1–10 of 41 posts
I'm trying to find a job that requires thinking but doesn't tie me to a computer (but nothing on advertisement, though)
Any ideas?
The problem is that almost everyone would rather think than do, so you've got a massive supply & demand imbalance. Everybody wants to be the one deciding what should be done; very few people want to be the ones actually doing it.
In practice, most professions deal with this by instituting barriers to entry. In rigid hierarchical organizations like the corporate world, this is done through a "pay your dues" culture. The people who become corporate executives get there through performing well at grunt work on an individual contributor level - well enough to attract the attention of an outgoing senior executive. The most likely path to becoming a venture capitalist is to found a successful startup yourself. Anyone can start a hedge fund, but convincing people to give you money usually requires a solid track record as an analyst or trader at an established firm. Associates at management consulting firms do things like count products on store shelves and make PowerPoint presentations before they get to call the strategy shots themselves.
In more fluid professions like novelists, the barrier to entry is simply that you have to be so good that they can't ignore you. There are millions of aspiring writers that want to get published; only a few thousand manage to do so, and only a few dozen become bestsellers. If you want to be one of them, you need to be willing to practice and revise enough that your work is better than all the other folks.
The "doesn't tie me to a computer" part leaves me unclear whether you want a job that's still thinking about computers but just isn't actually on them all the time, or whether you want a change of careers to a thinking-centric occupation that may not involve computers at all.
If the latter, there's all the traditional areas like philosophy, but they tend to be hard to find jobs in. Law has thinking-centric jobs, especially if you're a researcher for a larger firm that has someone else doing the in-courtroom advocacy, or a clerk for a judge, or a judge yourself, or a legal analyst at a think-tank or in academia. But you'd need to get a JD.
Long-form analytical journalism is also thinking-centric, but it's hard to make a living at (there are a handful of coveted jobs doing it full-time, and then a larger number of freelancers writing such pieces and trying to shop them around).
2. Become a professor/researcher.
3. Grad students program for you.
So as an analyst or grand strategist you would be tasked with studying how such and such technology will change global politcal and economic rule sets, etc and what america needs to do to take advantage of it or prepare for it. You can also be a person that researches the latest and greatest technology.
These military agencies were the people who developed the initial need for technological innovations like the internet and the database.
Also, you would go out talk to all these opinion leaders and participate in various think tanks with super smart people and create research that can influence the entire history of the world if compelling enough.
It is a lot of fun if you really want to contribute to the world and make a difference.
Every day I have to do a lot of intense thinking... Every week, long term strategy and planning. Pretty much every business email that I write or phone call that I make requires a lot of thinking and analyzing. Especially since there's always an understand that if I fuck up, it's usually directly money out of my pocket.
It's not for everybody, but if you're looking for a job that makes you think, that's the one.
These jobs exist. Corporate executives are obvious ones. Finance, particularly hedge funds and venture capital. Management consulting. Politicians. Tenured professors. Creative solitary professions like writers, comedians, and composers. The problem is that almost everyone would rather think than do, so you've got a massive supply & demand imbalance. Everybody wants to be the one deciding what should be done; very fe…
I'd disagree. I think that the majority of people would rather work with something more concrete (doing) than abstract(thinking).
These jobs exist. Corporate executives are obvious ones. Finance, particularly hedge funds and venture capital. Management consulting. Politicians. Tenured professors. Creative solitary professions like writers, comedians, and composers. The problem is that almost everyone would rather think than do, so you've got a massive supply & demand imbalance. Everybody wants to be the one deciding what should be done; very fe…
> The problem is that almost everyone would rather think than do. I'd disagree. I think that the majority of people would rather work with something more concrete (doing) than abstract(thinking).
These jobs exist. Corporate executives are obvious ones. Finance, particularly hedge funds and venture capital. Management consulting. Politicians. Tenured professors. Creative solitary professions like writers, comedians, and composers. The problem is that almost everyone would rather think than do, so you've got a massive supply & demand imbalance. Everybody wants to be the one deciding what should be done; very fe…
> The problem is that almost everyone would rather think than do. I'd disagree. I think that the majority of people would rather work with something more concrete (doing) than abstract(thinking).
But if you really listen to people, I've found that most can think pretty deeply about grand and overarching subjects. And it's people from all walks of life - auto mechanics, high school dropouts, civil servants, retirees, in addition to the engineers and executives and authors you'd expect. Look at how many people had opinions on the bailout, for example, or how many think they could do a better job than Ben Bernanke at steering the economy. Or look at the traffic to forums like Reddit, where people are invited to leave their comments about all sorts of stories. Most of them are wrong, but that's still an awful lot of thinking going on about pretty abstract subjects.