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c_edwards comments on The Value of Theoretical Research - Less Wrong
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The way most people can best contribute to society is to make as much money as possible and donate much of it to a charity that offers a high social return per dollar.
If you contribute to a charity that increases by one part in a trillion the probability of mankind surviving the next century and if conditional on this survival mankind will colonize the universe and create a trillion times a trillion sentient lifeforms then your donation will on average save a trillion lives.
Alternately, if you do work that increases by one part in a trillion the probability of mankind surviving the next century...
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I think there is a lot of value in intelligent charity, but it's a mistake to assume that all careers have the same inherent non-monetary value to society (or to approximate the non-monetary value of all careers as zero). If I understand correctly, the underlying thinking is that the difference in salary between theoretical research and some sort of high-pay job (when multiplied by the value of donating that money to effective charities) outweighs the difference in non-monetary career value?