We have a set A, that is comprised of (non-overlapping) subsets B and C.
You’re saying we should have a name for A, a name for B, but refuse to have a name for C.
It won’t work. People will naturally want to refer to group C when composing sentences. We need a word we like, or we’ll get one we don’t.
I do indeed use expressions like ‘relaxed Christians’, ‘soft-core labour members’, etc. It’s absurd to discourage the use of such terms when identifying those groups. The world is the way it is, describing it doesn’t make it so. If someone doesn’t want to be called a soft-core labour member, maybe they should be more hardcore.
Perception of reality >> reality most of the time. Reality only affects how the world works right now, perception of reality affects how everyone responds to it which in turn affects how the world works in future. Many perceptions are self-fulfilling, so that perception will in fact become the reality after a (typically short) time delay.
‘EA is hardcore-only’ is actually a classic example of such a perception. Whether it’s actually true is just much much less important than whether people think it’s true, because the latter is a better predictor of reality in the long term than the former. And presumably we care about the long-term.
In my ideal world everyone would be a hardcore EA.
I think we should also be fun for those who aren’t willing to be extreme yet, or ever if they are willing to meet some minimum bar.
I agree softcore is too unappealing a term. Part-time seems fine and not negative by design.
I think we must be honest internally about how extreme people’s views are, or we lose a great deal of clarity in describing them. There’s just no practical way I can do my work without thinking and talking in terms of how dedicated someone is to doing good at cost to themselves. This level of group taboo even risks pushing us in the direction of ceasing to be aware that we are trying to get people to become more extreme.
What’s ‘internally’? I have no interest in policing people’s internal thoughts or private conversations where they are confident they everyone in the room is going to understand what they mean. But that’s in the same way as I don’t mind the use of the vast majority of offensive language behind firmly closed doors; I just can’t see the harm. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t offensive*.
But anything that could at some point be read by a journalist, including this forum and random blog posts, should be held to a significantly higher standard in my book. The clarity versus reputational risk trade-off looks alarmingly poor given you’re basically complaining about having to add an extra clause or two to your sentences in public-facing material only.
*Not that I would go as far as calling the suggestions here offensive. I’m just elaborating on the principle.
Sounds like we have been talking past one another—I’m really only talking about closed-door conversations and thoughts in your head. Clearly you have to be much more careful when speaking to a wide audience.
Because effective altruists includes both groups.
We have a set A, that is comprised of (non-overlapping) subsets B and C.
You’re saying we should have a name for A, a name for B, but refuse to have a name for C.
It won’t work. People will naturally want to refer to group C when composing sentences. We need a word we like, or we’ll get one we don’t.
I do indeed use expressions like ‘relaxed Christians’, ‘soft-core labour members’, etc. It’s absurd to discourage the use of such terms when identifying those groups. The world is the way it is, describing it doesn’t make it so. If someone doesn’t want to be called a soft-core labour member, maybe they should be more hardcore.
“The world is the way it is, describing it doesn’t make it so.”
This is true of the natural world, but not of the social world. Our categorisations of social behaviour have well-known consequences on behaviour.
Perception of reality >> reality most of the time. Reality only affects how the world works right now, perception of reality affects how everyone responds to it which in turn affects how the world works in future. Many perceptions are self-fulfilling, so that perception will in fact become the reality after a (typically short) time delay.
‘EA is hardcore-only’ is actually a classic example of such a perception. Whether it’s actually true is just much much less important than whether people think it’s true, because the latter is a better predictor of reality in the long term than the former. And presumably we care about the long-term.
In my ideal world everyone would be a hardcore EA.
I think we should also be fun for those who aren’t willing to be extreme yet, or ever if they are willing to meet some minimum bar.
I agree softcore is too unappealing a term. Part-time seems fine and not negative by design.
I think we must be honest internally about how extreme people’s views are, or we lose a great deal of clarity in describing them. There’s just no practical way I can do my work without thinking and talking in terms of how dedicated someone is to doing good at cost to themselves. This level of group taboo even risks pushing us in the direction of ceasing to be aware that we are trying to get people to become more extreme.
What’s ‘internally’? I have no interest in policing people’s internal thoughts or private conversations where they are confident they everyone in the room is going to understand what they mean. But that’s in the same way as I don’t mind the use of the vast majority of offensive language behind firmly closed doors; I just can’t see the harm. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t offensive*.
But anything that could at some point be read by a journalist, including this forum and random blog posts, should be held to a significantly higher standard in my book. The clarity versus reputational risk trade-off looks alarmingly poor given you’re basically complaining about having to add an extra clause or two to your sentences in public-facing material only.
*Not that I would go as far as calling the suggestions here offensive. I’m just elaborating on the principle.
Sounds like we have been talking past one another—I’m really only talking about closed-door conversations and thoughts in your head. Clearly you have to be much more careful when speaking to a wide audience.
That wasn’t really clear though, since this discussion started upon the term being used in public facing channels.
I thought I’d made it clear by talking about how it was necessary given my job and so on, but evidently I hadn’t.