of the spectrum is the Against Malaria Foundation, which fights malaria which affects 200 million people every year and kills about half a million people each year. They distribute these anti-malaria bed nets that stop malaria infected mosquitoes from biting and infecting children while they sleep. Each net only costs about $6 to make and distribute so they are really cheap. The best guess from scientific studies is that around $10,000 worth of bed nets will result in many hundred fewer cases of malaria, and on average, preventing two children from dying. ��So for one charity $10,000 will give a sick kid a great day, or $10,000 will prevent loads of kids getting sick, and stop two children from dying, and allowing them to live a long healthy full life. I know which one I’d choose. ��

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Very cost-effective

High level of certainty

Astoundingly cost-effective

Low level of certainty

Effective Altruism

Now not everything is easy to study with a randomized controlled trial. The aim of effective altruism is to do as much good as we can do, and we don’t want to restrict ourselves to actions we can rigorously study.

So effective altruists look for actions that exist on a scale between

Very cost or time-effective, with strong evidence they help others, like highly tested health care interventions

Through to things we can’t be sure of their impact, such as conducting scientific research to develop a new vaccine, or advocating for policy changes that help the most vulnerable in a society. These actions may not help, but if they do work they could be extraordinarily effective.��Some people in the EA community contribute by donating, some through volunteering and some through their career. �

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Effective Altruism

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Cost-effectiveness (when available)

Scale of the problem

Neglectedness

Tractability

Effective Altruism

It is a big job to choose between all these different cause areas – there is so much that could be done to help. But we do have a way of prioritising. ��If there is some information we have about “cost-effectiveness“ – e.g. how much money is required to do a certain good, like save a life or prevent a certain amount of suffering, we can use that information to inform our decision. ��But often we don’t have enough data to give us this information so a common way of choosing is “Scale, neglectedness and tractability”��So scale is the number of individuals affected, as well as the severity of the effect. Basically scale is how big the problem is. ��Neglectedness is about how many people are already working on a problem. If an issue is neglected, it will make a bigger difference to add one more person to help. If a problem is already very popular, as in there’s lots of people working on it, it’s harder to make a noticeable difference by joining in. So usually you’re better off helping with a problem that is getting much less attention. Sometimes problems are unfairly neglected if they affect groups that people don’t often help, like the global poor, animals, or people who haven’t been born yet. Humans are also pretty bad at insuring against things that have a low probability of occurring, so many risks are unfairly neglected.��Tractability is the measure of if we can actually make a positive difference - either making some traction on the problem or solving it completely. If there are no solutions we can access, the problem is not currently tractable.

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Scale of the problem

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Neglectedness

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Tractability

Experimentation
Using knowledge from history, psychology and sociology

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Cost effectiveness

~$5000 to prevent a death with bednets using the Against Malaria Foundation

MEDIUM UNCERTAINTY

HUMANE LEAGUE

Best guess: �$1 will result in ~200 cage free rather than caged hens

OR

$1 will result in ~9 animals not being born into a life in a factory farm

HIGH UNCERTAINTY

There are even some studies of how cost-effective animal charities are. ��We have quite good data on what helps humans effectively, so we can say with medium uncertainty that on average about $5000 will prevent a death if you give to one of the most effective global health charities. ��Now we have FAR less data for how much impact animal charities are, but some estimates have been made. Animal Charity Evaluators estimates that the Humane League is one of the most cost-effective animal charities. �Their best guess is that $1 donated to their cage-free campaign program has resulted in around 200 hens living outside of a cage. Still NOT a good life, they are still in a barn, overcrowded, exploited, and killed, but studies into chicken welfare indicated their life will be better than if they lived in a cage. ��The best guess is that $1 donated to their campaigns that reduce meat consumption result in about 9 fewer animals being born into a life in a factory farm. ��Now I want to emphasise that these numbers are uncertain. But they are still phenomenal. $1 is nothing to you or me. But how I spend it could prevent months or years of someone’s acute suffering. When I first saw those estimates, it really changed my view on money. It became no longer something that was for me to simply buy things. That money can transform lives. ��So farmed animal advocacy is considered to be one of the most important cause areas we can work on. ��

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Tentative positions of effective animal activism

Focus on farmed animals above other animal issues
Focus on chicken and fish

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6 meals

900 meals

19 meals

230 meals

Killing a chicken raised for meat gives us about 6 meals.

