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Check out 80,000 hours: https://80000hours.org/ They have a bunch of interesting research, online articles, guides, and a book. The entire website is focused around how to make a difference with your career in a way that aligns with your own goals. It's a great resource.
Check out 80,000 hours: https://80000hours.org/ They have a bunch of interesting research, online articles, guides, and a book. The entire website is focused around how to make a difference with your career in a way that aligns with your own goals. It's a great resource.
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This. There are many incredible organizations doing great work in the code for good space, and not solely in the non-profit or government sectors. I’ll second the reference to Code for America. I have a colleague who did their fellowship and learned a ton while working with some great local governmental agencies. They’ve also recently launched a job board to curate high impact mission-driven jobs and jobs with local…
Hi! I lead engineering on Code for America's work building services improving the social safety net, so happy to answer any questions. I'd also mention that we're hiring directly for teams at CfA building large-scale services serving the most vulnerable Americans. My team works on radically improving access to the food stamp program, a massive anti-poverty program, but one with only about 65% of eligible Californians…
Work as a programmer for whoever will pay you the most. Invest, and donate money to causes you care about.
People are going to shit on the parent comment - but honestly, anyone with more than a few years of experience in a tight tech job market is going to easily be in the top decile of earners. The highly-committed individuals that do the brutally hard work on the ground for non-profits or NGOs make a pittance in comparison. Committing a quarter of your salary would pay the entirety of theirs. Consider that for a moment.
Just read all the top line comments here. Interesting that no one had mentioned the one thing that has probably done the most to "better our chances as species" in the last few hundred years, and has helped hundreds of millions in India and China get out of backbreaking poverty and accumulate some wealth. And that is... Work hard, accumulate skills, and become better at your normal job. Even if you're not writing ope…
It's comforting to think that just going to work and doing your job is actually contributing to something, but I just don't see how that can be generally true and definitely not universally true.
Even if we just measured contribution in purely capitalist terms, e.g. shareholder value, I don't think your claim is true. I think there have been several studies showing that the average company destroys shareholder value on net. It's likely that a lot of employees in such companies are also destroying shareholder value. And this is just shareholder value - to say nothing of the value destroyed for other stakeholders.
Yes, it is possible to lead your life in such a way that even if you work very hard, you're still a net drain on humanity.
Sorry, but we have to think much harder about how we can create a net positive contribution.
We need to go beyond high school guidance counselor nostrums like "work hard! study hard!" and really struggle with the issue of how we can contribute.
Check out the documentary Cowspiracy (free on Netflix) to see what I'm talking about.
Just read all the top line comments here. Interesting that no one had mentioned the one thing that has probably done the most to "better our chances as species" in the last few hundred years, and has helped hundreds of millions in India and China get out of backbreaking poverty and accumulate some wealth. And that is... Work hard, accumulate skills, and become better at your normal job. Even if you're not writing ope…
I couldn't disagree more. There's a lot of jobs that add little to no value. In a fictional efficient market economy that conforms to neoclassical assumptions, sure, every job is value adding. But does anyone believe that that is the world we live in? It's comforting to think that just going to work and doing your job is actually contributing to something, but I just don't see how that can be generally true and defin…
I think your argument is just as reductive as the parent comment. If we're going to come up with a definition of 'value' that actually helps people make good decisions about how to spend their time, then its too simplistic to say 'all jobs create some value', but it's also too simplistic to say 'the average job is destroying value'.
I honestly think the reason most people don't try to do more good in the world is because it's just really hard and complicated to tell what's good/valuable and what's not.
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Agreed. Money can't buy everything, including experience and awareness gleaned from personally facing the problems such NGOs target. The knowledge accrued could demonstrate value later.
True, but you need to consider what you care about more - to have the problem solved, or to solve it yourself? Or to put it differently - do you care about increasing utility, or your own fuzzy feelings? Either of those goals are good, but they're better done separately. See also: http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa... .