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Rethink Priorities

Our Research

Rethink Priorities focuses its research on four key areas: animal welfare, global catastrophic risks, global health and development, and surveys and data analysis. The database below contains all publicly available research reports from our organization. Alongside our independent research efforts, we also undertake consultancy projects.

Animal Welfare

Plant-Based Diet-Shift Initiative Case Studies: New York City

Neil Dullaghan
This case study presents a comprehensive analysis of New York City's multi-tiered nutritional policy interventions, which have demonstrably reduced municipal food-related...
Animal Welfare

Plant-Based Diet-Shift Initiative Case Studies: Coolfood

Neil Dullaghan
This systematic evaluation quantifies the effectiveness of Coolfood's institutional intervention model, which has achieved measurable reductions in food-related emissions...
Animal Welfare

Plant-Based Diet-Shift Initiative Case Studies: Denmark’s Plant-Based Food Grant

Neil Dullaghan
This policy analysis examines Denmark's structural intervention in agricultural systems through targeted fiscal mechanisms supporting 71 plant-based initiatives across pr...
Animal Welfare

Plant-Based Diet-Shift Initiative Case Studies: Gooddot Alternative Protein Company

Ben Stevenson
This market analysis evaluates GoodDot's operational framework in India's emerging alternative protein sector, documenting their methodological approach to product develo...
Animal Welfare

Plant-Based Diet-Shift Initiative Case Studies: German Retailer Transitions

Ben Stevenson
This case evaluation examines Lidl Germany's data-driven protein transition framework targeting a 20/80 plant/animal ratio by 2030, with potential to reduce GHG emissions...
Animal Welfare

Research Summary: Exploring Physiological Indicators of Farmed Insect Welfare

Elisa Autric, Meghan Barrett
This post is a summary of Review: Exploring correctness, usefulness, and feasibility of potential physiological operational welfare indicators for farmed insects to estab...
Global Health and Development

Health Systems Strengthening

Jenny Kudymowa, Ruby Dickson, Tom Hird
Our report focuses on exploring health systems strengthening (HSS) as a potential new cause area for Open Philanthropy. We examined a range of interventions to improve he...
Animal Welfare

Forecasting Farmed Animal Numbers in 2033

Hannah McKay, Sagar Shah
We produced rough-and-ready forecasts of the number of animals farmed in 2033 with the aim of helping advocates and funders with prioritization decisions. We focus on the...
Animal Welfare

EU Farmed Animal Welfare Policy: Strategic Assessment (2025)

Neil Dullaghan
Who should read this report Philanthropic funders who wish to support greater protections for farmed animals in European Union (EU) legislation Animal advocacy organisati...
Global Health and Development

US Foreign Aid Funding Pause: A Framework for Giving in Uncertain Times

Tom Vargas, Aisling Leow
Executive SummaryThe IssueIn January 2025, the US government initiated a 90-day pause on new foreign aid. This pause was followed by a State Department memo halting all n...
Global Health and Development

Promising Interventions in Maternal and Neonatal Health

Tom Vargas, Greer Gosnell, Aisling Leow
Executive summaryThis report, commissioned by Open Philanthropy (OP), provides an initial exploration of maternal and neonatal health (MNH) interventions in low- and midd...
Global Health and Development

Landscape of Malaria Bednet Programs

Aisling Leow, James Hu, Jamie Elsey, Tom Hird
An in-depth analysis of malaria bednet programs across 14 countries uncovers critical shifts in funding patterns, distribution strategies, and technological innovations, ...
Animal Welfare

Effects of Restrictive Animal Product Alternative Labeling Laws on Supply-chain Costs

Samara Mendez, William McAuliffe
Short SummaryAfter conducting expert interviews, we deem it unlikely that the animal products alternative sector (viz., plant-based meat cell-cultured meat companies) wil...
Animal Welfare

Can Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) producers displace fishmeal?

Sagar Shah, Michael St. Jules
We investigated costs of production at four of the largest BSFL producers to better understand the prospects of them making major inroads into the aquatic animal feed mar...
Worldview Investigations

Strategic Directions for a Digital Consciousness Model

Derek Shiller, Arvo Muñoz Morán, Hayley Clatterbuck, Bob Fischer, David Moss, Laura Duffy, Laura Duffy
The Worldview Investigations Team is in the process of building a model to estimate the probabilities of consciousness in near-future AIs....
Animal Welfare

Insect farming: investment trends and projected production capacity

Sagar Shah
Since 2014, $2B of investment has flowed into insect farming. Investment flows were growing rapidly prior to 2021, but have since slowed. Investor sentiment has been rock...
Global Health and Development

Hypertension in low- and middle-income countries

Jenny Kudymowa, Aisling Leow, Carmen van Schoubroeck, Tom Hird
This report explores the burden, interventions, and potential for philanthropic funding related to hypertension—or high blood pressure—a risk factor for cardiovascula...
Surveys and Data Analysis

Pulse: US attitudes and awareness regarding effective giving and philanthropic cause areas

Jamie Elsey, David Moss
Rethink Priorities’ Pulse project seeks to address the critical knowledge gap around US public awareness and perceptions regarding effective giving and related topics. ...
Worldview Investigations

The Welfare of Digital Minds

Derek Shiller, Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck, Arvo Muñoz Morán, David Moss
The research agenda explores critical philosophical and empirical questions about the potential welfare and moral status of digital minds, focusing on understanding when ...
Worldview Investigations

Resource Allocation: A Research Agenda

Arvo Muñoz Morán, Hayley Clatterbuck, Derek Shiller, Bob Fischer, David Moss
Rethink Priorities' Worldview Investigations Team is sharing research agendas that provide overviews of some key research areas as well as projects in those areas that we...
Animal Welfare

2024 Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum

Elisa Autric, William McAuliffe
Key takeaways Thirty-two participants gathered in May 2024 for this year’s Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum (AASF), an event designed for animal advocacy leaders to c...
Global Health and Development

Interventions to improve the effectiveness of government procurement

Carmen van Schoubroeck, Aisling Leow, Jenny Kudymowa, Melanie Basnak, , ,
This report was commissioned by Open Philanthropy, and aims to identify promising interventions to tackle government procurement inefficiencies; our research does not con...
Global Health and Development

Impact ranking database

Carmen van Schoubroeck, Jamie Elsey, Tom Hird
This report was commissioned by Charity Navigator to explore the feasibility of creating an impact-ranking database that aims to score over 230,000 charities on their web...
Worldview Investigations

Valuing Impacts Across Species: A Research Agenda

Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck, Arvo Muñoz Morán, David Moss, Derek Shiller
Rethink Priorities’ Worldview Investigations Team is sharing research agendas that provide overviews of some key research areas as well as projects in those areas t...
Animal Welfare

