Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

People can’t get enough protein. Fully 61% of Americans say they ate more protein last year — and 85% intended to eat more this year. Last week, dairy giant Danone said it can’t keep up with US demand for its high-protein yogurt. Other food makers are rushing to pack protein into everything from Doritos to Pop-Tarts.

The craze is global. The net percentage of Europeans wanting more protein has more than doubled since 2023, driven by protein-hungry Brits, Poles, and Spaniards. (The epicurean French and Italians remain holdouts.) Chinese per capita protein supply recently overtook already-high American levels.

Young people are leading the charge. Across Asia, Europe, and the US, most Gen Z’ers want more protein, suggesting this trend may persist. In one recent British university survey, “protein” was the top reason students gave for not giving up meat. Doctors are also telling the 6 - 10% of Americans now taking GLP-1 weight loss drugs to eat more protein to prevent muscle loss.

This is [...]

---

First published:

November 5th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/P7NuYbwbMMNTM45Cz/the-protein-problem

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (CWAW) is a new policy advocacy organization, working to improve the lives of wild animals today and build support for wild animal welfare policy. We’re now fundraising for our first year, and the next $60,000 will be matched 1:1 by a generous supporter.

We’ve already started engaging policymakers on wild animal-friendly urban infrastructure (e.g. bird-safe glass). In 2026, we plan to keep engaging on urban infrastructure; start working on additional policy areas like fertility control and pesticide policy; and pursue agenda setting (e.g. publishing a State of Wild Animal Welfare Policy report).

Wild animal welfare is one of the world's most important and neglected issues. Governments routinely make decisions that affect trillions of wild animals without considering their individual wellbeing. We want to change this: CWAW is one of the first organizations in the world dedicated to ensuring policymakers consider the individual welfare of wild animals. Our focus on near term policy will help wild animals now, and also build future support by proving that wild animal welfare is a legitimate and tractable policy concern.

CWAW is co-founded by Richard Parr MBE, a former policy adviser to the UK Prime Minister, and Ben [...]

---

Outline:

(02:27) Why support wild animal welfare policy?

(07:37) What we've achieved already

(09:38) What we'll do in 2026

(14:51) How will CWAW use marginal funding?

(15:45) Who we are

(16:17) Endorsements

(18:30) How to help

---

First published:

November 18th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uko8rxrcmYB54ZnBH/new-donation-opportunity-the-center-for-wild-animal-welfare

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

To a first approximation, all farmed animals are bugs. (Recalling, of course, that shrimps is bugs.) We don’t know much about their needs in current production systems. The Arthropoda Foundation is trying to fix that. If we want to help the most numerous farmed animals, we have to answer some basic empirical questions. Arthropoda funds the scientists who provide those answers.

Good science isn’t cheap, fast, or flashy. But if we don’t fund it, we’re left guessing about the welfare of the most numerous animals on farms (and in the wild). The stakes are too high for guesswork.

This year, Arthropoda granted out ~$160K to fund seven studies. That's seven studies for at least a trillion farmed animals. (And untold numbers of wild animals.)

We could easily grant out much more. And with a staff person, we could actively develop projects to support. But as it is, we’re at capacity.

In its current form, Arthropoda costs about $175K per year, at least 80% of which covers grants. The rest covers costs associated with learning more about the state of the industry, running a small coordination event, and legal compliance with charitable regulations. We’re about $55K short for 2026.

Anything [...]

---

First published:

November 17th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mdcSeMwkBEYhdTAWF/to-a-first-approximation-all-farmed-animals-are-bugs

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

It's hard to divide anything 50/50. In many families, even if both parents have paid jobs, one parent will lean into parenting more, and the other will lean harder into paid work.

In male/female couples it's usually the woman who owns more of the parenting work, and that can feel unfair if the arrangement comes from assumptions rather than a willing choice.

I want to highlight some counter-examples from the effective altruism space, to show it's really possible to make an intentional choice about who does what.

• @Jeff Kaufman and I both travel for work, but he's more fearless than I am about having the kids solo. Once while I was at an EA conference during the annual vacation with his side of the family, he took our four-year-old and two-year-old to the beach, and also took his sister's two-year-old because she was working. Then, during this trip where he was responsible for three preschoolers, he potty-trained our toddler.
• My friend has pursued jobs focused on impact, while her husband has a normal job he's not pursuing for altruistic impact. He does more of the childcare while she commutes part of the week to another city [...]

