I hear your concerns, and thank you for sharing them!
I think the issue of “making everything about altruism” is an important one to address. However, we seem to have different takes on how to go about this.
Let’s take a bird’s eye-view of our society. Currently, we have the consumer industry predominating our cultural space. The consumer industry creates a hedonistic treadmill around all aspects of our lives, including holidays. Valentine’s Day is a classic example of a Hallmark Holiday, popularized by the consumer industry to inspire the population to buy stuff.
Now, I see our goal as trying to channel people’s money into effective charity instead of consumerism. By comparison to the messages of consumerism out there, we’re a tiny drop in the bucket. If we get even a bit more of our message out there, it would be a wonderful thing, I think. This article is an example of an effort to redirect a tiny proportion of that huge Valentine’s Day spending into effective charities.
You postulate that for people who aren’t EAs, this seems spammy. I would love it if that was the case! It would mean they were regularly exposed to such messages. From an effective giving marketing perspective, it would be a dream scenario. It’s also incredibly unlikely to happen, given the current systemtic incentives.
Now, you might mean that it feels spammy to you. Might it be that you’re more exposed to such messages than most people? I know that already a number of people indicated to me they will pursue this course of action. How much money has already been redirected toward effective charities because of that?
Here’s some further evidence. Judging by the fact that this post got 500 FB likes the first day it was posted on The Life You Can Save Blog, which is followed by EAs and non-EAs, people are not finding it spammy. Note, the baseline for posts on TLYCS blog is about 100-200 likes over their lifetime, not the first day.
Here’s another piece of evidence. It was just accepted for publication to The Plain Dealer, the 16th largest newspaper in the US. They would be highly unlikely to accept anything their audience would find as spammy.
Finally, regarding romance. This is something on which people will differ. If altruism doesn’t float someone’s romantic bubble, well cool—no pressure. For me, and potentially many others, it does. Regarding romance, I think of it as a feeling that I want to help the other person have a great life, be happy, and flourish, and a confidence that they want the same for me, with sex thrown in. That’s perfectly compatible with altruism for me, but different people define romance differently :-P
Hope that helps relieve your concerns, and much appreciate you raising these issues!
The reason for posting it on the EA forum is that there were some EAs who decided to change their Valentine’s Day rituals after reading this article. If others who read the EA Forum do so, then it’s more money going to effective charities. Seems like a worthwhile aim to me!
You postulate that for people who aren’t EAs, this seems spammy. I would love it if that was the case! It would mean they were regularly exposed to such messages.
I don’t think that “spammy” just means “messages that the viewer often sees”. I can’t really put into words what I think it does mean, but if someone had a post like this about how the best Valentine’s Day gift was to donate to a fund that provided good architecture in cities, I would consider that spammy (unless it was really well-written, interesting, and not written by an organisation dedicated to promoting good architecture).
It was just accepted for publication to The Plain Dealer, the 16th largest newspaper in the US. They would be highly unlikely to accept anything their audience would find as spammy.
This is evidence, but my intuition is that it isn’t very strong. I know that some of the largest newspapers in Australia print things which I would think of as low-quality and bordering on spammy. I also find it plausible that the 16th largest newspaper in the US might occasionally have trouble getting content, and would have to accept unusually low quality content.
That being said, I also think it’s probable that different people have different criteria for what strikes them as spammy, and that there’s a significant proportion of people to whom this isn’t spammy.
I also find it plausible that the 16th largest newspaper in the US might occasionally have trouble getting content, and would have to accept unusually low quality content.
As someone who has studied PR quite extensively, I can assure you that the 16th largest newspaper in the US has no trouble getting content :-) It reaches over 400,000 people with its Sunday edition, which is the only venue where editorials are printed, and has 5,000,000 unique visitors online per month. This is a huge impact, and regularly has publications from major national figures. Making a rough Fermi estimate, if even .1% of the Sunday edition readers and .01% of the monthly website visitors try out this strategy, this is 400 50 2 + 500 50 2 money redirected toward charity from consumerism.