Strategies for helping farmed shrimp

Hannah McKay, Elisa Autric, Daniela R. Waldhorn, William McAuliffe, Urja Thakrar, Hannah McKay
Shrimp welfare research at Rethink Priorities Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence is a series that addresses whether and how best to protect the welfare of ...
Animal Welfare

Abundance Estimates of Three Wild Populations

William McAuliffe, Kim Cuddington
  Executive Summary Who should read this report? Desk researchers attempting to Fermi estimate which wild animal interventions are cost-effective. Field scienti...
Surveys and Data Analysis

British public perception of existential risks

David Moss, Jamie Elsey
  Key points We surveyed UK respondents, asking them to list (without prompting) the three factors they thought most likely to cause human extinction in the next 100...
Global Health and Development

Cost-effectiveness analysis of Lafiya Nigeria intervention

Greer Gosnell, Jamie Elsey, Tom Hird, Greer Gosnell
  Editorial Note This document is intended to explain some of the modeling decisions we made in assessing the cost-effectiveness of Lafiya Nigeria’s interventi...
Worldview Investigations

Bargaining among worldviews

Derek Shiller, Bob Fischer, Arvo Muñoz Morán, Hayley Clatterbuck
Executive Summary In this post, we explore why final spending allocations might depart from proportionality over worldviews, even if we assume traditional forms of worldv...
Global Health and Development

Substandard and falsified antimalarials in sub-Saharan Africa

Aisling Leow, Jenny Kudymowa, Tom Hird, , ,
  Editorial Note This report is a “shallow” investigation, as described here, and was commissioned by Open Philanthropy and produced by Rethink Prioritie...
Worldview Investigations

Risk Alignment in Agentic AI Systems

Hayley Clatterbuck, Arvo Muñoz Morán
IntroductionProper alignment is a tetradic affair, involving relationships among AIs, their users, their developers, and society at large (Gabriel, et al. 2024). Agentic ...
Global Health and Development

Fungal diseases: Health burden, neglectedness, and potential interventions

Jenny Kudymowa, James Hu, Tom Hird, James Hu,

Open Philanthropy commissioned Rethink Priorities to conduct research exploring fungal diseases as a potential new cause area. This report summarizes the current and f...

Worldview Investigations

Taking Uncertainty Seriously (or, Why Tools Matter)

Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck, Arvo Muñoz Morán

This post is the seventh installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools...

Worldview Investigations

Rethink Priorities’ Moral Parliament Tool

Derek Shiller, Arvo Muñoz Morán, Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck

This post is the sixth installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools (...

Worldview Investigations

An Epistemic Defense of Rounding Down

Hayley Clatterbuck

This post is the fifth installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools (...

Global Health and Development

Climate research in effective altruism

Greer Gosnell, Greer Gosnell
  Editorial note The Global Health and Development (GHD) team at Rethink Priorities (RP) periodically assesses its approach to impactful research and exploring promi...
Worldview Investigations

Difference-Making Risk Aversion: An Exploration

Hayley Clatterbuck

This post is the fourth installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools ...

Worldview Investigations

Exploring Key Cases with the Portfolio Builder

Hayley Clatterbuck, Arvo Muñoz Morán

This post is the third installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools (...

Worldview Investigations

Rethink Priorities’ Portfolio Builder Tool

Arvo Muñoz Morán, Hayley Clatterbuck, Bob Fischer, Derek Shiller

This post is the second installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools ...

Worldview Investigations

An Introduction to the CRAFT Sequence

Hayley Clatterbuck, Arvo Muñoz Morán, Derek Shiller

This post is the first installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools (...

Animal Welfare

Quantifying and prioritizing shrimp welfare threats

Hannah McKay, William McAuliffe, Hannah McKay
Shrimp welfare research at Rethink Priorities Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence is a series that addresses whether and how best to protect the welfare of ...
Animal Welfare

Three preconditions for helping wild animals at scale

William McAuliffe
Executive Summary A theory of change specifies how a social movement will achieve the change it desires. The theory first posits preconditions that are necessary for meet...
Animal Welfare

A landscape analysis of wild animal welfare

Holly Elmore, William McAuliffe
This report provides an overview of five organizations that dedicate substantial effort to improving wild animal welfare. The researchers identify commonalities in their ...
Animal Welfare

Shallow overview of institutional plant-based meal campaigns in the US and Western Europe

Neil Dullaghan

This Rethink Priorities report provides a shallow overview of the potential for impactful opportunities from institutional plant...

Global Health and Development

Impact of mosquito nets on fisheries

Aisling Leow, Tom Hird, ,
ContextIn April 2024, GiveWell commissioned Rethink Priorities to conduct research on mosquito nets. The aim was to briefly evaluate whether some nets that are distribute...
Animal Welfare

Research summary: The evolution of nociception in arthropods

Abraham Rowe

This post summarizes research into the Chinese mantis, focusing on the genes associated with nociception (the ability to perceiv...

Animal Welfare

Prospective cost-effectiveness of farmed fish stunning corporate commitments in Europe

Sagar Shah

Researcher Sagar Shah estimated how cost effective farmed fish slaughter commitments from retailers might be in Europe. His rese...

Animal Welfare

Pre-slaughter mortality of farmed shrimp

Hannah McKay, William McAuliffe, Hannah McKay

This is the third report in Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence, a series that addresses whether and how to best prote...

Global Health and Development

Research in brief: Clean energy price trajectories

Greer Gosnell, Ruby Dickson, , , , Greer Gosnell,

This post summarizes research that Rethink conducted in 2022 on the trajectory of the prices of clean energy over the next 25-10...

Global Health and Development

Research in brief: Carbon capture landscape and challenges

Greer Gosnell, Ruby Dickson

This post summarizes research that Rethink conducted in 2022 on the neglectedness of carbon capture technologies over a five- to...

Global Health and Development

Research in brief: Climate philanthropy landscape

Greer Gosnell, Bruce Tsai, Greer Gosnell

This post summarizes research that Rethink conducted in December 2021 into the state of climate philanthropy—including the amo...

Animal Welfare

Research summary: farmed cricket welfare

Abraham Rowe

This post is a short summary of research on farmed cricket welfare considerations funded by Rethink Priorities as part of our re...

Global Health and Development

Research in Brief: Scientific capacity in sub-Saharan Africa

Jenny Kudymowa, Bruce Tsai,

This post summarizes research that Rethink conducted in 2022 for into scientific capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. The main aim of...

Global Health and Development

Research in Brief: The long-term income effects of childhood malaria cases

Carmen van Schoubroeck

This research updated GiveWell’s previous literature review on the long-term income effects of childhood malaria to determine ...

