I’d very likely not do this myself, though. I’ve noticed there are two kinds of attitudes toward jobs (and I’ve seen rationalists of both stripes). Some people really want their career to be an extension of their interests and identity and perhaps their prestige: “I’m a scientist,” “I’m an artist,” “I’m a programmer,” “I’m a doctor,” “I’m a teacher,” etc. They wouldn’t want to make the same money in less time by a different route, they want to work in that particular field.
Some people, on the other hand, basically see their job as a source of income, which they can use to pursue their interests elsewhere. They’re optimizing for money and free time, which means they look at a much wider range of money-making possibilities. (The most extreme example would be The 4-Hour Workweek, in which the money comes from a passive income stream, not a “career” at all.)
Your advice is geared more to people in the second category. I’m in the first. That doesn’t mean it’s not good advice—if you want money and free time to pursue an interest, then hospitality jobs in the outback sound like a great idea, given your evidence.
I’m curious, though—does anyone think that one attitude is better than the other? Or is it just a matter of individual preference? Job-as-income-stream, or career-as-personal-identity?
I’m glad you brought this up. I actually anticipated this question and wrote up a responses in an earlier draft of this article but it didn’t end up making the final cut because it’s more my intuitive opinion rather than a well-established fact.
Most people capable of following this analysis without throwing their hands up in confusion or reacting to it emotionally are probably on life auto-pilot [see Concern 1 below] and optimizing heavily for prestige at the expense of all other goals. They want to be a Professor, Doctor, Software Engineer… something that impresses other people (and perhaps more importantly, impresses themselves). Sure, they don’t say it like that, but when you confront them with an opportunity like this to earn more real money and have a better overall job experience, in a way that doesn’t include the same kind of prestige they were aiming for, they suddenly have all these interesting objections (link false objection) about why it couldn’t work for them.
[Concern 1]
Some people are probably thinking, “But why not combine the thing you do for money with your intellectual pursuits??” What can I say. The economy is dumb. If the value you’re creating doesn’t exist in the next fiscal quarter (or at least the next 1-5 years), our economy doesn’t value it. Since good ideas are essentially free to transmit forward into the future indefinitely, the total value of your good ideas are more heavily concentrated in 2016 − 3000, not in 2011-2015. Unfortunately, that same period of time that gets the majority of value from your good ideas isn’t part of the “long term” economic time horizon of 5 years from now so it gets discounted down to zero. So you shouldn’t be surprised to find that there are far fewer employment opportunities for pursuing intellectual careers than people who are capable of carrying out highly valuable careers doing intellectual work. In fact, it seems like the few jobs that do exist for “intellectual pursuits” like professorships and think tank work are basically economic mistakes which are primarily funded as a way to gain status from new ideas, not to create economic value from them. Are you sure you want to marry your financial well-being to the availability of these scarce, arbitrary, economic mistakes?
Personally, I’m still hoping to create economic value from new ideas. If that doesn’t work, of course I’ll need money, and I’ll try to remember to be flexible.
I prefer to work on things that interest me intellectually. This is worth more to me than any wage. Service labor does not interest me. How does this economic disparity aid a rationalist who has desires other than money?
I think his reply actually does address this, claiming that maximizing the interesting things you can do intellectually is best achieved by making a lot of money in a simple and not time-consuming or stressful way, and using the rest of your time to do those other things.
I think this claim might even be valid for some people, but for me (and possibly you) it isn’t. See my other post. If neither of those considerations apply, then part-time service labor might actually be the best way to work on things that interest you intellectually.
I’ve always been interested in why personal identity was tied up in a career. If you self identified as a mathematician, why couldn’t you earn more money being a bartender in Australia while spending your free time doing math and participating in the mathematical community?
I know “scientists”, “artists”, and “teachers” who identify as such and make their money doing other things. At the extreme end, if you identify as a teacher why not spend 15 hours a week making a very high income doing XYZ and maybe 35 hours a week volunteering/working for low wages at a tutoring center? You’re undeniably a teacher, and you likely have more disposable income.
The straightforward answer: you can do a lot more with an interest, and use social reinforcement to your advantage, if you’re plugged into an institution. Trying to go it alone is a serious challenge: you’re isolated, you’ll have motivation problems, you’ll have a higher probability of getting yourself into eccentric dead ends if you don’t have guidance.
Also, a lot of people really care what others think of them. We seem to disapprove of that on LessWrong, but I don’t see why it’s any more selfish or venal to want approval than to want money.
