So, there were 2 questions, one speaking to how people “learned about EA” and one to how they “ended up getting properly committed”:
“How did you first hear about ‘Effective Altruism’?” (single response)
“Which factors were important in ‘getting you into’ Effective Altruism, or altering your actions in its direction?” (multiple response)
The second question covers the intersection you describe; I think you can see the overlap by selecting it as both the primary and secondary categories at http://pappubahry.com/misc/ea_survey/ . Beyond that, we don’t have any data (except comments at the end of the survey). I don’t know of course, but I’d guess that in your case talking to friends was important in getting you into it and attending local group events regularly maybe wasn’t—even if those friends attended local group events.
Thanks, that’s interesting. The reason I was thinking that it might be more accurately attributed to a local group was that it seems unlikely I would have really formed friendships with any of the people around if they hadn’t been setting up Giving What We Can.
Ah, OK—I was thinking of you being friends with Will MacAskill before from being in his masters cohort. I guess the central GWWC organisation in Oxford counts as a local group, just of a different sort than I was thinking of! (And then of course you’d have gone to events GWWC put on in Oxford University too.)
So, there were 2 questions, one speaking to how people “learned about EA” and one to how they “ended up getting properly committed”:
“How did you first hear about ‘Effective Altruism’?” (single response)
“Which factors were important in ‘getting you into’ Effective Altruism, or altering your actions in its direction?” (multiple response)
The second question covers the intersection you describe; I think you can see the overlap by selecting it as both the primary and secondary categories at http://pappubahry.com/misc/ea_survey/ . Beyond that, we don’t have any data (except comments at the end of the survey). I don’t know of course, but I’d guess that in your case talking to friends was important in getting you into it and attending local group events regularly maybe wasn’t—even if those friends attended local group events.
Thanks, that’s interesting. The reason I was thinking that it might be more accurately attributed to a local group was that it seems unlikely I would have really formed friendships with any of the people around if they hadn’t been setting up Giving What We Can.
Ah, OK—I was thinking of you being friends with Will MacAskill before from being in his masters cohort. I guess the central GWWC organisation in Oxford counts as a local group, just of a different sort than I was thinking of! (And then of course you’d have gone to events GWWC put on in Oxford University too.)