Hi Arthur - just to be clear I wouldn't call any part of your post 'lazy'!

Certainly a university group wouldn't be actively speaking to every person on campus. We may just need to be very precise about what we mean, and perhaps even a single dimension of active vs. passive might not cut it. For example I'd say that flyering or mailing lists are more active forms of outreach/exposure than the type of exposure I'm imagining often happens in the general population (like just seeing a news article that mentions EA, possibly disparagingly), and they also offer a route to participation for those interested. Some other dimensions would likely be whether the context of the exposure presents EA as positive or negative, and whether it is coming from the EA community or simply something about EA.

We don't have a direct assessment of 'uptake rates' although maybe, at least for the US, we could look at making something that at least sheds some light on it (e.g., looking at % hearing of EA in US adult demographics, vs. US respondent demographic % in the EA survey - though I think you are right that the EA survey definitely does not capture everyone and we don't strictly know the composition of the 'EA community', unfortunately, which may limit the value of doing this). Of possible interest is that we observed in the most recent Pulse results that 'elite' universities in the US (~top 20 ranked) had higher awareness of EA than other universities. David may have more insight into other findings/data from the EA survey that would be of relevance in terms of outreach/exposure types.

Thanks Arthur for sharing your work on this, and backing it up with relevant numbers and data. Internally, we’ve used an app I developed to help try to get a handle on how levels of awareness in the population might translate to engaged members of the community and vice versa - you can take a look and see if it is in any way helpful in working with some of the numbers/estimates you make in this post.

It might also interest you to know that we have a more recent, more detailed and, we think, more accurate estimate of the number of people who’ve heard of EA in the US, which you can find here (though the app I’ve linked still uses the older numbers you’re referring to, as we made it around the same time that report was released).

I think your overall assessment is right that we shouldn’t expect a massive conversion rate for people merely hearing of EA to becoming highly engaged members of the EA community, and this can temper possible feelings of inadequacy among community builders. That being said, it’s important not to conflate ‘hearing of EA’ with ‘EA outreach’, and also to keep in mind the individual and social context in which outreach or hearing of EA is taking place. 

While the percentage of the population who’ve potentially heard of EA is already rather low, the percentage who’ve been ‘reached out to’ is going to be lower still. Demographic features associated with liking EA are higher amongst university students than the general population. In addition, something like a ‘stages of change’ model likely applies, in which many people attending university may be actively seeking something to dedicate themselves to, or at least actively seeking group or club membership, and are therefore more responsive than gen pop. Finally, the sort of exposure to EA that might occur as a result of a university group outreach/presence on campus and fairs is likely very different and more active than potentially passive exposure that might occur more broadly. These things come together to make university outreach quite different from a random member of the population just coming across EA and deciding to get involved. 

I mention these things because even considering - as you rightly do - the ability of those doing the outreach or people at university having more time or resources, the starting conversion rate of .0068% might plausibly make university outreach seem somewhat hopeless or useless - I’d think you can substantially beat those odds derived just from the gen pop!

[the screenshot is just an example of some of the kinds of output from the app, not substantively anything to consider in terms of the numbers]

Sure, that's a nice/other way of looking at the relationship that is informative, we might include this in the final report. You can see for the permissive assessment its the majority of those with a negative view being aware of FTX.

I think it's important to note that this doesn't mean that 'if more people who currently hold positive views of EA were aware of FTX then they would have negative views' - because it's possible that for some or many of those negative views, perhaps the only or primary way in which they've been exposed to the idea of EA is through the lens of FTX.

Thanks, yes that works now

'even without taking into account other possible benefits of unconditional cash transfers (such as consumption gains)'

Presumably we'll know from the study when it comes out, which will be exciting, but if mother's are spending the money on services related to making their pregnancy/delivery safer, will they also receive the same amount of consumption gains? - I'd think these more general gains would be lower unless the pregnancy related costs are a lot less than the value of the transfer. 

Your second bullet point appears to have been blocked/does not load for me at least

How long would it take for changes such as troop numbers to be implemented and operational? The situation is not just static so China can react - is it possible that if they had serious plans to invade, then raising the prospect that doing so will become impossible by a certain time point may precipitate the very thing you're seeking to avoid?

What percent of my disposable income (After needed expenses) should a young uni student set aside for fuzzies, versus just giving it all to utilons and only doing free fun stuff (e.g. public TV, only donated clothes etc)

Not having any money aside for more than your bare necessities at university will curtail your capacity to experience some of the most important social sides of university. You will end up like an asocial hermit. If you want to think of it in terms of utility then I expect the possible connections and friends you can make by being able to be out more for 'fuzzies' can open up opportunities to make more later that outweigh <500 per year donated. But honestly, 500 per year is 10 per week to spend on yourself, which is almost nothing. Calling it fuzzies IMO underweights the value to you as a human of having these experiences, and you won't be able to have them in the same way after university. If by the end of the year or part way through you've found you haven't spent this money or spending money on such things to be pointless then you can always donate the rest, or back charge it in future years when you are making more.

None of the articles should be behind a paywall. Researchers who have produced research want it to be read. These same researchers are also doing free labor and wasting tons of time editing and reformatting their own work. They also have to review the work of others, for free, for journals. These journals often then charge the authors thousands to publish said work. In turn, the articles are put behind a paywall so people can't even access them.

This sounds like it could be interesting, though I'd also consider if some of the points are fundamentally to do with RCTs. E.g., "80% statistical power meaning 20% chance of missing real effects" - nothing inherently says an RCT should only be powered at 80% or that the approach should even be one of null hypothesis significance testing.