Maybe if they understood better what they're really doing, they wouldn't find it fun anymore, and would spend the time furthering some other goal instead (hopefully one that better matches my own purposes, like working to answer scientific/philosophical questions that I'm interested in, or reducing existential risk)

I have this weird problem, based on the way my utility function seems to be set up -- I want people to do what they really enjoy, even at the cost of them not working on my favorite projects.

So, on the one hand, I would like people to be sufficiently reflective to figure out what they really enjoy doing. On the other hand, if reflection just destroys people's existing, flawed sources of fun without providing an alternative source of fun, then I wouldn't want to encourage it.

Imagine a 50-something small business owner with a community college education -- maybe he runs a fast food restaurant, or a bike repair shop -- who really likes his local sports team. He goes to or watches most of their home games with a few other friends/fans and gets really excited about it and, on balance, has a lot of fun. If I could somehow motivate him to reflect on what professional spectator sports are like, he might not enjoy it as much, or at all.

But what good would that do him? Wouldn't he be equally likely to plow his new-found surplus energy into, say, watching TV, as to suddenly discover existentialist risks? Even if he did work on existential risks, is there any reason to think that he'd enjoy it? I feel like differences in what people choose to do for fun might reflect differing theories about what is fun, and not just a failure to reflect on one's activities. Even if the masses' theories about what is fun are philosophically indefensible, they may nevertheless be real descriptions about what the masses find to be fun, and so I have trouble justifying an attempt to take away that fun without letting go of my commitment to egalitarianism.