Ironically, the term “Effective Altruist” was originally invented as a replacement for “super-duper hardcore people”, so this seems to be something of an example of linguistic drift. It was never originally intended to be a public-facing term.
By Will’s account, the phrase “effective altruism” was very intentionally developed and voted on because the Centre for Effective Altruism needed a name.
The one term that was commonly used to refer to people who were trying to use their lives to do good effectively was the tongue-in-cheek ‘super-hardcore do-gooder’. It was pretty clear we needed a new name!
Ironically, the term “Effective Altruist” was originally invented as a replacement for “super-duper hardcore people”, so this seems to be something of an example of linguistic drift. It was never originally intended to be a public-facing term.
By Will’s account, the phrase “effective altruism” was very intentionally developed and voted on because the Centre for Effective Altruism needed a name.
At the time CEA itself was not intended to be public facing.
Indeed, from Will’s post