6 ms·

What about all the people working in marketing, software patent lawyers, drug dealers? You want them to quit their jobs? --- Let me make my point in a less ob

by Paul_S 10y ago

What about all the people working in marketing, software patent lawyers, drug dealers? You want them to quit their jobs? --- Let me make my point in a less obtuse way. Most people make decisions about their careers based on opportunity and maximising profit. No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place. This would all be fine as long as the capitalist market rewarded choices that make the world a better place. Obviously it does not and it's not the fault of a footballer that we as a civilisation choose to channel our available resources their way and not towards frivolous play like space exploration. If anyone ever figures out a way to make the free market choose the greater good they will win all the Nobel prizes forever (we won't need Nobel prizes after that).

leesalminen 10y ago
'Tis an interesting point. > Drug dealers Perhaps drug dealers (and their suppliers) can implement testing, QA and proper labeling. I'm not totally sure about software patent lawyers. But, deep down, my gut says that if software patent law wasn't to crappy, perhaps the occupation would be perceived in a better light. Maybe they could push for reform from the inside? On the whole, I think every industry can do some introspection on how they can affect more people for the betterment of society. It would do us all some good.
- Paul_S 10y ago
  Let me make my point in a less obtuse way. Most people make decisions about their careers based on opportunity and maximising profit. No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place. This would all be fine as long as the capitalist market rewarded choices that make the world a better place. Obviously it does not and it's not the fault of a footballer that we as a civilisation choose to channel our available resources their way and not towards frivolous play like space exploration. If anyone ever figures out a way to make the free market choose the greater good they will win all the Nobel prizes forever (we won't need Nobel prizes after that).
  - karmelapple 10y ago
    Why isn't some entertainment - even if it's somewhat frivolous - for the greater good? An hour spent watching a football game is an hour less committing crime or doing other unsavory acts. But agreed - that person would win all the Nobel Peace prizes.
    - dpark 10y ago
      > An hour spent watching a football game is an hour less committing crime or doing other unsavory acts. Not for the vast, vast majority of people watching football. Most people aren't engaging in crime or "unsavory acts" whenever they have to entertain themselves. I think mass entertainment is definitely for the greater good, but not because it reduces crime in any appreciable fashion.
      - karmelapple 10y ago
        Maybe not crime, but also stops people from doing any other bad things. Not to mention the good social bits of being a fan of something and being able to bond with strangers over fandom.
        AstralStorm 10y ago
        Also stops some people from doing good things - they'd be bored, so they'd either go after politics (yup, either big or local), actual art (ok), maybe make something as in crafts (probably best outcome).
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    I'm wary of the specific claim about sports (or better, I do almost completely disagree with it). But if you look at the worst offenders, you'll see that the professions that take the most profit normally also take the most power. And in yielding that power, they have a big share on the blame of making their negative utility profession lucrative.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
- reubenmorais 10y ago
  > Maybe they could push for reform from the inside? Here's an example, Mozilla's Open Software Patent License, trying to do some reform from the inside: https://www.mozilla.org/about/policy/patents/ https://www.mozilla.org/about/policy/patents/
kamaal 10y ago
Not every one needs to subscribe to the world view that a person has to win spectacularly at big things to find meaning in life.
rlau26 10y ago
It's a team effort, not necessarily an individual effort. The people in marketing are the ones helping to bring the positive utility-delta stuff to light, so the utility delta actually happens.
- Paul_S 10y ago
  That strategy is similar to our current best strategy for bringing peace by killing more people than the enemy. It's proven to work but it is very wasteful on both sides.
  - maroonblazer 10y ago
    Segmenting a market, analyzing user needs, determining optimal pricing and developing effective messaging (among other things) is wasteful...how?
    - AstralStorm 10y ago
      Segmenting a market is often suboptimal. See how Intel is "segmenting" their CPU market by hard locking features in "consumer" CPUs. This effectively means they are not available unless you pay big big money.
      - davidivadavid 10y ago
