summary: changes in people’s “values” aren’t the same as changes in their involvement in EA and this analysis treats the two as the same thing; also, some observations from my own friendgroup on values changes v. retention
It sounds like no differentiation between “lowered involvement in EA and change in preferences” and “lowered involvement in EA while remaining equally altruistic” was made here, given the wording used in “The Data” section.
I can think of 3 people I’ve known who were previously EAs (by your six-months involvement definition) and then left, but who remained as altruistic as before, and two more who really liked the core ideas but bounced off within the first month and remained as altruistic as before. There’s 2 I know (both met the six months involvement measure) who left and ended up being less altruistic afterwards.
Which, really, is irrelevant, since you’d need a much more systematic effort at data collection to reach any serious conclusions about ‘value drift’, but changes in people’s “values” aren’t the same as changes in their involvement in EA. I’m sure there’s some non-EA literature on values and changes in values you’d benefit from engaging with.
(The two who became less altruistic were riding a surge of hope related to transhumanism that died down with time, and they left when that went out; the other five left for some mix of disliking the social atmosphere of EA and thinking it ineffective at reaching its stated goals. These are very different types of reasons to leave EA! I put scare quotes around values and value drift because I find it more informative to look at what actions people take rather than what values are important to them.)
summary: changes in people’s “values” aren’t the same as changes in their involvement in EA and this analysis treats the two as the same thing; also, some observations from my own friendgroup on values changes v. retention
It sounds like no differentiation between “lowered involvement in EA and change in preferences” and “lowered involvement in EA while remaining equally altruistic” was made here, given the wording used in “The Data” section.
I can think of 3 people I’ve known who were previously EAs (by your six-months involvement definition) and then left, but who remained as altruistic as before, and two more who really liked the core ideas but bounced off within the first month and remained as altruistic as before. There’s 2 I know (both met the six months involvement measure) who left and ended up being less altruistic afterwards.
Which, really, is irrelevant, since you’d need a much more systematic effort at data collection to reach any serious conclusions about ‘value drift’, but changes in people’s “values” aren’t the same as changes in their involvement in EA. I’m sure there’s some non-EA literature on values and changes in values you’d benefit from engaging with.
(The two who became less altruistic were riding a surge of hope related to transhumanism that died down with time, and they left when that went out; the other five left for some mix of disliking the social atmosphere of EA and thinking it ineffective at reaching its stated goals. These are very different types of reasons to leave EA! I put scare quotes around values and value drift because I find it more informative to look at what actions people take rather than what values are important to them.)