EA has a PR problem (in that it cares about PR)
p: my communist friends thought that effective altruism was about 'long termism' and not actually doing anything to help people here and now
m: So, they know GiveWell exist, they just think it another community/movement funding it? Or they never heard of it?
p: never heard of it
m: and what do they think now?
p: Well they said it was “PR” when I brought it up
This is as actual discussion from yesterday. I’ve written before about this topic, but I used too many words, only the last three paragraphs mattered. To be shorter:
EA is weird. It’s autistic and tech-positive and cares about outcomes. All of these things are super-cringe. The people who need to hear about it — others like us — WILL hear about it. Everyone else will only hear about it when the clout-chasing normies dunk on how weird we are. And when we point to the things we do which they would theoretically strongly approve of, they will dismiss that at “PR.”
Why? Because they already know what to think. They were told what to think by their thought leaders. Any evidence that goes against what their thought-leaders say is dismissed as disingenuous posturing. Actually doing good things does not matter to them. They dismiss it as PR because they know PR is primarily just deception, and they’re right.
Unfortunately the movement is leaning into massaging their image anyway. They talk a lot about literal PR. They spend actual effort on optics when that effort could be spent on doing something good instead. Optics to win over people who have antibodies specifically against manufactured optics manipulation.
If the actual, literal good things EA does — which are core to EA and predated any public awareness of the movement — are dismissed as “PR” because they don’t fit the NYT narrative… how will literal attempts to massage the EA image be viewed?
This isn’t really a problem if you don’t care what they think. These people literally do not matter. You cannot win over such people by mutilating your movement, you can only mutilate your movement.
Have the courage to be true to your convictions. That’s what brought EA where it is today. That’s what attracted all the people who support it and work within it and fund it. Mutilating that in a cursed chase for approval from people who want to hate you will only drive away all the good people who made EA what it is.
"Unfortunately the movement is leaning into massaging their image anyway. They talk a lot about literal PR. They spend actual effort on optics when that effort could be spent on doing something good instead."
Honestly, not sure about that. People, including me, are still debating that castle for example. Yes, I know Scott thinks it's actually good purchase, but I've still haven't found how they made the calculation.
Another thing, I really dislike when MacAskill is seen as super pro longtermism based on his arguments, people push back him, and he says "I actually mean weak longtermism, but you seem to think I argue for hard longtermism". That's great, but argue that he needs to work on his communication in that case.
I mostly agree with this post, though I think it's 20% too hyperbolic. You write as though PR would *necessarily* backfire. Like, there's no way that tailoring EA ideas in a specific way to specific audiences could ever be successful.
In any case, I think I think this would be a good post to have on the EA Forum.