I have a similar sense. Very interesting post and food for thought.
But how would better aesthetics lead to positive impact? The mechanism I’m seeing is essentially “compliance” with views commonly held within the effective altruism community, or some other form of persuasion that doesn’t require understanding or agreement. There are exceptions where this would be helpful, but I expect this sort of persuasion to be net negative for effective altruism overall. (Low confidence.) As well as the post JasperGeh links to, here’s a recent one making some relevant points: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xomFCNXwNBeXtLq53/bad-omens-in-current-community-building
Additionally, when I tried the OP’s exercise of closing my eyes and imagining aesthetics for liberalism, I couldn’t think of any. I asked my friend (not involved in EA but very intelligent, well-read, politically involved) to do the same and they couldn’t think of anything either. The movements/ideologies that do have strong aesthetics that jump to mind seem to rely heavily on compliance rather than truth seeking, e.g. religions, communism, fascism.
I have a similar sense. Very interesting post and food for thought.
But how would better aesthetics lead to positive impact? The mechanism I’m seeing is essentially “compliance” with views commonly held within the effective altruism community, or some other form of persuasion that doesn’t require understanding or agreement. There are exceptions where this would be helpful, but I expect this sort of persuasion to be net negative for effective altruism overall. (Low confidence.) As well as the post JasperGeh links to, here’s a recent one making some relevant points: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xomFCNXwNBeXtLq53/bad-omens-in-current-community-building
Additionally, when I tried the OP’s exercise of closing my eyes and imagining aesthetics for liberalism, I couldn’t think of any. I asked my friend (not involved in EA but very intelligent, well-read, politically involved) to do the same and they couldn’t think of anything either. The movements/ideologies that do have strong aesthetics that jump to mind seem to rely heavily on compliance rather than truth seeking, e.g. religions, communism, fascism.