The only problem here is charity: I do think it may be morally important to be ambitious in helping others, which might even include taking a lucrative career in order to give money to charity. This is especially true if the Singularity memeplex is right and we’re living in a desperate time that calls for a desperate effort. See for example Giving What You Can’s powerpoint on ethical careers. At some point you need to balance how much good you want to do, with how likely you are to succeed in a career, with how miserable you want to make yourself—and at the very least rationality can help clarify that decision.
I don’t know a single example of somebody who chose a career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing in order to help people and successfully stuck to it. Do you?
I don’t know a single example of somebody who chose a career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing in order to help people and successfully stuck to it. Do you?
I don’t know a single example of somebody who chose a career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing in order to help people in an efficient utilitarian way, full stop. I know juliawise was considering it, but I don’t know what happened.
If you’ll drop the “in an efficient utilitarian way” clause, then I submit that quite a few working parents qualify as an example of both “career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing” and “successfully stuck to it”. Choosing between the more-enjoyable (artistic, non-profit, low-stress, whatever your preference is) career and the more-likely-to-put-your-kids-through-college career is practically a stereotype.
If you’ll go one step further and allow “themselves” to count as “people”, then I’d say that nearly every person in history qualifies as an example of “career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing in order to help people”. Unless you have very extraordinary preferences, skills, and/or luck, odds are that the activities you enjoy most are relatively unproductive activities that other people also enjoy, and that this weak demand-to-supply ratio prevents those activities from being paid a liveable wage. An Office Space quote keeps running through my head: “If everyone listened to her we wouldn’t have any janitors, because nobody would clean shit up if they had a million dollars.”
No, I don’t. This thread touches on important issues which warrant fuller discussion; I’ll mull them over and might post more detailed thoughts under the discussion board later on.
I don’t know a single example of somebody who chose a career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing in order to help people and successfully stuck to it. Do you?
I don’t know a single example of somebody who chose a career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing in order to help people in an efficient utilitarian way, full stop. I know juliawise was considering it, but I don’t know what happened.
Do you know of anyone who tried and quit?
If you’ll drop the “in an efficient utilitarian way” clause, then I submit that quite a few working parents qualify as an example of both “career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing” and “successfully stuck to it”. Choosing between the more-enjoyable (artistic, non-profit, low-stress, whatever your preference is) career and the more-likely-to-put-your-kids-through-college career is practically a stereotype.
If you’ll go one step further and allow “themselves” to count as “people”, then I’d say that nearly every person in history qualifies as an example of “career substantially less enjoyable than what they would otherwise have been doing in order to help people”. Unless you have very extraordinary preferences, skills, and/or luck, odds are that the activities you enjoy most are relatively unproductive activities that other people also enjoy, and that this weak demand-to-supply ratio prevents those activities from being paid a liveable wage. An Office Space quote keeps running through my head: “If everyone listened to her we wouldn’t have any janitors, because nobody would clean shit up if they had a million dollars.”
No, I don’t. This thread touches on important issues which warrant fuller discussion; I’ll mull them over and might post more detailed thoughts under the discussion board later on.