Thank you for posting this. I massively laud giving slightly ‘left field’ approaches a go, and I think you’ve raised an important issue about communicating about EA movement and thinking generally.
My reply rests on a few some assumptions, which I hope are not too unfair—happy for critique / challenge on them.
The OP’s point about art is worth considering in the context of another question: how can we communicate our thinking (in all its diversity and complexity) accurately and effectively to people outside the community?
Whilst I laud the OP’s ambition, it’s worth thinking about the intermediate steps between logical reasoning (which I observe is our default) and art; using metaphor and analogy to illustrate points. (To note: I believe some animal charities do this already, using the Schindler’s car example to influence actions regarding factory farming.) Before giving arguments in favour, here’s an example: video explaining a new type of cancer treatment, CAR-T cell therapy
Some brief arguments in favour:
1) Metaphors / analogies can create an ‘aha’ moment where the outline of a complex idea is grasped easily and retained by the listener, which they can then layer nuance on top of. People might otherwise not grasp certain complex EA ideas so easily.
2) Whilst explaining a position in logical sequence with great attention to detail is often effective for influencing (and is the main communication approach observed in this forum), I assume that lots of people are not ‘hooked’ by that approach, or find the line of reasoning too abstract to wish to change their mindset of behaviour in response to it.
3) Metaphors / analogies can be more memorable, and therefore transfer from person to person or ‘spread’ better than prosaic reasoning.
4) If you assume that people often have weak attention spans and inaccurate recollection memory, then 1-3 are even stronger arguments in favour of using metaphors more.
The examples the OP chooses (e.g. Dr Strangelove) prove that communicating an idea through art requires the artist’s ambition to be matched with huge skill, so this strikes me as ‘high risk, high gain’ territory. But we can probably make some decent gains by developing some metaphorical or allegorical ways of communicating EA thinking, testing them out and iterating.....and THEN seeing if people who we want to communicate our messages to apprehend them better.
Thank you for posting this. I massively laud giving slightly ‘left field’ approaches a go, and I think you’ve raised an important issue about communicating about EA movement and thinking generally.
My reply rests on a few some assumptions, which I hope are not too unfair—happy for critique / challenge on them.
The OP’s point about art is worth considering in the context of another question: how can we communicate our thinking (in all its diversity and complexity) accurately and effectively to people outside the community?
Whilst I laud the OP’s ambition, it’s worth thinking about the intermediate steps between logical reasoning (which I observe is our default) and art; using metaphor and analogy to illustrate points. (To note: I believe some animal charities do this already, using the Schindler’s car example to influence actions regarding factory farming.)
Before giving arguments in favour, here’s an example: video explaining a new type of cancer treatment, CAR-T cell therapy
Some brief arguments in favour:
1) Metaphors / analogies can create an ‘aha’ moment where the outline of a complex idea is grasped easily and retained by the listener, which they can then layer nuance on top of. People might otherwise not grasp certain complex EA ideas so easily.
2) Whilst explaining a position in logical sequence with great attention to detail is often effective for influencing (and is the main communication approach observed in this forum), I assume that lots of people are not ‘hooked’ by that approach, or find the line of reasoning too abstract to wish to change their mindset of behaviour in response to it.
3) Metaphors / analogies can be more memorable, and therefore transfer from person to person or ‘spread’ better than prosaic reasoning.
4) If you assume that people often have weak attention spans and inaccurate recollection memory, then 1-3 are even stronger arguments in favour of using metaphors more.
The examples the OP chooses (e.g. Dr Strangelove) prove that communicating an idea through art requires the artist’s ambition to be matched with huge skill, so this strikes me as ‘high risk, high gain’ territory. But we can probably make some decent gains by developing some metaphorical or allegorical ways of communicating EA thinking, testing them out and iterating.....and THEN seeing if people who we want to communicate our messages to apprehend them better.