(Unlikely; the best you can do is buy yourself “offsets”; but you’d usually save more lives with more self-denial.)
I disagree. I don’t know about you, but my morale is very highly related to my productivity. The fact that I’m working to save lives actually causes me to engage in less self-denial: I reason that if I have the opportunity to waste 30 minutes of someone else’s time in exchange for 5 more minutes for myself, I should take the opportunity because it results in the most expected lives saved. (Keeping in mind Eliezer’s point about holding doors open for little old ladies, of course. If doing what I just described violated some clear societal convention, I wouldn’t do it because I would be stressed out and unable to think clearly afterwards.)
I’d say you should definitely get at least semi-regular haircuts, because how you look strongly affects what people think of you, and what people think of you strongly affects your morale. Buying coffee from Starbucks is probably a better idea than brewing it yourself. Coffee might actually be a detriment to your productivity, but you won’t be effective trying to change everything about your life at once, so only work on it if it’s one of the most effective and practical changes to your life you can think of. Going to the movies is probably a bad idea, although watching movies that you’ve downloaded from the internet when you don’t seem to be able to get any work done is a good one. Doing things with friends that are more socially intensive than movie-watching is a good idea, especially if you can talk to them about the stuff you’re working on.
I disagree. I don’t know about you, but my morale is very highly related to my productivity. The fact that I’m working to save lives actually causes me to engage in less self-denial: I reason that if I have the opportunity to waste 30 minutes of someone else’s time in exchange for 5 more minutes for myself, I should take the opportunity because it results in the most expected lives saved. (Keeping in mind Eliezer’s point about holding doors open for little old ladies, of course. If doing what I just described violated some clear societal convention, I wouldn’t do it because I would be stressed out and unable to think clearly afterwards.)
I’d say you should definitely get at least semi-regular haircuts, because how you look strongly affects what people think of you, and what people think of you strongly affects your morale. Buying coffee from Starbucks is probably a better idea than brewing it yourself. Coffee might actually be a detriment to your productivity, but you won’t be effective trying to change everything about your life at once, so only work on it if it’s one of the most effective and practical changes to your life you can think of. Going to the movies is probably a bad idea, although watching movies that you’ve downloaded from the internet when you don’t seem to be able to get any work done is a good one. Doing things with friends that are more socially intensive than movie-watching is a good idea, especially if you can talk to them about the stuff you’re working on.