From the sideline chorus of cynics; the Achilles heel of Effective Altruism is that most alleged altruists are the usual fair-weather activists who want to be seen to be on the right side but are not actually interested in solving any real world problems.

The only lens that works when viewing politics (and altruism is a form of politics) is to assume people are miscommunicating their intended outcome. We've had thousands of years of experience with cause and effect, hundreds of years experience with modern mathematics for evaluating evidence and all the resources in the world to run experiments if we cared to. If people aren't trying to deploy that beyond 3-word-slogans and "we all know what is going on here, it is obvious, no need to check the hypothesis!" style strategies then they aren't trying to improve the situation. The first thing anyone runs in to when they try to solve a problem is that nobody involved seems to change their mind after reviewing contradictory evidence and that is a huge barrier to change.

There is a clear gap between how people who are interested in solving a problem act and how the average person out there to "do good" acts. If people are trying to improve a situation the strategy & understanding of that situation should keep pivoting. And there should be a steady stream of minor discoveries as apparently obvious truth turns out to be false.