---

First published:

November 13th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/m8B5kYHdiz5BiW9qH/some-hardworking-dads-in-ea

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Long time lurker, first time poster - be nice please! :)

I was searching for summary data of EA funding trends, but couldn't find anything more recent than Tyler's post from 2022. So I decided to update it. If this analysis is done properly anywhere, please let me know.

The spreadsheet is here (some things might look weird due to importing from Excel to sheets)

Observations

• EA grantmaking appears on a steady downward trend since 2022 / FTX.
• The squeeze on GH funding to support AI / other longtermist priorities appears to be really taking effect this year (though 2025 is a rough estimate and has significant uncertainty.)
• I am really interested in particular about the apparent drop in GW grants this year. I suspect that it is wrong or at least misleading - the metrics report suggests they are raising ~$300m p.a. from non OP donors. Not sure if I have made an error (missing direct to charity donations?) or if they are just sitting on funding with the ongoing USAID disruption.

Methodology

• I compiled the latest grants databases from EA Funds, GiveWell, OpenPhilanthropy, and SFF. I added summary level data from ACE.
• To remove [...]

---

Outline:

(00:41) Observations

(01:26) Methodology

(02:12) Notes

---

First published:

November 14th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NWHb4nsnXRxDDFGLy/historical-ea-funding-data-2025-update

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Author's note: This is an adapted version of my recent talk at EA Global NYC (I’ll add a link when it's available). The content has been adjusted to reflect things I learned from talking to people after my talk. If you saw the talk, you might still be interested in the “some objections” section at the end.

Summary

Wild animal welfare faces frequent tractability concerns, amounting to the idea that ecosystems are too complex to intervene in without causing harm. However, I suspect these concerns reflect inconsistent justification standards rather than unique intractability. To explore this idea:

• I provide some context about why people sometimes have tractability concerns about wild animal welfare, providing a concrete example using bird-window collisions.
• I then describe four approaches to handling uncertainty about indirect effects: spotlighting (focusing on target beneficiaries while ignoring broader impacts), ignoring cluelessness (acting on knowable effects only), assigning precise probabilities to all outcomes, and seeking ecologically inert interventions.
• I argue that, when applied consistently across cause areas, none of these approaches suggest wild animal welfare is distinctively intractable compared to global health or AI safety. Rather, the apparent difference most commonly stems from arbitrarily wide "spotlights" applied to [...]

---

Outline:

(00:31) Summary

(02:15) Consequentialism + impartial altruism → hard to do good

(03:43) The challenge: Deep uncertainty and backfire risk

(04:41) Example: Bird-window collisions

(05:22) We don't actually understand the welfare consequences of bird-window collisions on birds

(06:08) We don't know how birds would die otherwise

(07:06) The effects on other animals are even more uncertain

(09:16) Four approaches to handling uncertainty

(10:08) Spotlighting

(15:31) Set aside that which you are clueless about

(18:31) Assign precise probabilities

(20:06) Seek ecologically inert interventions

(22:04) Some objections & questions

(22:17) The global health comparison: Spotlighting hasnt backfired (for humans)

(23:22) Action-inaction distinctions

(25:01) Why should justification standards be the same?

(26:53) Conclusion

---

First published:

November 14th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2YjqfYktNGcx6YNRy/if-wild-animal-welfare-is-intractable-everything-is

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a crosspost from my Substack, where people have been liking and commenting a bunch. I'm too busy during my self-imposed version of Inkhaven to engage much – yes, pity me, I have to blog – but I don't want to leave Forum folks out of the loop!

I’ve been following Effective Altruism discourse since 2014 and involved with the Effective Altruist community since 2015. My credentials are having run Harvard Law School and Harvard University (pan-grad schools) EA, donating $45,000 to EA causes (eep, not 10%), working at 80,000 Hours for three years, and working at a safety-oriented AI org for 10 months after that. I’m also proud of the public comms I’ve done for EA on this blog (here, here, and here), through my 80k podcast series, current podcast series, and through EA career advice talks I’ve given at EAGs and smaller events.

With that background, you can at least be confident that I am familiar with my subject matter in the takes that follow. As before, let me know which of these seems interesting or wrong and there's a good chance I’ll write them up with you the commenter very much in mind as [...]

---

First published:

November 6th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/s8aNPnrGH2fF3Hkpi/12-theses-on-ea

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Cross-post from Good Structures.

