Thanks for writing this—it seems worthwhile to be strategic about potential “value drift”, and this list is definitely useful in that regard.
I have the tentative hypothesis that a framing with slightly more self-loyalty would be preferable.
In the vein of Denise_Melchin’s comment on Joey’s post, I believe most people who appear to have value “drifted” will merely have drifted into situations where fulfilling a core drive (e.g. belonging, status) is less consistent with effective altruism than it was previously; as per The Elephant in the Brain, I believe these non-altruistic motives are more important than most people think. In the vein of The Replacing Guilt series, I don’t think that attempting to override these other values is generally sustainable for long-term motivation.
This hypothesis would point away from pledges or ‘locking in’ (at least for the sake of avoiding value drift) and, I think, towards a slightly different framing of some suggestions: for example, rather than spending time with value-aligned people to “reduce the risk of value drift”, we might instead recognize that spending time with value-aligned people is an opportunity to both meet our social needs and cultivate one’s impactfulness.
Thanks for your comment! I agree with everything you have said and like the framing you suggest.
I believe most people who appear to have value “drifted” will merely have drifted into situations where fulfilling a core drive (e.g. belonging, status) is less consistent with effective altruism than it was previously
This is what I tried to address though you have expressed it more clearly than I could!
As some others have pointed out as well, it might make sense to differentiate between ‘value drift’ (i.e. change of internal motivation) and ‘lifestyle drift’ (i.e. change of external factors that make implementation of values more difficult). I acknowledge that, as Denise’s comment points out, the term ‘value drift’ is not ideal in the way that Joey and I used it and that:
As the EA community we should treat people sharing goals and values of EA but finding it hard to act towards implementing them very differently to people simply not sharing our goals and values anymore. Those groups require different responses. (Denise_Melchin comment).
However, it seems reasonable to me to be concerned and attempt to avoid both about value and lifestyle drift and in many cases it will be hard to draw a line between the two (as changes in lifestyle likely precipitate changes in values and the other way around).
Thanks for writing this—it seems worthwhile to be strategic about potential “value drift”, and this list is definitely useful in that regard.
I have the tentative hypothesis that a framing with slightly more self-loyalty would be preferable.
In the vein of Denise_Melchin’s comment on Joey’s post, I believe most people who appear to have value “drifted” will merely have drifted into situations where fulfilling a core drive (e.g. belonging, status) is less consistent with effective altruism than it was previously; as per The Elephant in the Brain, I believe these non-altruistic motives are more important than most people think. In the vein of The Replacing Guilt series, I don’t think that attempting to override these other values is generally sustainable for long-term motivation.
This hypothesis would point away from pledges or ‘locking in’ (at least for the sake of avoiding value drift) and, I think, towards a slightly different framing of some suggestions: for example, rather than spending time with value-aligned people to “reduce the risk of value drift”, we might instead recognize that spending time with value-aligned people is an opportunity to both meet our social needs and cultivate one’s impactfulness.
Thanks for your comment! I agree with everything you have said and like the framing you suggest.
This is what I tried to address though you have expressed it more clearly than I could! As some others have pointed out as well, it might make sense to differentiate between ‘value drift’ (i.e. change of internal motivation) and ‘lifestyle drift’ (i.e. change of external factors that make implementation of values more difficult). I acknowledge that, as Denise’s comment points out, the term ‘value drift’ is not ideal in the way that Joey and I used it and that:
However, it seems reasonable to me to be concerned and attempt to avoid both about value and lifestyle drift and in many cases it will be hard to draw a line between the two (as changes in lifestyle likely precipitate changes in values and the other way around).