A significant part of human communication is non-verbal.  Body language and gestures often have the capacity to convey and signal a great detail and wealth of information about a person.  Furthermore, historically, various organizations, ranging from secret societies to religions to militaries have sought to utilize very specific physical gestures as a way of communicating affiliation covertly or overtly for various purposes.

I would like to propose then that we within the Effective Altruist movement devise our own particular salute, to help us identify each other and also for the positive psychological effects that deliberate symbolism can entail.

Before I go on, I will emphasize here that I am aware of the potential for misuse that such methods can also cause, and that I am familiar with the very well-known failure state that was historical fascism’s “Roman salute”.  In fact, the particular choice of gesture I will be advocating is deliberately in opposition to that example.

My proposal consists of two gestures, one which I will refer to as the “Light” gesture, as it is open, transparent, and obvious in its symbolism.  The other I shall refer to as the “Dark” gesture, as it is more covert and plausibly deniable.

The Light gesture consists of:

• Place left hand behind back.
• Place right hand on forehead.
• Move right hand to heart.
• Outstretch right hand towards the front or other person with palm raised upwards and fingers open and slightly curled.

The Dark gesture consists of:

• Place left hand behind back.
• Outstretch right hand towards the front or other person with palm sideways, the fingers closed, and the thumb raised upwards.

Explanation of Symbolism

In both cases the left hand is placed behind the back.  This is, for those of you familiar with it, a reference to the Christian scripture of “When you give, do not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.”  I know the majority of Effective Altruists are probably not religious, but I think that the symbolism of this reference from our cultural history remains a useful signal.

In the case of the Light gesture, placing the right hand on the forehand first before then placing it on the heart and then extending this in the universal gesture of giving/receiving/cooperation is indicative of “reason to compassion”, which I hope we can all agree sums up Effective Altruism quite nicely in a nutshell.

I need to emphasize again that the upward facing palm and open fingers are essential.  It is admittedly a more submissive gesture, but it is also the exact opposite of the “Roman salute” position, which was symbolically chosen by the fascists because it represented emotional power and dominance and superiority.  We are trying to be in essence, the opposite of that, to represent reason, equality, and compassion.  The upward direction of the palm also symbolizes that we have a higher ideal we aspire to.

The Dark gesture is less obvious.  It is for when you can’t be so open about your affiliation, for whatever reason.  Symbolically, the palm facing sideways and thumb upwards symbolize moral equality and having a higher purpose respectively.

Proper Responses

The proper response to the Light gesture is not as pop culture would assume, some kind of high five slap down.  Rather, the respectful symbolic response is to in turn, grasp the gesturer’s wrist and raise the gesturer’s hand up even further, which suggests a mutual understanding of Effective Altruism.

The proper response to the Dark gesture is not a handshake, as would be normally assumed, but to return the gesture identically if possible, or to make the handshake more of an equally measured clasp if there is a need to be covert about it.  If the situation is one that demands pretending not to be allies, then perhaps returning just a thumbs up without a handshake can appear as such to outsiders, while signifying that you got the message.

Obviously, none of this will fool careful observers and as rationalists, you should be avoiding the use of deception and championing truth as much as possible, but I leave the Dark gesture proposal as something to consider for particular circumstances.  Personally I would prefer that we publicly use the Light gesture proposal for most normal circumstances.

I’m curious what people think of these ideas.  Thank you for reading and considering!