�With eggs, you get around 19 meals with every death. That is the male chicks ground up at one day old, as well as the hens that are killed at about 18 months old after their production rate drops.

�Pigs are much larger animals, so one death creates around 230 meals of pork, ham or bacon.

�And beef cattle are HUGE, so one animal can supply 900 meals.

�

Note I didn’t add fish to this, as it depends on the type of fish. However, since

most fish we eat are fed on other fish, you usually need several deaths to

supply you with one fish meal.�

This shows that if want to make the biggest difference for animals, it probably makes sense to focus on fish, eggs or chickens. But this might not be

the only factor we are concerned about. You might want to also factor in how much they suffer during their lives. Probably it would be chickens and pigs that suffer the most, but it is not clear. Also you might want to consider environmental impacts—beef is much worse than chicken for the climate because cattle burp out methane which is a potent greenhouse gas.

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Expanding the moral circle

Community

People

Animals

Future Generations

Living Humans

Community

Living Animals

Future Beings

Effective Altruism

One major concept in effective altruism is expanding the moral circle – expanding the set of beings that are given moral consideration.

Most people, or maybe all people, naturally care a lot about their friends and family, and many care a lot about those in their local community, or those living in their own country.

This is perhaps unsurprising, because the issues affecting your community, or your country are much more salient and obvious to you. Analysis of giving patterns show that most donors donate to charities within their own country – in fact, only about 6% of the money donated in the US goes to charities that help people in other countries. If we want to do as much good as we can with our resources, it helps to think beyond the most obvious issues to us, and considers that all people are worthy of help – because if someone is in need of help, and we have the capability to help them, should it matter whether they live in the same country as us?

Most people in the effective altruism community also consider that non-human animals should be within our moral circle since they can experience suffering too.

And if you think that it might not matter WHERE someone lives, perhaps it also does not matter WHEN someone lives. Our actions today could affect many future generations, so perhaps they should also fall within our moral circle. So then, another important consideration is, how can we best shape and improve the long-term future? That might mean mitigating the existential risks posed by climate change and potential future nuclear war—and especially possible future pandemics which might be much more severe than COVID-19, or advanced artificial intelligence. But another important component of improving the long-term future is, how can we better shape societal values so that in the future, we won’t mistreat nonhuman sentient beings but instead give them proper moral consideration?

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Tentative positions of effective animal activism

Focus on farmed animals above other animal issues
Focus on chicken and fish
Institutional change vs ethics-induced behaviour change?
Use psychology
Welfare reforms can be useful (for short and long term impact)
Improve technology

Effective Altruism

In terms of impact on animals living in the present day, focus more on institutional change than ethics induced behaviour change – study after study shows that

behaviour change is hard, lots of vegetarians and vegans go back to eating meat, and there just isn’t much historical precedent for making change one person at a time. So it is probably better to get things to change in the law and in institutions to make it easier for people to make the right choice. ��And for us, the people that are already on board, donating and advocating can do MUCH more than just our own choices. I save around 100 animals per year by being vegan, but I can do SO much more than that, so it is more important to get value aligned people to donate or take action, rather than focus on their own consumption. �

But if we’re thinking of long-term impact, moral suasion–based animal advocacy seems quite valuable too. Technology can make it easier for people to get over reasoning like “oh but chicken is so tasty”, but ultimately we need to have people care about animals. TODO

