The main intervention they care about to reduce drifting towards non-altruism is increasing involvement with the Effective Altruism community. Iāve not seen any justification for focusing (exclusively) on that.
The first point Iād make here is that Iād guess people writing on these topics arenāt necessarily primarily focused on a single dimension from more to less altruism. Instead, Iād guess they see the package of values and ideas associated with EA as being particularly useful and particularly likely to increase how much positive impact someone has. To illustrate, Iād rather have someone donating 5% of their income to any of the EA Funds than donating 10% of their income to a guide dog charity, even if the latter person may be āmore altruisticā.
I donāt think EA is the only package of values and ideas that can cause someone to be quite impactful, but it does seem an unusually good and reliable package.
Relatedly, I care a lot less about drifts away from altruism among people who arenāt likely to be very effectively altruistic anyway than among people who are.
So if Iām more concerned about drift away from an EA-ish package of values than just away from altruism, and if Iām more concerned about drift away from altruism among relatively effectiveness-minded people than less effectiveness-minded people, I think it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to levels of involvement in the EA community. (See also.) Of course, someone can keep the values and behaviours without being involved in the community, as you note, but being in the community likely helps a lot of people retain and effectively act on those values.
And then, as discussed in Toddās post, we do have evidence that levels of engagement with the EA community reduces drop-out rates. (Which is not identical to value drift, and thatās worth noting, but it still seems important and correlated.)
Finally, I think most of the other 9 areas you mention seem like they already receive substantial non-EA attention and would be hard to cost-effectively influence. That said, this doesnāt mean EAs shouldnāt think about such things at all.
The post Reducing long-term risks from malevolent actors is arguably one example of EAs considering efforts that would have that sort of scope and difficulty and that would potentially, in effect, increase altruism (though thatās not the primary focus/āframing). And Iām currently doing some related research myself. But it does seem like things in this area will be less tractable and neglected than many things EAs think about.
levels of engagement with the EA community reduces drop-out rates
ādrop-outā meaning 0 engagement, right? so the claim has the form of āthe more you do X, the less likely you are of stopping doing X completelyā. itās not clear to me to which extent itās causal, but yeah, still seems useful info!
I think most of the other 9 areas you mention seem like they already receive substantial non-EA attention
oh, thatās plausible!
The post Reducing long-term risks from malevolent actors is arguably one example of EAs considering efforts that would have that sort of scope and difficulty and that would potentially, in effect, increase altruism
Good point! In my post, I was mostly thinking at the individual level. Looking at a population level and on a longer term horizon, I should probably add other possible interventions such as:
Incentives to have children (political, economical, social)
ādrop-outā meaning 0 engagement, right? so the claim has the form of āthe more you do X, the less likely you are of stopping doing X completelyā. itās not clear to me to which extent itās causal, but yeah, still seems useful info!
I can see why āwe do have evidence that levels of engagement with the EA community reduces drop-out ratesā might sound like a somewhat empty/ātautological sentence. (Then thereās also the question of causality, which Iāll get to at the the end.) But I think itās meaningful when you consider Toddās definitions (which I perhaps shouldāve quoted before).
He defines the drop out rate as āthe rate at which people both (i) stop engaging with the effective altruism community and (ii) stop working on paths commonly considered high-impact within the communityā (emphasis added).
And I donāt think he precisely defines engagement, but he writes:
My guess is that the most significant factor [in drop-out rates] is someoneās degree of social integrationāi.e. I expect that people with friends or colleagues who are into EA are less likely to drop out of the community.
Relatedly, I think the degree to which someone identifies with EA will be important. For instance, someone who has been featured in the media as being into EA seems much less likely to drop out. We could think of both of these as aspects of āengagementā.
So I think the claim is something like āmore social integration into EA and identification as an EA at time 1 predicts a higher chance of staying engaged with EA and still pursuing paths commonly considered high-impact at time 2ā.
(Iād encourage people to read Toddās post for more details; these are just my quick comments.)
Then there is of course still the question of causality: Is this because engagement reduces drop out, or because some other factor (e.g., being the sort of person who EA really fits with) both increases engagement and reduces drop out? My guess is that both are true to a significant extent, but Iām not sure if we have any data on that.
The first point Iād make here is that Iād guess people writing on these topics arenāt necessarily primarily focused on a single dimension from more to less altruism. Instead, Iād guess they see the package of values and ideas associated with EA as being particularly useful and particularly likely to increase how much positive impact someone has. To illustrate, Iād rather have someone donating 5% of their income to any of the EA Funds than donating 10% of their income to a guide dog charity, even if the latter person may be āmore altruisticā.
I donāt think EA is the only package of values and ideas that can cause someone to be quite impactful, but it does seem an unusually good and reliable package.
Relatedly, I care a lot less about drifts away from altruism among people who arenāt likely to be very effectively altruistic anyway than among people who are.
So if Iām more concerned about drift away from an EA-ish package of values than just away from altruism, and if Iām more concerned about drift away from altruism among relatively effectiveness-minded people than less effectiveness-minded people, I think it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to levels of involvement in the EA community. (See also.) Of course, someone can keep the values and behaviours without being involved in the community, as you note, but being in the community likely helps a lot of people retain and effectively act on those values.
And then, as discussed in Toddās post, we do have evidence that levels of engagement with the EA community reduces drop-out rates. (Which is not identical to value drift, and thatās worth noting, but it still seems important and correlated.)
Finally, I think most of the other 9 areas you mention seem like they already receive substantial non-EA attention and would be hard to cost-effectively influence. That said, this doesnāt mean EAs shouldnāt think about such things at all.
The post Reducing long-term risks from malevolent actors is arguably one example of EAs considering efforts that would have that sort of scope and difficulty and that would potentially, in effect, increase altruism (though thatās not the primary focus/āframing). And Iām currently doing some related research myself. But it does seem like things in this area will be less tractable and neglected than many things EAs think about.
Thanks!
I agree with your precisions.
ādrop-outā meaning 0 engagement, right? so the claim has the form of āthe more you do X, the less likely you are of stopping doing X completelyā. itās not clear to me to which extent itās causal, but yeah, still seems useful info!
oh, thatās plausible!
Good point! In my post, I was mostly thinking at the individual level. Looking at a population level and on a longer term horizon, I should probably add other possible interventions such as:
Incentives to have children (political, economical, social)
Immigration policies
Economic system
Genetic engineering
Dating dynamics
Cultural evolution
I can see why āwe do have evidence that levels of engagement with the EA community reduces drop-out ratesā might sound like a somewhat empty/ātautological sentence. (Then thereās also the question of causality, which Iāll get to at the the end.) But I think itās meaningful when you consider Toddās definitions (which I perhaps shouldāve quoted before).
He defines the drop out rate as āthe rate at which people both (i) stop engaging with the effective altruism community and (ii) stop working on paths commonly considered high-impact within the communityā (emphasis added).
And I donāt think he precisely defines engagement, but he writes:
So I think the claim is something like āmore social integration into EA and identification as an EA at time 1 predicts a higher chance of staying engaged with EA and still pursuing paths commonly considered high-impact at time 2ā.
(Iād encourage people to read Toddās post for more details; these are just my quick comments.)
Then there is of course still the question of causality: Is this because engagement reduces drop out, or because some other factor (e.g., being the sort of person who EA really fits with) both increases engagement and reduces drop out? My guess is that both are true to a significant extent, but Iām not sure if we have any data on that.
I see, thanks!