I’ve got some concerns about how “brand management” might be a shiny veneer to cover >”centralization” from Oxford or the Bay Area, and what the consequences of it may be. >These concerns aren’t about projects in Oxford, per se, but about some aspects of Effective >Altruism Outreach. I’ll save most of them for a later post on the subject broadly. My question >now is: how much will EA Outreach focus upon centralizing and narrowing who shares >information, and to what extent will you make attempts at tamping down other voices in the >movement in terms of “damage control”.
Impala:
That would explain how concerned people mostly come from these places, and why they >have unusually high concern for a social movement.
Thanks for raising this concern. I think that a post on the topic would be really valuable—we certainly don’t want to lose the benefits of diversity, to shut down debate, or to become a bottleneck. I don’t think we have unusually high concern regarding branding within a relevant reference class - almost all businesses are highly concerned by brand; free market promoters are highly brand-concerned. Even PETA is highly concerned by brand management in its own way—e.g. using models and celebrities to push v*ganism as ‘sexy’. For movements with unfortunate brands (I’d put animal rights, feminism, and to some extent environmentalism), that seems like a big problem and one we want to avoid. It’s also a co-ordination problem (see ‘the unilateralist’s curse’), and if you’ve got a diverse range of groups within the movement who differ pretty fundamentally then co-ordination is going to be difficult—and I think that may explain why they suffer these branding issues. This is something we really should try to avoid. (Also, you mention the Bay as well—my impression, which might be wrong (based on conversations with Geoff Anders), is that they agree that it’s a bad problem, but think that there’s not much we can do about it and so don’t actually spend much time on it. I think it’s worth trying, but I agree it’s a judgment call).
In terms of concern for this—this is something I’ve changed my view on a lot over the last 5 years. Because there’s so much bullshit-speak surrounding brand management, I was initially very skeptical of its value. But experience with the different orgs has made me switch my view a lot. The most important example of this was back when 80k was ‘High Impact Careers’ and was quite aggressive in its marketing—focusing on earning to give and banking/doctors comparisons. This was a disaster. People thought we were being deliberately contrarian (and they were right), and we’re even still trying to overcome the impression that 80k is only about promoting earning-to-give. Also people lost the message—e.g. some people thought we were promoting finance in its own right; many people didn’t realise that charity effectiveness is a core part of the argument.
The most important example of this was back when 80k was ‘High Impact Careers’ and was quite aggressive in its marketing—focusing on earning to give and banking/doctors comparisons. This was a disaster
Interesting—what metrics are you thinking of when you say it was a disaster?
Thanks for the response. I didn’t notice this until just now. I believe it’s harder to screw up with brand management than without, so we should try. I think part of the problem could be solved with the EA Advocates project, or something like it, which I wasn’t aware of when I made my original comment. Having advocates which are geographically distributed, and don’t all come from the same culture, e.g., academia, or high-tech industry, may send the signal effective altruism is about whichever individuals are passionate about it, and isn’t just a fancy label for those from one group. I think indicating how effective altruism is a distributed network could help solve coordination problems, because various advocates can act as sounding boards for newcomers, whether on the basis of location or cause of interest.
One reason I distinguished the Bay Area from Oxford is because what reference class for effective altruism promotes is somewhat different. Even more than just “non-profit” in general, the Centre for Effective Altruism is located among what people typically think of “philanthropy”. It’s orientation and association with giving pledges, academia and policy recommendation, all seem to make the leap from default to explicitly effective altruism more intuitive. The CEA, with e.g., The Life You Can Save and Giving What We Can, seems able to create a coherent culture.
The Bay Area is more all over the place. First of all, it doesn’t have “center”. In the United States, effective altruism is primarily associated with Givewell, but its culture is primarily programmed by Leverage Research, and its grass-roots advocates hail from a wider diversity of causes across the Internet, who don’t communicate as much with each other. On one hand, for-profit high-tech social entrepreneurship, or whatever, is seen by some effective altruists in the Bay Area as the way the most good can be achieved. This lean startup culture bleeds into the promise of emerging technologies, and the high-minded vision of e.g., Geoff Anders, or Eliezer Yudkowsky. Then, I can turn around, and the next effective altruist I talk to is in favor of not only a radical cause, but pushes it with radical action, such as Direct Action Everywhere.
If I talk to a student from Harvard, Yale, or Oxbridge, I can trace their effective altruism back to your work, or Peter Singer’s. There isn’t an intuitive prototype for effective altruism in California. It’s more chaotic. I don’t think this is a bad thing in terms of action. I think it would make brand management more difficult. However, I think this eclectic culture could be swamped from the influx of whoever’s exposed to effective altruism by your and Singer’s new books. Overall, I now think brand management will work better if effective altruism is seen as a coherent set of ideas distinct from its related cause areas which are not intuitively related to altruism, like high-tech business, or which are more volatile and controversial, such as radical veganism.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I think a big issue here is whether businesses or social movements are the right reference class. I think it’s the second, and social movement don’t usually try to do the sort of brand management of what other activists or groups do that I see in effective altruism.
