We've heard that our name, CEEALAR (Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research), is not the best. What would a better name be? To expand, there are potentially two names: one for the hotel building, and one for the charity. The charity name can't contain the word "hotel", and perhaps shouldn't contain "EA". And does "Athena" - the current name of the hotel - pass the reversal test? (Previous discussion on our Facebook group).
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The Organization Formerly Known as Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (TOFKACEEALAR)?
(Sorry.)
More seriously, perhaps you could look into the history of utopian communities for inspiration? Some had nice names, such as Owen's 'New Harmony'. Another option is to use the form 'x House', where x is the name of some suitable person or idea (as an example, someone previously suggested 'Bentham House').
I like Xenea, a combination of Xenia (ancient Greek concept of hospitality) and EA.
Other ideas that I've thought about but like a bit less:
How about something like LEARN? -- not intended as an acronym; just "learn" with the letters "EA" in it highlighted in some way.
One could even play with the fact that "EA" also appears in "research" and consider a logo where these letters are highlighted the same, shared, ...
My sense is:
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Having a separate name for the org and the hotel unnecessarily introduces more confusion/complexity.
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Defaulting to Athena because it happens to be the name of the building already, seems highly improbable to coincidentally be the best option.
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For clarity, something that concisely describes the mission or vision of the org and place feels best to me. Arepo's suggestion of 'Center for Altruists in Residence' hits the sweet spot on the specific enough to broad enough spectrum IMO. It also has an acronym which people will all pronounce the same and spell correctly (C.A.R.)
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Using the names of philosophers etc runs the risk of people having (potentially negative) ideas about the person in question, which don't align with the purpose/vision/mission of the hotel. So personally I'd avoid that to ensure people who should be attracted, are attracted.
I thought "EA hotel" was pretty great as a straightforward description, good substitutes might have a word for "ea" and a word for "hotel". So like:
Bentham's Base
Helpers' House
Swap with Lodge, Hollow, Den if alliteration is too cute
e.g. "Bentham's House", "Bentham's Lodge" both sound pretty serious.
Or just forget precedent and brand something new e.g. Runway (or Runway Athena)
Some "just kidding" alliterative options that I couldn't resist:
Crypto crib, Prioritization Place, Utilitarian's Union, Consequentialist Club, Greg's iGloo
I imagine most people reading your question don't want to list out a bunch of bad ideas. But I think that might be what's needed at this point, because the more we enumerate (and eliminate), the more clear it becomes whether or not CEEALAR is actually the best option. Or maybe seeing a bunch of bad ideas will spark a good one in someone's mind. Here:
Centre for Effective Learning, Centre for Learning Good, Blackpool Pastures, Hotel Hedon, Hotel for Effective Research, Maxgood Productions, Maxwell Hotel, EA Retreat House.
Yeah this is difficult.
Effective Hospitality
I've been thinking about this name on and off, and Effective Hospitality was the name that my thoughts kept returning to. I'd use it first as a name for what CEEALAR does: doing the most good possible by hosting people.
The name generalizes very well, in my opinion. Specifically, CEEALAR and/or the hotel could become "EH Blackpool". The idea might spread, and there could soon be "EH Tokyo", "EH Munich" and others (just as today there are effective altruism groups that call themselves "EA <location>").
The other primary advantage is that the name is quite self-explanatory.
I think the name CEEALAR grew on me by now, maybe because it is rewarding for me to be able to remember it correctly, and maybe because it has become kind of an inside joke that the name is a bit awkward. Random ideas anyway:
- Altruists' harbor
- Scout manor
- Residence and Co-Working Centre (RANC Centre)
- Residence for Altruistic Learning and Doing (RALD)
- Altruists' Residence for Co-Working (ARFORC)
- Altruistic Living And Doing Stuff (Altruistic LADS)
It could even be Altruistic Living and Building - Altruistic Labs! I feel like that name embodies what the organization does within it (enabling people to test various generally early-stage approaches to altruism) which would be a good idea whether the proposed name is an acronym or not.
Looking at similar organizations inside and outside EA (like Berkeley REACH) for naming inspiration also seems like a good idea.
For the sake of getting more feedback on existing suggestions, I'm going to post the eligible ones from the existing FB thread as responses to this 'answer', with clarifications about whether they apply to the hotel or the org (nb in cases where they could make sense for either, I'll post a separate entry for each).
Please up/downvote according to how much you approve of each, keeping in mind the acronyms they'll form (whether as a plus or minus) - I suggest using single up/downvotes, since regular forum contributors get to adjust karma more with strong votes, but don't seem any more likely to have a better sense of aesthetics than passers by. But feel free to comment on any you feel strongly for/against!
