Thank you for the response, Lincoln. I don't think approval per se is what I am looking for (though obviously, if someone who knows all of the descriptive and moral facts thinks you have chosen your best option, you would be doing what is right). When writing this post I did wonder whether I should include information about my goals and moral views. For what it's worth, I accept many of the core claims made by longtermists regarding career choice, and arguments to the effect that AGI is a very real possibility this century seem pretty strong.
I think my main motivation in writing this post is to see if anyone has devastating counterarguments to a statement like "people who aren't good at maths can nevertheless be good candidates for theoretical research on rationality, and there aren't any options which are clearly superior in terms of impact."
Regarding careers in politics, I have mixed feelings about whether people who are bad at maths should be wielding political power. On the one hand, perhaps they can safely outsource economic decisions and so on to experts? On the other, I have in my mind a caricature of a charismatic politician who gets elected by being good at public speaking and so on, but this is actually worse than the counterfactual scenario where a less charismatic, more 'wonkish' person with a deep understanding of economics gets elected. Finally, if you live in a small country, I have to wonder whether even spectacular success in politics is likely to have a large impact on say, the AI policy of the US or China.
I'm less optimistic about 'civil servant' careers for those who are bad at maths. Aren't jobs in such bureaucracies mostly about analyzing data, or performing economic analyses? I find it hard to imagine that many bureaucrats spend their days putting forward or reviewing philosophical arguments, but perhaps this is because I have the wrong idea about what these jobs are like.
Thank you for the response, Lincoln. I don't think approval per se is what I am looking for (though obviously, if someone who knows all of the descriptive and moral facts thinks you have chosen your best option, you would be doing what is right). When writing this post I did wonder whether I should include information about my goals and moral views. For what it's worth, I accept many of the core claims made by longtermists regarding career choice, and arguments to the effect that AGI is a very real possibility this century seem pretty strong.
I think my main motivation in writing this post is to see if anyone has devastating counterarguments to a statement like "people who aren't good at maths can nevertheless be good candidates for theoretical research on rationality, and there aren't any options which are clearly superior in terms of impact."
Regarding careers in politics, I have mixed feelings about whether people who are bad at maths should be wielding political power. On the one hand, perhaps they can safely outsource economic decisions and so on to experts? On the other, I have in my mind a caricature of a charismatic politician who gets elected by being good at public speaking and so on, but this is actually worse than the counterfactual scenario where a less charismatic, more 'wonkish' person with a deep understanding of economics gets elected.
Finally, if you live in a small country, I have to wonder whether even spectacular success in politics is likely to have a large impact on say, the AI policy of the US or China.
I'm less optimistic about 'civil servant' careers for those who are bad at maths. Aren't jobs in such bureaucracies mostly about analyzing data, or performing economic analyses? I find it hard to imagine that many bureaucrats spend their days putting forward or reviewing philosophical arguments, but perhaps this is because I have the wrong idea about what these jobs are like.