Also, a lot of people really care what others think of them. We seem to disapprove of that on LessWrong, but I don’t see why it’s any more selfish or venal to want approval than to want money.
...to which the reply is: approval (status) can be converted into money, and for some people, that may be the most efficient route given their motivation psychology.
The one thing that actually has seemed to raise credibility, is famous people associating with the organization, like Peter Thiel funding us, or Ray Kurzweil on the Board.
Sure, for the right sort of people, a direct donation of status can be effective (maybe even optimally so), just like there are some people who should actually work at SIAI.
Probably not the case for typical academic high-status, however. Perhaps the endorsement of Andrew Wiles or Stephen Hawking would be worth more than either of them could actually afford to donate; but your typical leader-of-a-subfield would probably be more effective by donating money from their atypically-high academic salary.
Also note that the status of people like Thiel and Kurzweil is itself intimately connected to the money they’ve made.
If you self identified as a mathematician, why couldn’t you earn more money being a bartender in Australia while spending your free time doing math and participating in the mathematical community?
I do self-identify as a mathematician. I’ve worked abroad as well, and the amount of math I was able to do while working full-time abroad was a very small fraction of what I’ve been able to do while employed as a graduate student. Maybe I didn’t have enough discipline, but I was usually exhausted at the end of a day and needed the weekends to recharge.
Unless you already have credentials (by which time you’re probably past 30 or getting there, and not eligible for the OP’s advice) participating in the mathematical community is more difficult, because the world is full of crackpots cold e-mailing their proofs of the Riemann Hypothesis.
As annoying as the lost income from being a graduate student in the United States is, I wouldn’t give it up for my proximity to the second or third-tier mathematicians of our generation.
I do self-identify as a mathematician. I’ve worked abroad as well, and the amount of math I was able to do while working full-time abroad was a very small fraction of what I’ve been able to do while employed as a graduate student. Maybe I didn’t have enough discipline, but I was usually exhausted at the end of a day and needed the weekends to recharge.
I think this applies more generally to any intellectual output. There are people who can be intellectually productive even when they have a near full time day job. I’m not one of those people. Academia or a research position it is for me.
I suspect most people don’t have the self-discipline for it; being “forced” to do something almost every day is a good way for most people to ensure they work on something that has high barriers to productivity (most difficult pursuits), even if they really enjoy it.
Possibly even more importantly, individuals almost never have access to the infrastructure and support systems they need to do really interesting things[1]. How should one go about advancing genetics without a lab? Even a small university didn’t really have the resources I felt I needed to do some of my research, but at my lab they’re not even costly (to me or the lab) to procure. Access to petabyte data sets? Petaflop computers? The marginal cost of granting an additional person access is minimal, but I don’t know of any institutions that grant such access to local bartenders.
[1] Art can mostly be excluded, but not entirely, since some great art is still really expensive to produce.
This is a really interesting point that I had completely failed to consider. I’m not in a position to be looking for full time employment yet but I will keep this in mind.
I identify as a teacher and a mathematician, but I only get paid as a teacher. I’m sure that I do less research than if I were paid as a researcher (for reasons of akrasia if nothing else), but I do enough to sustain my personal sense of identity. (I do it here, if anybody cares. If I were a little more organised and active, I’d do it here too. Mathematics journals are no longer used to disseminate information, but only to advance careers, so I have no need of them, although some yet further effort in that direction could get me published too if it mattered to my sense of prestige.)
On the other hand, I’d like to shift more out of teaching in classrooms into tutoring individuals, which is even more fulfilling. (It’s arguably less efficient, although given how the normal college curriculum is designed, at least here in the U.S., I don’t really believe that. People in classrooms are mostly studying what they do not want to learn and what will be of no use to them except in the next class, and I’m starting to feel a little dirty working in this industry. Tutoring does not entirely solve that problem, but at least the students are interested at the moment that I interact with them.)
But tutoring doesn’t pay nearly as well as classroom teaching, and my budget is thin as it is. So although (for personal reasons) I’m very unlikely to move to Australia (eta: plus I’m over 30), I read all of this discussion with interest.
But tutoring doesn’t pay nearly as well as classroom teaching
In Australia, this is not entirely the case. Teachers are not well-paid, and tutoring is fairly lucrative in suburban/urban areas. I am rough on the exact details but a tutor doing ~25 hours a week could probably earn more than a teacher.
I’m curious, though—does anyone think that one attitude is better than the other? Or is it just a matter of individual preference? Job-as-income-stream, or career-as-personal-identity?
