Yeah, Oscar captured this pretty well. You say that Giving What We Can is trying to change social norms, but how well is it really being achieved on the EA forum where maybe 70% or more are already familiar?
I support the aspect of creating a community around it, but I also just guess I don’t really feel that from seeing emojis in other people’s EA Forum profiles? I think you’d focus on other things if creating a community among givers was your goal, and to me this likely just pressures those who haven’t pledged for whatever reason into taking it, which might not be the right decision.
I agree that signaling your support for good social norms is a positive thing though, and I feel differently about when this is used on LinkedIn for example. I just don’t think these abstract benefits you point to actually cash out when adding the orange emoji to forum profiles.
Norms = social expectations = psychological pressure. If you don’t want any social pressure to take the 10% pledge (even among EAs), what you’re saying is that you don’t want it to be a norm.
Now, I don’t think the pressure should be too intense or anything: some may well have good reasons for not taking the pledge. The pressure/encouragement from a username icon is pretty tame, as far as social pressures go. (Nobody is proposing a “walk of shame” where we all throw rotten fruit and denounce the non-pledgers in our midst!) But I think the optimal level of social pressure/norminess is non-zero, because I expect that most EAs on the margins would do better to take the pledge (that belief is precisely why I do want it to become more of a norm—if I already trusted that the social environment was well-calibrated for optimal decisions here, we wouldn’t need to change social norms).
So that’s why I think it’s good, on the Forum and elsewhere, to use the diamond to promote the 10% pledge.
To be clear:
(1) I don’t think the audience “being familiar” with the pledge undercuts the reasons to want it to be more of a norm among EAs (and others).
(2) The possibility that something “might not be the right decision” for some people does not show that it shouldn’t be a norm. You need to compare the risks of over-pledging (in the presence of a norm) to the risks of under-pledging (in the absence of a norm). I think we should be more worried about the latter. But if someone wants to make the comparative argument that the former is the greater risk, that would be interesting to hear!
Yeah, Oscar captured this pretty well. You say that Giving What We Can is trying to change social norms, but how well is it really being achieved on the EA forum where maybe 70% or more are already familiar?
I support the aspect of creating a community around it, but I also just guess I don’t really feel that from seeing emojis in other people’s EA Forum profiles? I think you’d focus on other things if creating a community among givers was your goal, and to me this likely just pressures those who haven’t pledged for whatever reason into taking it, which might not be the right decision.
I agree that signaling your support for good social norms is a positive thing though, and I feel differently about when this is used on LinkedIn for example. I just don’t think these abstract benefits you point to actually cash out when adding the orange emoji to forum profiles.
Norms = social expectations = psychological pressure. If you don’t want any social pressure to take the 10% pledge (even among EAs), what you’re saying is that you don’t want it to be a norm.
Now, I don’t think the pressure should be too intense or anything: some may well have good reasons for not taking the pledge. The pressure/encouragement from a username icon is pretty tame, as far as social pressures go. (Nobody is proposing a “walk of shame” where we all throw rotten fruit and denounce the non-pledgers in our midst!) But I think the optimal level of social pressure/norminess is non-zero, because I expect that most EAs on the margins would do better to take the pledge (that belief is precisely why I do want it to become more of a norm—if I already trusted that the social environment was well-calibrated for optimal decisions here, we wouldn’t need to change social norms).
So that’s why I think it’s good, on the Forum and elsewhere, to use the diamond to promote the 10% pledge.
To be clear:
(1) I don’t think the audience “being familiar” with the pledge undercuts the reasons to want it to be more of a norm among EAs (and others).
(2) The possibility that something “might not be the right decision” for some people does not show that it shouldn’t be a norm. You need to compare the risks of over-pledging (in the presence of a norm) to the risks of under-pledging (in the absence of a norm). I think we should be more worried about the latter. But if someone wants to make the comparative argument that the former is the greater risk, that would be interesting to hear!