Global Health and Development

Research in Brief: Larval source management

Aisling Leow, Melanie Basnak, Bruce Tsai, ,

This report is a broad overview of larval source management, including evidence for effectiveness, room for more funding, and co...

Global Health and Development

Research in Brief: Vitamin A usage in different countries

Aisling Leow, Melanie Basnak, Tom Hird, ,

This summary aims to understand whether and how the “double treatment” parameter in GiveWell’s model on vitamin A suppleme...

Global Health and Development

Research in Brief: Evidence review of family planning interventions

Carmen van Schoubroeck, Greer Gosnell, James Hu, Melanie Basnak, Greer Gosnell, James Hu

This is a summary of an evidence review of family planning interventions. The review mostly focused on the Family Planning High ...

Animal Welfare

Research summary: Farmed yellow mealworm welfare

Abraham Rowe

This post is a short summary of research on yellow mealworm welfare that was funded by Rethink Priorities. The full paper on thi...

Global Health and Development

Priority review vouchers for tropical diseases: Impact, distribution, effectiveness, and potential improvements

Greer Gosnell, James Hu, Erin Braid, Greer Gosnell, James Hu

This report examines the Priority Review Vouchers (PRV) that the US government has issued under its Tropical Disease PRV Program...

Animal Welfare

The impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on animal welfare standards: Evidence from the cage-free egg industry

Samara Mendez, Jacob R. Peacock

In their review of corporate campaigns for cage-free eggs, our researchers found that, on average, a one-commitment increase lea...

Animal Welfare

Welfare considerations for farmed shrimp

Hannah McKay, William McAuliffe, Daniela R. Waldhorn, Hannah McKay

This is the second report in Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence. The first report estimated the scale of shrimp farmi...

Animal Welfare

Risk Aversion in Wild Animal Welfare

William McAuliffe

Given the number of wild animals that exist, interventions to improve their welfare could have greater expected value than inter...

Global Health and Development

Vaccine delivery: Timelines and drivers of delay in low- and middle-income countries

Greer Gosnell, Erin Braid, Melanie Basnak, Greer Gosnell

Universal introduction of vaccines in low- and middle-income countries has lagged behind introductions in high-income countries....

Animal Welfare

Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum 2023 summary

Neil Dullaghan

This report summarizes results from Rethink Priorities’ second annual gathering of animal advocates (held in July 2023). Highl...

Worldview Investigations

How Rethink Priorities is Addressing Risk and Uncertainty

Marcus A. Davis, Peter Wildeford

This is the tenth post in the Worldview Investigations Team’s sequence of posts—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Incorporating and visualizing uncertainty in cost effectiveness analyses: A walkthrough using GiveWell’s estimates for StrongMinds

Jamie Elsey, David Moss

This post introduces an app—Distributr—developed by Rethink Priorities’ Jamie Elsey to better incorporate and visualize un...

Worldview Investigations

Rethink Priorities’ Cross-Cause Cost-Effectiveness Model

This is the ninth post in the Worldview Investigations Team’s sequence of posts—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in ...

Global Health and Development

A review of GiveWell’s discount rate

Jenny Kudymowa, James Hu, Melanie Basnak, Tom Hird, James Hu,

The primary focus of this report is to review GiveWell’s current formulation of its discount rate by recommending improvements...

Global Health and Development

Is x-risk cost-effective if we only count a few generations?

Laura Duffy, Laura Duffy

This is the eighth post in the Worldview Investigations Team’s sequence of posts—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in...

Global Health and Development

Road safety: Landscape of the problem and routes to effective policy advocacy

Aisling Leow, Erin Braid, Carmen van Schoubroeck, Melanie Basnak

In 2019, there were about 1.2 million deaths due to road injuries—about 90% of which occurred in low- and middle-income countr...

Worldview Investigations

Uncertainty over time and Bayesian updating

David Rhys Bernard

This is the seventh post in the Worldview Investigations Team’s sequence of posts—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value i...

Worldview Investigations

Charting the precipice

Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck

This is the sixth post in the Worldview Investigations Team’s sequence of posts—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in ...

Worldview Investigations

How bad would human extinction be?

Arvo Muñoz Morán

This is the fifth post in the Worldview Investigations Team’s sequence of posts—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in ...

Worldview Investigations

How can risk aversion affect your cause prioritization?

Laura Duffy, Laura Duffy

Imagine you’re faced with the following two choices, A and B, and you can push a button to select one or the other to occur. I...

Animal Welfare

Prioritizing animals of uncertain sentience

Hayley Clatterbuck

This is the third post in the CURVE—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in expectation—series. In this post, Hayley Cla...

Worldview Investigations

If contractualism, then AMF

Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck

This is the second post in the CURVE—Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in expectation—series. In this post, the resea...

Worldview Investigations

Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in expectation

Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck

We want to help others as much as we can, but knowing how to do that is complex. The Worldview Investigations Team explores this...

Global Health and Development

An overview of market shaping in global health: Landscape, new developments, and gaps

Jenny Kudymowa, James Hu, Melanie Basnak, James Hu,

This report provides an overview of how market shaping is typically used in global health, its recent track record, and ongoing ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Influences on individuals adopting vegetarian and vegan diets

Jamie Elsey, David Moss

This blog post examines why people adapt vegetarian and vegan diets. RP’s 2019 survey indicated that the greatest sources of i...

Animal Welfare

EU farmed fish policy reform roadmap brief

Neil Dullaghan

This report builds a strategy based on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the animal advocacy movement in ...

Animal Welfare

“Dimensions of Pain” workshop: Summary and updated conclusions

William McAuliffe, Adam Shriver

Rethink Priorities hosted the “Dimensions of Pain” workshop in April 2023 with experts in pain research. The goal was to ide...

Animal Welfare

Price-, taste-, and convenience-competitive plant-based meat would not currently replace meat

Jacob R. Peacock

Much of the optimism around plant-based meats derives from the hypothesis that matching animal-based meats in price, taste, and ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Why some people disagree with the CAIS statement on AI

David Moss, Willem Sleegers

Previous research from Rethink Priorities found that a majority of the population agreed with a statement from the Center for AI...

Volunteering for infection: Participant perspectives on a Hepatitis C virus controlled human infection model

Jamie Elsey

This post is a linkpost from the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The report was a collaboration between 1Day Sooner and Re...

Animal Welfare

Shrimp: The animals most commonly used and killed for food production

Daniela R. Waldhorn, Elisa Autric

Decapod crustaceans or, for short, decapods (e.g., crabs, shrimp, or crayfish) represent a major food source for humans across t...

Global Catastrophic Risks

AI Safety Bounties

Patrick Levermore

AI safety bounties: programs where members of the public or approved security researchers receive rewards for identifying issues...

