I don’t know about how to attract people to something but I certainly know a surefire way to turn them off: make them feel judged. I find that nothing will make someone like you more than making them feel validated and nothing will make someone hate you (or reject your position) more than if they feel that you’re judging them. Look at videos of Singer’s lectures to universities about EA and utilitarianism. Most of the students’ questions afterwards are negative, sometimes strongly so. It’s because they feel like he is judging them for being selfish. That’s also why people tend to be negative towards vegans: they feel like the vegans probably think they’re bad people for eating meat so they are resentful towards them.
Part of me likes the 10% standard, but part of me thinks that people that don’t plan on giving that much will feel judged and therefore develop animosity against the movement, dismissing the whole effectiveness thing outright. I think that since people think so little about their impact in the world, a “the more good you do the better” attitude will probably be most productive. An all-or-nothing “if you donate less that 10%, or not to a “top” charity, you’re not a real effective altruist, or you’re a moral failure” attitude will probably just result in people to rejecting EA altogether, just like an “abolitionist” you’re-a-horrible-person-if-you-consume-any-animal-products vegan stance results in most people simply dismissing changing their diets in any way.
Having said that, it’s good to have an achievable goal and people are driven by aspiring to achieve something or be greater than they are, so the 10% standard I think would be net positive as long as it’s just considered an ideal (the low end of the ideal) without any stigma for falling short of it.
I don’t know about how to attract people to something but I certainly know a surefire way to turn them off: make them feel judged. I find that nothing will make someone like you more than making them feel validated and nothing will make someone hate you (or reject your position) more than if they feel that you’re judging them. Look at videos of Singer’s lectures to universities about EA and utilitarianism. Most of the students’ questions afterwards are negative, sometimes strongly so. It’s because they feel like he is judging them for being selfish. That’s also why people tend to be negative towards vegans: they feel like the vegans probably think they’re bad people for eating meat so they are resentful towards them.
Part of me likes the 10% standard, but part of me thinks that people that don’t plan on giving that much will feel judged and therefore develop animosity against the movement, dismissing the whole effectiveness thing outright. I think that since people think so little about their impact in the world, a “the more good you do the better” attitude will probably be most productive. An all-or-nothing “if you donate less that 10%, or not to a “top” charity, you’re not a real effective altruist, or you’re a moral failure” attitude will probably just result in people to rejecting EA altogether, just like an “abolitionist” you’re-a-horrible-person-if-you-consume-any-animal-products vegan stance results in most people simply dismissing changing their diets in any way.
Having said that, it’s good to have an achievable goal and people are driven by aspiring to achieve something or be greater than they are, so the 10% standard I think would be net positive as long as it’s just considered an ideal (the low end of the ideal) without any stigma for falling short of it.