I agree regarding implementation difficulties, particularly long term ones (e.g. losing a visa for a place you were living in with a big EA community) can muddy the waters a lot. Itâs hard to get into the details, but I would generally consider someone not drifted if it was a clearly capacity affecting thing (e.g. they got carpal tunnel) but outside of that they are working on the same projects they would have wanted to in all cases.
A more nuanced view might be break it down into:
âValue change away from EAââdefined as changing fundamental ethical views, maybe changing to valuing people within your country more than outside of it..
âAction change away from EAââdefined as changing one of the fundamental applications of your still similarly held values. Maybe you think being veg is good, but you are no longer veg due to moving to a different, less conducive living situation.
With short and long term versions of both and with it being pretty likely that âvalue changeâ would lead to âaction changeâ over time, I used value drift as a catch-all for both the above. Itâs also how I have heard it commonly used as, but I am open to changing the term to be more descriptive.
âAs 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.â
I strongly agree. These seem to be very different groups. I also think you could even break it down further into âEAs who rationalize doing a bad thing as the most ethical thingâ and âEAs who accept as humans that they have multiple drives they need to trade off betweenâ. Most of my suggestions in the post are aimed at actions one could take now that reduce both âaction changeâ and âvalue changeâ. Once someone has changed I am less sure about what the way forward is, but I think that could warrant more EA thought (e.g. how to re-engage someone who was disconnected for logistical reasons).
On ii)
Sorry to hear you have had trouble with the EA community and children. I think itâs one of the life changes that is generally updated too strongly on by EAs and assuming that a person (of any gender) will definitely value drift upon having children is clearly incorrect. Personally I have found the EAs who I have spoken to who have kids to be unusually reflective about its effects on them compared to other similar life changes, perhaps because it has been more talked about in EA than say partner choice or moving cities. When a couple who plans to have kids has kids and changes their life around that in standard/âexpected ways, I do not see that as a value drift from their previous state (of planning to have kids and planning to have life changes around that).
I also think people will run into problems pretty quickly if they assume that every time someone goes through a life change that the person will change radically and become less EA. I think I see it intuitively as more of a bayesian prior. If someone has been involved in EA for a week and then they are not involved for 2 weeks, it might be sane to consider the possibilities of them not coming back. On the flip side, if an EA has been involved for years and was not involved for 2 weeks, people would think nothing of it. The same holds true for large life changes. Itâs more about the personâs pattern of long term of behavior and a combined âoverallâ perspective.
My list of concerns about a new trend of EAâs ârelaying information about opportunities only informallyâ is so long it will have to be reserved for a whole other blog post.
I still think youâre focussing too much on changed values as opposed to implementation difficulties (I consider lack of motivation an example of those).
With short and long term versions of both and with it being pretty likely that âvalue changeâ would lead to âaction changeâ over time
I think itâs actually usually the other way aroundâaction change comes first, and then value change is a result of that. This also seems to be true for your hypothetical Alice in your comment above. AFAIK itâs a known psychology result that people donât really base their actions on their values, but instead derive their values from their actions.
All in all, I consider the ability to have a high impact EA-wise much more related to someoneâs environment than to someoneâs âtrue self with the right valuesâ.
I would therefore frame the focus on how to get people to have a high impact somewhat differently: How can we set up supportive environments so people are able to execute the necessary actions for having a high impact?
And not how can we lock in people so they donât change their valuesâthough the actual answers to those questions might not be that different.
I second the being sorry about the trouble with EAs and kids. Having kids does make it more difficult to be a 50% EA, but there definitely examples such as Julia Wise/âJeff Kaufman, Toby Ord/âBernadette Young, and myself. As for the gendered response, about 3% of US stay-at-home parents are dads. But one time I thought through my friends, and it was 50%! Granted, they were pretty left-leaning, but so is EA. As an aside, now that young women make more money than young men (largely because women go to college at higher rates than men), if we made the decision just based on money, we could have the majority of stay-at-home parents be dads.