Animal Welfare

2022 Effective Animal Advocacy Forum Survey: Results and analysis

Laura Duffy, Laura Duffy

This report analyzes the results of a survey of attendees at the Effective Animal Advocacy (EAA) Coordination Forum held in Sept...

Global Health and Development

An overview of WHO Prequalification: Process, usage, and potential improvements

Aisling Leow, James Hu, Tom Hird, , , James Hu

The primary focus of the report is to provide a review of World Health Organization Prequalification (WHO-PQ). The researchers f...

Surveys and Data Analysis

US public perception of CAIS statement and the risk of extinction

Jamie Elsey, David Moss

On June 2-3, 2023, Rethink Priorities conducted an online poll of US adults to assess their views regarding a recent open statem...

Animal Welfare

Historical farmed animal welfare ballot initiatives

Laura Duffy, Laura Duffy

This report estimates the impact and cost-effectiveness of four historical U.S. ballot initiatives that either restricted the us...

Global Health and Development

Historical Global Health R&D “hits”: Development, main sources of funding, and impact

Erin Braid, Melanie Basnak, Bruce Tsai

Research Analyst Bruce Tsai and Research Assistant Erin Braid estimate how many deaths have been averted by five medicines: four...

Global Health and Development

Family Empowerment Media: track record, cost-effectiveness, and main uncertainties

Greer Gosnell, Melanie Basnak, Greer Gosnell

This commissioned report assesses the cost-effectiveness of nonprofit Family Empowerment Media (FEM) on behalf of an anonymous d...

Global Health and Development

An overview of the WHO Essential Medicines List: procedures, usage, and potential improvements

Jenny Kudymowa, James Hu, Tom Hird, , James Hu,

The primary focus of this report is to provide a review of the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines List (EML). The...

Animal Welfare

Drawing attention to invasive Lymantria dispar dispar spongy moth outbreaks as an important, neglected issue in wild animal welfare

Hannah McKay, Meghan Barrett, Hannah McKay

The massive scale of invasive (e.g., non-native) Lymantria dispar dispar (spongy moth) outbreaks represents an unapprec...

Surveys and Data Analysis

US public opinion of AI policy and risk

Jamie Elsey, David Moss

This nationally-representative survey of U.S. public opinions on AI aimed to replicate and extend other recent polls. The findin...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Air Safety to Combat Global Catastrophic Biorisks [REVISED]

Jam Kraprayoon

Associate Researcher Jam Kraprayoon and colleagues from 1Day Sooner published a revised report on how improving indoor air quali...

Optimizing rabies vaccination of dogs in India

Kim Cuddington, William McAuliffe

This is a linkpost for a preprint paper submitted for peer review. The report explains how vaccine baits can be used to reduce t...

Global Health and Development

Better weather forecasting

Aisling Leow, Jenny Kudymowa, James Hu, Tom Hird, Bruce Tsai, , , James Hu,

This report is a “shallow” investigation commissioned by Open Philanthropy. This primary focus of the report is to assess we...

Animal Welfare

Paths to reducing rodenticide use in the U.S.

Hannah McKay, William McAuliffe, Hannah McKay

This post is the third installment in the Rodenticide Reduction sequence. This report describes and ranks interventions to reduc...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Prospects for AI safety agreements between countries

Oliver Guest

In this report, Associate Researcher Oliver Guest investigates the idea of bringing about international agreements to coordinate...

Animal Welfare

Inconsistent evidence for price substitution between butter and margarine: a shallow review

Samara Mendez, Ben Stevenson, Jacob R. Peacock

While decreasing the prices of plant-based substitutes is a prominent animal welfare strategy, it's possible this approach could...

Animal Welfare

Eradicating rodenticides from U.S. pest management is less practical than we thought

Hannah McKay, William McAuliffe, Hannah McKay

This post is the second installment in the Rodenticide Reduction sequence. This report explores the reasons why rodenticides are...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Survey on intermediate goals in AI governance

Michael Aird, Max Räuker

As one effort to increase strategic clarity, the AI Governance and Strategy team sent a survey to 229 people they had reason to ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

FTX Community Response Survey Results

Willem Sleegers, David Moss

In December, Rethink Priorities’ Survey team worked with the Center for Effective Altruism (CEA) to rapidly add a section to t...

Global Health and Development

Exposure to Lead Paint in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Jenny Kudymowa, Carmen van Schoubroeck, Tom Hird,

This report is a “shallow” investigation commissioned by GiveWell. The primary focus of the report is to provide an overview...

Animal Welfare

How meat-free meal selection varies with menu options: an exploration

Sagar Shah, Jacob R. Peacock

Senior Researcher Sagar Shah and Senior Research Manager Jacob Peacock conducted a preregistered reanalysis of data from a serie...

Worldview Investigations

If Adult Insects Matter, How Much Do Juveniles Matter?

Emily Sandall, Bob Fischer

This is the ninth post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence, which provides an overview of the research Rethink Priorities condu...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Does the US public support ultraviolet germicidal irradiation technology for reducing risks from pathogens?

Jam Kraprayoon

Jam Kraprayoon’s reserach fellowship culminated in this report on the on U.S. public’s attitudes toward ultraviolet germicid...

Worldview Investigations

Rethink Priorities’ Welfare Range Estimates

Bob Fischer

This is the eighth post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence, which provides an overview of the research Rethink Priorities cond...

Global Health and Development

Livelihood interventions: overview, evaluation, and cost-effectiveness

Ruby Dickson, Greer Gosnell, James Hu, Melanie Basnak, , , , Greer Gosnell, James Hu,

Researcher Ruby Dickson and Senior Environmental Economist Greer Gosnell investigated various interventions that may help very p...

Worldview Investigations

Don’t Balk at Animal-friendly Results

Bob Fischer

This is the seventh post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence, which provides an overview of the research Rethink Priorities con...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Air Safety to Combat Global Catastrophic Biorisks

Jam Kraprayoon

This report on air safety is a collaboration between 1Day Sooner and Rethink Priorities. The researchers explain how extending e...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Conclusion and Bibliography for “Understanding the diffusion of large language models”

Ben Cottier

This is the ninth and final post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence, which presented key...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Questions for further investigation of AI diffusion

Ben Cottier

This is the eighth post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence. In this post, Ben Cottier li...

Global Health and Development

Implications of large language model diffusion for AI governance

Ben Cottier

This is the seventh post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence. While the sequence is prima...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Publication decisions for large language models, and their impacts

Ben Cottier

This is the sixth post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence. In this piece, the researcher...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Drivers of large language model diffusion: incremental research, publicity, and cascades

Ben Cottier

This is the fifth post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence. This piece describes the most...

