In life you make choices; usually you lose something and you gain something. There are two ways to interpret the statement that he “ruined his life”:
that the cost he paid was a predictable decrease in his quality of everyday life, as he goes to prison (I guess)
that the cost was too high compared to the gain, i.e. that the choice resulted in a net loss
The first is trivially true. The second depends on one’s utility function. From certain perspective, all activists are ruining their lives. The activists seem to disagree.
In life you make choices; usually you lose something and you gain something. There are two ways to interpret the statement that he “ruined his life”:
that the cost he paid was a predictable decrease in his quality of everyday life, as he goes to prison (I guess)
that the cost was too high compared to the gain, i.e. that the choice resulted in a net loss
The first is trivially true. The second depends on one’s utility function. From certain perspective, all activists are ruining their lives. The activists seem to disagree.