I like this! In accordance with some of the past discussions on the name ‘EA,’ I always felt a bit awkward leaning into the group name for most of the reasons you note above. I was also struck by a recent episode of Bad Takes (Laura McGann and Matt Yglesias’ new podcast) about SBF where she describes not wanting to like EA because of this ‘we—a bunch of nerds—have figured it out’ vibe. She was eventually positive after learning more, but it seems really bad to be screening out people like that.
Scale seems to be one of the most important drivers of things EAs care about (factory farming, malaria prevention, future generations). +1 for ‘Mass’ capturing that in an intuitive way. Though, to be fair, I haven’t spent any time exploring other name ideas.
Minor point: ‘Mass Good’ struck me as having a religious undertone (maybe just because of the word ‘mass’). I actually kind of liked it for that reason! As much as some want to avoid it, EA really does feel like a secular-religion to me—it’s a community with shared values, supporting one another in pursuit of living those values. What’s not to like?
I’m not confident this is the right rebranding, but a community shake-up might be the right time to be thinking seriously about one. So I’m glad you wrote this!
Hi Alene!
I like this! In accordance with some of the past discussions on the name ‘EA,’ I always felt a bit awkward leaning into the group name for most of the reasons you note above. I was also struck by a recent episode of Bad Takes (Laura McGann and Matt Yglesias’ new podcast) about SBF where she describes not wanting to like EA because of this ‘we—a bunch of nerds—have figured it out’ vibe. She was eventually positive after learning more, but it seems really bad to be screening out people like that.
Scale seems to be one of the most important drivers of things EAs care about (factory farming, malaria prevention, future generations). +1 for ‘Mass’ capturing that in an intuitive way. Though, to be fair, I haven’t spent any time exploring other name ideas.
Minor point: ‘Mass Good’ struck me as having a religious undertone (maybe just because of the word ‘mass’). I actually kind of liked it for that reason! As much as some want to avoid it, EA really does feel like a secular-religion to me—it’s a community with shared values, supporting one another in pursuit of living those values. What’s not to like?
I’m not confident this is the right rebranding, but a community shake-up might be the right time to be thinking seriously about one. So I’m glad you wrote this!
That’s a great point about mass having a double meaning! I hadn’t thought of that!