Global Catastrophic Risks

The replication and emulation of GPT-3

Ben Cottier

This is the fourth post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence. This piece explores what was...

Global Catastrophic Risks

GPT-3-like models are now much easier to access and deploy than to develop

Ben Cottier

This is the third post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence. This piece describes some GPT...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Background for “Understanding the diffusion of large language models”

Ben Cottier

This is the second post in the “Understanding the diffusion of large language models” sequence. This piece provides backgrou...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Understanding the diffusion of large language models: summary

Ben Cottier

How might transformative AI technology (or the means of producing it) spread among companies, states, institutions, and even ind...

Global Health and Development

The REDD+ framework for reducing deforestation and mitigating climate change: overview, evaluation, and cost-effectiveness

Greer Gosnell, Ruby Dickson, James Hu, Tom Hird, Melanie Basnak

The first of a two-part series on anti-deforestation initiatives, this report examines the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of...

Worldview Investigations

Octopuses (Probably) Don’t Have Nine Minds

Joe Gottlieb

This is the sixth post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence, which provides an overview of the research Rethink Priorities condu...

Worldview Investigations

Do Brains Contain Many Conscious Subsystems? If So, Should We Act Differently?

Adam Shriver, Michael St. Jules

This is the fifth post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence, which provides an overview of the research Rethink Priorities condu...

Animal Welfare

Welfare Considerations for Farmed Black Soldier Flies (Hermetia illucens)

Meghan Barrett

Approximately 200-300 billion black soldier flies are farmed annually. In a new post, academic collaborator Meghan Barrett (Ph.D...

Worldview Investigations

Why Neuron Counts Shouldn’t Be Used as Proxies for Moral Weight

Adam Shriver

This is the fourth post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence. The aim of the sequence is to provide an overview of the research ...

Animal Welfare

The Determinants of Adopting International Voluntary Certification Schemes for Farmed Fish and Shrimp in China and Thailand

Jojo Lee

Voluntary certification schemes (VCS) specify production standards and auditing processes. International VCSs are one of the few...

Worldview Investigations

Theories of Welfare and Welfare Range Estimates

Bob Fischer

This is the third post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence. The aim of the sequence is to provide an overview of the research t...

Animal Welfare

Does the US public support radical action against factory farming in the name of animal welfare?

Neil Dullaghan

Understanding the US public’s levels of support for radical actions such as banning slaughterhouses helps to inform animal adv...

Worldview Investigations

The Welfare Range Table

Bob Fischer

This is the second post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence. The aim of the sequence is to provide an overview of the research ...

Global Health and Development

How effective are prizes at spurring innovation?

Jenny Kudymowa, Tom Hird, Bruce Tsai,

This report is a “shallow” investigation and was commissioned by Open Philanthropy and produced by Rethink Priorities. Open ...

Worldview Investigations

An Introduction to the Moral Weight Project

Bob Fischer

This post is the first in the Moral Weight Project Sequence. The aim of the sequence is to provide an overview of the research t...

Animal Welfare

Using artificial intelligence (machine vision) to increase the effectiveness of human-wildlife conflict mitigations could benefit WAW

This report explores using AI to increase the effectiveness of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) mitigations in order to benefit wil...

Animal Welfare

Does the trajectory of pain matter?

William McAuliffe, Adam Shriver

This report is a postscript to "The relative Importance of the severity and duration of pain,” and addresses whether the o...

Animal Welfare

The relative importance of the severity and duration of pain

Adam Shriver, William McAuliffe

How should effective altruists decide whether to prioritize interventions that alleviate severe but relatively brief suffering o...

Research summary: brain cell counts in Black Soldier Flies (Hermetia illucens; Diptera: Stratiomyidae)

Meghan Barrett

Billions of black soldier flies (BSFs) are farmed annually. This post summarizes research into the brain cell counts of BSFs, wh...

Animal Welfare

Reducing aquatic noise as a wild animal welfare intervention

Saulius Simcikas

In this text, Saulius Šimčikas analyzed whether animal advocates should work on decreasing aquatic noise as it potentially str...

Surveys and Data Analysis

How many people have heard of effective altruism?

David Moss, Jamie Elsey

This post reports the results of a survey we ran in April 2022 investigating how many people had heard of ‘effective altruism...

Global Catastrophic Risks

My thoughts on nanotechnology strategy research as an EA cause area

Ben Snodin

Advanced nanotechnology might arrive in the next couple of decades (my wild guess: there’s a 1-2% chance in the absence of tra...

Animal Welfare

The rodent birth control landscape

Holly Elmore

This paper describes the past and current rodent pest control landscape with a particular focus on the harms of rodenticidal poi...

Animal Welfare

Forecasts estimate limited cultured meat production through 2050

Neil Dullaghan

Is it worth the effective altruism (EA) community trying to accelerate the growth of cultured meat production? Should EA just le...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Why short-range forecasting can be useful for longtermism

Linchuan Zhang

Most work on forecasting, including most EA work on forecasting, is on short-range forecasting (defined loosely here as timescal...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Potentially great ways forecasting can improve the longterm future

Linchuan Zhang

In addition to the EA Early Warning Forecasting Center I outlined in my other post, I think there are several ways forecasting m...

Animal Welfare

Effectiveness of a theory-informed documentary to reduce consumption of meat and animal products: three randomized controlled experiments

Jacob R. Peacock

Several societal issues could be mitigated by reducing global consumption of meat and animal products (MAP). In three randomized...

Animal Welfare

Monitoring wild animal welfare via vocalizations

Hannah McKay, Holly Elmore, Hannah McKay

This article describes how various types and features of vocalizations could act as welfare metrics for wild animals and how a r...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2020: Donation Data

David Reinstein

Charitable donation (and earning-to-give) has been, and continues to be a prominent, prevalent, and impactful component of the E...

Worldview Investigations

Issues with futarchy

Lizka V

This post collects possible issues with futarchy, a proposed form of governance based on prediction markets. (Possible benefits ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2020: Geography

Jacob Schmiess

There are 21 countries with 10 or more respondents - 17 of which are in North America, Europe, or Australasia. 92% of our respon...

Worldview Investigations

Key characteristics for evaluating future global governance institutions

Juan Gil

This post outlines a framework of five characteristics that seem most relevant for longtermists to consider when evaluating the ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

How does forecast quantity impact forecast quality on Metaculus?

Charles Dillon

Many people worry about how much we can trust aggregate forecasts (e.g., the Metaculus community median) that are based on the ...

Animal Welfare

Cultured meat: a comparison of techno-economic analyses

Neil Dullaghan, Linchuan Zhang

The story of how cultured meat becomes widespread involves overcoming many technical challenges. We review techno-ecomonic analy...

