This is an interesting analysis, thanks for writing it up!
One aspect of the “waves” of Ben’s post that this doesn’t touch on is how the community has responded to varying levels of funding availability. When there were a lot more things that clearly needed doing than money to fund them (say, pre-2016, when OP really got going) there was a lot of emphasis on earning to give, effective volunteering, frugality, etc. Then as money became less of the limiting constraint the culture shifted. I don’t think this is reflected much in EA forum topic choice, because there wasn’t a huge amount to say along these lines, but it felt like a very different movement to be in.
I also think that in as much as waves were about what topics EAs prioritized, the shift from helping others in bad conditions in the near future (global poverty, animals) to trying to reduce the risk of extinction (ai, bio, etc) has been stronger the farther people are from the core of the movement. Early broad audience writing mostly pushed the former, and more recently has pushed the latter. All along, though, both have been heavily represented within the core, and the Forum mostly reflects that. I’d predict you’d see a clearer topic shift if you looked at what EA Survey respondents think are the top priority and where they say they’re donating to.
This is an interesting analysis, thanks for writing it up!
One aspect of the “waves” of Ben’s post that this doesn’t touch on is how the community has responded to varying levels of funding availability. When there were a lot more things that clearly needed doing than money to fund them (say, pre-2016, when OP really got going) there was a lot of emphasis on earning to give, effective volunteering, frugality, etc. Then as money became less of the limiting constraint the culture shifted. I don’t think this is reflected much in EA forum topic choice, because there wasn’t a huge amount to say along these lines, but it felt like a very different movement to be in.
I also think that in as much as waves were about what topics EAs prioritized, the shift from helping others in bad conditions in the near future (global poverty, animals) to trying to reduce the risk of extinction (ai, bio, etc) has been stronger the farther people are from the core of the movement. Early broad audience writing mostly pushed the former, and more recently has pushed the latter. All along, though, both have been heavily represented within the core, and the Forum mostly reflects that. I’d predict you’d see a clearer topic shift if you looked at what EA Survey respondents think are the top priority and where they say they’re donating to.
EDIT: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/83tEL2sHDTiWR6nwo/ea-survey-2020-cause-prioritization has a chart, and while I’m not that happy with their cause groupings it does show real change: