I agree that that the word ‘populism’ is very prone to misunderstandings but I think the term ‘technocracy’ is acceptably precise. While precision is important, I think we should balance this against the benefits of using more common words, which make it easier for the reader to make connections with other arguments in favour of or against a concept.
I should clarify: I think the misunderstandings are symptoms of a deeper problem, which is that the concept of “technocracy” is too many different things rolled into one word. This isn’t about jargon vs. non-jargon; substituting a more jargon-y word doesn’t help. (I think this is part of why it’s taken on such negative connotations, because people can easily roll anything they don’t like into it; that’s not itself a strong reason not to use it, but it’s illustrative.)
“Technocracy” works okay-ish in contexts like this thread where we’re all mostly speaking in vague generalities to begin with, but when discussing specific policies or even principles for thinking about policy, “I think this is too technocratic” just isn’t helpful. More specific things like “I think this policy exposes the people executing it to too much moral hazard”, or “I think this policy is too likely to have unknown-unknowns that some other group of people could have warned us about”, are better. Indeed, those are very different concerns and I see no reason to believe that EA-in-general errs the same amount, or even in the same direction, for each of them. (If words like “moral hazard” are too jargon-y then you can just replace them with their plain-English definitions.)
I should clarify: I think the misunderstandings are symptoms of a deeper problem, which is that the concept of “technocracy” is too many different things rolled into one word. This isn’t about jargon vs. non-jargon; substituting a more jargon-y word doesn’t help. (I think this is part of why it’s taken on such negative connotations, because people can easily roll anything they don’t like into it; that’s not itself a strong reason not to use it, but it’s illustrative.)
“Technocracy” works okay-ish in contexts like this thread where we’re all mostly speaking in vague generalities to begin with, but when discussing specific policies or even principles for thinking about policy, “I think this is too technocratic” just isn’t helpful. More specific things like “I think this policy exposes the people executing it to too much moral hazard”, or “I think this policy is too likely to have unknown-unknowns that some other group of people could have warned us about”, are better. Indeed, those are very different concerns and I see no reason to believe that EA-in-general errs the same amount, or even in the same direction, for each of them. (If words like “moral hazard” are too jargon-y then you can just replace them with their plain-English definitions.)
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that this would be a good explanation for why the term ‘technocracy’ doesn’t come up that often in EA.