I disagree that it is full of this stuff. It does exist, though I don't find the stuff to get surfaced much.

I still think this is weak. This is just typical PR. If they said "we have already put our stock in a DAF. we are committed to getting this money to solve XYZ problems", I would still be skeptical. The base rate is just so low for giving away money and most billionaires actually do talk about their intentions with the money much more than these people. https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-benevolent-artificial-intelligence/

I've written before that I am skeptical that the amount of funding being hypothesized is going to materialize in the quantities people seem to be suggesting/speculating. If I were to summarize that argument, Anthropic founders haven't said a word about philanthropy in >3 years or something AFAIK, and yet we are just assuming they are going to donate 80% of their wealth. Furthermore, the base rates on people saying they are going to donate large sums and then following through is very low.

More importantly, though, it is just very hard to start an organization that can handle large amounts of money effectively until you have money to start with. How are you supposed to get to work until you have money to start with? I don't think this is a chicken-and-egg problem so much as a more blanket "first the money is in the account, then you start".

As an example, right now, there is an urgent need to get funds to stop the Save Our Bacon Act that could preempt any future farmed animal welfare legislation in the leader of the free world, the United States (as in, we cannot do any of our current best and most cost effective ideas if this passes) and we are struggling to get enough money (we are at $10M right now and we are being outspent).

I should note that a few months ago, I also massively front-loaded my donations such that I have very little in liquid assets. Though I have never met Jeff, him and his family have been an inspiration to me for many years.

Thanks Mal. Very informative

I'd be curious on any information with respect to the welfare of mosquitoes or other insects or other species that would be involved in this project.

I think that's fair. I appreciate that you engage with this problem that I think most people ignore.

In these campaigns the meat producing companies could engage in similar advertising that would lead to a negative sum game.

I don't think they could and I don't think that is what is happening. I don't think any meat producing companies could... engage in some kind of similar advertising.

It's always possible to describe things in a very unflattering way, where you talk about some inputs as opposed to your goal or just describe it in a pessimistic light (eg, cheap/stingy vs. frugal). The OP describes "protests, or boycotts, or negotiations" as not something he wants to fund, but I think if you talked about funding pyrethroid production, that would also not be something he wants to fund, though that's another way of describing insecticide-treated bednets. You could also go even worse and talk about "mass genocide of insects" or something.

To put it another way, I think global health people (who I have deep respect for) would be pretty upset and rightly call out someone writing a post where someone said they didn't donate to global health charities since they don't want to fund the chemical manufacturing industry, which is what we are actually purchasing.

But really, what we are funding is more protests, or boycotts, or negotiations with the companies or government agencies involved in factory farming.

Can you perhaps explain how this is different from say, AMF where what we are actually funding is pyrethroid production, manufacturing plants that create polyethylene nets people to hand out the nets?