No engagement: I’ve heard of effective altruism, but do not engage with effective altruism content or ideas at all
Mild engagement: I’ve engaged with a few articles, videos, podcasts, discussions, events on effective altruism (e.g. reading Doing Good Better or spending ~5 hours on the website of 80,000 Hours)
Moderate engagement: I’ve engaged with multiple articles, videos, podcasts, discussions, or events on effective altruism (e.g. subscribing to the 80,000 Hours podcast or attending regular events at a local group). I sometimes consider the principles of effective altruism when I make decisions about my career or charitable donations.
Considerable engagement: I’ve engaged extensively with effective altruism content (e.g. attending an EA Global conference, applying for career coaching, or organizing an EA meetup). I often consider the principles of effective altruism when I make decisions about my career or charitable donations.
High engagement: I am heavily involved in the effective altruism community, perhaps helping to lead an EA group or working at an EA-aligned organization. I make heavy use of the principles of effective altruism when I make decisions about my career or charitable donations.
To me “considerably engaged” EA people are doing a lot. Their median donation is $1000. They have “engaged extensively” and “often consider the principles of effective altruism” To me, they seem “highly engaged” in EA.
I’ve met people who are giving quite a lot of money, who have perhaps tried applied to EA jobs and not succeeded. And yet they are not allowed to consider themselves “highly engaged”. I guess this leads to them feeling disillusioned. It risks creating a privileged class of those who can get jobs at EA orgs and those who can’t. What about those who think they are doing an EA job but it’s not at an EA-aligned organisation? It seems wrong to me that they can’t consider themselves highly engaged.
I would prefer:
“Considerable engagement” → “high engagement”
“High engagement” → “maximum engagement”
And I would prefer the text read as follows:
High (previously considerable) engagement: I’ve engaged extensively with effective altruism content (e.g. attending an EA Global conference, applying for career coaching, or organizing an EA meetup). I often consider the principles of effective altruism when I make decisions about my career or charitable donations, but they are not the biggest factor to me.
Maximum (previously high) engagement: I am deeply involved in the effective altruism community. Perhaps I have chosen my career using the principles of effective altruism. I might earn to give or helping to lead an EA group or working at an EA-aligned organization. Maybe I tried for several years to gain such a career but have since moved to a plan B or Z. Regardless, I make my career or resource decisions on a primarily effective altruist basis.
It’s a bit rough, but I think it allows for people who are earning to give or deeply involved with the community to say they are maximally engaged and that those who are highly engaged to put a 4 without shame. Feel free to put your own drafts in the comments.
Currently, the idea that someone could be earning to give, donating $10,000s per year and perhaps still not consider themself highly engaged in EA seems like a flaw.
I think this is part of a more general problem that people say things like “I’m not totally EA” when they donate 1%+ of their income and are trying hard. Why create a club where so many are insecure about their membership.
I can’t speak for everyone, but if you donate even 1% of your income to charities which you think are effective, you’re EA in my book.
It is one of my deepest hopes, and one of my goals for my own work at CEA, that people who try hard and donate feel like they are certainly, absolutely a part of the movement. I think this is determined by lots of things, including:
The existence of good public conversations about donations, cause prioritization, etc., where anyone can contribute
The frequency of interesting news and stories about EA-related initiatives that make people feel happy about the progress their “team” is making
I hope that the EA Survey’s categories are a tiny speck compared to these.
Thanks for providing a detailed suggestion to go with this critique!
While I’m part of the team that puts together the EA Survey, I’m only answering for myself here.
I’ve met people who are giving quite a lot of money, who have perhaps tried applied to EA jobs and not succeeded. And yet they are not allowed to consider themselves “highly engaged”. I guess this leads to them feeling disillusioned.
People can consider themselves anything they want! It’s okay! You’re allowed! I hope that a single question on the survey isn’t causing major changes to how people self-identify. If this is happening, it implies a side-effect the Survey wasn’t meant to have.
