How about: you never help anyone in the method you planned to. If you find that acting in your own self-interest helps more than activism, and that earning to give helps more than acting in your own self-interest, then I guess you wouldn’t need to worry about it so much.
That is, you wouldn’t need to worry about it when considering going into activism. You still need to worry about it when considering how to avoid backsliding, because not backsliding is still much better than backsliding.
There are diseased fields with net negative social balance (e.g. selling meth), but EA types probably wont’ stray into these areas anyway.
How about: you never help anyone in the method you planned to. If you find that acting in your own self-interest helps more than activism, and that earning to give helps more than acting in your own self-interest, then I guess you wouldn’t need to worry about it so much.
That is, you wouldn’t need to worry about it when considering going into activism. You still need to worry about it when considering how to avoid backsliding, because not backsliding is still much better than backsliding.
It has been considered here: http://felicifia.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=472&p=3789