1.) I think the core problem is that honestly no one (except 80K) actually is investing significant effort on growing the EA community since 2015 (especially comparable to the pre-2015 effort and especially as a percentage of total EA resources)
2.) Some of these examples are suspect. The GiveWell numbers definitely look to be increasing beyond 2015, especially when OpenPhil’s understandably constant fundraising is removed—and this increase in GiveWell seems to line up with GiveWell’s increased investment in their outreach. The OpenPhil numbers also look just to be sensitive to a few dominant eight figure grants, which understandably are not annual events. (Also my understanding is that Open Phil is starting off slowly intentionally but will aim to ramp up significantly in the near future.)
4.) There are still a lot of ways EA is growing other than what is captured in these graphs. For example, I bet something like total budget of EA orgs has been growing a lot even since 2015.
5.) Contrary to the “EA is inert” hypothesis, EA Survey data has shown that many people have been “convinced” of EA. Furthermore, our general population surveys show that the vast majority of people (>95% of US university students) have still not heard of EA.
1.) I think the core problem is that honestly no one (except 80K) actually is investing significant effort on growing the EA community since 2015 (especially comparable to the pre-2015 effort and especially as a percentage of total EA resources)
2.) Some of these examples are suspect. The GiveWell numbers definitely look to be increasing beyond 2015, especially when OpenPhil’s understandably constant fundraising is removed—and this increase in GiveWell seems to line up with GiveWell’s increased investment in their outreach. The OpenPhil numbers also look just to be sensitive to a few dominant eight figure grants, which understandably are not annual events. (Also my understanding is that Open Phil is starting off slowly intentionally but will aim to ramp up significantly in the near future.)
3.) As I capture in “Is EA Growing? EA Growth Metrics for 2018”, many relevant EA growth statistics have peaked after 2015 or haven’t peaked yet.
4.) There are still a lot of ways EA is growing other than what is captured in these graphs. For example, I bet something like total budget of EA orgs has been growing a lot even since 2015.
5.) Contrary to the “EA is inert” hypothesis, EA Survey data has shown that many people have been “convinced” of EA. Furthermore, our general population surveys show that the vast majority of people (>95% of US university students) have still not heard of EA.