This was originally a comment to VipulNaik's recent indagations about the academic lifestyle versus the job lifestyle. Instead of calling it lifestyle he called them career options, but I'm taking a different emphasis here on purpose.
Due to information hazards risks, I recommend that Effective Altruists who are still wavering back and forth do not read this. Spoiler EA alert.
I'd just like to provide a cultural difference information that I have consistently noted between Americans and Brazilians which seems relevant here.
To have a job and work in the US is taken as a *de facto* biological need. It is as abnormal for an American, in my experience, to consider not working, as it is to consider not breathing, or not eating. It just doesn't cross people's minds.
If anyone has insight above and beyond "Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism" let me know about it, I've been waiting for the "why?" for years.
So yeah, let me remind people that you can spend years and years not working. that not getting a job isn't going to kill you or make you less healthy, that ultravagabonding is possible and feasible and many do it for over six months a year, that I have a friend who lives as the boyfriend of his sponsor's wife in a triad and somehow never worked a day in his life (the husband of the triad pays it all, both men are straight). That I've hosted an Argentinian who left graduate economics for two years to randomly travel the world, ended up in Rome and passed by here in his way back, through couchsurfing. That Puneet Sahani has been well over two years travelling the world with no money and an Indian passport now. I've also hosted a lovely estonian gentleman who works on computers 4 months a year in London to earn pounds, and spends eight months a year getting to know countries while learning their culture etc... Brazil was his third country.
Oh, and never forget the Uruguay couple I just met at a dance festival who have been travelling as hippies around and around South America for 5 years now, and showed no sign of owning more than 500 dollars worth of stuff.
Also in case you'd like to live in a paradise valley taking Santo Daime (a religious ritual with DMT) about twice a week, you can do it with a salary of aproximatelly 500 dollars per month in Vale do Gamarra, where I just spent carnival, that is what the guy who drove us back did. Given Brazilian or Turkish returns on investment, that would cost you 50 000 bucks in case you refused to work within the land itself for the 500.
Oh, I forgot to mention that though it certainly makes you unable to do expensive stuff, thus removing the paradox of choice and part of your existential angst from you (uhuu less choices!), there is nearly no detraction in status from not having a job. In fact, during these years in which I was either being an EA and directing an NGO, or studying on my own, or doing a Masters (which, let's agree is not very time consuming) my status has increased steadily, and many opportunities would have been lost if I had a job that wouldn't let me move freely. Things like being invited as Visiting Scholar to Singularity Institute, like giving a TED talk, like directing IERFH, and like spending a month working at FHI with Bostrom, Sandberg, and the classic Lesswrong poster Stuart Armstrong.
So when thinking about what to do with you future my dear fellow Americans, please, at least consider not getting a job. At least admit what everyone knows from the bottom of their hearts, that jobs are abundant for high IQ people (specially you my programmer lurker readers.... I know you are there...and you native English speakers, I can see you there, unnecessarily worrying about your earning potential).
A job is truly an instrumental goal, and your terminal goals certainly do have chains of causation leading to them that do not contain a job for 330 days a year. Unless you are a workaholic who experiences flow in virtue of pursuing instrumental goals. Then please, work all day long, donate as much as you can, and may your life be awesome!
Thanks so much for sharing! Sorry for the late reply, just got back from vacation.
I have had the exact same thought so many times! But I perform cost-benefit analyses only for small decisions, like your ticket example, with pretty clear cut preference ratios. When it comes to the option of pursuing a life goal, everything gets really fuzzy. I think it's that fuzziness that's keeping me from seriously considering giving up my fun-filled life to do something more ambitious.
I guess my life goals right now are pretty simple: maximizing happiness and avoiding feeling guilty for being so happy. I maximize happiness by having fun and doing nice things for people on the individual level, and I manage to discharge most of my guilt through effective altruism. Despite my natural resource consumption, I think I contribute enough happiness to the world for it to be better off than it would have been without me.
As for caring about what other people think, this actually doesn't come up often in real life. Almost everyone I associate with is also pretty into fun-centric activities, and think my life is cool, even if they appreciate the status and high income from more prestigious jobs. I think it's from perusing Less Wrong that I finally started to feel self-conscious about my choices. I see such a high percentage of rational people with high intelligence doing ambitious stuff, so I was curious whether there was an objective reason for it. So if being on LW is contributing to a slight increase in guilt, but not enough to make me want to become more ambitious, I should consider deleting my account and reading more fiction instead, haha. Pretty sure the cost-benefit ratio will keep me here though.
I think I agree with you here. But if goals are arbitrary, I might as well continue delighting in my career-less life for now. Maybe when I'm older, I'll have more ambition... It seems like some people do, but my dad is very smart and perfectly content working 10 hours/week as a lawyer and spending his free time reading, disc golfing, and winning poker tournaments/fantasy sports contests.
So personally, with a title like "Morality Doesn't Exist" would you be willing to describe your views as moral relativism? That there's no compelling reason (outside of yourself, depending on your personal preferences) to put yourself behind a veil of ignorance and put societal goals above personal happiness? The title of the website, Less Wrong, almost implies an objective morality, and it seems like many LWers shy away from the term relativism. Although I don't like it either, I still don't totally understand why they do, assuming they're rational enough to have a reason other than discomfort with the idea.
Depending on how far up the slippery slope of ambition you want to climb, I just heard my old boss in Guatemala is looking for a new SAT teacher for the next year, starting this summer, if you happen to be interested. But beware, the slope is slippery in both directions!
Very understandable. It makes sense that things that are more clear have a bigger influence on your motivation than things that are less clear.
I think it's a really good sign that you a) know this and b) acknowledge it. Given that it's such an important topic, it seems worth putting proportional thought into it though. And it seems like y... (read more)