Thank you, Joey, for gathering those data. And thank you, Darius, for providing us with the suggestions for reducing this risk. I agree that further research on causes of value drift and how to avoid it is needed. If the phenomenon is explained correctly, that could be a great asset to the EA community building. But regardless of this explanation, your suggestions are valuable.
It seems to be a generally complex problem because retention encapsulates the phenomenon in which a person develops an identity, skill set, and consistent motivation or dedication to significantly change the course of their life. CEA in their recent model of community building framed it as resources, dedication, and realization.
Decreasing retention is also observed in many social movements. Some insights about how it happens can be culled from sociological literature. Although it is still underexplored and the sociological analysis might have mediocre quality, but it might still be useful to have a look at it. For example, this analysis implicate that âmovementâs ability to sustain itself is a deeply interactive question predicted by its relationship to its participants: their availability, their relationships to others, and the organizationâs capacity to make them feel empowered, obligated, and invested.â
The reasons for the value drift from EA seems to be as important in understanding the process, as the value drift that led to EA, e.g. In Joeyâs post, he gave an illustrative story of Alice. What could explain her value drift was the fact that at people during their first year of college are more prone to social pressure and need for belonging. That could make her become EA and drifted when she left college and her EA peers. So âSurround yourself with value aligned peopleâ for the whole course of your life. That also stresses the importance of untapped potential of local groups outside the main EA hubs. For this reason, itâs worth considering even If in case of outreach we shouldnât rush to translate effective altruism
About the data itself. We might be making wrong inferences trying to explain those date. Because it shows only a fraction of the process and maybe if we would observe the curve of engagement it would fluctuate over a longer period of time, eg. 50% in the first 2-5 year, 10% in a 6th year, 1% in for the next 2-3 and then coming back to 10%, 50% etc.? Me might hypothesize that life situation influence the baseline engagement for short period (1 month- 3 years). As analogous for changes in a baseline of happiness and influences of live events explained by hedonic adaptation, maybe we have sth like altruistic adaptation, that changes after a significant live event (changing the city, marriage etc.) and then comes back to baseline.
Additionally, the level of engagement in EA and other significant variables does not correlate perfectly, the data could also be explained by the regression to the mean. If some of the EAs were hardcore at the beginning, they will tend to be closer to the average on a second measurement, so from 50% to 10%, and those from 10% to 1%. Anyhow, the likelihood that the value drift is true is higher than that itâs not.
More could be done about the vale drift on the structural level, e.g. it might be also explained by the main bottlenecks in the community itself, like the Mid-Tire Trap (e.g. too good for running local group, but no good enough to be hired by main EA organizations â multiple unsuccessful job applications â frustration â drop out).
Becuase mechanism of the value drift would determine the strategies to minimalize risk or harm of it and because the EA community might not be representative for other social movements, we should systematically and empirically explore those and other factors in order to find the 80â20 of long-lasting commitment.
More could be done about the vale drift on the structural level, e.g. it might be also explained by the main bottlenecks in the community itself, like the Mid-Tire Trap (e.g. too good for running local group, but no good enough to be hired by main EA organizations â multiple unsuccessful job applications â frustration â drop out).
Doing effective altruistic things â Doing Effective Altruism⢠things
All the main Effective Altruism orgs together employ only a few dozen people. There are two orders of magnitude more people interested in Effective Altruism. They canât all work at the main EA orgs.
There are lots of highly impactful opportunities out there that arenât branded as EAâcheck out the career profiles on 80,000hours for reference. Academia, politics, tech startups, doing EtG in random places, etc.
We should be interested in having as high an impact as possible and not in âperforming EA-nessâ.
I do think that EA orgs dominate the conversations within the EA sphere which can lead to this unfortunate effect where people quite understandably feel that the best thing they can do is work there (or at an âEA approvedâ workplace like D pmind or J n Street) - or nothing. Thatâs counterproductive and sad.
A potential explanation: itâs difficult for people to evaluate the highly impactful positions in other fields. Therefore the few organisations and firms we can all agree on are Effectively Altruistic get a disproportionate amount of attention and âstatusâ.
As the community, we should try to encourage to find the highest impact opportunity for them out of many possible options, of which only a tiny fraction is working at EA orgs.
That also stresses the importance of untapped potential of local groups outside the main EA hubs.
Yep, I see engaging people & keeping up their motivation in one location as a major contribution of EA groups to the movement!
maybe we have sth like altruistic adaptation, that changes after a significant live event (changing the city, marriage etc.) and then comes back to baseline.
This is an interesting suggestion, though I think it unlikely. It is worth pointing out that most of this discussion is just speculation. The very limited anecdata we have from Joey and others seems too weak to draw detailed conclusions. Anyway: From talking to people who are in their 40s and 50s now, it seems to me that a significant fraction of them were at some point during their youth or at university very engaged in politics and wanted to contribute to âchanging the world for the betterâ. However, most of these people have reduced their altruistic engagement over time and have at some point started a family, bought a house etc. and have never come back to their altruistic roots. This common story is what seems to be captured by the saying (that I neither like nor endorse): âIf youâre not a socialist at the age of 20 you have no heart. If youâre not a conservative at the age of 40, you have no headâ.
