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
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