I’m not convinced by the idea of doing something harmful “on purpose” and then compensating for it to be able to continue the harmful behaviour without feeling guilty. Additionally, as people who have been in the EA community for a long time, I think there is a chance that we will be seen as representatives of the movement, and this gives us an additional responsibility because others might take our actions as an example and behave in a similar way (e.g. in this case, “ah! it’s ok to eat meat if I donate £25-100 a year to ACE). If I imagined that it was me, and someone was doing something harmful to me during the year and helping me to compensate for the harm so that they wouldn’t feel too bad about harming me again next year—I would find that disturbing.
This being said, I agree with the other parts of your previous comment, e.g. on ‘direct work’ and ‘working at EA orgs’; and that “people greatly differ in how much of a sacrifice specific things are to them, and how comfortable they are with different levels of sacrifice.” Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Michelle!
I’m not convinced by the idea of doing something harmful “on purpose” and then compensating for it to be able to continue the harmful behaviour without feeling guilty. Additionally, as people who have been in the EA community for a long time, I think there is a chance that we will be seen as representatives of the movement, and this gives us an additional responsibility because others might take our actions as an example and behave in a similar way (e.g. in this case, “ah! it’s ok to eat meat if I donate £25-100 a year to ACE).
If I imagined that it was me, and someone was doing something harmful to me during the year and helping me to compensate for the harm so that they wouldn’t feel too bad about harming me again next year—I would find that disturbing.
This being said, I agree with the other parts of your previous comment, e.g. on ‘direct work’ and ‘working at EA orgs’; and that “people greatly differ in how much of a sacrifice specific things are to them, and how comfortable they are with different levels of sacrifice.” Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Michelle!