Thanks for writing this! I think this is a direction that it would be valuable for more people to move in, on the margin. On the other hand, as someone who went pretty far in this direction and has since backed off some, I think there can be some pretty strong trade-offs here that I don't see you getting into, around putting oneself in a position where you might spend time to save money in ways that are not actually worth it. Let's say you have a directly useful job, or you are earning to give in a field where your long-term compensation is going to track your overall productivity. These are both situations I've been in, and I think they're reasonably common? There tends to be a lot of opportunities to choose between more work time or less spending. Ex: * If my house needs repairs, it's generally much cheaper for me to do it myself rather than hire someone, and I've done a lot of this over the years. To the extent that this is something I enjoy doing, it's not a bad hobby! But more recently, I've been spending more of my "hobby" time on kinds of extra work for my org (tasks that I find less draining than my usual work). If a big repair came up, I think it would likely be actually a large mistake for me to put a lot of time into resolving that myself if that meant doing less work. * Say I'm going to take a week off of work to spend with family. My work has unlimited vacation, so I could choose to take an extra day off on each end so I could travel by bus instead of spending more on a plane. But since it's better for me to put more work in, being willing to spend the money on the plane is better.

Love this Aaron... thanks for sharing! Not sure if you've tried, but you might like http://astronaut.io/ for that feeling that feeling of shared humanity.

Thank you for a wonderful text and that you mentioned how you cultivate that people are real! I will use some of the resources for my students in global health. I use Out of Eden Walk for cultivating that people are real. It is about a journalist at National Geographic who walk across the world. I hope you like it!

In 2016,[1] I wrote the following: > Why do I give? > I’ve lived a very fortunate life. I was born into a well-off American family, the son of two parents with college degrees. I attended a famous university. I didn’t deserve any of this; if I’d been born somewhere else, my life would have gone very differently. I give because I’d like to share the results of my luck with the less fortunate. > > I also give because I think that human happiness is the best thing in the world (in all its forms: love, excitement, satisfaction…). I already have a good, satisfying life, so I don’t need to buy more happiness. Instead, I can use money to help a lot of other people live happier lives. This strikes me as a fantastic opportunity. When Giving What We Can asked me to write about my giving, I thought it would be easy — I still believe in everything up there. But after nine years spent living and working in the EA community, I've had a few more thoughts about the question.[2] Humans make my life worth living A few hours ago, I rewatched (for the 10th time) a snippet of one of my favorite YouTube videos: the 2024 Pokemon Cypher Contest, which selects one talented entrant to join a group of Pokemon-loving "anime rappers" on a group video/album. Here's what it took for this video to exist: * Someone had to invent computers (between Babbage and Turing, I'll say England) * Someone else had to invent video games (let's say Pong, ergo the United States) * Then someone had to invent Pokemon (Japan!) * Also, someone had to invent rap (too many places to count — but it seems like Jamaica and Barbados get a lot of credit for dub music, Grandmaster Flash, etc.) * Someone had to rap about Pokemon for long enough to collect an audience and gather like-minded musicians (Shofu, who I believe has Nigerian roots) * Those like-minded musicians had to form a successful collective. I don't know their family history, but evidence suggests that their origin stories span the globe: * P