Have you met people who specifically cited the survey (or some other place the question has showed up — I think CEA might have used it before?) as a source of disillusionment?
I’m not sure I understand why people would so strongly prefer being in a “highly engaged” category vs. a “considerably engaged” category if those categories occupy the same relative position on a list. Especially since people don’t use that language to describe themselves, in my experience. But I could easily be missing something.
I want someone who earns-to-give (at any salary) to feel comfortable saying “EA is a big part of my life, and I’m closely involved in the community”. But I don’t think this should determine how the EA Survey splits up its categories on this question, and vice-versa.
*****
One change I’d happily make would be changing “EA-aligned organization” to “impact-focused career” or something like that. But I do think it’s reasonable for the survey to be able to analyze the small group of people whose professional lives are closely tied to the movement, and who spend thousands of hours per year on EA-related work rather than hundreds.
(Similarly, in a survey about the climate movement, it would seem reasonable to have one answer aimed at full-time paid employees and one answer aimed at extremely active volunteers/donors. Both of those groups are obviously critical to the movement, but their answers have different implications.)
Earning-to-give is a tricky category. I think it’s a matter of degree, like the difference between “involved volunteer/group member” and “full-time employee/group organizer”. Someone who spends ~50 hours/year trying to allocate $10,000 is doing something extraordinary with their life, and EA having a big community of people like this is excellent, but I’d still like to be able to separate “active members of Giving What We Can” from “the few dozen people who do something like full-time grantmaking or employ people to do this for them”.
*****
Put another way: Before I joined CEA, I was an active GWWC member, read a lot of EA-related articles, did some contract work for MIRI/CFAR, and went to my local EA meetups. I’d been rejected from multiple EA roles and decided to pursue another path (I didn’t think it was likely I’d get an EA job until months later).
I was pretty engaged at this point, but the nature of my engagement now that I work for CEA is qualitatively different. The opinions of Aaron!2018 should mean something different to community leaders than the opinions of Aaron!2021 — they aren’t necessarily “less important” (I think Aaron!2018 would have a better perspective on certain issues than I do now, blinded as I am by constant exposure to everything), but they are “different”.
*****
All that said, maybe the right answer is to do away with this question and create clusters of respondents who fit certain criteria, after the fact, rather than having people self-define. e.g. “if two of A, B, or C are true, choose category X”.
It’s possible that this question is mean to measure something about non-monetary contribution size, not engagement. In which case, say that.
Call it, “non-financial contribution” and put 4 as ” I volunteer more than X hours” and 5 as “I work on a cause area directly or have taken a lower than salary rate jobs”.
I dislike the framing of “considerable” and “high engagement” on the EA survey.
This copied from the survey:
To me “considerably engaged” EA people are doing a lot. Their median donation is $1000. They have “engaged extensively” and “often consider the principles of effective altruism” To me, they seem “highly engaged” in EA.
I’ve met people who are giving quite a lot of money, who have perhaps tried applied to EA jobs and not succeeded. And yet they are not allowed to consider themselves “highly engaged”. I guess this leads to them feeling disillusioned. It risks creating a privileged class of those who can get jobs at EA orgs and those who can’t. What about those who think they are doing an EA job but it’s not at an EA-aligned organisation? It seems wrong to me that they can’t consider themselves highly engaged.
I would prefer:
“Considerable engagement” → “high engagement”
“High engagement” → “maximum engagement”
And I would prefer the text read as follows:
High (previously considerable) engagement: I’ve engaged extensively with effective altruism content (e.g. attending an EA Global conference, applying for career coaching, or organizing an EA meetup). I often consider the principles of effective altruism when I make decisions about my career or charitable donations, but they are not the biggest factor to me.
Maximum (previously high) engagement: I am deeply involved in the effective altruism community. Perhaps I have chosen my career using the principles of effective altruism. I might earn to give or helping to lead an EA group or working at an EA-aligned organization. Maybe I tried for several years to gain such a career but have since moved to a plan B or Z. Regardless, I make my career or resource decisions on a primarily effective altruist basis.
