I agree there are a lot of things that are nonideal about the term, especially the connotations of arrogance and superiority.
However, I want to defend it a little:
It seems like it’s been pretty successful? EA has grown a lot under the term, including attracting some great people, and despite having some very controverisal ideas hasn’t faced that big of a backlash yet. Hard to know what the counterfactual would be, but it seems non-obvious it would be better.
It actually sounds non’ideological’ to me if what that means is being comitted to certain ideas of what we should do and how we should think—it sounds like it’s saying ‘hey, we want to do the effective and altruistic thing. We’re not saying what that is.’ it sounds more open, more like ‘a question’ than many -isms.
Many people want to keep their identity small, but EA sounds like a particularly strong identity: It’s usually perceived as both a moral commitment, a set of ideas, and a community.
I feel less sure this is true more of EA than other terms, at least wrt to the community aspect. I think the reason some terms don’t seem to imply a community is that there isn’t [much of] one. But insofrar as we want to keep the EA community, and I think it’s very valuable and that we should, changing the term won’t shrink the identity associated with it along that dimension. I guess what I’m saying is: I’d guess the largeness of the identity associated with EA is not that related to the term.
It actually sounds non’ideological’ to me if what that means is being comitted to certain ideas of what we should do and how we should think—it sounds like it’s saying ‘hey, we want to do the effective and altruistic thing. We’re not saying what that is.’ it sounds more open, more like ‘a question’ than many -isms.
Readers of these comments may also be interested in the post Effective Altruism is a Question (not an ideology). (I assume you’ve already read the post and had it somewhat in mind, but also that some readers wouldn’t know the post.)
I agree there are a lot of things that are nonideal about the term, especially the connotations of arrogance and superiority.
However, I want to defend it a little:
It seems like it’s been pretty successful? EA has grown a lot under the term, including attracting some great people, and despite having some very controverisal ideas hasn’t faced that big of a backlash yet. Hard to know what the counterfactual would be, but it seems non-obvious it would be better.
It actually sounds non’ideological’ to me if what that means is being comitted to certain ideas of what we should do and how we should think—it sounds like it’s saying ‘hey, we want to do the effective and altruistic thing. We’re not saying what that is.’ it sounds more open, more like ‘a question’ than many -isms.
I feel less sure this is true more of EA than other terms, at least wrt to the community aspect. I think the reason some terms don’t seem to imply a community is that there isn’t [much of] one. But insofrar as we want to keep the EA community, and I think it’s very valuable and that we should, changing the term won’t shrink the identity associated with it along that dimension. I guess what I’m saying is: I’d guess the largeness of the identity associated with EA is not that related to the term.
I think these are good points.
Readers of these comments may also be interested in the post Effective Altruism is a Question (not an ideology). (I assume you’ve already read the post and had it somewhat in mind, but also that some readers wouldn’t know the post.)