Evan:
Impala:
Thanks for raising this concern. I think that a post on the topic would be really valuable—we certainly don’t want to lose the benefits of diversity, to shut down debate, or to become a bottleneck. I don’t think we have unusually high concern regarding branding within a relevant reference class - almost all businesses are highly concerned by brand; free market promoters are highly brand-concerned. Even PETA is highly concerned by brand management in its own way—e.g. using models and celebrities to push v*ganism as ‘sexy’. For movements with unfortunate brands (I’d put animal rights, feminism, and to some extent environmentalism), that seems like a big problem and one we want to avoid. It’s also a co-ordination problem (see ‘the unilateralist’s curse’), and if you’ve got a diverse range of groups within the movement who differ pretty fundamentally then co-ordination is going to be difficult—and I think that may explain why they suffer these branding issues. This is something we really should try to avoid. (Also, you mention the Bay as well—my impression, which might be wrong (based on conversations with Geoff Anders), is that they agree that it’s a bad problem, but think that there’s not much we can do about it and so don’t actually spend much time on it. I think it’s worth trying, but I agree it’s a judgment call).
In terms of concern for this—this is something I’ve changed my view on a lot over the last 5 years. Because there’s so much bullshit-speak surrounding brand management, I was initially very skeptical of its value. But experience with the different orgs has made me switch my view a lot. The most important example of this was back when 80k was ‘High Impact Careers’ and was quite aggressive in its marketing—focusing on earning to give and banking/doctors comparisons. This was a disaster. People thought we were being deliberately contrarian (and they were right), and we’re even still trying to overcome the impression that 80k is only about promoting earning-to-give. Also people lost the message—e.g. some people thought we were promoting finance in its own right; many people didn’t realise that charity effectiveness is a core part of the argument.
Interesting—what metrics are you thinking of when you say it was a disaster?
Thanks for the response. I didn’t notice this until just now. I believe it’s harder to screw up with brand management than without, so we should try. I think part of the problem could be solved with the EA Advocates project, or something like it, which I wasn’t aware of when I made my original comment. Having advocates which are geographically distributed, and don’t all come from the same culture, e.g., academia, or high-tech industry, may send the signal effective altruism is about whichever individuals are passionate about it, and isn’t just a fancy label for those from one group. I think indicating how effective altruism is a distributed network could help solve coordination problems, because various advocates can act as sounding boards for newcomers, whether on the basis of location or cause of interest.
One reason I distinguished the Bay Area from Oxford is because what reference class for effective altruism promotes is somewhat different. Even more than just “non-profit” in general, the Centre for Effective Altruism is located among what people typically think of “philanthropy”. It’s orientation and association with giving pledges, academia and policy recommendation, all seem to make the leap from default to explicitly effective altruism more intuitive. The CEA, with e.g., The Life You Can Save and Giving What We Can, seems able to create a coherent culture.
The Bay Area is more all over the place. First of all, it doesn’t have “center”. In the United States, effective altruism is primarily associated with Givewell, but its culture is primarily programmed by Leverage Research, and its grass-roots advocates hail from a wider diversity of causes across the Internet, who don’t communicate as much with each other. On one hand, for-profit high-tech social entrepreneurship, or whatever, is seen by some effective altruists in the Bay Area as the way the most good can be achieved. This lean startup culture bleeds into the promise of emerging technologies, and the high-minded vision of e.g., Geoff Anders, or Eliezer Yudkowsky. Then, I can turn around, and the next effective altruist I talk to is in favor of not only a radical cause, but pushes it with radical action, such as Direct Action Everywhere.
If I talk to a student from Harvard, Yale, or Oxbridge, I can trace their effective altruism back to your work, or Peter Singer’s. There isn’t an intuitive prototype for effective altruism in California. It’s more chaotic. I don’t think this is a bad thing in terms of action. I think it would make brand management more difficult. However, I think this eclectic culture could be swamped from the influx of whoever’s exposed to effective altruism by your and Singer’s new books. Overall, I now think brand management will work better if effective altruism is seen as a coherent set of ideas distinct from its related cause areas which are not intuitively related to altruism, like high-tech business, or which are more volatile and controversial, such as radical veganism.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I think a big issue here is whether businesses or social movements are the right reference class. I think it’s the second, and social movement don’t usually try to do the sort of brand management of what other activists or groups do that I see in effective altruism.