So perhaps it makes sense to see involvement with effective altruism as a continuum rather than a two-category division.
Yes, very much agreed about the continuum, I made the same point in my earlier post on this topic.
Do other types of movements make this distinction? Political parties include a wide spectrum of people from those who simply vote, to those who campaign for particular causes or candidates, to those who hold office and spend their entire careers to their party.
There is a quite strong distinction drawn between simple voters, to donors, to activists who campaign and donate, to party politicians, etc. There are highly differentiated reward systems for each. I am concerned about the negative impacts of similar dynamics for the EA movement, which have already been proposed. I don’t think this serves your argument well.
Even if we introduce these terms with the goal of reducing stigma, “softcore” is always going to sound a bit insulting.
There are many who actually embrace the term softcore, as it gives them the language to embrace an identity as an EA, which they were previously reluctant to do. I have both heard this in personal conversations with many EAs who responded to my article, but also some who have publicly posted about this, so I feel comfortable sharing this link to one response.
That being said, I’m not wedded to these terms, they’re not my favorite either, but I couldn’t think of anything better, and they were already coming into broad use because of Ozy’s really good post about them. I’d love to hear some different ideas!
More broadly, we need to think about how to address this problem of EA being perceived as too lofty to embrace unless there is a more humble identity. As I talked about in my earlier post, articles about EAs consistently celebrate deeply committed EAs, such as Julia :-)
This is great for getting word about the movement out there, but what kind of an image does that create for people? It creates what I heard many describe as a “general unspoken feeling of ‘you’re not doing enough unless you meet our high expectations’” which is one reason many folks don’t get involved in the movement. Again, I heard this in many personal exchanges, which inspired me to write about this topic, but also some people chose to share this publicly, such as Taryn in her Facebook comments here or Kaj here.
This is why I think there is a high need for a distinction between EA identities. This should not be a binary distinction, but one that describes two poles of EA involvement regarding contribution of time and resources. There should be freedom and flexibility to move between those poles, as Julia wisely notes, based on life circumstances, and without judging or shaming of those who choose to move. This will result in optimizing the numbers of value-aligned people contributing to the EA movement, as well as good PR for the movement, which I think is what we want to achieve.
Yes, very much agreed about the continuum, I made the same point in my earlier post on this topic.
There is a quite strong distinction drawn between simple voters, to donors, to activists who campaign and donate, to party politicians, etc. There are highly differentiated reward systems for each. I am concerned about the negative impacts of similar dynamics for the EA movement, which have already been proposed. I don’t think this serves your argument well.
There are many who actually embrace the term softcore, as it gives them the language to embrace an identity as an EA, which they were previously reluctant to do. I have both heard this in personal conversations with many EAs who responded to my article, but also some who have publicly posted about this, so I feel comfortable sharing this link to one response.
That being said, I’m not wedded to these terms, they’re not my favorite either, but I couldn’t think of anything better, and they were already coming into broad use because of Ozy’s really good post about them. I’d love to hear some different ideas!
More broadly, we need to think about how to address this problem of EA being perceived as too lofty to embrace unless there is a more humble identity. As I talked about in my earlier post, articles about EAs consistently celebrate deeply committed EAs, such as Julia :-)
This is great for getting word about the movement out there, but what kind of an image does that create for people? It creates what I heard many describe as a “general unspoken feeling of ‘you’re not doing enough unless you meet our high expectations’” which is one reason many folks don’t get involved in the movement. Again, I heard this in many personal exchanges, which inspired me to write about this topic, but also some people chose to share this publicly, such as Taryn in her Facebook comments here or Kaj here.
This is why I think there is a high need for a distinction between EA identities. This should not be a binary distinction, but one that describes two poles of EA involvement regarding contribution of time and resources. There should be freedom and flexibility to move between those poles, as Julia wisely notes, based on life circumstances, and without judging or shaming of those who choose to move. This will result in optimizing the numbers of value-aligned people contributing to the EA movement, as well as good PR for the movement, which I think is what we want to achieve.