I don’t think we’d have much credibility as a professional organisation. We could require people to do the intro and perhaps even the advanced fellowship, but that’s hardly rigorous training.
I’m worried that trying to market ourselves as a professional organisation might backfire if people end up seeing us as just a faux one.
I suspect that this kind of association might be more viable for specific cause areas than for EA as a whole, but there might not be enough people except in a couple of countries.
OK, I guess the tone of my original reply wasn’t popular (which is fair enough I guess).
The OP raised the subject of a non-trivial proportion of people perceiving EA as being a ‘phyg’ as a problem, and suggested with moderately high confidence that the transition to a “professional association” would radically reduce this. I’m not seeing this. Plenty of groups recruiting students brand themselves “movements” for “doing good” in some general way whilst being relatively unlikely to be accused of being a cult (climate change and civil/animal rights activists, fair-traders, volunteering groups etc)
And I suspect far more people would say the International Association of Scientologists and Association of Professional Independent Scientologists which both adopt the structure and optics of professional membership bodies are definitely cults (Obviously there are many more reasons to consider Scientology as a cult, but if anything I’d think the belief-system-under-a-professional-veneer approach looks more suspicious rather than less. At any rate, forming professional membership bodies definitely isn’t something actual cults don’t do)
So if people are perceiving EA as a cult it’s probably their reaction—justified or otherwise—to other things, some of which might be far too important to dispense with like Giving Pledges and concern about x-risk, and some of which might be easily avoided like reading from scripts (and yes, substituting ordinary words for insider jargon like ‘phyg’). Other ways to dispel accusations that EA is a cult (if it is indeed a problem) feels like the subject for an entirely different debate, but I’d genuinely be interested in counter-arguments from anyone who thinks I’m wrong and changing the organization structure is the key.
One lens to look at this is less through the ‘we’re all similarly qualified’ like the AMA but more through the ‘we’re working with the same values’ or ‘we’re working on similar problems’ like the Institute of Public Administration Australia. These have no qualification requirements. Still they offer similar things to what ea communities try to do https://qld.ipaa.org.au/for-individuals/
Yeah. Effective Altruism isn’t a profession, and nothing would scream “cult” more than trying to rebrand as a professional organization primarily to try to convince people it isn’t a cult! (Not even unnecessary use of ingroup jargon like the LessWrongish ROT13ing of the word into “phyg”!) Even more so if like most actual professional organizations, people were assigned compulsory training and CPD and sanctioned for deviating from the official position. The “cult” impressions/accusations are nothing to do with lack of formal membership structure, so introducing one won’t make them go away. Scientology has “professional organizations”.
Also agree there’s possibly more scope for actual professional organizations in some specific areas (e.g charity founders, grantmakers and AI safety professionals), but more for potential opportunities to share knowledge with other people working in the field outside EA than as a rebranding exercise.
I guess I’m a bit skeptical of this proposal.
I don’t think we’d have much credibility as a professional organisation. We could require people to do the intro and perhaps even the advanced fellowship, but that’s hardly rigorous training.
I’m worried that trying to market ourselves as a professional organisation might backfire if people end up seeing us as just a faux one.
I suspect that this kind of association might be more viable for specific cause areas than for EA as a whole, but there might not be enough people except in a couple of countries.
OK, I guess the tone of my original reply wasn’t popular (which is fair enough I guess).
The OP raised the subject of a non-trivial proportion of people perceiving EA as being a ‘phyg’ as a problem, and suggested with moderately high confidence that the transition to a “professional association” would radically reduce this. I’m not seeing this. Plenty of groups recruiting students brand themselves “movements” for “doing good” in some general way whilst being relatively unlikely to be accused of being a cult (climate change and civil/animal rights activists, fair-traders, volunteering groups etc)
And I suspect far more people would say the International Association of Scientologists and Association of Professional Independent Scientologists which both adopt the structure and optics of professional membership bodies are definitely cults (Obviously there are many more reasons to consider Scientology as a cult, but if anything I’d think the belief-system-under-a-professional-veneer approach looks more suspicious rather than less. At any rate, forming professional membership bodies definitely isn’t something actual cults don’t do)
So if people are perceiving EA as a cult it’s probably their reaction—justified or otherwise—to other things, some of which might be far too important to dispense with like Giving Pledges and concern about x-risk, and some of which might be easily avoided like reading from scripts (and yes, substituting ordinary words for insider jargon like ‘phyg’). Other ways to dispel accusations that EA is a cult (if it is indeed a problem) feels like the subject for an entirely different debate, but I’d genuinely be interested in counter-arguments from anyone who thinks I’m wrong and changing the organization structure is the key.
That’s a good point. All AMA members have to meet certain criteria. I can see how ’’8 week reading group” pales in comparison to a medical degree.
One lens to look at this is less through the ‘we’re all similarly qualified’ like the AMA but more through the ‘we’re working with the same values’ or ‘we’re working on similar problems’ like the Institute of Public Administration Australia. These have no qualification requirements. Still they offer similar things to what ea communities try to do https://qld.ipaa.org.au/for-individuals/
Yeah, it’s possible I’m taking a narrow view of what a professional organisation is. I don’t have a good sense of the landscape here.
Yeah. Effective Altruism isn’t a profession, and nothing would scream “cult” more than trying to rebrand as a professional organization primarily to try to convince people it isn’t a cult! (Not even unnecessary use of ingroup jargon like the LessWrongish ROT13ing of the word into “phyg”!) Even more so if like most actual professional organizations, people were assigned compulsory training and CPD and sanctioned for deviating from the official position. The “cult” impressions/accusations are nothing to do with lack of formal membership structure, so introducing one won’t make them go away. Scientology has “professional organizations”.
Also agree there’s possibly more scope for actual professional organizations in some specific areas (e.g charity founders, grantmakers and AI safety professionals), but more for potential opportunities to share knowledge with other people working in the field outside EA than as a rebranding exercise.