Given the timing of the “Effective Altruism” search peak (the week of March 12-18, 2017, if I’m reading my own graph right), I strongly suspect that it was caused by CEA’s tenure in Y Combinator, which is popular in a way philosophical movements very rarely are. (For example, this Hacker News post about the launch of EA Funds came out on on March 16.)
This is also right around the time that visits to effectivealtruism.org peaked. However, it’s notable that peak traffic for 80,000 Hours came well after the end of their time in Y Combinator.
Given the timing of the “Effective Altruism” search peak (the week of March 12-18, 2017, if I’m reading my own graph right), I strongly suspect that it was caused by CEA’s tenure in Y Combinator, which is popular in a way philosophical movements very rarely are. (For example, this Hacker News post about the launch of EA Funds came out on on March 16.)
This is also right around the time that visits to effectivealtruism.org peaked. However, it’s notable that peak traffic for 80,000 Hours came well after the end of their time in Y Combinator.