More could be done about the vale drift on the structural level, e.g. it might be also explained by the main bottlenecks in the community itself, like the Mid-Tire Trap
This is a valuable and under-discussed point that I endorse!
Thank you, Joey, for gathering those data. And thank you, Darius, for providing us with the suggestions for reducing this risk. I agree that further research on causes of value drift and how to avoid it is needed. If the phenomenon is explained correctly, that could be a great asset to the EA community building. But regardless of this explanation, your suggestions are valuable.
It seems to be a generally complex problem because retention encapsulates the phenomenon in which a person develops an identity, skill set, and consistent motivation or dedication to significantly change the course of their life. CEA in their recent model of community building framed it as resources, dedication, and realization.
Decreasing retention is also observed in many social movements. Some insights about how it happens can be culled from sociological literature. Although it is still underexplored and the sociological analysis might have mediocre quality, but it might still be useful to have a look at it. For example, this analysis implicate that âmovementâs ability to sustain itself is a deeply interactive question predicted by its relationship to its participants: their availability, their relationships to others, and the organizationâs capacity to make them feel empowered, obligated, and invested.â
Additional aspects of value drift to consider on an individual level that might not be relevant to other social movements: mental health and well-being, pathological altruism, purchasing fuzzies and utilons separately.
The reasons for the value drift from EA seems to be as important in understanding the process, as the value drift that led to EA, e.g. In Joeyâs post, he gave an illustrative story of Alice. What could explain her value drift was the fact that at people during their first year of college are more prone to social pressure and need for belonging. That could make her become EA and drifted when she left college and her EA peers. So âSurround yourself with value aligned peopleâ for the whole course of your life. That also stresses the importance of untapped potential of local groups outside the main EA hubs. For this reason, itâs worth considering even If in case of outreach we shouldnât rush to translate effective altruism
About the data itself. We might be making wrong inferences trying to explain those date. Because it shows only a fraction of the process and maybe if we would observe the curve of engagement it would fluctuate over a longer period of time, eg. 50% in the first 2-5 year, 10% in a 6th year, 1% in for the next 2-3 and then coming back to 10%, 50% etc.? Me might hypothesize that life situation influence the baseline engagement for short period (1 month- 3 years). As analogous for changes in a baseline of happiness and influences of live events explained by hedonic adaptation, maybe we have sth like altruistic adaptation, that changes after a significant live event (changing the city, marriage etc.) and then comes back to baseline.
Additionally, the level of engagement in EA and other significant variables does not correlate perfectly, the data could also be explained by the regression to the mean. If some of the EAs were hardcore at the beginning, they will tend to be closer to the average on a second measurement, so from 50% to 10%, and those from 10% to 1%. Anyhow, the likelihood that the value drift is true is higher than that itâs not.
More could be done about the vale drift on the structural level, e.g. it might be also explained by the main bottlenecks in the community itself, like the Mid-Tire Trap (e.g. too good for running local group, but no good enough to be hired by main EA organizations â multiple unsuccessful job applications â frustration â drop out).
Becuase mechanism of the value drift would determine the strategies to minimalize risk or harm of it and because the EA community might not be representative for other social movements, we should systematically and empirically explore those and other factors in order to find the 80â20 of long-lasting commitment.
Doing effective altruistic things â Doing Effective Altruism⢠things
All the main Effective Altruism orgs together employ only a few dozen people. There are two orders of magnitude more people interested in Effective Altruism. They canât all work at the main EA orgs.
There are lots of highly impactful opportunities out there that arenât branded as EAâcheck out the career profiles on 80,000hours for reference. Academia, politics, tech startups, doing EtG in random places, etc.
We should be interested in having as high an impact as possible and not in âperforming EA-nessâ.
I do think that EA orgs dominate the conversations within the EA sphere which can lead to this unfortunate effect where people quite understandably feel that the best thing they can do is work there (or at an âEA approvedâ workplace like D pmind or J n Street) - or nothing. Thatâs counterproductive and sad.
A potential explanation: itâs difficult for people to evaluate the highly impactful positions in other fields. Therefore the few organisations and firms we can all agree on are Effectively Altruistic get a disproportionate amount of attention and âstatusâ.
As the community, we should try to encourage to find the highest impact opportunity for them out of many possible options, of which only a tiny fraction is working at EA orgs.
Thanks for your comment, Karolina!
Yep, I see engaging people & keeping up their motivation in one location as a major contribution of EA groups to the movement!
This is an interesting suggestion, though I think it unlikely. It is worth pointing out that most of this discussion is just speculation. The very limited anecdata we have from Joey and others seems too weak to draw detailed conclusions. Anyway: From talking to people who are in their 40s and 50s now, it seems to me that a significant fraction of them were at some point during their youth or at university very engaged in politics and wanted to contribute to âchanging the world for the betterâ. However, most of these people have reduced their altruistic engagement over time and have at some point started a family, bought a house etc. and have never come back to their altruistic roots. This common story is what seems to be captured by the saying (that I neither like nor endorse): âIf youâre not a socialist at the age of 20 you have no heart. If youâre not a conservative at the age of 40, you have no headâ.
This is a valuable and under-discussed point that I endorse!