Surveys and Data Analysis

An analysis of Metaculus predictions of future EA resources, 2025 and 2030

Charles Dillon

6 weeks ago I shared a Metaculus question series I had authored, focused mainly on predicting grants by Open Philanthropy in 202...

Animal Welfare

Cultured meat predictions were overly optimistic

Neil Dullaghan

Of 273 predictions cultured meat predictions found, 84 have resolved - nine resolving correctly, and 75 resolving incorrectly. A...

Worldview Investigations

Disentangling “improving institutional decision-making”

Lizka V

This post discusses what the cause area of “Improving institutional decision-making” (IIDM) currently encompasses, and prese...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2020: Engagement

David Moss

In this post we describe people’s self-reported levels of engagement in EA, what activities related to effective altruism they...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2020: Community Information

David Moss

Like last year’s post, this post reports on a number of questions about people’s experiences of the EA community and what fa...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2020: Cause Prioritization

David Moss

Global Poverty is the highest rated cause overall. We found support for longtermist and meta causes to increase with higher self...

Global Health and Development

Towards a longtermist framework for evaluating democracy-related interventions

Tom Barnes, Marie Davidsen Buhl

This post attempts to (1) tease apart different features of liberal democracy and (2) analyse how increasing or decreasing a soc...

Surveys and Data Analysis

An examination of Metaculus’ resolved AI predictions and their implications for AI timelines

Charles Dillon

Metaculus is a forecasting website which aggregates quantitative predictions of future events. One topic of interest on Metaculu...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Types of specification problems in forecasting

Juan Gil

In the context of forecasting, how you ask a question can be a large factor in how much information you get from the forecasts o...

Global Health and Development

Intervention report: agricultural land redistribution

David Rhys Bernard, Jason Schukraft

Agricultural land redistribution is a type of agrarian reform in which large farms are broken up and distributed to tenants or l...

Animal Welfare

Rethink Priorities poll: US attitudes towards insects

Neil Dullaghan, David Moss, Peter Wildeford

A significant share of Americans are uncertain (24%-45% don’t know) about their attitudes toward insect farming. This suggests...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Announcing the Nuclear Risk Forecasting Tournament

Michael Aird

From June 22, Rethink Priorities and Metaculus will run a Nuclear Risk Forecasting Tournament to help inform funding, policy, re...

Global Health and Development

Intervention report: charter cities

David Rhys Bernard, Jason Schukraft

The value of charter cities can be divided into three main buckets: (1) direct benefits from providing an engine of growth that ...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Humanities research ideas for longtermists

Lizka V

This post lists 10 longtermism-relevant project ideas for people with humanities interests or backgrounds. Most of these ideas a...

Global Health and Development

Global lead exposure report

David Rhys Bernard, Jason Schukraft

Lead exposure is a large problem with social costs on the order of $5-10 trillion annually, most of which come through neurologi...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Data on forecasting accuracy across different time horizons and levels of forecaster experience

Charles Dillon

Forecasting well is a valuable skill for many purposes and people, including for EA organisations aiming to identify which areas...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Data on forecasting accuracy across different time horizons and levels of forecaster experience

Forecasting well is a valuable skill for many purposes and people, including for EA organisations aiming to identify which areas...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2020: How People Get Involved in EA

David Moss

Personal contacts (16.3%) remain the most common way people that people have first heard about EA, throughout the history of the...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA groups survey 2020

David Moss

222 unique groups completed the survey from 50 different countries. There were roughly equal numbers of city groups (78) and uni...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2020: Demographics

David Moss

The composition of the EA community remains similar to last year, in terms of age (82% 34 or younger), race (76% white) and gend...

Animal Welfare

Silk production: global scale and animal welfare issues

Abraham Rowe

At least 420 billion to 1 trillion silkworms are killed annually to produce silk. While only 61 billion to 170 billion of these ...

Animal Welfare

Strategic considerations for upcoming EU farmed animal legislation

Neil Dullaghan

The European Commission is planning to revise and expand the scope of European Union animal protection policies with new legisla...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Health and happiness research topics—Part 3: The sHALY: developing subjective wellbeing-based health metrics

Derek Foster

The sHALY (subjective wellbeing-based health-adjusted life-year) describes health states using a conventional QALY or DALY class...

Global Health and Development

Health and happiness research topics—part 2: the HALY+: improving preference-based health metrics

Derek Foster

The most widely-used HALYs are the quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) and disability-adjusted life-year (DALY). For reasons cover...

Global Health and Development

Health and happiness research topics—part 1: background on QALYs and DALYs

Derek Foster

This series of posts describes some of the metrics commonly used to evaluate health interventions and estimate the burden of dis...

Animal Welfare

Research summary: the intensity of valenced experience across species

Jason Schukraft

Are there differences in the characteristic intensity ranges of valenced experience across species? This question is important b...

Animal Welfare

Differences in the intensity of valenced experience across species

Jason Schukraft

Differences in the intensity range of valenced experience across species may affect how we ought to allocate resources to help d...

Animal Welfare

Live-shackle slaughter vs. CAS survey

Neil Dullaghan

Rethink Priorities conducted a survey to see how live shackle slaughter resonates with consumers to engender support for reformi...

Animal Welfare

The scale of direct human impact on invertebrates

Abraham Rowe

Currently, estimates of the number of invertebrates used or killed by humans are very poor. Summing the rigorous estimates that ...

Animal Welfare

Do countries comply with EU animal welfare laws?

Neil Dullaghan

The European Union may be an arena where there are promising opportunities to improve farmed animal welfare through legislation ...

Animal Welfare

Ways EU law might matter for farmed animals

Neil Dullaghan

As part of Rethink Priorities' research into European Union farmed animal welfare policy, here we sketch out some points we thin...

Animal Welfare

Research summary: the subjective experience of time

Jason Schukraft

Considering differences in the subjective experience of time may affect the proportion of resources we wish to allocate to diffe...

Animal Welfare

Does critical flicker-fusion frequency track the subjective experience of time?

Jason Schukraft

The subjective experience of time is a morally significant aspect of well-being. Critical flicker-fusion frequency (CFF) has occ...

Animal Welfare

The subjective experience of time: welfare implications

Jason Schukraft

The subjective experience of time refers to how slow or fast time appears to pass for an individual. Animals with faster rates o...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: EA cities and the cost of living

David Moss

We examine the cost of living in the cities with the largest numbers of EAs. Most cities with large EA populations are very expe...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: How many EAs live in the main EA hubs?

David Moss

We estimate that 6.5-8.8% of EAs live in the San Francisco Bay Area and 5.3-7.3% live in London. Both are much larger than the n...

Animal Welfare

Insects raised for food and feed — global scale, practices, and policy

Abraham Rowe

Currently, 1 trillion to 1.2 trillion insects are raised on farms annually for food and animal feed. There are currently between...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: How many people are there in the EA community?