Over the last few years, I helped run several dozen hiring rounds for around 15 high-impact organizations. I've also spent the last few months talking with organizations about their recruitment. I've noticed three recurring themes:

Candidates generally have a terrible time
Work tests are often unpleasant (and the best candidates have to complete many of them), there are hundreds or thousands of candidates for each role, and generally, people can't get the jobs they’ve been told are the best path to impact.

Organizations are often somewhat to moderately unhappy with their candidate pools
Organizations really struggle to find the talent they want, despite the number of candidates who apply.

Organizations can't find or retain the recruiting talent they want
It's extremely hard to find people to do recruitment in this space. Talented recruiters rarely want to stay in their roles.

I think the first two points need more discussion, but I haven't seen much discussion about the last. I think this is a major issue: recruitment is probably the most important function for a growing organization, and a skilled recruiter has a fairly large counterfactual impact for the organization they support. So why is it [...]

---

Outline:

(01:33) Recruitment is high leverage and high impact

(03:33) Organizations struggle to hire recruiters

(07:52) Many of the people applying to recruitment roles emphasize their experience in recruitment. This isnt the background organizations need

(08:44) Almost no one is appropriately obsessed with hiring

(10:29) The state of evidence on hiring practices is bad

(13:22) Retaining strong recruiters is really hard

(14:51) Why might this be less important than I think?

(16:40) Im trying to find people interested in this kind of approach to hiring. If this is you, please reach out.

---

First published:

November 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HLktkw5LXeqSLCchH/recruitment-is-extremely-important-and-impactful-some-people

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

16 minute read

We update our list of Recommended Charities annually. This year, we announced recommendations on November 4.

Each year, hundreds of billions of animals are trapped in the food industry and killed for food —that is more than all the humans who have ever walked on the face of the Earth.1

When faced with such a magnitude of suffering, it can feel overwhelming and hard to know how to help. One of the most impactful things you can do to help animals is to donate to effective animal charities—even a small donation can have a big impact. Our goal is to help you do the most good for animals by providing you with effective giving opportunities that greatly reduce their suffering. Following our comprehensive charity evaluations, we are pleased to announce our Recommended Charities!

Charities awarded the status in 2025Charities retaining the status from 2024Animal Welfare ObservatoryAquatic Life InstituteShrimp Welfare ProjectÇiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma DerneğiSociedade Vegetariana BrasileiraDansk Vegetarisk ForeningThe Humane LeagueGood Food FundWild Animal InitiativeSinergia Animal

The Humane League (working globally), Shrimp Welfare Project (in Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and India), and Wild Animal Initiative (global) have continued to work on the most important issues for animals [...]

---

Outline:

(03:54) Charities Recommended in 2025

(03:59) Animal Welfare Observatory

(05:44) Shrimp Welfare Project

(07:38) Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira

(09:41) The Humane League

(11:22) Wild Animal Initiative

(13:15) Charities Recommended in 2024

(13:20) Aquatic Life Institute

(15:25) Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği

(17:34) Dansk Vegetarisk Forening

(19:18) The Good Food Fund

(21:19) Sinergia Animal

(23:20) Support our Recommended Charities

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

November 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/waL3iwczrjNt8PreZ/announcing-ace-s-2025-charity-recommendations

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

(Audio version, read by the author, here, or search for "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app.)

Last Friday was my last day at Open Philanthropy. I’ll be starting a new role at Anthropic in mid-November, helping with the design of Claude's character/constitution/spec. This post reflects on my time at Open Philanthropy, and it goes into more detail about my perspective and intentions with respect to Anthropic – including some of my takes on AI-safety-focused people working at frontier AI companies.

(I shared this post with Open Phil and Anthropic comms before publishing, but I’m speaking only for myself and not for Open Phil or Anthropic.)

On my time at Open Philanthropy

I joined Open Philanthropy full-time at the beginning of 2019.[1] At the time, the organization was starting to spin up a new “Worldview Investigations” team, aimed at investigating and documenting key beliefs driving the organization's cause prioritization – and with a special focus on how the organization should think about the potential impact at stake in work on transformatively powerful AI systems.[2] I joined (and eventually: led) the team devoted to this effort, and it's been an amazing project to be a part of.

I remember [...]

---

Outline:

(00:51) On my time at Open Philanthropy

(08:11) On going to Anthropic

---

First published:

November 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EFF6wSRm9h7Xc6RMt/leaving-open-philanthropy-going-to-anthropic

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.