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jajvirta comments on Open Thread: July 2009 - Less Wrong
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So, I'm looking for some advice.
I seem to have finally reached at that stage in my life where I find myself in need of an income. I'm not interested in a particularly large income; at the moment, I only want just enough to feed a Magic: the Gathering and video game habit, and maybe pay for medical insurance. Something like $8,000 a year, after taxes, would be more than enough, as long as I can continue to live in my parents' house rent-free.
The usual method of getting an income is to get a full-time job. However, I don't find that appealing, not one bit. I want to have lots of free time in which to use the things I buy with the money I would earn. I'd much rather just continue to spend down my savings than work more than two days a week at a normal job.
This suggests that instead, I should try to get a part-time job. Chances are, that would mean working in a local restaurant or store of some kind. Unfortunately, I tried one of these once before, and it didn't work out very well. I was hired to be a cashier at a local supermarket. To my great surprise, I didn't particularly mind the work, but on my third day after being hired, I was fired for insubordination. (I had a paperback novel with me, and I wouldn't stop reading it during periods when there were no customers.) I've also tried working for a temp agency. That didn't work out too well either. After completing my first assignment, I was told that the company I was contracted out to complained about my behavior (it's a long story), and so I would not be considered for any other assignments. In effect, I was fired from there, too.
As far as I'm concerned, the ideal source of income would be something with no set hours, that I could leave and come back to as I please. In other words, if I decide that I'd rather play video games for a month instead of earning money, it won't prevent me from earning money the month after that. Unfortunately, the only things I know of offhand that work like that are writing (which is extremely hard to make a living at, and requires a lot of time and effort anyway) and online poker (which I suck at). I'm lazy and undisciplined, and I'm not particularly interested in changing that, so I'm hoping to find a way to make money that works even if I don't try very hard at it.
In terms of skills and education, I have a B.S. from Rutgers University in computer engineering. I can program, but when I've tried programming as a job (as a summer intern), it turned into a Dilbert cartoon very, very quickly. Basically, I was given vague instructions, left on my own to do whatever, and instead of working, I mostly sat and surfed the Web while feeling guilty about not working. I don't think I want to do programming professionally. I ever have to sit in another cubicle again, there's a good chance I'm quitting on the spot.
So, um... I need some suggestions on what to do. Bring on the other-optimizing?
If you channel the income in the right direction, it won't be useless.
I read jajvirta as saying that the occupation itself doesn't produce positive externalities for mankind, unlike productive work in physics research or something.
Its not only a lack of positive externalities, but the presence of negative externalities. Your gains are someone else's losses.
You provide entertainment to people. Both players chose to play so even if one player has a negative expectation in $ he might enjoy playing the game.
Productive work in physics could produce negative externalities if humanity cannot be trusted with new physics results. Hell, even math education could produce negative externalities!
When I played poker with my brother and his friends, I didn't think it was all that fun, and I didn't win very much either. I don't plan on going into online poker for real money any time soon.
Magic is my game. ;)
Could you play Magic profiessionally? What's in the way? Just a matter of startup money?
Well, there are a few things. I'm good at Magic, but I don't think I'm good enough to play professionally. I've never qualified for the Pro Tour. There seem to be lots of players that are better than I am, and you usually have to be world-class in order to make more than pocket change by playing in Magic tournaments. (In order to get better at Magic, the obvious next step for me to take is to try to seek out players in my area that already are world-class and learn from them.) Additionally, competitive Magic requires a continual investment in new cards; $1000 or more a year is quite possible, and travel costs and entry fees also eat up a large chunk of change.
The closest thing to online poker for Magic is, well, "Magic Online." At one point, I was playing it and turning a profit, at least in terms of the MTGO event tickets. However, turning MTGO event tickets into cash is difficult, as eBay and PayPal fees eat up a distressingly large percentage of what you can make by selling them, and if someone tries to cheat you, there's little recourse.
In Hunting Fish, A Cross-Country Search for America's Worst Poker Players, Jay Greenspan conceives of the poker world as a giant inverted pyramid, with the fishiest (i.e., least skilled) players at the top pouring money down the pyramid toward the most skilled players at the bottom, such as Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey.