{"items": [{"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615085651302", "anchor": "fb-615085651302", "service": "fb", "text": "One of the drivers of the high salary in the finance sector is that so many people avoid it for 'ethical' reasons. Traditionally ethical careers - teaching, social work etc, have the same effect in reverse - wages are depressed because so many people like the idea of them.

So although it might turn some people off, it actually seems likely that the best EtG opportunities will be in unethical industries - the more unethical (they're perceived as being) the better, all other things being equal.

Obviously advocating people to go into tobacco/mafia/macroeconomist jobs will generate bad PR, but we should distinguish between advice that's genuinely effective for a given individual and advice that's good for PR.

There's also a lot of media benefit in controversy - I can't see the WP having run a major article with the headline 'save the world? Go into social care'.", "timestamp": "1370268904"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112938759017605010116", "anchor": "gp-1370269414640", "service": "gp", "text": ">\u00a0In that mindset these objections come down to the question of whether the marginal harm created by taking the job on Wall Street is greater than the marginal benefit of donating the additional money to effective charities.\n
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\nThis is tangential, but I'm skeptical of the claim that we should attempt to limit criticism of job choices to pure marginal gain/loss performed as part of a job's duties.\n
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\nIn this case, for example, the marginal difference involves taking a Wall St job and then being part of a Washington Post article where you invite a few million readers to join you in doing the same thing, if they can. \u00a0Would the world be a better place if Trigg instead invited people to take programming jobs -- which are in more supply, are less stressful, are still paid extremely well, and probably have better social consequences than high frequency trading?\n
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\n(Or would WashPo simply have failed to write about it in that case, because the contradiction of working on high-frequency trading in order to save the world is what made them interested in writing the article in the first place? \u00a0Trying to calculate marginal change is so hard.)\n
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\nI think it's also fair game to invoke a kind of virtue ethics argument that suggests that most people who join Wall St will find their interest in ameliorating poverty eroded by being surrounded by people who aren't interested in that and don't socially reward them for it.\n
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\nThat's not to say I'm in total agreement with the dissenting HN crowd, though. \u00a0I think there's a lot of general cynicism about charity there, and perhaps an unwillingness to sincerely engage with the question of whether they ought to be giving more themselves.", "timestamp": 1370269414}, {"author": "Gregory", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615101898742", "anchor": "fb-615101898742", "service": "fb", "text": "Medicine would seem to stand at the intersection of \"Make lots of money\" and \"incontrovertibly good by common-sense ethics\".", "timestamp": "1370277447"}, {"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615104543442", "anchor": "fb-615104543442", "service": "fb", "text": "I assume you're only talking about mainstream coverage. Finance as a career is definitely within reach for a number of effective altruists currently deciding on careers, so we should keep talking about it in internal discussions. But it's dangerous to say different things to the mainstream than we do to each other; we'd come off as slimy. So even aside from the points Sasha mentioned, I'm unsure that deliberately softening rhetoric is a good idea.", "timestamp": "1370279039"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615105167192", "anchor": "fb-615105167192", "service": "fb", "text": "@Ben: I don't think we should say different things to different people; I agree that's slimy and dangerous. I do think we should emphasize that the idea of earning to give is not dependent on hard line consequentialism and doesn't mandate working in harmful industries.", "timestamp": "1370279584"}, {"author": "Ben", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615113730032", "anchor": "fb-615113730032", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff: Ah, OK. But it seems to me that at least part of the problem isn't mandating it but allowing it at all. People are going to be turned off by any idea that seems to endorse immorality, even if it doesn't force it on them.", "timestamp": "1370285235"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615114089312", "anchor": "fb-615114089312", "service": "fb", "text": "Gregory, one problem with medicine is that the best paid fields within it presumably have the same effect - I'm going to guess that anything untrendy that exclusively helps rich people feel slightly better about themselves pays better than any other equivalently qualification-heavy medical field.", "timestamp": "1370285426"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615114912662", "anchor": "fb-615114912662", "service": "fb", "text": "It seems like the question here is \"what is the wage premium for working in harmful industries\". (Where \"harmful\" is \"people think it's harmful\".)", "timestamp": "1370285912"}, {"author": "Gregory", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/615081160302?comment_id=615116449582", "anchor": "fb-615116449582", "service": "fb", "text": "Sasha, there's marginal evidence for a feelgood premium, in that plastics pays well and paediatrics poorly, but there are other explanations (e.g. demand for private work being the main determinant of doctor wages in the UK).

I don't think medicine is going to be the best EtG, and there will be 'feelgood' wage premium issues within medicine. That said, it still makes a fairly good deal, as even the most lucrative medicine is unlikely to be popularly considered harmful, unlike HFT, consulting, etc. etc.", "timestamp": "1370286994"}, {"author": "David", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103129674171633306089", "anchor": "gp-1370448893170", "service": "gp", "text": "A few thoughts from someone just joining the debate:\n
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\n(1) I don't believe that finance is a sustainable option for many young people who consider themselves altruists. I commend Jason Trigg, but I briefly worked on Wall St. (2007-08) and found it unpalatable in the long run. I'm relatively tough, but I couldn't have done it for longer.\n
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\n(2) From a broader perspective, I don't think you're ever going to convince a large number of bright young people to enter finance to earn-to-give. I wish there was less emphasis on this route as ideal. I'm glad 80,000 hours is around. I think more money can be generated via solidarity with young, socially-minded, bright people who already plan to enter relatively lucrative professions (CS, law, medicine, entrepreneurship, academia) rather than focusing on finance.\n
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\n(3) I find it personally a bit unfair for the academics in this community to be constantly advocating for the rest of us to earn-to-give while they take a less numerically defined, big-picture approach to altruism. There seems to be less respect in this community for unconventional (i.e., non-income maximizing ) ways to give that are less immediately remunerative but still might be highly contributory in the long run.", "timestamp": 1370448893}]}