“Effective Altruism” sounds self-congratulatory and arrogant to some people:
Your comments in this section suggest to me there might be something going on where EA is only appealing within some particular social context. Maybe it’s appealing within WEIRD culture, and the further you get from peak WEIRD the more objections there are. Alternatively maybe there’s something specific to northern European or even just Anglo culture that makes it work there and not work as well elsewhere, translation issues aside.
I think I’d expect US culture to be most ok with self-congratulation, and basically everywhere else (including UK) to be more allergic to it? But most of the people who voted on the name in the first place were British.
Your comments in this section suggest to me there might be something going on where EA is only appealing within some particular social context. Maybe it’s appealing within WEIRD culture, and the further you get from peak WEIRD the more objections there are. Alternatively maybe there’s something specific to northern European or even just Anglo culture that makes it work there and not work as well elsewhere, translation issues aside.
I think I’d expect US culture to be most ok with self-congratulation, and basically everywhere else (including UK) to be more allergic to it? But most of the people who voted on the name in the first place were British.