I don’t think you can define who gets to identify as something, whether that’s gender or religion or group membership.
I’m a Christian and I think anyone should be able to call themselves call themselves a Christian, no issue with that at all no matter what they believe or whatever their level of commitment or how good or bad they are as a person.
Any alternative means that someone else has to make a judgement call based on objective or subjective criteria, which I’m not comfortable with.
TBH I doubt people will be clamouring for the EA title for status or popularity haha.
Yeah, I think you are right in implying there aren’t really any good alternatives. We could try having a formal list of members who all pay dues to a central organization, but (having put almost no thought into it) I assume that would come with it’s own set of problems. And I also feel comfortability with an implication that we should have someone else making a judgment based on externally visible criteria. I probably wouldn’t make the cut! (I hardly donate at all, and my career hasn’t been particularly impactful either)
Your example of Christianity makes me think about EA being a somewhat “action-based identity.” This is what I mean: I can verbally claim a particular identity (Christianity, or EA, or something else), and that matters to an extent. But what I do matters a lot also, especially if it is not congruent with the identity I claim. If I claim to be Christian but I fail to treat my fellow man with love and instead I am cruel, other people might (rightly) question how Christian I am. If I claim to be an EA but I behave in anti-EA ways (maybe I eat lots of meat, I fail to donate discretionary funds, I don’t work toward reducing suffering, etc.) I won’t have a lot of credibility as an EA.
I’m not sure how to parse the difference between a claimed identity and a demonstrated identity, but I’d guess that I could find some good thoughts about it if I were willing to spend several hours diving into some sociology literature about identity. I am curious about it, but I am 20-minutes curious, not 8-hours curious. Haha.
EDIT: after mulling over this for a few more minutes, I’ve made this VERY simplistic framework that roughly illustrated my current thinking. There is a lot of interpretation to be made regarding what behavior counts as in accordance with an EA identity or incongruent with an EA identity (eating meat? donating only 2%? not changing your career?). I’m not certain that I fully endorse this, but it gives me a starting point for thinking about it.
100% I really like this. You can claim any identity, but how much credibility you have with that identity depends on your “demonstrated identity”. There is risk though to the movement with this kind of all takers appoach. Before I would have thought that the odd regular person behaving badly while claiming to be EA wasn’t a big threat.
Then there was SBF and the sexual abuse scandals. These however were not so much an issue of fringe, non-committed people claiming to EA and tarnishing the movement, but mostly high profile central figures tarnishing the movement.
Reflecting on this, perhaps the actions of high profile or “core” people matter more than people on the edge, who might claim to be EA without serious committment.
I mean I think it’ll come in waves. As I said in my comment below when FTX Future Fund was up and regrants were abound I had many people around me fake the EA label with hilarious epistemic tripwires abound. Then when FTX collapsed those people were quiet. I think as AI Safety gets more prominent this will happen again in waves. I know a few humanities people pivoting to talking about AI Safety and AI bias people thinking of how to get grant money.
I get the sentiment, but what’s the alternative?
I don’t think you can define who gets to identify as something, whether that’s gender or religion or group membership.
I’m a Christian and I think anyone should be able to call themselves call themselves a Christian, no issue with that at all no matter what they believe or whatever their level of commitment or how good or bad they are as a person.
Any alternative means that someone else has to make a judgement call based on objective or subjective criteria, which I’m not comfortable with.
TBH I doubt people will be clamouring for the EA title for status or popularity haha.
Yeah, I think you are right in implying there aren’t really any good alternatives. We could try having a formal list of members who all pay dues to a central organization, but (having put almost no thought into it) I assume that would come with it’s own set of problems. And I also feel comfortability with an implication that we should have someone else making a judgment based on externally visible criteria. I probably wouldn’t make the cut! (I hardly donate at all, and my career hasn’t been particularly impactful either)
Your example of Christianity makes me think about EA being a somewhat “action-based identity.” This is what I mean: I can verbally claim a particular identity (Christianity, or EA, or something else), and that matters to an extent. But what I do matters a lot also, especially if it is not congruent with the identity I claim. If I claim to be Christian but I fail to treat my fellow man with love and instead I am cruel, other people might (rightly) question how Christian I am. If I claim to be an EA but I behave in anti-EA ways (maybe I eat lots of meat, I fail to donate discretionary funds, I don’t work toward reducing suffering, etc.) I won’t have a lot of credibility as an EA.
I’m not sure how to parse the difference between a claimed identity and a demonstrated identity, but I’d guess that I could find some good thoughts about it if I were willing to spend several hours diving into some sociology literature about identity. I am curious about it, but I am 20-minutes curious, not 8-hours curious. Haha.
EDIT: after mulling over this for a few more minutes, I’ve made this VERY simplistic framework that roughly illustrated my current thinking. There is a lot of interpretation to be made regarding what behavior counts as in accordance with an EA identity or incongruent with an EA identity (eating meat? donating only 2%? not changing your career?). I’m not certain that I fully endorse this, but it gives me a starting point for thinking about it.
100% I really like this. You can claim any identity, but how much credibility you have with that identity depends on your “demonstrated identity”. There is risk though to the movement with this kind of all takers appoach. Before I would have thought that the odd regular person behaving badly while claiming to be EA wasn’t a big threat.
Then there was SBF and the sexual abuse scandals. These however were not so much an issue of fringe, non-committed people claiming to EA and tarnishing the movement, but mostly high profile central figures tarnishing the movement.
Reflecting on this, perhaps the actions of high profile or “core” people matter more than people on the edge, who might claim to be EA without serious committment.
I mean I think it’ll come in waves. As I said in my comment below when FTX Future Fund was up and regrants were abound I had many people around me fake the EA label with hilarious epistemic tripwires abound. Then when FTX collapsed those people were quiet. I think as AI Safety gets more prominent this will happen again in waves. I know a few humanities people pivoting to talking about AI Safety and AI bias people thinking of how to get grant money.