I think this is a fun idea and want to reward that. I also support the project of trying to come up with longtermist images and symbols. The EA lightbulb logo has been very powerful, it would be good to find similar things for longtermism. (Though I’m less sure about flags in particular, which feel very political.)
Unfortunately, I don’t like this particular instantiation at all, and would be pretty sad if it became more widely used. I think I would be some nontrivial % less likely to want to hang out in longtermist spaces if they used this flag.
I’m hesitant to whale on this here since it’s clearly to some extent a fun personal project. Also, design is hard and I’m not convinced I could do better. But I do also think it’s important to give feedback in case anyone does decide to take this project forward more seriously. Sorry Cullen.
In my opinion:
The colour scheme is jarring and IMO ugly. There are also a lot of colours for a flag.
I don’t like the sun aesthetically (I also don’t like it on Malawi’s flag). I also don’t think we should be including symbols that are very distinctive to particular countries.
In general the design doesn’t give me good vibes. It doesn’t make me feel excited or at home. (I acknowledge that it’s going to be very hard to design a flag that does well on that last point for everyone, but this is my feeling.)
I think if the utilitarian flag were a national flag it would be in my top 15% favourite national flags, while this would be in the bottom 30%.
In general I think homages and symbolism should come a firm second after aesthetics in flag design. You can generally make any colour or pattern stand for anything you want, so it’s not very constraining. But to be honest I’m pretty sceptical about loading a flag down with loads of symbolism and double meanings, as opposed to just trying to embody one or two big things.
It also resembles the light cone which is nice. I would consider putting more sand in the top though, and less in the bottom. Hopefully we have more time left than that!
An alternative is to just have the hourglass as a symbol/logo, and not a flag. There is an EA symbol (the lightbulb) but no flag.
Also, one might consider making the hourglass less stylised, and to drop the X-risk symbolism. Longtermism isn’t intrinsically tied to X-risk. One approach would be to strictly focus on the long time duration, and drop associations with X-risk, space colonisation, and so on. It depends on how one conceives of longtermism.
I like this much better! I like the colour scheme, I like the simplicity, and I (mostly) like the symbolism.
Per Larks’s comment, I’d like to see a version with the top triangle all yellow and the bottom one all blue, to indicate how much bigger the future could be than the past.
One wrinkle on the symbolism: an hourglass typically represents not just time, but limited time; time that is running out. Think e.g. the fact that Death is often associated with an hourglass.
This works great for the avoiding-X-risks angle, but I’m not sure it best conveys the vast abundance of time the long-term future might contain. Sure, it’s still (probably) finite, but I don’t think its finitude is core to the concept of longtermism.
Of course, we could always change the flag after dealing with the X-risks.
To me it seems that longtermism is a quite simple idea. In a relevant sense it’s just one idea or value. And it seems to me that a longtermist flag should capture or express that simplicity. Therefore, I might favour a flag with just one symbol and two colours, or so.
That’s similar to the utilitarian flag. Utilitarianism is simple, and the flag is correspondingly simple (or broadly so).
Another example of correspondence between the simplicity/complexity of the flag and the values it expresses is the French Tricolour. One interpretation of it (not the only one, but let’s ignore that) is that the three colours stand for Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood.
I agree with this, but I strongly prefer simple flags in general, so this is probably mostly my general aesthetic preferences rather than a specific belief about longtermism.
Thinking more about this helped me clarify some of my feelings here, and I think a significant part of my aversion to the original design is that it screams “national flag”. The fact that it’s a triband contributes strongly to this. I think removing the sun reduces that somewhat, but it’s still there enough to cause me problems.
(Here we come to a more controversial vexillological opinion of mine, which is that tribands are massively overplayed and should be avoided in ~all modern contexts.)
(The utilitarian flag has a bit of a Micronesia vibe, but Micronesia’s is a very unusual national flag.)
I think this is a fun idea and want to reward that. I also support the project of trying to come up with longtermist images and symbols. The EA lightbulb logo has been very powerful, it would be good to find similar things for longtermism. (Though I’m less sure about flags in particular, which feel very political.)
