Hi! I’m a long time effective altruist (14+ years) and utilitarian/utilitarian-adjacent. This is a sweet and earnest post—you’re clearly bright and I admire your dedication at such a young age. You’re right to recognize that burnout isn’t utilitarian, but I worry that your “donate everything / camper van” framing is premature and probably wrong.
At age 14⁄15, the highest-EV move is almost always building optionality, not making binding commitments to extreme frugality. You’re right to maximize income, but I think you’re thinking too much about this in terms of “save money” and not enough in terms of “earn more money”. Your comparative advantage at 14 is completely unknown. You might become a researcher, policy person, entrepreneur, or earn-to-give—these all have very different optimal life strategies. And your ability to find and execute on the best path, and do that path well, will certainly lead to higher impact in the long-run than self-sacrificing immensely right now. I think moving into an apartment or a house is compatible with being a utilitarian. For example, Peter Singer lives in a house, as did a lot of other historical utilitarians.
Also… “Living alone would cause a huge debt of social interaction, causing me to die earlier” is… technically true but also a somewhat alienating way to think about relationships? Friends aren’t just longevity inputs. Be careful not to instrumentalize everything—that path leads to feeling disconnected and often to abandoning the whole framework.
Advice I’d give:
Read 80,000 Hours carefully—they’ve thought hard about sustainable high-impact careers.
Don’t plan the camper van. Plan to learn, explore, and keep options open. You can donate 20% of your income without giving up everything.
Yeah, the cost of cheap shared housing is something like $20k/yr of 2026 dollars, whereas your impact would be worth a lot more than that, either because you are making hundreds of thousands of post-tax dollars per year, or because you’re foregoing those potential earnings to do important research or activism. Van-living is usually penny-wise, but pound-foolish.
Hi! I’m a long time effective altruist (14+ years) and utilitarian/utilitarian-adjacent. This is a sweet and earnest post—you’re clearly bright and I admire your dedication at such a young age. You’re right to recognize that burnout isn’t utilitarian, but I worry that your “donate everything / camper van” framing is premature and probably wrong.
At age 14⁄15, the highest-EV move is almost always building optionality, not making binding commitments to extreme frugality. You’re right to maximize income, but I think you’re thinking too much about this in terms of “save money” and not enough in terms of “earn more money”. Your comparative advantage at 14 is completely unknown. You might become a researcher, policy person, entrepreneur, or earn-to-give—these all have very different optimal life strategies. And your ability to find and execute on the best path, and do that path well, will certainly lead to higher impact in the long-run than self-sacrificing immensely right now. I think moving into an apartment or a house is compatible with being a utilitarian. For example, Peter Singer lives in a house, as did a lot of other historical utilitarians.
Also… “Living alone would cause a huge debt of social interaction, causing me to die earlier” is… technically true but also a somewhat alienating way to think about relationships? Friends aren’t just longevity inputs. Be careful not to instrumentalize everything—that path leads to feeling disconnected and often to abandoning the whole framework.
Advice I’d give:
Read 80,000 Hours carefully—they’ve thought hard about sustainable high-impact careers.
Don’t plan the camper van. Plan to learn, explore, and keep options open. You can donate 20% of your income without giving up everything.
AP Calc will be fine if you’re doing well now.
Yeah, the cost of cheap shared housing is something like $20k/yr of 2026 dollars, whereas your impact would be worth a lot more than that, either because you are making hundreds of thousands of post-tax dollars per year, or because you’re foregoing those potential earnings to do important research or activism. Van-living is usually penny-wise, but pound-foolish.