I hear your concerns, and thank you for sharing them!
I think the issue of “making everything about altruism” is an important one to address. However, we seem to have different takes on how to go about this.
Let’s take a bird’s eye-view of our society. Currently, we have the consumer industry predominating our cultural space. The consumer industry creates a hedonistic treadmill around all aspects of our lives, including holidays. Valentine’s Day is a classic example of a Hallmark Holiday, popularized by the consumer industry to inspire the population to buy stuff.
Now, I see our goal as trying to channel people’s money into effective charity instead of consumerism. By comparison to the messages of consumerism out there, we’re a tiny drop in the bucket. If we get even a bit more of our message out there, it would be a wonderful thing, I think. This article is an example of an effort to redirect a tiny proportion of that huge Valentine’s Day spending into effective charities.
You postulate that for people who aren’t EAs, this seems spammy. I would love it if that was the case! It would mean they were regularly exposed to such messages. From an effective giving marketing perspective, it would be a dream scenario. It’s also incredibly unlikely to happen, given the current systemtic incentives.
Now, you might mean that it feels spammy to you. Might it be that you’re more exposed to such messages than most people? I know that already a number of people indicated to me they will pursue this course of action. How much money has already been redirected toward effective charities because of that?
Here’s some further evidence. Judging by the fact that this post got 500 FB likes the first day it was posted on The Life You Can Save Blog, which is followed by EAs and non-EAs, people are not finding it spammy. Note, the baseline for posts on TLYCS blog is about 100-200 likes over their lifetime, not the first day.
Here’s another piece of evidence. It was just accepted for publication to The Plain Dealer, the 16th largest newspaper in the US. They would be highly unlikely to accept anything their audience would find as spammy.
Finally, regarding romance. This is something on which people will differ. If altruism doesn’t float someone’s romantic bubble, well cool—no pressure. For me, and potentially many others, it does. Regarding romance, I think of it as a feeling that I want to help the other person have a great life, be happy, and flourish, and a confidence that they want the same for me, with sex thrown in. That’s perfectly compatible with altruism for me, but different people define romance differently :-P
Hope that helps relieve your concerns, and much appreciate you raising these issues!
It can be ‘spammy’ on the EA Forum, and not so on other publications.
Yep, it’s not repetitive and will contain fresh information in publications like a newspaper!
The reason for posting it on the EA forum is that there were some EAs who decided to change their Valentine’s Day rituals after reading this article. If others who read the EA Forum do so, then it’s more money going to effective charities. Seems like a worthwhile aim to me!
I don’t think that “spammy” just means “messages that the viewer often sees”. I can’t really put into words what I think it does mean, but if someone had a post like this about how the best Valentine’s Day gift was to donate to a fund that provided good architecture in cities, I would consider that spammy (unless it was really well-written, interesting, and not written by an organisation dedicated to promoting good architecture).
This is evidence, but my intuition is that it isn’t very strong. I know that some of the largest newspapers in Australia print things which I would think of as low-quality and bordering on spammy. I also find it plausible that the 16th largest newspaper in the US might occasionally have trouble getting content, and would have to accept unusually low quality content.
That being said, I also think it’s probable that different people have different criteria for what strikes them as spammy, and that there’s a significant proportion of people to whom this isn’t spammy.
As someone who has studied PR quite extensively, I can assure you that the 16th largest newspaper in the US has no trouble getting content :-) It reaches over 400,000 people with its Sunday edition, which is the only venue where editorials are printed, and has 5,000,000 unique visitors online per month. This is a huge impact, and regularly has publications from major national figures. Making a rough Fermi estimate, if even .1% of the Sunday edition readers and .01% of the monthly website visitors try out this strategy, this is 400 50 2 + 500 50 2 money redirected toward charity from consumerism.
That’s good evidence although spamminess is not dichotomous.