4. Use psychology�There is so much psychology can tell us. We can study how to make plant based foods more likely to be chosen by people. �And we can make educated guesses as to the best way to approach advocacy even if we lack evidence. For example Psychology also tells us that people often have motivated reasoning – we often reason in ways that makes us feel like we are consistent. So meat eaters are highly motivated to find arguments to justify their consumption. But if we can make it easy for people to reduce their meat intake, their ethical position might shift AFTER their consumption changes. So it may be best to work on the HOW of reducing animal product consumption, rather than the why. ��5. Welfare reforms are useful (for short and long term impact)

There have been many studies investigating the preferences of farmed animals, so we do have some idea about what welfare reforms will improve the lives of animals, and one company changing their policy, or one country or state changing its laws can affect an enormous number of animals. But welfare reforms may also help with the overall reduction and elimination of animal farming. Normally it costs more for farmers to raise animals with improved conditions, and that cost gets passed on to the consumer, decreasing overall demand. For example, when California banned battery caged eggs from being sold, the cost of eggs went up throughout the state, and the egg consumption went down in the state. So not only that was better for the hens that were alive, but it reduced the total number of hens. ��Using welfare reforms to increase the price of animal products may be very important to ensure alternatives to meat can compete with animal agriculture. ��6. So the final position is to use technology. We know people eat meat because of the taste, the convenience, the low price (usually), and because of habit. �So if we can use technology to make alternative products taste and cook like animal products, and are CHEAPER, then we may well break people’s habits. There are very convincing plant based alternatives like beyond meat, impossible burger and Sunfed. Most people literally can’t tell the difference between impossible burger and a beef burger. ��There is also a lot of research and development going on to make cultivated meat – which is when a small sample of muscle tissue is taken from a live animal (about a sesame seed sized, so it doesn’t cause much pain to the animal). And that tissue can be grown into many kilograms of real meat. Cultivated meat still uses animals, but a tiny tiny fraction of the animals that are used today. ��There is so much more to know, so these are tentative positions that we can act upon while we conduct more research.

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Effective Altruism

So where does that all leave us with our three charities. ��Well it is hard for individual donors to dig through all the scientific literature about what does and doesn’t help animals, and difficult to assess which charities are the most cost-effective. ��But there is one charity evaluator that seeks to find the charities that can most effectively use your donation to help farmed animals. They recommend only a few charities – currently 4 top charities and 5 standout charities that work all over the world to improve welfare and reduce animal consumption. These charities are likely to be highly cost-effective, are transparent, and have room for more funding, meaning they can usefully use more money. ��Every donor might not agree with all their recommendations, but they are a great place to start. ��- Some points of difference might be ethical - Animal Charity Evaluators values both improving welfare and reducing the number of animals bred for our consumption – some charities focus on the welfare side, some on the reducing animal consumption side, and some do both. They also focus on improving lives for the greatest number of animals over the whole world whatever the species, whereas some people greatly value some species over others or prefer to help animals in their country over animals in other countries. ��- Another point of difference is that some people are happy to take risks on supporting newer organisations or actions that are less certain of having an impact, and other people want their money to go to more established organisations doing things that are very likely to help. ��

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The Good Food Institute promotes the development of competitive alternatives to animal-based meat, dairy, and eggs. Providing business, legal, scientific, and strategic guidance for plant-based and cellular companies, and they engage in policy to level the playing field for plant-based and cultured meat.

�The Good Food Institute is one of the four charities highly recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators.��The cost-effectiveness is very hard to estimate, but IF their programs work their impact could be enormous. Animal Charity Evaluators are uncertain about the long-term impacts of some of their programs, since it will take some time—perhaps decades—to develop cell-cultured meat that can compete commercially with conventional meat. But they have had success in working with grocery stores to increase the availability and improve the marketing of plant-based options, and they have been working with governments to advise them on policies to allow plant based and cultured meat to compete in the market.

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How to get involved

Effective Altruism