I didn’t downvote. For what it’s worth, the main negative reaction I had was:
The use of the EA lightbulb as an example of a great symbol. Personally, I’ve always found it kind of amateurish and cringe. I think mainly because it combines two very tired cliches (a lightbulb to represent “ideas” and a heart to represent “altruism”? Really?!).
I suppose I could also complain that:
The claim that “symbolism is important” is not substantiated. Generically that seems true, but the claim that utilitarianism the philosophical idea needs a good/better symbol and/or a flag isn’t obvious.
Granting that symbolism is important, running a prize competition on the EA Forum is probably not the best way to get a brilliant symbol. My main concern is that the format disproportionately encourages submissions from amateurs. In logo design, professional designers often encounter clients who believe that a great logo can be whipped up by more or less anyone in a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. But no—world class logos usually take weeks or months of work, drawing on years of specialist training. If I had just $1K to spend, I might look for a talented young designer from a low-ish wage EU country (e.g. Portugal), and ask them to spend a couple days on it.
Re: (6) — I was curious to see how many others felt the same way, so I ran a quick poll. There’s obviously inherent bias to doing this on a group full of people interested in EA, but it does seem like the logo is pretty well-liked. (Not that this invalidates your view, of course.)
My main concern is that the format disproportionately encourages submissions from amateurs
We also crosspost on reddit to attract people who know how to design logos.
The claim that “symbolism is important” is not substantiated
I would need evidence against the claim that imagery basically worthless. Even in academic ML research, it’s a fatal mistake not to spend at least a day thinking about how to visualize the paper’s concepts. This mistake is nonetheless common.
i think you are moving the goalposts a bit when arguing against the view “that imagery is worthless”. peter (and you in the original post) wrote about symbolism specifically, and in this context symbolism in flags.
i also think there is probably a significant difference between the kind of plots, graphs and other visualisations you see in a research paper, which are aimed at explaining particular results and theories, and flags, which are more meant to associate with concepts, groups, movements and so on. it’s like the difference between a paragraph of prose and a slogan—one of fidelity, i suppose.
I didn’t downvote. For what it’s worth, the main negative reaction I had was:
The use of the EA lightbulb as an example of a great symbol. Personally, I’ve always found it kind of amateurish and cringe. I think mainly because it combines two very tired cliches (a lightbulb to represent “ideas” and a heart to represent “altruism”? Really?!).
I suppose I could also complain that:
The claim that “symbolism is important” is not substantiated. Generically that seems true, but the claim that utilitarianism the philosophical idea needs a good/better symbol and/or a flag isn’t obvious.
Granting that symbolism is important, running a prize competition on the EA Forum is probably not the best way to get a brilliant symbol. My main concern is that the format disproportionately encourages submissions from amateurs. In logo design, professional designers often encounter clients who believe that a great logo can be whipped up by more or less anyone in a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. But no—world class logos usually take weeks or months of work, drawing on years of specialist training. If I had just $1K to spend, I might look for a talented young designer from a low-ish wage EU country (e.g. Portugal), and ask them to spend a couple days on it.
Re: (6) — I was curious to see how many others felt the same way, so I ran a quick poll. There’s obviously inherent bias to doing this on a group full of people interested in EA, but it does seem like the logo is pretty well-liked. (Not that this invalidates your view, of course.)
Interesting, thanks Aaron. This result seems roughly in line with the fraction of EAG attendees who wear EA t-shirts.
We also crosspost on reddit to attract people who know how to design logos.
I would need evidence against the claim that imagery basically worthless. Even in academic ML research, it’s a fatal mistake not to spend at least a day thinking about how to visualize the paper’s concepts. This mistake is nonetheless common.
i think you are moving the goalposts a bit when arguing against the view “that imagery is worthless”. peter (and you in the original post) wrote about symbolism specifically, and in this context symbolism in flags.
i also think there is probably a significant difference between the kind of plots, graphs and other visualisations you see in a research paper, which are aimed at explaining particular results and theories, and flags, which are more meant to associate with concepts, groups, movements and so on. it’s like the difference between a paragraph of prose and a slogan—one of fidelity, i suppose.