Giving Compass' Take:

• This post from the Effective Altruism Forum discusses ways that those who adhere to EA principles can stick with them, despite obstacles.

• Even for those who aren't proponents of EA, these lessons are useful for sticking with any charity or value-aligned mission. How can you or your organization avoid drifting?

• Here's a full explanation of what EA is and how it operates.

This post is motivated by Joey’s recent post on "Empirical data on value drift" [in Effective Altruism] and some of the comments. Its purpose is not to argue for why you should avoid value drift, but to provide you with ideas and tools for how you can avoid it if you want to do so.

What you can do to reduce risks of value drift:

Beware of falling prey to cognitive biases when thinking about value drift: You probably systematically underestimate a) the likelihood of changing significantly in the future (i.e. End-of-history-illusion) and b) the role that social dynamics play in your motivation. There is a danger in believing both that your fundamental values will not change or that you have control over how they will change, and in believing that your mind works radically differently from other people (e.g. atypical mind fallacy or bias blind spot); for instance, that your motivation is grounded more in rational arguments than it is for others and less in social dynamics. In particular, beware of base rate neglect when thinking that the risk of value drift occurring to your own person is very low; Joey’s post provides a very rough base rate for orientation.

Surround yourself with value aligned people: There is a saying that you become the average of the five people closest to you. Therefore, surround yourself with people who motivate and inspire you in your altruistic pursuits. From this perspective, it seems especially beneficial to spend time with other EAs to hold up and regain your motivation; though ‘value aligned’ people don’t have to be EAs, of course.

Read the full article about ways to reduce risk of EA value drift by Darius Meissner at Effective Altruism Forum.