Neglectedness is overrated

By Singer Robin @ 2025-06-26T04:48 (+5)

I often see effective altruist's use a cause’s high profile as a heuristic not to worry about that, as if widespread attention means additional effort is wasted.

In general, effective altruists should more actively support mainstream social movements that drive real-world moral progress, even when those causes are not highly “neglected.” While neglectedness can be a useful heuristic for identifying overlooked opportunities, neglectedness should not be treated as if it were the final goal - rather than one input among others like importance and tractability. This can cause EA to systematically ignore areas where large-scale change is already happening, but where additional support could meaningfully accelerate impact.

History shows that major moral victories have often come not from focusing on obscure causes, but from building broad coalitions to tackle obvious wrongs. The abolition of slavery is a prime example. It occurred in the British Empire in 1833 and the U.S. in the 1860s, right at the height of slavery’s profitability. Change did not wait for market readiness or optimal economic timing. The strength of opposition was not decisive against tractability. Change came through mass mobilization, moral conviction, and coalition-building, including alliances like Quakers joining with evangelical Christians. The success wasn’t due to neglectedness, but to sustained collective action against entrenched interests.

Effective altruists often worry that joining popular causes leads to "crowding out", the idea that one’s efforts are redundant in a space already full of attention and resources. This is an assumption. In many cases, and this is apparent in the empirical research, moral and political progress operates through crowding in: additional support can increase momentum, attract more allies, and raise the stakes for policymakers or cultural gatekeepers.

Just as each additional protester can make a demonstration more powerful, each new donor or advocate in a well-known cause can help unlock tipping points. For example, participation in activism or political voting often has network effects, increased involvement makes the cause more visible, legitimized, and harder to ignore. Treating attention as a zerosum game misses how change often accelerates when more people get involved, not less.

In short, effective altruism’s over-reliance on neglectedness can lead to strategic blindness. Treating attention as a zero-sum game misses how change often accelerates when more people get involved, not less. 

Empirical research could do more than cherry picked case studies, but I would speculate that as a rule of thumb and over-generalised conversation starter, that neglectedness is advantageous in charitable donations, and disadvantageous when it comes to political action. 

Many of the world’s greatest improvements occurred in areas that were high-profile but tractable due to timing, pressure, and momentum. Effective altruists should not shy away from these kinds of causes or be contrarian for its own sake. Instead, they should view participation in powerful, morally urgent movements even popular ones as a high-leverage opportunity to shift the trajectory of society