Your career is not only the biggest use of your waking hours, it’s the the biggest resource you have to make a difference. From an ethical perspective, it matters far more than anything else.
I agree it’s the most important decision most people make and I thank you for the efforts made in helping people with that! 80,000 hours really helped me at a career crossroads a decade ago. Best of luck with the book release!
I really wish these articles said something more to the effect of, "if you're a middle class person who does not have dependents of whatever kind (including incurably sick relatives like the one pictured), or other compelling moral obligations or challenging social/personal circumstances that make employment difficult or impossible, *then* your choice of career is the most important decision you may ever make. These solidly middle class individuals are the people we overwhelmingly spend our time with throughout our lives, from school to university, at home and at Oxford/London/SF. And indeed we began life exclusively targeting graduates from elite universities, and this advice is always going to be most applicable to them on average if only because of the way they're disproportionately drawn from favourable socioeconomic backgrounds where career will most easily leap to the top of the list of priorities.
While we could point to examples where this is not the case, we'd be dishonest to say they're as well represented in our coaching or even the parties we go to, relative to the wider population.
We in Effective Altruism generally work in a world where most of the people we know will inherit at least some money or assets, a critical part of getting on the housing ladder for many in the UK, and we would struggle to name nearly as many people who have passed through our career coaching from eg deprived areas of the north west of England or council estates on dysfunctional coastal towns, as we would people who went to elite universities. We could easily name 100 people who went to Oxford before naming 100 who qualified for free school meals, despite the latter being a much larger number.
So this is not a random sampling of the wider population, and we would be hubristic to think we've really worked out the single most important thing anyone ever could decide."
Thank you for the comment, I wasn't thinking about this enough and have made some updates to the article.
I agree that if someone has other major obligations like looking after dependents, they may not be able to focus on their broader impact.
However, I'd still claim that if you are able to, then how you spend your career is the first thing to think about, rather than the typical advice focused on consumption.
Thanks Benjamin! I appreciate you also have to advocate for a clear position, and that it would be easy to get lost in the caveats, and that this is just one channel among multiple that you're trying to get your message out on.
In any case, I'm glad you added some qualifications in and I appreciate the fact you responded to my sharp comment with a measured response.
And you're obviously correct that career trumps consumption, and I agree with a lot of standard EA frameworks on this.
I agree it’s the most important decision most people make and I thank you for the efforts made in helping people with that! 80,000 hours really helped me at a career crossroads a decade ago. Best of luck with the book release!
I really wish these articles said something more to the effect of, "if you're a middle class person who does not have dependents of whatever kind (including incurably sick relatives like the one pictured), or other compelling moral obligations or challenging social/personal circumstances that make employment difficult or impossible, *then* your choice of career is the most important decision you may ever make. These solidly middle class individuals are the people we overwhelmingly spend our time with throughout our lives, from school to university, at home and at Oxford/London/SF. And indeed we began life exclusively targeting graduates from elite universities, and this advice is always going to be most applicable to them on average if only because of the way they're disproportionately drawn from favourable socioeconomic backgrounds where career will most easily leap to the top of the list of priorities.
While we could point to examples where this is not the case, we'd be dishonest to say they're as well represented in our coaching or even the parties we go to, relative to the wider population.
We in Effective Altruism generally work in a world where most of the people we know will inherit at least some money or assets, a critical part of getting on the housing ladder for many in the UK, and we would struggle to name nearly as many people who have passed through our career coaching from eg deprived areas of the north west of England or council estates on dysfunctional coastal towns, as we would people who went to elite universities. We could easily name 100 people who went to Oxford before naming 100 who qualified for free school meals, despite the latter being a much larger number.
So this is not a random sampling of the wider population, and we would be hubristic to think we've really worked out the single most important thing anyone ever could decide."
Thank you for the comment, I wasn't thinking about this enough and have made some updates to the article.
I agree that if someone has other major obligations like looking after dependents, they may not be able to focus on their broader impact.
However, I'd still claim that if you are able to, then how you spend your career is the first thing to think about, rather than the typical advice focused on consumption.
Thanks Benjamin! I appreciate you also have to advocate for a clear position, and that it would be easy to get lost in the caveats, and that this is just one channel among multiple that you're trying to get your message out on.
In any case, I'm glad you added some qualifications in and I appreciate the fact you responded to my sharp comment with a measured response.
And you're obviously correct that career trumps consumption, and I agree with a lot of standard EA frameworks on this.