Cross-posted from my blog.
Contrary to my carefully crafted brand as a weak nerd, I go to a local CrossFit gym a few times a week. Every year, the gym raises funds for a scholarship for teens from lower-income families to attend their summer camp program. I don’t know how many Crossfit-interested low-income teens there are in my small town, but I’ll guess there are perhaps 2 of them who would benefit from the scholarship. After all, CrossFit is pretty niche, and the town is small.
Helping youngsters get swole in the Pacific Northwest is not exactly as cost-effective as preventing malaria in Malawi. But I notice I feel drawn to supporting the scholarship anyway. Every time it pops in my head I think, “My money could fully solve this problem”. The camp only costs a few hundred dollars per kid and if there are just 2 kids who need support, I could give $500 and there would no longer be teenagers in my town who want to go to a CrossFit summer camp but can’t. Thanks to me, the hero, this problem would be entirely solved. 100%.
That is not how most nonprofit work feels to me.
You are only ever making small dents in important problems
I want to work on big problems. Global poverty. Malaria. Everyone not suddenly dying. But if I’m honest, what I really want is to solve those problems. Me, personally, solve them. This is a continued source of frustration and sadness because I absolutely cannot solve those problems.
Consider what else my $500 CrossFit scholarship might do:
* I want to save lives, and USAID suddenly stops giving $7 billion a year to PEPFAR. So I give $500 to the Rapid Response Fund. My donation solves 0.000001% of the problem and I feel like I have failed.
* I want to solve climate change, and getting to net zero will require stopping or removing emissions of 1,500 billion tons of carbon dioxide. I give $500 to a policy nonprofit that reduces emissions, in expectation, by 50 tons. My donation solves 0.000000003% of the problem and I feel like I have f
I don't know anything about the governor of Colorado, and I assume that many other Americans on the Forum also don't know anything.
Is there anything a potential applicant to this job should know about his animal welfare policies, more specifically?
Yeah, I think this would be good context—the CO gov's husband is a die-hard animal rights activist and seems to have influence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlon_Reis
He declared a "MeatOut" day recently to support plant-based eating and has signed various animal welfare initiatives into law, such as a cage-free law.
So it seems that someone very EA-minded could get this position if they apply.
Thank you for your correction Aaron! I removed “As you probably know” from my comment about the Colorado governor.
Here’s what I know about Gov. Polis: -He is very nice. -He is committed to advancing animal welfare in Colorado. -As Charles points out, a politician wanting to help farmed animals—rather than just wanting to help industries use farmed animals—is almost unheard of in US politics. So Gov. Polis is a huge deal. -And yes, animal rights is the #1 priority for Colorado’s Second Gentleman. They are a power couple.
ayyyyyyyy
Basically, imagine if you could enter PlayPumps Inc. as a director, and redirect attention from the inside to mosquito nets or malaria vaccines.
So this position is the same, but for animal welfare.
To explain, normally the people in here would balance the competing interests of the agriculture industry, consumers, environmentalism and animal welfare.
So non-EA people in this position might end up fighting for much less numerous pets—the far more neglected and numerous farm animals doesn't get attention.
To see this tension, notice text in the ad itself.
The below describes the program you would be a part of.
Compare this with the description for the Dept of Agriculture itself in the same ad.
It seems possible that for an EA, the counterfactual is huge, in the same sense that moving non-EA money to EA causes is huge.
This morning at 7 am PST, Marlon Reis, partner of Colorado Governor Jared Polis, personally wrote and sent an email to a group of EAs and EA aligned organizations imploring more applications for the position in the post.
Note that the application has closed, but Mr. Reis provided his personal contact to provide information, if you are an applicant. If you want this please message me (by the way, I got access to this email incidentally).
In the email, Marlon gives his opinion of specific history in the department.
In addition to the direct impact of helping animals through this large state organization, success can provide leadership and change to others in the rest of the country. US farming practices have also been influential around the world.
Note that Mr. Reis chose to message a group of EAs.
Effective Altruism accounts for a large part of all farm animal welfare leadership in the world.
There really isn’t anything similar to EA that offers potential talent or funding.
Note: I edited this post's title to tone it down a bit after a couple of users reached out to express their concern about the original title (which included the phrase "Super-high-impact job!!!").
Enthusiasm is a good thing, but I feel the same way about the original title as I do about titles in all caps — I think it's better if the Forum has slightly more standardized formatting, without some titles shouting so much more loudly for attention. (But I'm not sure this consideration outweighs leaving titles as the user originally wanted — would appreciate feedback on that point.)