Wei_Dai comments on Rationality quotes: March 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Morendil 01 March 2010 10:26AM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 03 March 2010 12:18:12AM 2 points [-]

I suppose you could start a non-profit organization, but that's just another form of entrepreneurship. You could leech off society or friends and relatives, but presumably we don't want to encourage that. So, I don't know... You seem to be implying here and in other comments that you have more ideas. Why not share them?

Comment author: Morendil 03 March 2010 12:58:27AM 5 points [-]

Well, if it turns out to be so hard to extend the list of "ways people make a living" beyond the two items {entrepreneur, worker under management hierarchy} that would constitute support for the "brainwashing" hypothesis (overstated as the term may seem).

When I was younger I wanted to become a novelist and make a living that way. That seems different enough from entrepreneurship; it's one of the passive income categories. (My parents discouraged that - "you need a real job".) Another classic one is to be a landlord. Silas mentioned investment income earlier, that could be considered a separate category. You could also consider as a different category someone whose intellectual or artistic output doesn't generate royalties but who is supported by patronage.

To maintain that "the educational system hasn't kept up" we would have to believe in the first place that it was at one point designed to turn out a then-optimal balance of people trained in one or another way of supporting themselves. I'm not sure we have good reason to think that.