Ryan, glad you liked the prize, and thanks for your feedback! Our partner has significant IP law and branding experience and does not share your concerns.
His perspective: the general case is that
Celebrating our ancestors is common practice. Long-dead famous people frequently get things named after them.
Negative outcomes are unlikely. What you’re proposing could happen, but is quite an edge case.
Branding is important. A better-named prize can lead to more impact and improved community health.
So why are we calling this “The Truman Prize?” instead of something like “The Anonymous EA Award”?
There’s a reason why inspiring people from the past get things named after them. Could write a whole post on our thinking around this, but let’s just say we think having a community health prize with a more inspiring name would be more effective and lead to more impact.
Spending a lot of time on preventing low probability, low downside possibilities, is low EV.
Things like this usually end up being really bureaucratic and could take months or years to approve, so the cost is higher than a simple quick email. Following this general approach to low probability, low downside risks, would lead to it being prohibitive to get things done.
It’s low probability because first, a descendant of Truman would have to
Actually learn of this prize which is unlikely
Not feel like we are honoring Truman by celebrating anonymous altruism, which seems unlikely.
Care enough to actually ask us to change the name, which is also unlikely.
And in the unlikely event that all three of those things happen, then we’ll just change the name. Which is also low cost.
I’m less certain that this is a low-probability risk, though I agree that it is honoring him, and should not be a problem. That said, I think we need to look into this and check with a lawyer—as I’m pretty sure the estate doesn’t have perpetual rights to prevent naming after someone. If that’s incorrect, we should consider a different name.
I’m confused why this is downvoted. The only connection with Truman I see is the the quote attributed to him at the top of the post. Drew’s comment implies that Truman himself was an inspiring person—perhaps it’s worth explaining what was inspiring about him besides him coining a relevant quote?
I also noticed unorthodox voting patterns on this post—my first comment was downvoted the minute I posted it. But it doesn’t seem like many people would look at that criticism (polite, constructive, sent to the authors in advance) and think it should have negative karma. So basically, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
I don’t know why sphor’s comment was downvoted (I’m also confused by that), but for Ryan’s, I can at least speak for myself of why I downvoted it:
I strongly disagree with the comment and think that
This sort of thinking is paralyzing for the EA movement and leads to way more potential founders giving up on ideas, bouncing from the EA movement, not posting on the Forum, or moving so slowly that a lot of impact is lost. (I might write a post about this because I think it’s important and neglected in the movement)
It derails the conversation on something I consider to be a small detail about an improbable small-downside outcome, and I wanted more people focusing on more fruitful potential criticisms or points about the prize.
While a lot of the comment was polite and constructive, it also said that we were being “shifty”, which felt unnecessarily accusatory. I think if that word was changed I would change it from a strong downvote to just a downvote
Of note, I just strongly disagree with this comment/idea. In general, I think Ryan is great and consider him a friend.
Ryan, glad you liked the prize, and thanks for your feedback! Our partner has significant IP law and branding experience and does not share your concerns.
His perspective: the general case is that
Celebrating our ancestors is common practice. Long-dead famous people frequently get things named after them.
Negative outcomes are unlikely. What you’re proposing could happen, but is quite an edge case.
Branding is important. A better-named prize can lead to more impact and improved community health.
So why are we calling this “The Truman Prize?” instead of something like “The Anonymous EA Award”?
There’s a reason why inspiring people from the past get things named after them. Could write a whole post on our thinking around this, but let’s just say we think having a community health prize with a more inspiring name would be more effective and lead to more impact.
Spending a lot of time on preventing low probability, low downside possibilities, is low EV.
Things like this usually end up being really bureaucratic and could take months or years to approve, so the cost is higher than a simple quick email. Following this general approach to low probability, low downside risks, would lead to it being prohibitive to get things done.
It’s low probability because first, a descendant of Truman would have to
Actually learn of this prize which is unlikely
Not feel like we are honoring Truman by celebrating anonymous altruism, which seems unlikely.
Care enough to actually ask us to change the name, which is also unlikely.
And in the unlikely event that all three of those things happen, then we’ll just change the name. Which is also low cost.
I’m less certain that this is a low-probability risk, though I agree that it is honoring him, and should not be a problem. That said, I think we need to look into this and check with a lawyer—as I’m pretty sure the estate doesn’t have perpetual rights to prevent naming after someone. If that’s incorrect, we should consider a different name.
What was inspiring about Truman?
I’m confused why this is downvoted. The only connection with Truman I see is the the quote attributed to him at the top of the post. Drew’s comment implies that Truman himself was an inspiring person—perhaps it’s worth explaining what was inspiring about him besides him coining a relevant quote?
I also noticed unorthodox voting patterns on this post—my first comment was downvoted the minute I posted it. But it doesn’t seem like many people would look at that criticism (polite, constructive, sent to the authors in advance) and think it should have negative karma. So basically, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
I don’t know why sphor’s comment was downvoted (I’m also confused by that), but for Ryan’s, I can at least speak for myself of why I downvoted it:
I strongly disagree with the comment and think that
This sort of thinking is paralyzing for the EA movement and leads to way more potential founders giving up on ideas, bouncing from the EA movement, not posting on the Forum, or moving so slowly that a lot of impact is lost. (I might write a post about this because I think it’s important and neglected in the movement)
It derails the conversation on something I consider to be a small detail about an improbable small-downside outcome, and I wanted more people focusing on more fruitful potential criticisms or points about the prize.
While a lot of the comment was polite and constructive, it also said that we were being “shifty”, which felt unnecessarily accusatory. I think if that word was changed I would change it from a strong downvote to just a downvote
Of note, I just strongly disagree with this comment/idea. In general, I think Ryan is great and consider him a friend.