The Christians in this story did not live relatively normal lives. I tried to make that clear under the point about speaking the truth boldly, but it’s been a point of confusion in a couple of the comments, so perhaps I should update the post.
I was specifically pushing back on the “don’t quit your day job” part of the post, since I think that for talented people who are thinking seriously and planning ahead, it’s often not as risky (financially, socially, etc) as it seems to do even pretty crazy-seeming stuff in pursuit of an ambitious goal. I think on the margin we should be encouraging people to dream big and take on more risk. (But also, my personal life feels very normie and risk-averse and I often have to pump myself up to make necessary life changes… maybe we hang around two very different social environments!) I definitely think that people should have prudent financial plans—indeed, I think it’s good to have a very high savings rate, like 50% -- but I think that’s complementary with being willing to make big life pivots when the opportunity arises (since it gives you the financial freedom to bear higher risk).
I think EA and early Christianity are in 100% agreement with the idea that you should “follow common sense morality” even if you are a believer in total hedonic utilitarianism or the ten commandments or whatever, since doing underhanded stuff that goes against common-sense morality would destroy the reputation of the wider movement.
If anything, Christianity goes a lot harder on “speak the truth boldly” than EA which is often concerned with appearing respectable, avoiding politicization, and gaining influence within existing institutions. I’m torn on this because there’s a lot to be said for EA’s nuanced utilitarian approach, but I also think that sometimes the movement can be a bit too timid and focused on working within existing institutions. I think EAs should stick to our guns more often in several areas, but we probably don’t want to be heroic, “early Christian martyrs” levels of outspoken.
The spectrum from “live a totally normal life” to “optimize your life around a very important set of rare/unpopular ideas” is a pretty high-dimensional space, so there are a lot of different factors here. For example, I was trying to push back on “don’t quit your day job” insofar as it means “don’t take big career risks out of idealism”. But one could also translate Paul’s advice as “stop trying to join this growing popular movement by getting meta jobs at EA organizations where you can feel good hanging out with a bunch of like-minded folks—instead, the movement as a whole would benefit if more people tried to spread/apply Christianity independently in their own preexisting careers.” And that advice I might agree with, idk!
The Christians in this story did not live relatively normal lives. I tried to make that clear under the point about speaking the truth boldly, but it’s been a point of confusion in a couple of the comments, so perhaps I should update the post.
I was specifically pushing back on the “don’t quit your day job” part of the post, since I think that for talented people who are thinking seriously and planning ahead, it’s often not as risky (financially, socially, etc) as it seems to do even pretty crazy-seeming stuff in pursuit of an ambitious goal. I think on the margin we should be encouraging people to dream big and take on more risk. (But also, my personal life feels very normie and risk-averse and I often have to pump myself up to make necessary life changes… maybe we hang around two very different social environments!) I definitely think that people should have prudent financial plans—indeed, I think it’s good to have a very high savings rate, like 50% -- but I think that’s complementary with being willing to make big life pivots when the opportunity arises (since it gives you the financial freedom to bear higher risk).
I think EA and early Christianity are in 100% agreement with the idea that you should “follow common sense morality” even if you are a believer in total hedonic utilitarianism or the ten commandments or whatever, since doing underhanded stuff that goes against common-sense morality would destroy the reputation of the wider movement.
If anything, Christianity goes a lot harder on “speak the truth boldly” than EA which is often concerned with appearing respectable, avoiding politicization, and gaining influence within existing institutions. I’m torn on this because there’s a lot to be said for EA’s nuanced utilitarian approach, but I also think that sometimes the movement can be a bit too timid and focused on working within existing institutions. I think EAs should stick to our guns more often in several areas, but we probably don’t want to be heroic, “early Christian martyrs” levels of outspoken.
The spectrum from “live a totally normal life” to “optimize your life around a very important set of rare/unpopular ideas” is a pretty high-dimensional space, so there are a lot of different factors here. For example, I was trying to push back on “don’t quit your day job” insofar as it means “don’t take big career risks out of idealism”. But one could also translate Paul’s advice as “stop trying to join this growing popular movement by getting meta jobs at EA organizations where you can feel good hanging out with a bunch of like-minded folks—instead, the movement as a whole would benefit if more people tried to spread/apply Christianity independently in their own preexisting careers.” And that advice I might agree with, idk!