Yea, fair point. Maybe this is just reference class tennis, but my impression is that a majority of people who consider themselves EAs aren’t significantly prioritizing impact in their career and donation decisions, but I agree that for the subset of EAs who do, that “heroic responsibility”/going overboard can be fraught.
Some things that come to mind include how often EAs seem to work long hours/on weekends; how willing EAs are to do higher impact work when salaries are lower, when it’s less intellectually stimulating, more stressful, etc; how many EAs are willing to donate a large portion of their income; how many EAs think about prioritization and population ethics very rigorously; etc. I’m very appreciative of how much more I see these in EA world than outside it, and I realize the above are unreasonable to expect from people.
Yea, fair point. Maybe this is just reference class tennis, but my impression is that a majority of people who consider themselves EAs aren’t significantly prioritizing impact in their career and donation decisions, but I agree that for the subset of EAs who do, that “heroic responsibility”/going overboard can be fraught.
Some things that come to mind include how often EAs seem to work long hours/on weekends; how willing EAs are to do higher impact work when salaries are lower, when it’s less intellectually stimulating, more stressful, etc; how many EAs are willing to donate a large portion of their income; how many EAs think about prioritization and population ethics very rigorously; etc. I’m very appreciative of how much more I see these in EA world than outside it, and I realize the above are unreasonable to expect from people.