Neil Dullaghan

It is uncertain how many people there in the EA community and what proportion of these the EA Survey manages to sample. We compa...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: Engagement Levels

Neil Dullaghan

There are many ways of measuring engagement in EA, from membership of various groups to a range of actions such as donating to o...

Animal Welfare

How much do Europeans care about fish welfare? (An analysis of relevant surveys)

Saulius Simcikas

Animal advocates have achieved a lot of change for chickens. However, some advocates are concerned that the same approach could ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: Community Information

David Moss

More respondents’ level of interest in EA increased over the last year (43%) than decreased (18%). The most common reasons for...

Animal Welfare

How to measure capacity for welfare and moral status

Jason Schukraft

An animal’s capacity for welfare is how good or bad its life can go. An animal’s moral status is the degree to which an anim...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: How EAs Get Involved in EA

David Moss

Personal Contacts (14%), LessWrong (9.6%) and 80,000 Hours (9.6%) are still the main ways most people have heard of EA over time...

Animal Welfare

Comparisons of capacity for welfare and moral status across species

Jason Schukraft

Understanding differences in capacity for welfare and moral status could significantly affect the way we wish to allocate resour...

Animal Welfare

Estimates of global captive vertebrate numbers

Saulius Simcikas

In this article, I list all the estimates I could find for numbers of vertebrates that are farmed or kept in captivity for vario...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: Donation Data

Neil Dullaghan

EAs in the survey reported total donations of $16.1M USD in 2018. The median annual donation in 2018 was $683.92. The median ann...

Animal Welfare

Snails used for human consumption: the case of meat and slime

Daniela R. Waldhorn

The number of snails produced for human consumption increases gradually every year. Still, there is very little awareness about ...

Animal Welfare

Is vegetarianism/veganism growing more partisan over time?

Jacob Schmiess

In a 60 month long food demand survey of a representative sample of the U.S. done by Oklahoma State University, very liberal par...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: Geographic Distribution of EAs

Neil Dullaghan

74% of EAs in the survey currently live in the same set of 5 high-income English-speaking western countries as in 2018. The shar...

Animal Welfare

Intervention profile: ballot initiatives

Jason Schukraft

Ballot initiatives are a form of direct democracy in which citizens can gather signatures to qualify a proposed piece of legisla...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: Careers and Skills

The most popular career paths that effective altruists in the survey (EAs) plan to follow are in earning to give roles (38%) and...

Animal Welfare

EA Survey 2019: Cause Prioritization

Neil Dullaghan

Global Poverty remains the most popular single cause in our sample as a whole. When pressed to choose only one of the traditiona...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Will the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons affect nuclear deproliferation through legal channels?

Luisa Rodriguez

In this post, I investigate whether the TPNW is likely to have an impact on nuclear deproliferation through formal legal channel...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2019: Community Demographics & Characteristics

Neil Dullaghan

This is the first in a series analysing the results of the 2019 EA Survey. We collected 2,513 valid responses from EAs in the su...

Animal Welfare

Accuracy issues in FAO animal numbers

Saulius Simcikas

Some strategic decisions in animal advocacy are informed by the numbers of animals in various countries. The most widely used st...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Local EA group organizers survey 2019

David Moss

We surveyed 176 local EA groups, from over 40 different countries, including 66 student groups, 78 city groups and 21 national g...

Animal Welfare

Next steps in invertebrate welfare, part 3: understanding attitudes and possibilities

Daniela R. Waldhorn

Whether invertebrates have a capacity for valenced experience is still uncertain. Rethink Priorities has been systematically exp...

Animal Welfare

Managed honey bee welfare: problems and potential interventions

Jason Schukraft

At any given time there are more than a trillion managed honey bees. Globally, the number of managed colonies has risen steadily...

Animal Welfare

Next steps in invertebrate welfare, part 2: possible interventions

Daniela R. Waldhorn

Whether invertebrates possess the capacity to have valenced experiences is still uncertain. On the assumption that invertebrate ...

Animal Welfare

Next steps in invertebrate welfare, part 1: fundamental research

Daniela R. Waldhorn

Whether invertebrates have a capacity for valenced experience is still uncertain. Given that uncertainty, we argue that supporti...

Animal Welfare

Opinion: estimating invertebrate sentience

Jason Schukraft, Marcus A. Davis, Daniela R. Waldhorn, Peter Wildeford,

In this post, four members of Rethink Priorities’ invertebrates team—Daniela R. Waldhorn, Marcus A. Davis, Peter Hurford, an...

Animal Welfare

Deliberation may improve decision-making

Neil Dullaghan

In this essay, we discuss the opportunities that deliberative reforms offer for improving institutional decision-making. We begi...

Animal Welfare

Would a reduction in the number of owned cats outdoors in Canada and the US increase animal welfare?

Kim Cuddington

Previously published estimates of the number of birds and mammals killed by owned cats are probably too large by over one billio...

Animal Welfare

Effective animal advocacy resources

Saulius Simcikas

This article contains a list of research organizations, newsletters, research libraries, personal blogs, conferences, podcasts, ...

Animal Welfare

Corporate commitments breakdown

Saulius Simcikas

This post introduces a spreadsheet which visualizes numbers of corporate cage-free and broiler commitments made in different yea...

Animal Welfare

Corporate campaigns affect 9 to 120 years of chicken life per dollar spent

Saulius Simcikas

In this article, I estimate how many chickens will be affected by corporate cage-free and broiler welfare commitments won by all...

Animal Welfare

Invertebrate welfare cause profile

Jason Schukraft

More than 99.9% of animals are invertebrates. There is modest evidence that some large groups of invertebrates, especially cepha...

Global Catastrophic Risks

How many people would be killed as a direct result of a US-Russia nuclear exchange?

Luisa Rodriguez

In this post, I estimate the number of fatalities caused directly by nuclear detonations in the US/NATO and Russia. I model thes...

Global Catastrophic Risks

How likely is a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia?

Luisa Rodriguez

My previous posts address how bad a nuclear war is likely to be, conditional on there being a nuclear war, but they don’t cons...

Global Catastrophic Risks

How bad would nuclear winter caused by a US-Russia nuclear exchange be?

Luisa Rodriguez

Nuclear attacks on cities would likely produce much more smoke than attacks on missile silos, military bases, and other nuclear ...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Would US and Russian nuclear forces survive a first strike?

Luisa Rodriguez

The degree to which a nuclear war between the US and Russia could escalate depends on how many of their nuclear weapons would su...

Global Catastrophic Risks

Which nuclear wars should worry us most?

Luisa Rodriguez

A nuclear exchange may have the potential to kill millions or billions of people, and possibly lead to human extinction. In this...

