4) The direct translations of Effective Altruism can sound a bit forced. The dutch “Effectief Altruïsme” is a case in point. This can make you seem a bit “out of touch”. We checked with German and Spanish EA’s and they confirm that the direct translations sound rather awkward in their native tongue (a Polish EA we talked to have said that the name actually sounds really positive in Polish, so this point may not be relevant in all languages).
Finnish definitely shares this problem. The two predominant ways to translate ‘effective’ into Finnish are:
tehokas (efficient)
vaikuttava (impressive or impactful)
Efficient is problematic because it’s not the same as impactful. Many people have emotional or ideological problems with the ideals of efficiency, productivity, and optimization, and would have a gut-feeling of resistance against, e.g., this definition (from Google Translate) applied to human behavior:
efficient: (especially of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
Impressive is even more problematic because an EA group would be wise to actively avoid the air of elitism which you mention. So “vaikuttava altruismi” is basically equally close to “impressive altruism” as it is to “impactful altruism” — and there is not really a word in Finnish to separately capture the intended meaning of impactful.
The direct translation, efektiivinen, is very forced, and seems to have only rare and technical use in other contexts.
For these reasons (and other points mentioned in the post), I would encourage Finnish groups to consider alternative names.
Finnish definitely shares this problem. The two predominant ways to translate ‘effective’ into Finnish are:
tehokas (efficient)
vaikuttava (impressive or impactful)
Efficient is problematic because it’s not the same as impactful. Many people have emotional or ideological problems with the ideals of efficiency, productivity, and optimization, and would have a gut-feeling of resistance against, e.g., this definition (from Google Translate) applied to human behavior:
efficient: (especially of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
Impressive is even more problematic because an EA group would be wise to actively avoid the air of elitism which you mention. So “vaikuttava altruismi” is basically equally close to “impressive altruism” as it is to “impactful altruism” — and there is not really a word in Finnish to separately capture the intended meaning of impactful.
The direct translation, efektiivinen, is very forced, and seems to have only rare and technical use in other contexts.
For these reasons (and other points mentioned in the post), I would encourage Finnish groups to consider alternative names.