It’s a bit rough, but I think it allows for people who are earning to give or deeply involved with the community to say they are maximally engaged and that those who are highly engaged to put a 4 without shame. Feel free to put your own drafts in the comments.
Currently, the idea that someone could be earning to give, donating $10,000s per year and perhaps still not consider themself highly engaged in EA seems like a flaw.
I think this is part of a more general problem that people say things like “I’m not totally EA” when they donate 1%+ of their income and are trying hard. Why create a club where so many are insecure about their membership.
I can’t speak for everyone, but if you donate even 1% of your income to charities which you think are effective, you’re EA in my book.
It is one of my deepest hopes, and one of my goals for my own work at CEA, that people who try hard and donate feel like they are certainly, absolutely a part of the movement. I think this is determined by lots of things, including:
The existence of good public conversations about donations, cause prioritization, etc., where anyone can contribute
The frequency of interesting news and stories about EA-related initiatives that make people feel happy about the progress their “team” is making
I hope that the EA Survey’s categories are a tiny speck compared to these.
Thanks for providing a detailed suggestion to go with this critique!
While I’m part of the team that puts together the EA Survey, I’m only answering for myself here.
People can consider themselves anything they want! It’s okay! You’re allowed! I hope that a single question on the survey isn’t causing major changes to how people self-identify. If this is happening, it implies a side-effect the Survey wasn’t meant to have.
Have you met people who specifically cited the survey (or some other place the question has showed up — I think CEA might have used it before?) as a source of disillusionment?
I’m not sure I understand why people would so strongly prefer being in a “highly engaged” category vs. a “considerably engaged” category if those categories occupy the same relative position on a list. Especially since people don’t use that language to describe themselves, in my experience. But I could easily be missing something.
I want someone who earns-to-give (at any salary) to feel comfortable saying “EA is a big part of my life, and I’m closely involved in the community”. But I don’t think this should determine how the EA Survey splits up its categories on this question, and vice-versa.
*****
One change I’d happily make would be changing “EA-aligned organization” to “impact-focused career” or something like that. But I do think it’s reasonable for the survey to be able to analyze the small group of people whose professional lives are closely tied to the movement, and who spend thousands of hours per year on EA-related work rather than hundreds.
(Similarly, in a survey about the climate movement, it would seem reasonable to have one answer aimed at full-time paid employees and one answer aimed at extremely active volunteers/donors. Both of those groups are obviously critical to the movement, but their answers have different implications.)
Earning-to-give is a tricky category. I think it’s a matter of degree, like the difference between “involved volunteer/group member” and “full-time employee/group organizer”. Someone who spends ~50 hours/year trying to allocate $10,000 is doing something extraordinary with their life, and EA having a big community of people like this is excellent, but I’d still like to be able to separate “active members of Giving What We Can” from “the few dozen people who do something like full-time grantmaking or employ people to do this for them”.
*****
Put another way: Before I joined CEA, I was an active GWWC member, read a lot of EA-related articles, did some contract work for MIRI/CFAR, and went to my local EA meetups. I’d been rejected from multiple EA roles and decided to pursue another path (I didn’t think it was likely I’d get an EA job until months later).
I was pretty engaged at this point, but the nature of my engagement now that I work for CEA is qualitatively different. The opinions of Aaron!2018 should mean something different to community leaders than the opinions of Aaron!2021 — they aren’t necessarily “less important” (I think Aaron!2018 would have a better perspective on certain issues than I do now, blinded as I am by constant exposure to everything), but they are “different”.
*****
All that said, maybe the right answer is to do away with this question and create clusters of respondents who fit certain criteria, after the fact, rather than having people self-define. e.g. “if two of A, B, or C are true, choose category X”.
It’s possible that this question is mean to measure something about non-monetary contribution size, not engagement. In which case, say that.
Call it, “non-financial contribution” and put 4 as ” I volunteer more than X hours” and 5 as “I work on a cause area directly or have taken a lower than salary rate jobs”.