Unfortunately, I don’t like this particular instantiation at all, and would be pretty sad if it became more widely used. I think I would be some nontrivial % less likely to want to hang out in longtermist spaces if they used this flag.
I’m hesitant to whale on this here since it’s clearly to some extent a fun personal project. Also, design is hard and I’m not convinced I could do better. But I do also think it’s important to give feedback in case anyone does decide to take this project forward more seriously. Sorry Cullen.
In my opinion:
The colour scheme is jarring and IMO ugly. There are also a lot of colours for a flag.
I don’t like the sun aesthetically (I also don’t like it on Malawi’s flag). I also don’t think we should be including symbols that are very distinctive to particular countries.
In general the design doesn’t give me good vibes. It doesn’t make me feel excited or at home. (I acknowledge that it’s going to be very hard to design a flag that does well on that last point for everyone, but this is my feeling.)
I think if the utilitarian flag were a national flag it would be in my top 15% favourite national flags, while this would be in the bottom 30%.
In general I think homages and symbolism should come a firm second after aesthetics in flag design. You can generally make any colour or pattern stand for anything you want, so it’s not very constraining. But to be honest I’m pretty sceptical about loading a flag down with loads of symbolism and double meanings, as opposed to just trying to embody one or two big things.
Another, simpler concept:
The hourglass represents time, as well as an “X” shape for X-risk.
It also resembles the light cone which is nice. I would consider putting more sand in the top though, and less in the bottom. Hopefully we have more time left than that!
An alternative is to just have the hourglass as a symbol/logo, and not a flag. There is an EA symbol (the lightbulb) but no flag.
Also, one might consider making the hourglass less stylised, and to drop the X-risk symbolism. Longtermism isn’t intrinsically tied to X-risk. One approach would be to strictly focus on the long time duration, and drop associations with X-risk, space colonisation, and so on. It depends on how one conceives of longtermism.
I think it looks a bit too much like pizza, though.
I like this much better! I like the colour scheme, I like the simplicity, and I (mostly) like the symbolism.
Per Larks’s comment, I’d like to see a version with the top triangle all yellow and the bottom one all blue, to indicate how much bigger the future could be than the past.
One wrinkle on the symbolism: an hourglass typically represents not just time, but limited time; time that is running out. Think e.g. the fact that Death is often associated with an hourglass.
This works great for the avoiding-X-risks angle, but I’m not sure it best conveys the vast abundance of time the long-term future might contain. Sure, it’s still (probably) finite, but I don’t think its finitude is core to the concept of longtermism.
Of course, we could always change the flag after dealing with the X-risks.
(It now occurs that the phrase “time is running out” might actually be an hourglass metaphor.)
To me it seems that longtermism is a quite simple idea. In a relevant sense it’s just one idea or value. And it seems to me that a longtermist flag should capture or express that simplicity. Therefore, I might favour a flag with just one symbol and two colours, or so.
That’s similar to the utilitarian flag. Utilitarianism is simple, and the flag is correspondingly simple (or broadly so).
Another example of correspondence between the simplicity/complexity of the flag and the values it expresses is the French Tricolour. One interpretation of it (not the only one, but let’s ignore that) is that the three colours stand for Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood.
I agree with this, but I strongly prefer simple flags in general, so this is probably mostly my general aesthetic preferences rather than a specific belief about longtermism.
You don’t have to apologize! I’m not a graphic designer; it’s not surprising to me that many people don’t like it.
Your feedback is good; I might try to iterate and incorporate in it.
What would you think about the same flag with the sun removed?
Might make it look a little unbalanced, but I kinda like that—longtermism is itself unbalanced in its focus on the future.
I tried it out, and yeah, it helps.
Thinking more about this helped me clarify some of my feelings here, and I think a significant part of my aversion to the original design is that it screams “national flag”. The fact that it’s a triband contributes strongly to this. I think removing the sun reduces that somewhat, but it’s still there enough to cause me problems.
(Here we come to a more controversial vexillological opinion of mine, which is that tribands are massively overplayed and should be avoided in ~all modern contexts.)
(The utilitarian flag has a bit of a Micronesia vibe, but Micronesia’s is a very unusual national flag.)