Thanks Luke, for this extremely thoughtful and informative comment!
The dashboard is a fantastic resource, very impressive. I poked around a bit and noticed that the “monthly active effective givers” series look a lot less spikey than the pledge data (which makes sense). It seems like the various permutations of the active effective givers metrics (pledged, unpledged, reported, facilitated, one-off, recurring) all follow a pretty similar patterns: many years of growth (with some periods growing faster than others and some rare short flattish periods for some metrics) with spikes in December that get higher each year. Then starting at the beginning of 2023 theses metrics flatten out or show modest declines. If I’m understanding your view correctly, you would attribute that change to some combination of poor financial market performance (starting in early 2022), reduced outreach after FTX collapsed, reduced community advocacy due to FTX, and reduced community advocacy due to non-FTX factors. Is that a fair characterization?
Regarding reduced community advocacy for GWWC, have you seen any signs of this dynamic easing? FTX was in late 2022 and the “series of other difficult issues” was mostly in early 2023, so I’m curious whether you think these issues are still as impactful as they were right after they occurred. Also, do you think the other issues would have had as much of an impact if FTX hadn’t just happened? My sense is that e.g. the Bostrom incident wouldn’t have had much impact in isolation but the accumulation of things turned into a problem; I’d love to hear your take on this.
No strong signs yet. This upcoming giving season will be a true test of that though.
I’m curious whether you think these issues are still as impactful as they were right after they occurred.
My impression is that it’s less, but far from back to normal. Also bearing in mind that “normal” is hard to define (especially with GWWC) as a lot has changed over the last decade!
Also, do you think the other issues would have had as much of an impact if FTX hadn’t just happened? My sense is that e.g. the Bostrom incident wouldn’t have had much impact in isolation but the accumulation of things turned into a problem; I’d love to hear your take on this.
My impression is that that there was a confluence of things that peaking around the FTX-collapse. There was building hostility towards some of the more avant garde EA ideas an actions of those associated with EA[1] (towards both accurate and also misrepresentations of those ideas and actions) that seemed to get traction around just prior to the launch of WWOTF which meant there were a lot of people/opinions that got a lot more light when WWOTF was getting lots of attention and FTX failed so spectacularly. Then there was so much energy and angst in the system (both within the community and its critics) that I think the other issues compounded more than any individual one would have. The confluence of all this has sadly left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths that costs fairly uncontroversially good things a lot in terms of action and advocacy.
Thanks Luke, for this extremely thoughtful and informative comment!
The dashboard is a fantastic resource, very impressive. I poked around a bit and noticed that the “monthly active effective givers” series look a lot less spikey than the pledge data (which makes sense). It seems like the various permutations of the active effective givers metrics (pledged, unpledged, reported, facilitated, one-off, recurring) all follow a pretty similar patterns: many years of growth (with some periods growing faster than others and some rare short flattish periods for some metrics) with spikes in December that get higher each year. Then starting at the beginning of 2023 theses metrics flatten out or show modest declines. If I’m understanding your view correctly, you would attribute that change to some combination of poor financial market performance (starting in early 2022), reduced outreach after FTX collapsed, reduced community advocacy due to FTX, and reduced community advocacy due to non-FTX factors. Is that a fair characterization?
Regarding reduced community advocacy for GWWC, have you seen any signs of this dynamic easing? FTX was in late 2022 and the “series of other difficult issues” was mostly in early 2023, so I’m curious whether you think these issues are still as impactful as they were right after they occurred. Also, do you think the other issues would have had as much of an impact if FTX hadn’t just happened? My sense is that e.g. the Bostrom incident wouldn’t have had much impact in isolation but the accumulation of things turned into a problem; I’d love to hear your take on this.
Thanks 😀 Glad it was helpful!
Yep!
No strong signs yet. This upcoming giving season will be a true test of that though.
My impression is that it’s less, but far from back to normal. Also bearing in mind that “normal” is hard to define (especially with GWWC) as a lot has changed over the last decade!
My impression is that that there was a confluence of things that peaking around the FTX-collapse. There was building hostility towards some of the more avant garde EA ideas an actions of those associated with EA[1] (towards both accurate and also misrepresentations of those ideas and actions) that seemed to get traction around just prior to the launch of WWOTF which meant there were a lot of people/opinions that got a lot more light when WWOTF was getting lots of attention and FTX failed so spectacularly. Then there was so much energy and angst in the system (both within the community and its critics) that I think the other issues compounded more than any individual one would have. The confluence of all this has sadly left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths that costs fairly uncontroversially good things a lot in terms of action and advocacy.
e.g. actions related to the influx of money
Thanks for taking the time to write this! Very helpful to get your perspective!