Following the academic research closely as EAs often do produces many perspectives that are surprising to traditional activists. I’m a student at University of California Davis. Here my frugality is essential to getting my peers to take my perspectives on effectiveness seriously. If it wasn’t for the frugality, they would dismiss me as not altruistic because I’m a moderate democrat instead of a socialist. I’m frugal because I believe it’s the right thing to do (for me at least), not because of the optics. I don’t know what the best answer is overall, but believe we should be particularly cautious about abandoning frugality in very left wing environments. Perhaps very different levels of frugality will be best in different communities.
Following the academic research closely as EAs often do produces many perspectives that are surprising to traditional activists. I’m a student at University of California Davis. Here my frugality is essential to getting my peers to take my perspectives on effectiveness seriously. If it wasn’t for the frugality, they would dismiss me as not altruistic because I’m a moderate democrat instead of a socialist. I’m frugal because I believe it’s the right thing to do (for me at least), not because of the optics. I don’t know what the best answer is overall, but believe we should be particularly cautious about abandoning frugality in very left wing environments. Perhaps very different levels of frugality will be best in different communities.