Great post - always fun to see Will weighing in on hot-button issues. š
As for where to draw the line on personal spending and frugality, the example of flying business class on an airplane is a perfect illustration: no one needs to fly business class, and the marginal benefits of extra legroom and early boarding are so not worth the 2x or 3x ticket price, imo.
To the concern about value drift and optics, our reputation as a movement would obviously be tarnished if folks like Will and Toby (or any of us) bought yachts and mansions. If we can avoid flagrantly conspicuous consumption, thatād be great. Beyond that, we shouldnāt be eating rice and beans every night. I want a well-balanced diet of kale and quinoa for every EA doing good work out there!
Also relevant, I once asked Peter Singer why we donāt all walk around in ash and sackcloth in order to donate every spare penny, and his response was āif everyone in a movement you had never heard of before were walking around in ash and sackcloth, would you really want to join?ā So even my homeboy Peety acknowledges the importance of optics.
Last point: take the Further Pledge if youāre concerned about individual value drift. I took the pledge in July 2021 (capped my salary at $70k USD) and I can attest that it feels fabulous! Itās definitely increased my overall felicity. ā¤ļø
I massively disagree re the business class point. In particular, many people (e.g. me) can sleep in business class seats that let you lie flat, when they would have not slept and been quite sad and unproductive.
not worth the 2x or 3x ticket price
As a general point, the ratio between prices is irrelevant to the purchasing choice if youāre only buying something onceāyou only care about the difference in price and the difference in value.
you only care about the difference in price and the difference in value
Agree with this as a general principle, provided the ādifference in valueā also takes into account longer-term effects like movement reputational cost.
I donāt think individuals choosing to fly business class based on productivity calculations has much, if any, movement reputational cost. On the other hand, a prominent EA figure might accurately calculate that they gain one extra productive work hour each week, valued at say $100, by paying someone $50 to brush and floss their teeth for them while they sit there working.
This is obviously a fanciful scenario, but I think there are lots of murky areas between flying business class and having a personal teeth brusher where the all-things-considered value calculation isnāt trivial. This is especially the case for purchasing decisions that canāt easily be converted to work productivity boosts, e.g. buying expensive luxury items for the pleasure they bring.
no one needs to fly business class, and the marginal benefits of extra legroom and early boarding are so not worth the 2x or 3x ticket price
If all you want is extra legroom, you can get an exit-row seat for much less. Early boarding isnāt worth very much unless youāre traveling with a carry-on that canāt be checked (ex: musical instrument) and there are cheaper ways to get it. I see the real benefit of business class as (a) a more comfortable place to work or (b) arriving better rested, especially if it gets you a lay-flat seat on an overnight flight. Personally, this isnāt a trade-off that has made sense for me, but I can see cases where it would be worth it if it gives you essentially an extra working day.
FWIW Iāve been trying to fly business class for transatlantic flights for a few years for these reasons. I think itās an usually big effect size for me because otherwise long haul flights play badly with my chronic fatigue and can cost me effectively >1 day, but I expect that many people would get a few hoursā worth of extra productive time (I take advantage of both the lie-flat bed and the good work environment for writing that doesnāt need internet).
Iāve felt weird about expensing it so mostly just been paying for it myself (I donāt have many other big expenses in my life except childcare), but I have noticed that Iām sometimes wanting to make a strong recommendation that a particular other person try to fly business class, and offered to pay for it personally because I think this will help significantly more than what I can otherwise do with my donations. So I seem to be at āwe should probably do a bit more of this at the marginā.
Yeah I think itās a very different calculation if your flight is up to 24 hours long. Also you can only take an exit row seat if you have the (physical) capacity to help in an emergency (e.g. canāt be flying solo with kids or elderly relatives, you have to be able to throw 20kg at a time, canāt have certain other impairments, have to be able to understand the language of the relevant country and so on), so I donāt know how scalable a suggestion that is.
Hereās a prediction: In the not-too-distant future, someone who calls themselves an effective altruist is going to purchase a private plane or helicopter and justify it saying the time it saves and the amount of extra good they can do with that saved time is worth the expense. The community is going to have a large population that disagrees and sees it as a wasteful extravagance, and a smaller but vocal population that will agree with the purchase as a worthwhile tradeoff, especially if that person is part of a sub-community within EA that is ok with more speculative expected value calculations. Instead of there being a clear, coordinated response disavowing the purchase as extravagant, the community is going to hesitate and argue about the extent to which it is good to feed utility monsters and be muted in its outward response. But thatās not going to stop the wider media picking up the story. A small fraction of the population will then henceforth liken EAs to the pastors at megachurches with private jets who use do-gooder justifications for selfish purposes. And yes, you could construct some sort of hypothetical where someone needs a helicopter to more quickly fly between trolley levers to save a bunch of people. But the much more likely scenario is that someone wants a helicopter and is fine using an iffy, cursory justification for it and the trolley brakes are working just fine.
