I think people can be heavily involved in something without having to take the identity of that thing. For example, if someone worked 15 years at Google, they wouldn’t have to describe themselves as a ‘googler’ even if the P&C team calls everyone a googler with a shared Google identity.
I think I disagree with this perspective because, to me, the doing is the identity in a certain importance sense.
Like I think everyone GWWC Pledger should reasonably be expected to be identified as an EA, even if they don’t claim the self identity. If MacAskill or Moskovitiz’s behaviour changed 0% apart from they stopped self-identifying as an EA, I still think it’d make sense to consider them EAs.
What really annoys me with the ‘EA = Specific EA Community’ is takes like this or this—the ideas part of EA is what matters. If CEA and OpenPhil disbanded I’d still be donating to effective charities because of the ideas involved, and the ‘self-identification/specific community lineage’ explanation cannot really explain this imho.
(p.s. not trying to go in too hard on you David, I was torn about whether to respond to this thread or @Karthik Tadepalli’s above. Perhaps we should meet and have a chat about it sometime if you think that’s productive at all?)
To me that actually seems like an argument against self-identification as a criteria.
What’s your reasoning?
If you’re attending the Leaders Forum or are a ‘key figure in EA’, you’re probably an EA, even if you don’t admit it to yourself.
I think people can be heavily involved in something without having to take the identity of that thing. For example, if someone worked 15 years at Google, they wouldn’t have to describe themselves as a ‘googler’ even if the P&C team calls everyone a googler with a shared Google identity.
I think I disagree with this perspective because, to me, the doing is the identity in a certain importance sense.
Like I think everyone GWWC Pledger should reasonably be expected to be identified as an EA, even if they don’t claim the self identity. If MacAskill or Moskovitiz’s behaviour changed 0% apart from they stopped self-identifying as an EA, I still think it’d make sense to consider them EAs.
What really annoys me with the ‘EA = Specific EA Community’ is takes like this or this—the ideas part of EA is what matters. If CEA and OpenPhil disbanded I’d still be donating to effective charities because of the ideas involved, and the ‘self-identification/specific community lineage’ explanation cannot really explain this imho.
(p.s. not trying to go in too hard on you David, I was torn about whether to respond to this thread or @Karthik Tadepalli’s above. Perhaps we should meet and have a chat about it sometime if you think that’s productive at all?)