Animal Welfare

What do unconscious processes in humans tell us about sentience?

Daniela R. Waldhorn

Rethink Priorities has been compiling and analyzing relevant scientific evidence regarding invertebrate consciousness. As explai...

Animal Welfare

Invertebrate sentience: summary of findings, part 2

Daniela R. Waldhorn

Invertebrate welfare has been gaining recent traction in the scientific literature and among the effective altruism community. H...

Animal Welfare

Invertebrate sentience: summary of findings, part 1

Invertebrate welfare has been gaining recent traction in the scientific literature and among the effective altruism community. H...

Animal Welfare

Invertebrate sentience table

Daniela R. Waldhorn

The database is an interactive table, where we summarize scientific data about 53 features potentially indicative of the capacit...

Animal Welfare

Features relevant to invertebrate sentience, part 3

Jason Schukraft

In this, the final of three posts on features potentially relevant to invertebrate sentience, we assess 9 learning indicators, 4...

Animal Welfare

Features relevant to invertebrate sentience, part 2

Jason Schukraft

In this, the second of three posts on features potentially relevant to invertebrate sentience, we assess 5 drug responses, 5 mot...

Animal Welfare

Invertebrate sentience: summary of findings, part 1

Daniela R. Waldhorn

Invertebrate welfare has been gaining recent traction in the scientific literature and among the effective altruism community. H...

Animal Welfare

Features relevant to invertebrate sentience, part 1

Jason Schukraft

In this, the first of three posts on features potentially relevant to invertebrate sentience, we assess 10 anatomical and evolut...

Animal Welfare

Invertebrate sentience: a useful empirical resource

Jason Schukraft

Rethink Priorities reviewed the scientific literature relevant to invertebrate sentience. We selected 53 features potentially in...

Animal Welfare

Insect herbivores, life history and wild animal welfare

Kim Cuddington

Life history classification will hide some significant differences in the lives of wild animals. Not all species within a given ...

Animal Welfare

Life history classification

Kim Cuddington

Understanding the life history of animals is important for understanding wild animal welfare, but has been understudied by anima...

Surveys and Data Analysis

Is EA growing? EA growth metrics for 2018

Peter Wildeford

Is EA growing? Rather than speculating from anecdotes, I decided to collect some data. This is a continuation of the analysis st...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: How long do EAs stay in EA?

Not everyone who joins the effective altruism community stays around forever. Some people value drift, some people leave altoget...

Global Health and Development

Cost-Effectiveness of RC Forward

Neil Dullaghan

RC Forward moved $4.4M CAD (~ $3.3M USD) from Canadian donors. $430K to $3.7M of donations may have been counterfactually caused...

Animal Welfare

35-150 billion fish are raised in captivity to be released into the wild every year

Saulius Simcikas

Fish stocking is the practice of raising fish in hatcheries and releasing them into rivers, lakes, or the ocean. 35-150 billion ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: How welcoming is EA?

Neil Dullaghan

A majority of EAs feel that the EA movement is welcoming. New EAs rank the movement as more welcoming than long-time EAs. No sta...

Animal Welfare

Rodents farmed for pet snake food

Saulius Simcikas

There are between 4.2 million and 7.8 million pet snakes in the world. 160 million to 2.1 billion vertebrates are killed for pet...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Geographic Differences in EA

David Moss

In this post we explore geographic differences in EA across the globe. A plurality of respondents reported being located in the ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Where People First Hear About EA and Influences on Involvement

David Moss

In this post we explore how people first hear about Effective Altruism, and influences on people’s involvement in EA.

...
Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Group Membership

David Moss

In this post we explore which EA groups EA Survey 2018 respondents were members of. We find reasonably large numbers of EAs are ...

Animal Welfare

Will companies meet their animal welfare commitments?

Saulius Simcikas

Multiple animal organisations are now focusing on securing corporate commitments to improve animal welfare. And they have been v...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Cause Selection

David Moss

EAs rate a wide variety of different causes as requiring “significant resources”. Global Poverty remains the most popular si...

Animal Welfare

Detecting morally significant pain in nonhumans: some philosophical difficulties

Jason Schukraft

Other humans merit moral concern. We think many nonhumans merit moral concern too. But how do we know? And which nonhumans? Chim...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Donation Data

David Moss

Median donations were slightly higher than in 2016 and total donations much higher. A small number of very large donors account ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Subscribers and Identifiers

Lauren Whetstone

In this report, we will explore the difference between those who self-identify as effective altruists versus those who say they ...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: How do people get involved in EA?

David Moss

Where people first hear of effective altruism (EA) has changed over the years: 80,000 Hours is now much more influential, and Gi...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Distribution and Analysis Methodology

Lauren Whetstone

We’re excited to continue what should be a lot of analysis and thoughtful conversation over the results from the 2018 EA Surve...

Surveys and Data Analysis

EA Survey 2018: Community Demographics & Characteristics

Lauren Whetstone

The EA survey provides an annual snapshot of the EA community. Although it does not sample randomly from all effective altruists...

Animal Welfare

Animal Equality showed that advocating for diet change works. But is it cost-effective?

Marcus A. Davis, Peter Wildeford

Animal Equality and Faunalytics put together a field study testing individual video outreach on belief and diet change. They fou...

Global Health and Development

What did we take away from our work on vaccines?

Marcus A. Davis, Peter Wildeford

We investigated the cost-effectiveness of vaccine research and development to learn about how cost-effectiveness estimates are m...

Global Health and Development

What is the cost-effectiveness of developing a vaccine?

Marcus A. Davis, Peter Wildeford

We looked at academic literature for vaccine cost-effectiveness as a whole and we also performed individual case studies on seve...

Global Health and Development

Analyzing the health and economic benefits of vaccines

Peter Wildeford, Marcus A. Davis

Previously we estimated how expensive it is to research and develop a vaccine and also how expensive it is to roll-out a vaccine...

Global Health and Development

Analyzing the cost of vaccine distribution

Peter Wildeford, Marcus A. Davis

We previously estimated the cost of developing a vaccine from scratch to be $460M to $1.9B with a mean of $960M. However, this s...

Global Health and Development

How much does it cost to research and develop a vaccine?

Peter Wildeford, Marcus A. Davis

Previously, we estimated how long it takes to research and develop a vaccine and came up with a conclusion that it would take ...

Animal Welfare

What is animal farming in rural Zambia like? A site visit

Peter Wildeford

Factory farming in the United States and other developed countries is no doubt terrible. And while other developing countries ar...

Global Health and Development

Analyzing the timeline of vaccine research

Peter Wildeford

Interventions related to vaccines seem to be highly cost-effective. The World Health Organization calls vaccines “one of the m...