7 ms·

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurmon

yason 17y ago
I absolutely agree. Don't do what you think you should do but what you can't not do. There's that thing for each of us.
decode 17y ago
Unless, of course, the following things make you come alive: torturing small animals, clear-cutting forests, running Ponzi schemes, igniting bombs near daycares, exploiting poor people in the developing world, taking advantage of the mentally disabled, or any of the other thousands of activities that surely some people enjoy, but we don't think contribute to the greater good.
- neilk 17y ago
  You could pull a Dexter and only clear-cut the bad forests.
Eliezer 17y ago
Sounds too good to be true, and by golly, it is! What makes me come alive is writing fiction. This is not what the world most needs from me. Not everything that sounds like deep wisdom is wise.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  Yeah, all those damn authors who wasted their lives writing supposedly great works of fiction like Ulysses and The Grapes of Wrath and A Tale of Two Cities. They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever. Give me a break. You think the world is really better served by you giving up on your dreams? It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed.
  - apsec112 17y ago
    "They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever." No, what they should have done is written their books, then donated a large fraction of the money they earned from writing them. If you're that good of an author (keeping in mind that 99.99% of people aren't), you can help the world a lot more that way than by volunteering at soup kitchens. "It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed." If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation.
    - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
      If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation. I sincerely doubt it. What has charity really done for starvation and poverty? There's only one thing that has ultimately had a big, lasting effect on those things: capitalism. I'm sure many will disagree, but I'd like to see the evidence that giving $1m to developing economies has more effect than investing $1m in businesses in those economies that can then grow and hire more workers. I don't presently see the case for charity, but I'd like to see more data on the subject.
      - obfuscate 17y ago
        Then substitute "invested" for "donated". Or, hell, "invested in figuring out how best to help developing countries" (like http://www.givewell.net/ http://www.givewell.net/). The stereotypical ways to help people do tend to suck (lending the original quote much of its plausibility), but there are other options.
        ryanwaggoner 17y ago
        But that's my point: they're not the same thing. The primary motivation for an investment is what I get out of it. If it helps other people, that's great, but I'm after a great return. And the reality is that this self-motivated economic system has done more to help the less fortunate that any direct action designed to help them.

yason 17y ago

I absolutely agree. Don't do what you think you should do but what you can't not do. There's that thing for each of us.

decode 17y ago

Unless, of course, the following things make you come alive: torturing small animals, clear-cutting forests, running Ponzi schemes, igniting bombs near daycares, exploiting poor people in the developing world, taking advantage of the mentally disabled, or any of the other thousands of activities that surely some people enjoy, but we don't think contribute to the greater good.

neilk 17y ago
You could pull a Dexter and only clear-cut the bad forests.

Eliezer 17y ago

Sounds too good to be true, and by golly, it is! What makes me come alive is writing fiction. This is not what the world most needs from me. Not everything that sounds like deep wisdom is wise.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Yeah, all those damn authors who wasted their lives writing supposedly great works of fiction like Ulysses and The Grapes of Wrath and A Tale of Two Cities. They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever. Give me a break. You think the world is really better served by you giving up on your dreams? It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed.
- apsec112 17y ago
  "They should have been digging ditches in Africa or volunteering at their local soup kitchen or whatever." No, what they should have done is written their books, then donated a large fraction of the money they earned from writing them. If you're that good of an author (keeping in mind that 99.99% of people aren't), you can help the world a lot more that way than by volunteering at soup kitchens. "It's a good thing not everything felt as you did or the world would be pretty bleak indeed." If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    If everyone felt as Eliezer did- that it was better to spend at least some effort doing what the world needed most, rather than what happened to feel good- then maybe we would not have hundreds of millions of people in constant danger of starvation. I sincerely doubt it. What has charity really done for starvation and poverty? There's only one thing that has ultimately had a big, lasting effect on those things: capitalism. I'm sure many will disagree, but I'd like to see the evidence that giving $1m to developing economies has more effect than investing $1m in businesses in those economies that can then grow and hire more workers. I don't presently see the case for charity, but I'd like to see more data on the subject.
    - obfuscate 17y ago
      Then substitute "invested" for "donated". Or, hell, "invested in figuring out how best to help developing countries" (like http://www.givewell.net/ http://www.givewell.net/). The stereotypical ways to help people do tend to suck (lending the original quote much of its plausibility), but there are other options.
      - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
        But that's my point: they're not the same thing. The primary motivation for an investment is what I get out of it. If it helps other people, that's great, but I'm after a great return. And the reality is that this self-motivated economic system has done more to help the less fortunate that any direct action designed to help them.