824 karma · joined September 29, 2013
https://80000hours.org/career-guide/job-satisfaction/
If I had to choose though I'd go for being good at the job you don't believe in. At least that way you have a better chance to build career capital and go into something better later.
We're trying to give an all-considered view of what makes sense to try, taking into account (i) strength of evidence (ii) upside (iii) cost of trying (iv) whether it makes sense to us, and so on.
Note that most of the self-help books we recommend are written by academic experts in that area. We think it's usually more reasonable to go with their overall judgment calls rather than delving into individual studies ourselves, which are usually flawed (replication crisis etc.)
I actually think automation makes it more important to gain strong skills rather than less, because it's increasing inequality. It's just you need to gain transferable skills that are resistant to automation. We go into much more detail here: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/career-capital/
I also think it's possible for everyone to take an empirical approach to their career to some degree, but it's certainly true that it's more important if you have more options.
Choose between those two options based on which you'd be best at and the needs of the problems you want to focus on.
And then even more detail here: https://80000hours.org/articles/money-and-happiness/
It's $40k of consumption. So if you'd want to save $6k as well, then you'd need to earn $46k.
Our advice is addressed at college graduates. The average grad makes $68k p.a. over their lifetime. (Source in the first article I linked to).
If you're reading HN, then it's likely you can earn more. The median software engineer makes $100k, and similar with other tech jobs (that's from the BLS).
I agree it's much harder to give money if you earn below the median income in the US, though it's hardly impossible. The average low income American already gives 3% on average (source in the OP), so my 1% is actually less than the average.
Moreover, almost everyone in America is far wealthier than the world median. Even if you only earn $10k, you're 7x wealthier than the world median. Source: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i/ (That's PPP adjusted)
So while I agree if you're poor in US it probably wouldn't make sense to give to other poor in the US, it could still be worth giving to the global poor.
I think GiveWell is a good starting point: http://www.givewell.org/giving101
Though there's a lot more to say: https://80000hours.org/2015/12/where-should-you-donate-to-ha...
It's just I think there's things you can do to counteract this problem, so it's not a decisive point against earning to give.
I think the key things that have changed include:
1. The existence of a community who earn to give, which makes this effect work in the opposite way. (You can also seek out firms with a good culture.)
2. People making public commitments of their intentions to donate e.g. through Giving What We Can, or Founder's Pledge if an entrepreneur, or simply telling their friends.
Also we cover which jobs are enjoyable elsewhere in the guide. This article is just about impact.
But some rough rules of thumb:
* Make a target level of personal consumption you want to meet over your life (we suggest income doesn't have much effect on happiness after $40k, or $60k if you live somewhere expensive, and plus $20k if you have a child)
* First, save enough that you could live for 12+ months with no income. This covers you in emergencies and career changes.
* Then save a decent fraction of your income to maintain this level of income in retirement (at least $6k per year to be able to have $40k per year at retirement).
* Always donate a small amount (say several percent) to keep in the habit of giving and learn more about charities.
* After you're meeting your saving and consumption targets, you can donate most of the remainder. Or if you're not sure where to give right away, then put it in a donor advised fund so it can be donated later.
Beyond this, it can vary from person to person, depending on how risk averse you are, how much you're prepared to sacrifice in order to do good, and how urgent you think it is to do good now rather than later. It gets complicated. e.g. if you don't think it's urgent to donate, then you might want to take care of retirement savings first, then donate later.
Some more discussion: https://80000hours.org/articles/should-you-wait/
* In the last month the guide has 140,000 pageviews.
* From the cover sheet, the bounce rate is 50%. Of people who start reading the intro article, about 20% make it to the end.
* Of people who land on the cover sheet, about 5% join the newsletter to receive the whole guide by email.
* Ultimately the aim is to change career plans. About 1% of newsletter subs and tool users report plan changes. Our biggest challenge right now is increasing this conversion rate.
We’re keen for questions and feedback.
There’s 8 articles, each with a video, and a planning tool at the end. You can get it delivered over 9 weeks by email. It’s the main thing we’ve worked on building since Feb, and grew out of an in-person workshop that was changing lots of careers.
The guide aims to help people switch into careers that have a greater social impact. It covers what we’ve learned in five years of research at Oxford, including:
1. Why you can sometimes do more good by taking a higher earning career, like software engineering, and donating to effective charities.
3. How any reader of HN could save hundreds of lives in their career.
3. How to work out which global problem is most pressing.
4. What psychology says about how to find a satisfying job and make good career decisions.
See the full guide: http://80000hours.org/career-guide/