While I agree with Vaidehi’s comments on whether “value drift” is the right descriptor, I think it’s true that proportion of in-practice-priorities has probably shifted.
As someone who endorses the overall shift towards longtermist priorities, I still do agree with this post. I think it’s important people be thinking for themselves and not getting tugged along with social consensus.
I think the challenge is that the recent changes can be described in a number of different ways:
Object level changes to fields, disciplines or industries that we focus on which is priorities shift
Changes in (attitudes and behaviors) regarding spending which maybe could be described as lifestyle shift (and relatedly, increasing importance ascribed to EA time, which could be a bit of a values shift)
A more ambitious and less risk averse attitude, which maybe is a culture shift
I’m not quite sure how I’d summarise these changes with 1 phrase or word, but these things in combination does create a certain… “aesthetic” that feels coherent—I could create a “2022 EA starter pack” meme that would probably capture the above pretty accurately.
While I agree with Vaidehi’s comments on whether “value drift” is the right descriptor, I think it’s true that proportion of in-practice-priorities has probably shifted.
As someone who endorses the overall shift towards longtermist priorities, I still do agree with this post. I think it’s important people be thinking for themselves and not getting tugged along with social consensus.
I think the challenge is that the recent changes can be described in a number of different ways:
Object level changes to fields, disciplines or industries that we focus on which is priorities shift
Changes in (attitudes and behaviors) regarding spending which maybe could be described as lifestyle shift (and relatedly, increasing importance ascribed to EA time, which could be a bit of a values shift)
A more ambitious and less risk averse attitude, which maybe is a culture shift
I’m not quite sure how I’d summarise these changes with 1 phrase or word, but these things in combination does create a certain… “aesthetic” that feels coherent—I could create a “2022 EA starter pack” meme that would probably capture the above pretty accurately.