I think there’s an argument to be made that the first attitude (personal identity) is instrumentally superior (even as it may well be epistemically inferior). Someone whose identity is wrapped up in their job may work far harder at their job and so eventually gain greater skills or produce better work in their chosen profession than the person who strives for the same results but as a hobby and works in another field. It’s hard to have two masters.
For example, think about rock stars or pro sports. Objectively, epistemically, these are absolutely lousy careers. Tiny chance of success and even the mega-hits don’t do so well. Not to mention all the issues like dying prematurely, which seem to be intrinsic to the careers. (See the recent New Yorker about NFL cutting a few decades off its players’ lifespans, or look at probably the wealthiest musician ever—Michael Jackson.) But if you believed this, you’re never going to become a rock star.
A would-be rationalist rock star is like the two-boxing decision theorist faced with Newcomb’s Problem. ‘Oh, if only I could brainwash myself to take one box! Then I would be much wealthier.’
Upvoted. This is really interesting.
I’d very likely not do this myself, though. I’ve noticed there are two kinds of attitudes toward jobs (and I’ve seen rationalists of both stripes). Some people really want their career to be an extension of their interests and identity and perhaps their prestige: “I’m a scientist,” “I’m an artist,” “I’m a programmer,” “I’m a doctor,” “I’m a teacher,” etc. They wouldn’t want to make the same money in less time by a different route, they want to work in that particular field.
Some people, on the other hand, basically see their job as a source of income, which they can use to pursue their interests elsewhere. They’re optimizing for money and free time, which means they look at a much wider range of money-making possibilities. (The most extreme example would be The 4-Hour Workweek, in which the money comes from a passive income stream, not a “career” at all.)
Your advice is geared more to people in the second category. I’m in the first. That doesn’t mean it’s not good advice—if you want money and free time to pursue an interest, then hospitality jobs in the outback sound like a great idea, given your evidence.
I’m curious, though—does anyone think that one attitude is better than the other? Or is it just a matter of individual preference? Job-as-income-stream, or career-as-personal-identity?
I’m glad you brought this up. I actually anticipated this question and wrote up a responses in an earlier draft of this article but it didn’t end up making the final cut because it’s more my intuitive opinion rather than a well-established fact.
Personally, I’m still hoping to create economic value from new ideas. If that doesn’t work, of course I’ll need money, and I’ll try to remember to be flexible.
You haven’t addressed the main issue:
I prefer to work on things that interest me intellectually. This is worth more to me than any wage. Service labor does not interest me. How does this economic disparity aid a rationalist who has desires other than money?
I think his reply actually does address this, claiming that maximizing the interesting things you can do intellectually is best achieved by making a lot of money in a simple and not time-consuming or stressful way, and using the rest of your time to do those other things.
I think this claim might even be valid for some people, but for me (and possibly you) it isn’t. See my other post. If neither of those considerations apply, then part-time service labor might actually be the best way to work on things that interest you intellectually.
I’ve always been interested in why personal identity was tied up in a career. If you self identified as a mathematician, why couldn’t you earn more money being a bartender in Australia while spending your free time doing math and participating in the mathematical community?
I know “scientists”, “artists”, and “teachers” who identify as such and make their money doing other things. At the extreme end, if you identify as a teacher why not spend 15 hours a week making a very high income doing XYZ and maybe 35 hours a week volunteering/working for low wages at a tutoring center? You’re undeniably a teacher, and you likely have more disposable income.
The straightforward answer: you can do a lot more with an interest, and use social reinforcement to your advantage, if you’re plugged into an institution. Trying to go it alone is a serious challenge: you’re isolated, you’ll have motivation problems, you’ll have a higher probability of getting yourself into eccentric dead ends if you don’t have guidance.
Also, a lot of people really care what others think of them. We seem to disapprove of that on LessWrong, but I don’t see why it’s any more selfish or venal to want approval than to want money.
The thinking presumably is that money can be donated to approved causes, and hence people here are allowed to not think of making money as “selfish”.
...to which the reply is: approval (status) can be converted into money, and for some people, that may be the most efficient route given their motivation psychology.
Status can also be “donated to” (that is, used in the service of) a cause.
So can time/labor, but....
And yet --
Sure, for the right sort of people, a direct donation of status can be effective (maybe even optimally so), just like there are some people who should actually work at SIAI.
Probably not the case for typical academic high-status, however. Perhaps the endorsement of Andrew Wiles or Stephen Hawking would be worth more than either of them could actually afford to donate; but your typical leader-of-a-subfield would probably be more effective by donating money from their atypically-high academic salary.
