I think it can also be incredibly useful PR-wise. The trader making 150K after taxes and living on minimum wage might be doing less good with her donations than the trader making 500K and living on 250K, but emotionally, the former is generally seen as a LOT more admirable, in some sense better for young idealistic people to live up to, and (most importantly) generate more press for people to first hear about the movement and then later find out that they can do a lot of good without being as extreme.
Also (and I’m less sure about this), I think in some sense anchoring people to “large sacrifice” and then learning about how you can do a lot of good while making a smaller sacrifice, or being able to do good in ways that don’t feel like sacrifices at all, is a better recruitment measure than anchoring people to “ridiculously awesome ways to make an impact.” and then hearing that you can do much less, but still a lot of good.
My perspective is that telling people “hey, you can take these small steps to do awesome good things” is a highly beneficial step to take, but not necessarily a recruitment mechanism—that requires more consideration about the kind of people we’re attracting to the movement.
I think it can also be incredibly useful PR-wise. The trader making 150K after taxes and living on minimum wage might be doing less good with her donations than the trader making 500K and living on 250K, but emotionally, the former is generally seen as a LOT more admirable, in some sense better for young idealistic people to live up to, and (most importantly) generate more press for people to first hear about the movement and then later find out that they can do a lot of good without being as extreme.
Also (and I’m less sure about this), I think in some sense anchoring people to “large sacrifice” and then learning about how you can do a lot of good while making a smaller sacrifice, or being able to do good in ways that don’t feel like sacrifices at all, is a better recruitment measure than anchoring people to “ridiculously awesome ways to make an impact.” and then hearing that you can do much less, but still a lot of good.
My perspective is that telling people “hey, you can take these small steps to do awesome good things” is a highly beneficial step to take, but not necessarily a recruitment mechanism—that requires more consideration about the kind of people we’re attracting to the movement.