I'm not particularly terrified of mediocrity as long as it's not unsafe mediocrity. The cubicle doesn't appeal to me, but, say, I think I could be a pretty happy house spouse. As for meeting intelligent people, sure, they're around in academia, but I'm more interested in meeting smart people who I'd have some inclination to interact with socially, and the Internet seems, in practice, to be better for that. And I'm not setting my own schedule - I'm still doing my own coursework, and would have a couple more semesters of that to go even assuming a best case scenario.
House spouse doesn't have to be a mediocre life. In fact.. it could more or less be the best 'job' ever. It's like a tenured professorship where you actually get to study and research whatever you want!
Huh. I hadn't though of it before, but I'm going to have to add house spouse to my list of acceptable future paths.
Where are the new monthly threads when I need them? A pox on the +11 EDT zone!
This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.
If you're new to Less Wrong, check out this welcome post.