“Effective altruism” sounds more like a social movement and less like a research/policy project. The community has changed a lot over the past decade, from “a few nerds discussing philosophy on the internet” with a focus on individual action to larger and respected institutions focusing on large-scale policy change, but the name still feels reminiscent of the former.
It’s not just that it has developed in that direction, it has developed in many directions. Could the solution then be to use different brands in different contexts? “Global priorities community” might work better than “Effective Altruism community” when doing research and policy advocacy, but as an organizer of a university group, I feel like “Effective Altruism” is quite good when trying to help (particularly smart and ambitious) individuals do good effectively. For example, I don’t think a “Global priorities fellowship” sounds like something that is supposed to be directly useful for making more altruistic life choices.
Outreach efforts focused on donations and aimed at a wider audience could use yet another brand. In practice it seems like Giving What We Can and One for the World already play this role.
I think it might actually be pretty good if EA groups called themselves Global Priorities groups, as this shifts the implicit focus from questions like “how do we best collect donations for charity?” to questions like “how can I contribute to [whichever cause you care about] in a systematic way over the course of a lifetime?”, and I think the latter question is >10x more impactful to think about.
(I generally agree if there are different brands for different groups, and I think it’s great that e.g. Giving What We Can has such an altruism-oriented name. I’m unconvinced that we should have multiple labels for the community itself.)
I agree that the community should only have one label but the community has multiple goals and is seeking to influence very different target audiences. In each case, we need to use language that appeals to the target audience.
Perhaps the effective altruism brand should be more like the Unilever brand with marketing segmented into multiple ‘product brands’. This could include existing brands like 80,00 Hours and Giving What We Can whilst the academic project becomes “global priorities research” rather than “effective altruism”.
The right name for groups will depend on the target audience and what the message testing reveals. I expect something like “High Impact Careers” or something along those lines may be more attractive to a wider audience than “effective altruism”
I think it might actually be pretty good if EA groups called themselves Global Priorities groups, as this shifts the implicit focus from questions like “how do we best collect donations for charity?” to questions like “how can I contribute to [whichever cause you care about] in a systematic way over the course of a lifetime?”
I think it’s true that introductions to EA and initial perceptions of EA often focus on increasing regular individual people’s donations to charity (as well as better allocating such donations to charity) to an extent that’s disproportionate both to the significance of those topics and to how much of a focus those topics actually are in EA.
But I’m not confident that the label “effective altruism” makes that issue worse than the label “global priorities” would. We already aren’t using charity in the name, and my guess is that “altruism” isn’t very strongly associated with “individual charity donations” in most people’s minds (I’d guess the term “altruism” is similarly or more strongly associated with “heroic sacrifices”). I’d guess that this problem is more just a result of earlier EA messaging, plus local groups often choosing to lead with a focus on individual donations.
(Of course, survey research could provide better answers on this question than our guesses would.)
It’s not just that it has developed in that direction, it has developed in many directions. Could the solution then be to use different brands in different contexts? “Global priorities community” might work better than “Effective Altruism community” when doing research and policy advocacy, but as an organizer of a university group, I feel like “Effective Altruism” is quite good when trying to help (particularly smart and ambitious) individuals do good effectively. For example, I don’t think a “Global priorities fellowship” sounds like something that is supposed to be directly useful for making more altruistic life choices.
Outreach efforts focused on donations and aimed at a wider audience could use yet another brand. In practice it seems like Giving What We Can and One for the World already play this role.
I think it might actually be pretty good if EA groups called themselves Global Priorities groups, as this shifts the implicit focus from questions like “how do we best collect donations for charity?” to questions like “how can I contribute to [whichever cause you care about] in a systematic way over the course of a lifetime?”, and I think the latter question is >10x more impactful to think about.
(I generally agree if there are different brands for different groups, and I think it’s great that e.g. Giving What We Can has such an altruism-oriented name. I’m unconvinced that we should have multiple labels for the community itself.)
I agree that the community should only have one label but the community has multiple goals and is seeking to influence very different target audiences. In each case, we need to use language that appeals to the target audience.
Perhaps the effective altruism brand should be more like the Unilever brand with marketing segmented into multiple ‘product brands’. This could include existing brands like 80,00 Hours and Giving What We Can whilst the academic project becomes “global priorities research” rather than “effective altruism”.
The right name for groups will depend on the target audience and what the message testing reveals. I expect something like “High Impact Careers” or something along those lines may be more attractive to a wider audience than “effective altruism”
I think it’s true that introductions to EA and initial perceptions of EA often focus on increasing regular individual people’s donations to charity (as well as better allocating such donations to charity) to an extent that’s disproportionate both to the significance of those topics and to how much of a focus those topics actually are in EA.
But I’m not confident that the label “effective altruism” makes that issue worse than the label “global priorities” would. We already aren’t using charity in the name, and my guess is that “altruism” isn’t very strongly associated with “individual charity donations” in most people’s minds (I’d guess the term “altruism” is similarly or more strongly associated with “heroic sacrifices”). I’d guess that this problem is more just a result of earlier EA messaging, plus local groups often choosing to lead with a focus on individual donations.
(Of course, survey research could provide better answers on this question than our guesses would.)