Also note that the status of people like Thiel and Kurzweil is itself intimately connected to the money they’ve made.
That wouldn’t have been my observation.
I do self-identify as a mathematician. I’ve worked abroad as well, and the amount of math I was able to do while working full-time abroad was a very small fraction of what I’ve been able to do while employed as a graduate student. Maybe I didn’t have enough discipline, but I was usually exhausted at the end of a day and needed the weekends to recharge.
Unless you already have credentials (by which time you’re probably past 30 or getting there, and not eligible for the OP’s advice) participating in the mathematical community is more difficult, because the world is full of crackpots cold e-mailing their proofs of the Riemann Hypothesis.
As annoying as the lost income from being a graduate student in the United States is, I wouldn’t give it up for my proximity to the second or third-tier mathematicians of our generation.
I think this applies more generally to any intellectual output. There are people who can be intellectually productive even when they have a near full time day job. I’m not one of those people. Academia or a research position it is for me.
I suspect most people don’t have the self-discipline for it; being “forced” to do something almost every day is a good way for most people to ensure they work on something that has high barriers to productivity (most difficult pursuits), even if they really enjoy it.
Possibly even more importantly, individuals almost never have access to the infrastructure and support systems they need to do really interesting things[1]. How should one go about advancing genetics without a lab? Even a small university didn’t really have the resources I felt I needed to do some of my research, but at my lab they’re not even costly (to me or the lab) to procure. Access to petabyte data sets? Petaflop computers? The marginal cost of granting an additional person access is minimal, but I don’t know of any institutions that grant such access to local bartenders.
[1] Art can mostly be excluded, but not entirely, since some great art is still really expensive to produce.
This is a really interesting point that I had completely failed to consider. I’m not in a position to be looking for full time employment yet but I will keep this in mind.
Thank-you.
I identify as a teacher and a mathematician, but I only get paid as a teacher. I’m sure that I do less research than if I were paid as a researcher (for reasons of akrasia if nothing else), but I do enough to sustain my personal sense of identity. (I do it here, if anybody cares. If I were a little more organised and active, I’d do it here too. Mathematics journals are no longer used to disseminate information, but only to advance careers, so I have no need of them, although some yet further effort in that direction could get me published too if it mattered to my sense of prestige.)
On the other hand, I’d like to shift more out of teaching in classrooms into tutoring individuals, which is even more fulfilling. (It’s arguably less efficient, although given how the normal college curriculum is designed, at least here in the U.S., I don’t really believe that. People in classrooms are mostly studying what they do not want to learn and what will be of no use to them except in the next class, and I’m starting to feel a little dirty working in this industry. Tutoring does not entirely solve that problem, but at least the students are interested at the moment that I interact with them.)
But tutoring doesn’t pay nearly as well as classroom teaching, and my budget is thin as it is. So although (for personal reasons) I’m very unlikely to move to Australia (eta: plus I’m over 30), I read all of this discussion with interest.
In Australia, this is not entirely the case. Teachers are not well-paid, and tutoring is fairly lucrative in suburban/urban areas. I am rough on the exact details but a tutor doing ~25 hours a week could probably earn more than a teacher.
This is also true in the US.
While you’re no longer eligible for a working-holiday visa… it’s still possible to get sponsorship-visas when you’re over 30.
It’s often easier to get these if you’re willing to work in Regional employment (eg Alice Springs), and education is often one of the wanted skills.
Not saying you’ll walk into a job—but don’t dismiss it out of hand. :)
Link fixed: Regional employment
Fixed. Thanks :)
I think there’s an argument to be made that the first attitude (personal identity) is instrumentally superior (even as it may well be epistemically inferior). Someone whose identity is wrapped up in their job may work far harder at their job and so eventually gain greater skills or produce better work in their chosen profession than the person who strives for the same results but as a hobby and works in another field. It’s hard to have two masters.
For example, think about rock stars or pro sports. Objectively, epistemically, these are absolutely lousy careers. Tiny chance of success and even the mega-hits don’t do so well. Not to mention all the issues like dying prematurely, which seem to be intrinsic to the careers. (See the recent New Yorker about NFL cutting a few decades off its players’ lifespans, or look at probably the wealthiest musician ever—Michael Jackson.) But if you believed this, you’re never going to become a rock star.
A would-be rationalist rock star is like the two-boxing decision theorist faced with Newcomb’s Problem. ‘Oh, if only I could brainwash myself to take one box! Then I would be much wealthier.’
Or so the argument would go.