(1) I think Joey’s right, and I’ll phrase the issue in this way—a lot of EAs underrate the impact of habit-formation and overrate the extent to which most of your choices even require active willpower. Your choices change who you are as a person, so what was once hard becomes easy.
I’ve always given at least 10% to effective charities, and now it’s just something I do; it’s barely something I have to think about, let alone require some heroic exertion of will. And while I’m not vegan, I am successfully eating less meat even on a largel6 keto diet, and what surprised me is how much easier it is than I thought it would be.
(2) Let’s accept for the sake of argument that there is a lot of heterogeneity, such that for some people the impact of habit formation is weak and it is psychologically very difficult for them to consistently adhere to non-job avenues to impact (e.g. donating, being vegan, etc). Even so, how would one know in advance? Why not test it out, to see if you’re in the group for which habit formation impact is high and these sacrifices are easy, or if you are in the other group?
Surely it’s worth doing—the potential impact is significant, and if it’s too hard you can of course stop! But many people will be surprised, I think, at just how easy certain things are when they become part of your daily routine.
think Joey’s right, and I’ll phrase the issue in this way—a lot of EAs underrate the impact of habit-formation and overrate the extent to which most of your choices even require active willpower
I mean, yes, but I think it’s at least as true that a lot of people overestimate the cost of “low impact” choices, for some people. People are just pretty variable, and however badly people understand themselves, strangers understand them even less. It’s fantastic that you donate 10% and don’t find it to be a hardship, but it’s obviously dependent on a bunch of life circumstances that don’t hold for everyone. They’re not uncommon in EA either, but I think it’s pretty alienating for people who aren’t in that position to be told it’s just an issue of habit formation.
I do think there’s a problem where people worry that doing less impactful altruistic interventions like donating blood is low status, like announcing you don’t have better things to do. That worry isn’t unfounded, although I think it might be exaggerated. I think this is bad for lots of reasons and worth fighting against.
I think the model I would suggest is indeed close to what Joel is saying—try it out system as opposed to guessing a priori how you will be affected by things. More specifically, track your work hours/productivity (if you think that is where the bulk of your impact is coming from) and see if, for example, donating blood on the weekend negatively, positively, or has no effect on them. I think that my output has gotten higher over time, in part, due to pretty active testing and higher amounts of measurement. - Related post
(1) I think Joey’s right, and I’ll phrase the issue in this way—a lot of EAs underrate the impact of habit-formation and overrate the extent to which most of your choices even require active willpower. Your choices change who you are as a person, so what was once hard becomes easy.
I’ve always given at least 10% to effective charities, and now it’s just something I do; it’s barely something I have to think about, let alone require some heroic exertion of will. And while I’m not vegan, I am successfully eating less meat even on a largel6 keto diet, and what surprised me is how much easier it is than I thought it would be.
(2) Let’s accept for the sake of argument that there is a lot of heterogeneity, such that for some people the impact of habit formation is weak and it is psychologically very difficult for them to consistently adhere to non-job avenues to impact (e.g. donating, being vegan, etc). Even so, how would one know in advance? Why not test it out, to see if you’re in the group for which habit formation impact is high and these sacrifices are easy, or if you are in the other group?
Surely it’s worth doing—the potential impact is significant, and if it’s too hard you can of course stop! But many people will be surprised, I think, at just how easy certain things are when they become part of your daily routine.
I mean, yes, but I think it’s at least as true that a lot of people overestimate the cost of “low impact” choices, for some people. People are just pretty variable, and however badly people understand themselves, strangers understand them even less. It’s fantastic that you donate 10% and don’t find it to be a hardship, but it’s obviously dependent on a bunch of life circumstances that don’t hold for everyone. They’re not uncommon in EA either, but I think it’s pretty alienating for people who aren’t in that position to be told it’s just an issue of habit formation.
I do think there’s a problem where people worry that doing less impactful altruistic interventions like donating blood is low status, like announcing you don’t have better things to do. That worry isn’t unfounded, although I think it might be exaggerated. I think this is bad for lots of reasons and worth fighting against.
I think the model I would suggest is indeed close to what Joel is saying—try it out system as opposed to guessing a priori how you will be affected by things. More specifically, track your work hours/productivity (if you think that is where the bulk of your impact is coming from) and see if, for example, donating blood on the weekend negatively, positively, or has no effect on them. I think that my output has gotten higher over time, in part, due to pretty active testing and higher amounts of measurement. - Related post