Curated and popular this week
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Around 1 month ago, I wrote a similar Forum post on the Easterlin Paradox. I decided to take it down because: 1) after useful comments, the method looked a little half-baked; 2) I got in touch with two academics – Profs. Caspar Kaiser and Andrew Oswald – and we are now working on a paper together using a related method.
That blog post actually came to the opposite conclusion, but, as mentioned, I don't think the method was fully thought through.
I'm a little more confident about this work. It essentially summarises my Undergraduate dissertation. You can read a full version here. I'm hoping to publish this somewhere, over the Summer. So all feedback is welcome.
TLDR
* Life satisfaction (LS) appears flat over time, despite massive economic growth — the “Easterlin Paradox.”
* Some argue that happiness is rising, but we’re reporting it more conservatively — a phenomenon called rescaling.
* I test this hypothesis using a large (panel) dataset by asking a simple question: has the emotional impact of life events — e.g., unemployment, new relationships — weakened over time? If happiness scales have stretched, life events should “move the needle” less now than in the past.
* That’s exactly what I find: on average, the effect of the average life event on reported happiness has fallen by around 40%.
* This result is surprisingly robust to various model specifications. It suggests rescaling is a real phenomenon, and that (under 2 strong assumptions), underlying happiness may be 60% higher than reported happiness.
* There are some interesting EA-relevant implications for the merits of material abundance, and the limits to subjective wellbeing data.
1. Background: A Happiness Paradox
Here is a claim that I suspect most EAs would agree with: humans today live longer, richer, and healthier lives than any point in history. Yet we seem no happier for it. Self-reported life satisfaction (LS), usually measured on a 0–10 scale, has remained remarkably flat over the last f
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We’ve redesigned effectivealtruism.org to improve understanding and perception of effective altruism, and make it easier to take action.
View the new site →
I led the redesign and will be writing in the first person here, but many others contributed research, feedback, writing, editing, and development. I’d love to hear what you think, here is a feedback form.
Redesign goals
This redesign is part of CEA’s broader efforts to improve how effective altruism is understood and perceived. I focused on goals aligned with CEA’s branding and growth strategy:
1. Improve understanding of what effective altruism is
Make the core ideas easier to grasp by simplifying language, addressing common misconceptions, and showcasing more real-world examples of people and projects.
2. Improve the perception of effective altruism
I worked from a set of brand associations defined by the group working on the EA brand project[1]. These are words we want people to associate with effective altruism more strongly—like compassionate, competent, and action-oriented.
3. Increase impactful actions
Make it easier for visitors to take meaningful next steps, like signing up for the newsletter or intro course, exploring career opportunities, or donating.
We focused especially on three key audiences:
* To-be direct workers: young people and professionals who might explore impactful career paths
* Opinion shapers and people in power: journalists, policymakers, and senior professionals in relevant fields
* Donors: from large funders to smaller individual givers and peer foundations
Before and after
The changes across the site are aimed at making it clearer, more skimmable, and easier to navigate. Here are some side-by-side comparisons:
Landing page
Some of the changes:
* Replaced the economic growth graph with a short video highlighting different cause areas and effective altruism in action
* Updated tagline to "Find the best ways to help others" based on testing by Rethink
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Summary
I’m excited to announce a “Digital Sentience Consortium” hosted by Longview Philanthropy, in collaboration with The Navigation Fund and Macroscopic Ventures, to support research and applied projects focused on the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, and experiences of artificial intelligence systems. The opportunities include research fellowships, career transition fellowships, and a broad request for proposals for applied work on these topics.
For years, I’ve thought this area was seriously overlooked. It now has growing interest. Twenty-two out of 123 pages of Claude 4’s model card are about its potential moral patienthood. Scientific experts increasingly say that near-term AI sentience is a real possibility; even the skeptical neuroscientist Anil Seth says, “it is unwise to dismiss the possibility altogether.” We’re hoping to bring new people and projects into the field to increase the chance that society deals with the possibility of digital sentience reasonably, and with concern for all involved.
* Apply to Research Fellowship
* Apply to Career Transition Fellowship
* Apply to Request for Proposals
Motivation & Focus
For about as long as I’ve been reading about transformative AI, I’ve wondered whether society would face critical decisions involving AI sentience. Until recently, I thought there was not much to be done here besides perhaps more philosophy of mind and perhaps some ethics—and I was not sure these approaches would make much progress.
Now, I think there are live areas where people can contribute:
* Technically informed research on which AI systems are sentient, like this paper applying existing theories of consciousness to a few AI architectures.
* Innovative approaches to investigate sentience, potentially in a way that avoids having to take a stand on a particular theory of consciousness, like work on AI introspection.
* Political philosophy and policy research on the proper role of AI in society.
* Work to ed
High Impact House (for the building)