I’m troubled by two posts I’ve seen lately distinguishing between “hardcore” and “softcore” effective altruists. Even if we introduce these terms with the goal of reducing stigma, “softcore” is always going to sound a bit insulting. (Not to mention that it’s typically used to describe porn, not people.)
Do other types of movements make this distinction? Political parties include a wide spectrum of people from those who simply vote, to those who campaign for particular causes or candidates, to those who hold office and spend their entire careers to their party. “Environmentalists” include everyone from those who try to conserve energy in their daily lives to those choosing radically different lifestyles and working for major policy changes. Some religious traditions distinguish between “laypeople” and those who have taken vows, but this term doesn’t have the same dismissive connotation as “softcore” (perhaps because it’s understood that clergy and monastics could not exist without the support of the laity).
Of course, there will be variation in how involved people get with any movement. Some people will keep their engagement with effective altruism at a fairly casual level—perhaps telling friends and family about an excellent charity. Others will become deeply involved, committing much more of their time and money. People will shift between levels as their beliefs and life circumstances change, perhaps as they become more committed or develop health problems. And it’s hard to tell from the outside how difficult a particular level is for any given person; an amount of effort or money that's easy for one person will be a major stretch for another.
Having strictly defined categories of involvement doesn’t seem likely to help. Even among people who have taken some concrete step like taking the Giving What We Can pledge or organizing an EA meetup, there will be a lot of variation in effort and impact. So perhaps it makes sense to see involvement with effective altruism as a continuum rather than a two-category division.
One of the things I love about effective altruism is that it demonstrates how small changes—whether moving your donations to better charities, learning about a career you didn’t know much about, or giving away enough to put you in the world’s richest 2% instead of the richest 1%—can lead to big impacts. I would hate to see these kinds of changes minimized as “soft.”
Thanks to Michelle Hutchinson, Oliver Habryka, and Tyler Alterman for feedback; all opinions expressed are my own.
I think it's important to differentiate between the degree to which a hierarchy is "formal" and the degree to which a hierarchy is "loose". A Silicon Valley startup may have a hierarchy that's "formal" in the sense that everyone has a job title, but "loose" in the sense that it's very acceptable to tell your boss why they're wrong. A high school may have a hierarchy that's "informal" in the sense that no one has a title specifying their position in the hierarchy, but "tight" in the sense that people lower in the hierarchy have very little influence.
I suspect as a group grows, formation of some kind of hierarchy is basically inevitable. Jockeying for status is a very deep human behavior. I expect groups that explicitly disclaim hierarchy to have a de facto hierarchy of some sort or another.
The de facto hierarchy can end up being much worse than a formal hierarchy would be. The extreme example would be an autocratic communist state where the official fiction is that everyone is equal. To take a less extreme example, I'm not very familiar with the environmental movement, but I wouldn't be surprised if environmentalists with lots of twitter followers are de facto significantly more influential than ones without. My observation is that people who are good at getting attention online tend to be people who enjoy generating controversies and have lots of time on their hands, which probably aren't ideal characteristics for a leader.
Paradoxically, I suspect hierarchies tend to work better when they are at least somewhat immobile. In a turbulent hierarchy without formal rules for ascension, you select for some combination of skill at rabble-rousing (in order to ascend in the hierarchy) and skill at repression (in order to defend one's position)--good leadership becomes a rarer and less stable state.
I don't know whether a formal hierarchy would be right for EA. The chief downside is I can't think of a way to pull it off without it seeming weird. My sense is that informal hierarchy is likely sufficient. As an interest group, EA is basically defined by its local status yardstick, which is currently a pretty meritocratic one. The EA "tribal elders" are sufficiently respected that there's little incentive for rabble-rousing or repression, and they seem willing to share the stage with meritorious up-and-comers.
That said, I think it makes sense to keep an eye on things... such favorable conditions can degenerate. Also, my perception is that some social media platforms are structured in a way that greatly increases the ease of rabble-rousing. Luckily the incentive structure of this forum looks relatively good, and the discussion here seems to have stayed high quality thus far.
I wonder if there's research from social or organizational psychology that might shed light on these questions?
Relevant essay: The Tyranny of Structurelessness
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