As I understand it, your objection is that “being the best” means traditional career success (probably high prestige and money), and this isn’t a good path for maximizing impact. That makes sense, but I’m not talking about prestige or money (unless you’re trying to earn to give). When I say “best,” I mean being able to make judgement calls and contributions that the other people working on the issue can’t. The knowledge and skills that make you irreplaceable increase your chances of making a difference.
[...] your objection is that “being the best” means traditional career success [...], and this isn’t a good path for maximizing impact.
It might be, I didn’t say anything about that. My point is that career success is not the same condition as maximization of impact, so using these interchangeably is misleading. I suggested that there are some examples illustrating the difference captured by the concept of maximization of impact, but not by the concept of career success.
When I say “best,” I mean being able to make judgement calls and contributions that the other people working on the issue can’t.
This fits my usage in this thread as well.
The knowledge and skills that make you irreplaceable increase your chances of making a difference.
Yes, but only all else being equal, which is hard to formulate so that multiple examples can be found in the same world. There are lots of worthless neglected occupations. Maximization of neglectedness gives different results from those of maximization of impact.
Maximization of neglectedness gives different results from those of maximization of impact.
I don’t disagree, but my point is that you can’t directly maximize impact without already knowing a lot. Other people will usually do the work that’s very straightforward to do, so the highest counterfactually valuable work requires specialized knowledge or insights.
Obviously there are many paths that are low-impact. Since it’s hard to know which are valuable before you learn about them, you should make a theory-of-change hypothesis and start testing that best guess. That way you’re more likely to get information that causes you to make a better plan if you’re on a bad track.
As I understand it, your objection is that “being the best” means traditional career success (probably high prestige and money), and this isn’t a good path for maximizing impact. That makes sense, but I’m not talking about prestige or money (unless you’re trying to earn to give). When I say “best,” I mean being able to make judgement calls and contributions that the other people working on the issue can’t. The knowledge and skills that make you irreplaceable increase your chances of making a difference.
It might be, I didn’t say anything about that. My point is that career success is not the same condition as maximization of impact, so using these interchangeably is misleading. I suggested that there are some examples illustrating the difference captured by the concept of maximization of impact, but not by the concept of career success.
This fits my usage in this thread as well.
Yes, but only all else being equal, which is hard to formulate so that multiple examples can be found in the same world. There are lots of worthless neglected occupations. Maximization of neglectedness gives different results from those of maximization of impact.
I don’t disagree, but my point is that you can’t directly maximize impact without already knowing a lot. Other people will usually do the work that’s very straightforward to do, so the highest counterfactually valuable work requires specialized knowledge or insights.
Obviously there are many paths that are low-impact. Since it’s hard to know which are valuable before you learn about them, you should make a theory-of-change hypothesis and start testing that best guess. That way you’re more likely to get information that causes you to make a better plan if you’re on a bad track.