I agree that everyday actions shape our self-perception. I don’t believe this has to be all-or-nothing. I have a lot of friends who pride themselves on not being wasteful, but don’t know how to sew and won’t patch up old clothes. This habit of throwing out holey clothes doesn’t stop them from eating the leftovers in their fridge or spending their money carefully.
There are a lot of small actions we can do to improve the world. Many of these will also reinforce our identities as caring and thoughtful people. In that sense, they’re helpful and aspiring EAs should continue doing them.
However, I don’t think EA as a community should promote these small actions, unless they’re particularly cost-effective. I think prioritising a list of, say, 15 small actions counts as promoting them, because people might feel like they should adopt the top small actions, when actually I think people should just keep doing what they’re doing and focus on big wins.
I agree that everyday actions shape our self-perception. I don’t believe this has to be all-or-nothing. I have a lot of friends who pride themselves on not being wasteful, but don’t know how to sew and won’t patch up old clothes. This habit of throwing out holey clothes doesn’t stop them from eating the leftovers in their fridge or spending their money carefully.
There are a lot of small actions we can do to improve the world. Many of these will also reinforce our identities as caring and thoughtful people. In that sense, they’re helpful and aspiring EAs should continue doing them.
However, I don’t think EA as a community should promote these small actions, unless they’re particularly cost-effective. I think prioritising a list of, say, 15 small actions counts as promoting them, because people might feel like they should adopt the top small actions, when actually I think people should just keep doing what they’re doing and focus on big wins.