Rather critical in questions like this is how you integrate your own potential for burnout or responses to rewards. If indulging in such excesses helps you more sustainably and effectively avoid burnout or otherwise be more effective at doing good, it could make sense. Even among EAs, most people have an aspect of themselves that isn’t totally concerned with utility maximization that they need to feed.
The problem is that this rationalization can be used to justify increasingly wasteful or harmful behavior where one says that an indulgence renders them more effective-thus increasing total utility, but it’s actually a result of one’s privileging one’s interests.
Rather critical in questions like this is how you integrate your own potential for burnout or responses to rewards. If indulging in such excesses helps you more sustainably and effectively avoid burnout or otherwise be more effective at doing good, it could make sense. Even among EAs, most people have an aspect of themselves that isn’t totally concerned with utility maximization that they need to feed.
The problem is that this rationalization can be used to justify increasingly wasteful or harmful behavior where one says that an indulgence renders them more effective-thus increasing total utility, but it’s actually a result of one’s privileging one’s interests.