Great post - always fun to see Will weighing in on hot-button issues. š
As for where to draw the line on personal spending and frugality, the example of flying business class on an airplane is a perfect illustration: no one needs to fly business class, and the marginal benefits of extra legroom and early boarding are so not worth the 2x or 3x ticket price, imo.
To the concern about value drift and optics, our reputation as a movement would obviously be tarnished if folks like Will and Toby (or any of us) bought yachts and mansions. If we can avoid flagrantly conspicuous consumption, thatād be great. Beyond that, we shouldnāt be eating rice and beans every night. I want a well-balanced diet of kale and quinoa for every EA doing good work out there!
Letās not forget that SBF cooks his own meals
Also relevant, I once asked Peter Singer why we donāt all walk around in ash and sackcloth in order to donate every spare penny, and his response was āif everyone in a movement you had never heard of before were walking around in ash and sackcloth, would you really want to join?ā So even my homeboy Peety acknowledges the importance of optics.
Last point: take the Further Pledge if youāre concerned about individual value drift. I took the pledge in July 2021 (capped my salary at $70k USD) and I can attest that it feels fabulous! Itās definitely increased my overall felicity. ā¤ļø
I massively disagree re the business class point. In particular, many people (e.g. me) can sleep in business class seats that let you lie flat, when they would have not slept and been quite sad and unproductive.
As a general point, the ratio between prices is irrelevant to the purchasing choice if youāre only buying something onceāyou only care about the difference in price and the difference in value.
Agree with this as a general principle, provided the ādifference in valueā also takes into account longer-term effects like movement reputational cost.
I donāt think individuals choosing to fly business class based on productivity calculations has much, if any, movement reputational cost. On the other hand, a prominent EA figure might accurately calculate that they gain one extra productive work hour each week, valued at say $100, by paying someone $50 to brush and floss their teeth for them while they sit there working.
This is obviously a fanciful scenario, but I think there are lots of murky areas between flying business class and having a personal teeth brusher where the all-things-considered value calculation isnāt trivial. This is especially the case for purchasing decisions that canāt easily be converted to work productivity boosts, e.g. buying expensive luxury items for the pleasure they bring.
If all you want is extra legroom, you can get an exit-row seat for much less. Early boarding isnāt worth very much unless youāre traveling with a carry-on that canāt be checked (ex: musical instrument) and there are cheaper ways to get it. I see the real benefit of business class as (a) a more comfortable place to work or (b) arriving better rested, especially if it gets you a lay-flat seat on an overnight flight. Personally, this isnāt a trade-off that has made sense for me, but I can see cases where it would be worth it if it gives you essentially an extra working day.
FWIW Iāve been trying to fly business class for transatlantic flights for a few years for these reasons. I think itās an usually big effect size for me because otherwise long haul flights play badly with my chronic fatigue and can cost me effectively >1 day, but I expect that many people would get a few hoursā worth of extra productive time (I take advantage of both the lie-flat bed and the good work environment for writing that doesnāt need internet).
Iāve felt weird about expensing it so mostly just been paying for it myself (I donāt have many other big expenses in my life except childcare), but I have noticed that Iām sometimes wanting to make a strong recommendation that a particular other person try to fly business class, and offered to pay for it personally because I think this will help significantly more than what I can otherwise do with my donations. So I seem to be at āwe should probably do a bit more of this at the marginā.
Yeah I think itās a very different calculation if your flight is up to 24 hours long. Also you can only take an exit row seat if you have the (physical) capacity to help in an emergency (e.g. canāt be flying solo with kids or elderly relatives, you have to be able to throw 20kg at a time, canāt have certain other impairments, have to be able to understand the language of the relevant country and so on), so I donāt know how scalable a suggestion that is.
Hereās a prediction: In the not-too-distant future, someone who calls themselves an effective altruist is going to purchase a private plane or helicopter and justify it saying the time it saves and the amount of extra good they can do with that saved time is worth the expense. The community is going to have a large population that disagrees and sees it as a wasteful extravagance, and a smaller but vocal population that will agree with the purchase as a worthwhile tradeoff, especially if that person is part of a sub-community within EA that is ok with more speculative expected value calculations. Instead of there being a clear, coordinated response disavowing the purchase as extravagant, the community is going to hesitate and argue about the extent to which it is good to feed utility monsters and be muted in its outward response. But thatās not going to stop the wider media picking up the story. A small fraction of the population will then henceforth liken EAs to the pastors at megachurches with private jets who use do-gooder justifications for selfish purposes. And yes, you could construct some sort of hypothetical where someone needs a helicopter to more quickly fly between trolley levers to save a bunch of people. But the much more likely scenario is that someone wants a helicopter and is fine using an iffy, cursory justification for it and the trolley brakes are working just fine.
Well phrased! Iād bet youāre right that something akin to this will happen in the future. Solid prediction.
I guess Iām just trying to not be that guy, and I hope everyone else tries to not be that guy too.