"Changing the world through slack & hobbies" by Steven Byrnes

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DdDt5NXkfuxAnAvGJ/changing-the-world-through-slack-and-hobbies

Introduction

In EA orthodoxy, if you're really serious about EA, the three alternatives that people most often seem to talk about are

(1) “direct work” in a job that furthers a very important cause;

(2) “earning to give”;

(3) earning “career capital” that will help you do those things in the future, e.g. by getting a PhD or teaching yourself ML.

By contrast, there’s not much talk of:

(4) being in a job / situation where you have extra time and energy and freedom to explore things that seem interesting and important. 

But that last one is really important!