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Evan_Gaensbauer comments on Open thread, Oct. 20 - Oct. 26, 2014 - Less Wrong
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For some reason a noticeable part of LW has decided that the answer to all personal finance questions is two words -- "index funds" -- and tends to be hostile to suggestions that finance is a bit more complex than that.
Note that "frugal living" and "personal finance" are quite different topics. EAs, for example, are interested in the former but not in the latter as they donate their free cash flow and so don't have to manage it.
I don't really see the early retirement movement being compatible with EA...
What I was trying to mean was that effective altruism might benefit from those who don't retire, per se, but become financially independent early in life, and can remain so for the remainder of their lives, so that they can spend the rest of their careers volunteering for effective causes and organizations. Thought I can't find the particular blog post right now, I recall Peter Hurford pondering that if he concluded doing direct work in effective altruism was the path for him, instead of earning to give, he might keep working a high-paying job for sometime regardless. That way, he could gain valuable experience, and use the money he earns to eventually become financially independent, i.e., 'retire early'. Then, when he is age forty or something, he can do valuable work as a non-profit manager or researcher or personal assistant for free.
I can't recall if he's the only person who has considered this career model, but maybe some should take a closer look at it. This is how early retirement beyond frugal living habits might benefit effective altruism.
The problem is that you have to show this is better than just giving all your "excess" money to the effective causes right away and continuing to work in the normal manner.
Well, nobody from within effective altruism has written much up about this yet. It's not something I'm considering doing soon. Until someone does, I doubt others will think about it, so it's a non-issue. If some take this consideration for their careers seriously, then that's a problem they'll need to assess, hopefully publicly so feedback can be given. At any rate, you make a good point, so I won't go around encouraging people to do this willy-nilly, or something.
This seems like a case of privileging the hypothesis. Why should we have to show that early retirement + EA volunteering is superior to working a standard job and donating free cash flow, and not the other way around?
This is a career path I am very seriously considering. At the very least, I will continue to invest/save my money, if for no other reason that it doesn't seem intuitively obvious to me that I should prefer saving 100 lives this year to 104 lives next year. Add to this that I expect the EA movement to more accurately determine which charities are the most effective in future years (MIRI is highly uncertain to be the most effective, but could potentially be much more effective) and subtract the fact that donations to current effective charities will potentially eliminate some low hanging fruit. After all of that, I suspect it is probably a little more optimal to save money and donate later than to donate now. However I still can't shake the feeling that I'm just writing reasons for my bottom line of not giving my money away. This is a difficult question that there have been a number of threads on, and I don't claim to have a good answer to it, only my answer.