Do you mean 21 percentage points, so if the overall mean is 23%, then the most engaged are only 2%? Or does it mean 21% lower, in which case it’s 18%?
I’m not aware of a good reference class where we have data—I’d be keen to see more research into that.
It might be worth saying that doing something like taking the GWWC pledge is still a high level of engagement & commitment on the scale of things, and I would guess significantly higher than the typical young person affiliating with a youth movement for a while.
(The mean & median age in EA is also ~28 right now, so while still on the youthful side, it’s not mainly not students or teenagers.)
The former! This is pretty sensitive to modeling choices—tried a different way, I get an engagement effect of 31 percentage points (38% vs. 7% dropout).
The modeling assumption made here is that engagement level shifts the whole distribution of dropout rates, which otherwise looks the same; not sure if that’s justifiable (seems like not?), but the size of the data is constraining. I’d be curious to hear what someone with more meta-analysis experience has to say about this, but one way to approximate value drift via a diversity of measurements might be to pile more proxy measurements into the model—dropout rates, engagement reductions, and whatever else you can come up with—on the basis that they are all noisy measurements of value drift.
I’d be super curious to know if the mean/median age of EA right now is a function of the people who got into it as undergrads or grad students several years ago and who have continued to be highly engaged over time. Not having been involved for that long, I have no idea whether that idea has anecdotal resonance.
Thank you, that’s helpful!
Do you mean 21 percentage points, so if the overall mean is 23%, then the most engaged are only 2%? Or does it mean 21% lower, in which case it’s 18%?
I’m not aware of a good reference class where we have data—I’d be keen to see more research into that.
It might be worth saying that doing something like taking the GWWC pledge is still a high level of engagement & commitment on the scale of things, and I would guess significantly higher than the typical young person affiliating with a youth movement for a while.
(The mean & median age in EA is also ~28 right now, so while still on the youthful side, it’s not mainly not students or teenagers.)
The former! This is pretty sensitive to modeling choices—tried a different way, I get an engagement effect of 31 percentage points (38% vs. 7% dropout).
The modeling assumption made here is that engagement level shifts the whole distribution of dropout rates, which otherwise looks the same; not sure if that’s justifiable (seems like not?), but the size of the data is constraining. I’d be curious to hear what someone with more meta-analysis experience has to say about this, but one way to approximate value drift via a diversity of measurements might be to pile more proxy measurements into the model—dropout rates, engagement reductions, and whatever else you can come up with—on the basis that they are all noisy measurements of value drift.
I’d be super curious to know if the mean/median age of EA right now is a function of the people who got into it as undergrads or grad students several years ago and who have continued to be highly engaged over time. Not having been involved for that long, I have no idea whether that idea has anecdotal resonance.