Thoughts on EA Rebranding
I’ve been thinking for a while about how much the EA movement seems to rub people up the wrong way. Melinda Gates is doing very similar things that EA orgs are trying to do, and any time the FT (just for example) writes about her it’s always with a respectful and even admiring tone (which I agree with). Meanwhile, anything they write on EA comes with a very negative slant, and this was before the damage suffered from associations with SBF and FTX.
Part of this is genuinely unfair, but certainly the name Effective Altruism does not do us any favours. It has a certain air of inherent criticism—the reason we are different from other altruists is that we do altruism effectively. I think this is needlessly confrontational as I don’t think it accurately captures the true difference between how EAs think about giving money and how ‘the average’ person or institution does. Or at very least there would be less confrontational ways to get a similarly accurate message across. I was spurred to write this piece now by the recent similar discussions in the comments of this post from Helen:
Effectiveness-minded altruist and rational altruists were two suggestions that I liked from that discussion, but again I feel carry the same tone of implied superiority. Meanwhile Evidence Based Altruist isn’t really a good description, because a lot of EA thought is around rational conclusions in the absence of evidence (like with long-termism). Maybe the name EA is already too entrenched to seriously consider changing, but I think it is worth at least trying to find a name that captures the core difference between this community and altruists at large, in a non threatening or offensive way.
I think you need the Altruism or Philanthropy identifier for obvious reasons, the words are similar enough, or at least neither is a perfect descriptor for the movement as I see it for me to have a strong preference (I appreciate others might feel differently). The more pertinent question for me is how can we define and then find words to describe the difference between us and others who give differently.
The core difference, for me at least, is that I am fairly indifferent on the cause that my donations benefit. This works in two dimensions. Let’s say on the x-axis I don’t mind where geographically or on whom demographically. On the y-axis, I have no fixed ideas about whether the money should be spent on AI safety research, or anti-malarial bednets, or even cash transfers. The reason I am not fixed to any one cause or type of problem is because I want to fund whichever of these interventions we can reasonable conclude will do the most expected good, or remove the most sentient suffering, in whatever way that measure is defined.
The name Effective Altruism focuses entirely on the second half of the above paragraph, but no matter how this message is framed I think it’s impossible for it to not come across trite, because it is a call-out of all non-effective charities etc. So perhaps it would be more constructive to have a name that focuses on the first half of the paragraph. For example, something like Cause Agnostic Altruism (Philanthropy?).
Likely someone can do much better with the name, but I’m quite attached to the idea of changing the emphasis to this side of what we do. I think it sparks questions like ‘oh weird, what does that even mean?’, and that sets me up to talk about the difference between guide dogs and Sightsavers etc. etc. Maybe I’m wrong, but it just seems to set up for a conversation where I’m much less likely to come across like a dick!
p.s. apologies if this should have been a comment on that post, it felt to me like the main thrust of that was a conversation about what EA is, and the naming was a side issue, whereas I felt the naming discussion was worthy of it’s own discussion.
Of course, Gates has several advantages over EA in this regard. The Gates cause areas are more popular than longtermism, which attracts a greater amount of attention than its actual share of the “EA budget” so far. Gates has little need to attract adherents or additional financing—and if this is happening, it is largely in private conversations with other megarich persons not in the public eye. So there’s less need to compete in the marketplace for donors/adherents. Some of EA’s best arguments, especially those grounded in utilitarianism, are inherently going to draw objections from large swaths of the public. Gates doesn’t have to compete and thus ruffles fewer feathers.
The Gates movement has a lot of fairly establishment figures vs. EA being much more heavily a 20s/30s movement + sometimes edgy academics. That has its pros and cons, as does the Gates movement’s greater centralization. In a sense, EA is like a group of startups and the Gates movement is like IBM. Each setup has certain advantages and challenges.
My branding take is that not everything needs to be done under the same brand name. Corporations know how to do this—think of your big hotel chains with 30+ brands so they can compete at different price points without devaluing their prestige brands.
I think a rebrand is likely too late. But if it’s possible, I wonder if something with ‘Global Priorities’ in the name would be great. We could copy Progress Studies and go for Global Priorities Studies, or call ourselves the Global Priorities Movement.
A rebrand at the moment would look like a attempt to disassociate from SBF/FTX, and might earn a long-term reference to “the New Name movement, which rebranded itself from EA to disassociate from FTX/SBF....”
Agreed. If we were to rebrand, now would be the wrong time.
“Cause Agnostic Altruism” doesn’t really roll off the tongue though.
One difference is that Melinda owns the money she’s putting into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. From a certain cynical point of view, EA is mostly a bunch of white entitled Silicon Valley men with a side hustle as “charity influencers,” obsessed with how rich people spend their money, but who don’t themselves actually have much to give. Melinda is making a sacrifice, EAs are just smiling at the ribbon-cutting. Furthermore, Melinda exclusively focused on issues that read as charitable, while EA’s high interest in X-risk can be portrayed as sci-fi anxieties. It also probably helps that Melinda didn’t herself do anything morally questionable to acquire her money—she convinced a man who’d formerly been seen as a selfish tech villain to donate their fortune.
EA has a wide attack surface, and I think we’d sustain big coordination costs to change our name, while not appreciably decreasing the size of that attack surface. Besides, “beset by scandal, shadowy Silicon Valley movement rebrands itself to hide from scrutiny” is a story that writes itself.
A possible name that I don’t instantly hate just popped into my mind: aspirational altruism.
I don’t love the AA shorthand but the connotation seems apt to what this movement is about. Really aspiring to do the most good but recognizing how that’s only an ideal that can never be reached.
Some variations on this theme seem possible as well like ambitious altruism or daring altruism.
But, yeah wouldn’t hold my breath for a rebranding of EA that ship has mostly sailed. Maybe new adjacent communities will pop up though.