I agree regarding implementation difficulties, particularly long term ones (e.g. losing a visa for a place you were living in with a big EA community) can muddy the waters a lot. Itâs hard to get into the details, but I would generally consider someone not drifted if it was a clearly capacity affecting thing (e.g. they got carpal tunnel) but outside of that they are working on the same projects they would have wanted to in all cases.
A more nuanced view might be break it down into: âValue change away from EAââdefined as changing fundamental ethical views, maybe changing to valuing people within your country more than outside of it.. âAction change away from EAââdefined as changing one of the fundamental applications of your still similarly held values. Maybe you think being veg is good, but you are no longer veg due to moving to a different, less conducive living situation.
With short and long term versions of both and with it being pretty likely that âvalue changeâ would lead to âaction changeâ over time, I used value drift as a catch-all for both the above. Itâs also how I have heard it commonly used as, but I am open to changing the term to be more descriptive.
âAs 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.â
I strongly agree. These seem to be very different groups. I also think you could even break it down further into âEAs who rationalize doing a bad thing as the most ethical thingâ and âEAs who accept as humans that they have multiple drives they need to trade off betweenâ. Most of my suggestions in the post are aimed at actions one could take now that reduce both âaction changeâ and âvalue changeâ. Once someone has changed I am less sure about what the way forward is, but I think that could warrant more EA thought (e.g. how to re-engage someone who was disconnected for logistical reasons).
On ii)
Sorry to hear you have had trouble with the EA community and children. I think itâs one of the life changes that is generally updated too strongly on by EAs and assuming that a person (of any gender) will definitely value drift upon having children is clearly incorrect. Personally I have found the EAs who I have spoken to who have kids to be unusually reflective about its effects on them compared to other similar life changes, perhaps because it has been more talked about in EA than say partner choice or moving cities. When a couple who plans to have kids has kids and changes their life around that in standard/âexpected ways, I do not see that as a value drift from their previous state (of planning to have kids and planning to have life changes around that).
I also think people will run into problems pretty quickly if they assume that every time someone goes through a life change that the person will change radically and become less EA. I think I see it intuitively as more of a bayesian prior. If someone has been involved in EA for a week and then they are not involved for 2 weeks, it might be sane to consider the possibilities of them not coming back. On the flip side, if an EA has been involved for years and was not involved for 2 weeks, people would think nothing of it. The same holds true for large life changes. Itâs more about the personâs pattern of long term of behavior and a combined âoverallâ perspective.
My list of concerns about a new trend of EAâs ârelaying information about opportunities only informallyâ is so long it will have to be reserved for a whole other blog post.
I still think youâre focussing too much on changed values as opposed to implementation difficulties (I consider lack of motivation an example of those).
I think itâs actually usually the other way aroundâaction change comes first, and then value change is a result of that. This also seems to be true for your hypothetical Alice in your comment above. AFAIK itâs a known psychology result that people donât really base their actions on their values, but instead derive their values from their actions.
All in all, I consider the ability to have a high impact EA-wise much more related to someoneâs environment than to someoneâs âtrue self with the right valuesâ. I would therefore frame the focus on how to get people to have a high impact somewhat differently: How can we set up supportive environments so people are able to execute the necessary actions for having a high impact?
And not how can we lock in people so they donât change their valuesâthough the actual answers to those questions might not be that different.
I second the being sorry about the trouble with EAs and kids. Having kids does make it more difficult to be a 50% EA, but there definitely examples such as Julia Wise/âJeff Kaufman, Toby Ord/âBernadette Young, and myself. As for the gendered response, about 3% of US stay-at-home parents are dads. But one time I thought through my friends, and it was 50%! Granted, they were pretty left-leaning, but so is EA. As an aside, now that young women make more money than young men (largely because women go to college at higher rates than men), if we made the decision just based on money, we could have the majority of stay-at-home parents be dads.