It’s about thirty years since I started aiming at truth and transhumanity, I think my achievements are a small fraction of what they might have been under different circumstances, and a very prominent reason for that is lack of money. But I don’t know if the details quite fit your paradigm.
You seem to assume that from the beginning, one is in a world in which you do things only if you’re paid to do them, and things get done only if someone is being paid to do them, and everything is about negotiating one’s position within that framework. Whereas for me, coming to awareness of the world as a young adult, the fact that most people spent most of their lives doing jobs that they would rather not do, seemed a calamity comparable to the fact that everyone dies, and something that also needed to be resisted and changed. This attitude was possible because I had the Internet, and at that time it was still a potlatch of shared ideas and projects (today’s e-commerce infrastructure didn’t exist at all). To the extent that I could pursue the important things, it was all taking place in a completely non-monetary environment.
Eventually enough time passed that I would sometimes actually seek financial support for something that mattered to me, and I also slowly understood more about how the world of money and jobs—“the economy”—works. But in general, I have never been able to obtain direct support for the important things at all; if I want anything to happen, I have to do it myself, using my own resources, no matter how meager they are.
Oh, I think may have miscommunicated. But I emphatically get what you’re saying.
the fact that most people spent most of their lives doing jobs that they would rather not do, seemed a calamity comparable to the fact that everyone dies, and something that also needed to be resisted and changed.
This is exactly what I’m pointing at. I think we can have a lot more impact if we aren’t paid to do specific things, but we still need money in order to buy food. I advocate “EA tenure” for promising altruists, so that they don’t have to waste their time trying to impress their funders and can just get on doing what they think is best.
It’s about thirty years since I started aiming at truth and transhumanity, I think my achievements are a small fraction of what they might have been under different circumstances, and a very prominent reason for that is lack of money. But I don’t know if the details quite fit your paradigm.
You seem to assume that from the beginning, one is in a world in which you do things only if you’re paid to do them, and things get done only if someone is being paid to do them, and everything is about negotiating one’s position within that framework. Whereas for me, coming to awareness of the world as a young adult, the fact that most people spent most of their lives doing jobs that they would rather not do, seemed a calamity comparable to the fact that everyone dies, and something that also needed to be resisted and changed. This attitude was possible because I had the Internet, and at that time it was still a potlatch of shared ideas and projects (today’s e-commerce infrastructure didn’t exist at all). To the extent that I could pursue the important things, it was all taking place in a completely non-monetary environment.
Eventually enough time passed that I would sometimes actually seek financial support for something that mattered to me, and I also slowly understood more about how the world of money and jobs—“the economy”—works. But in general, I have never been able to obtain direct support for the important things at all; if I want anything to happen, I have to do it myself, using my own resources, no matter how meager they are.
Oh, I think may have miscommunicated. But I emphatically get what you’re saying.
This is exactly what I’m pointing at. I think we can have a lot more impact if we aren’t paid to do specific things, but we still need money in order to buy food. I advocate “EA tenure” for promising altruists, so that they don’t have to waste their time trying to impress their funders and can just get on doing what they think is best.