        Why is that suboptimal? It certainly is suboptimal for consumers in the short run, since it helps Intel increase producer surplus. How that producer surplus is used to create better technology has a pretty important role in determining whether it's optimal in the longer run.
lutorm 10y ago
I actually don't think that most people make decisions about their careers based on maximizing profit at all. In fact, I think very few people would choose a soul-sucking job running against their values just because it pays more.
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  Some people way happiness at a job more importantly than quality of life outside of it.
- Paul_S 10y ago
  The argument isn't about soul-sucking jobs, but about jobs that don't contribute to society. I'm sure there are people out there who enjoy cold-calling and scamming people. But to address your argument: you missed the "opportunity" bit. If you're a well-off, well educated person you can choose to do whatever you feel like and I'm sure some people do without worrying about money (perhaps they have lots already). Most people will chose the best paying job that is available to them. Sorry, but reality is on my side on this one. Go visit a factory if you want to see if people want self-realisation or money to survive. Again: please remember the "opportunity" part. If you tell a factory worker he can earn 4$ an hour assembling landmines or 2$ an hour assembling asthma inhalers I will eat my hat if they don't go with the money (and I wouldn't blame them for this).
  - odbol_ 10y ago
    HN's privilege is showing pretty badly here in these comments. Seem to be completely oblivious to the oppressive squalor that most the world lives in, only thinking about which high-paying cushy job they should take to "change the world."
    - brain5ide 10y ago
      Well you know, we were talking about Elon Musk after all. So that kinda assumes, that we're not talking about jobs for survival kind of situation. Even if it is the vast majority of population.
jimbokun 10y ago
"No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place." Maybe not, but Messi increases the happiness delta a lot for many, many people. I think the world is a much better place with him as a footballer than an accountant or something.
- colin725 10y ago
  Are you sure the net happiness from football was really raised by Messi or did he simply shift it to his county and teams he plays for? If you take away his great play doesn't it just make other players stick out more, and fans would derive happiness from other players?
  - NoodleIncident 10y ago
    Only one other player stands out as much. It seems silly to say that either should have been an accountant, because if he were, then the same arguments would apply to the other. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossible/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossib...
    - gd1 10y ago
      Given the way he has handled his taxes, it is safe to say that he would make a poor accountant anyway.
      - robotresearcher 10y ago
        I bet he has made one or more rich accountants.
  - jimbokun 10y ago
    He raises the net happiness. He does things no one else does and is a joy to watch. It's like saying if a great musician never lived people would just listen to different music. Sure, but there would be a certain joy and pleasure people never would have experienced, and never realized they were missing.
tloble 10y ago
Nah bro, as a billionaire, I make all of my money to help the world.
CodeMage 10y ago
Believe it or not, there are different motivations people have for choosing their careers. Some become footballers because they want to rake in as much money as Beckham, others because they enjoy football so much that they decide that's what they want to do all the time. I'm pretty sure most people don't have just one overriding motivation for what they do, but an amalgam of different factors. Your statement about maximizing profit as a primary motivator is less of a factual statement and more of a revelation about your own motivations.
- Paul_S 10y ago
  Most of the world population doesn't have the kind of opportunities you do. You are probably at the top 5% of the 7 billion population. Chances are you can choose between a 100k job and a 120k job that you find unsavory and maybe you choose the lower paid one. Most of the population has different choices to make. You are the one projecting your privelaged position onto the rest of the world.
sbuttgereit 10y ago
...make the world a better place. Just what the hell does anyone even mean by "make the world a better place"?! I am willing to bet that if we held a forum to settle what a "better world" means, we'd have to adjourn it with no resolution. The questions of better world for whom, and on what terms, by what definition, what expense and, oh yeah, who pays the bill and why would never find one conclusion. What you really mean to say is that Capitalist market rewarded choices does make the world a better place according to your definition of it. But don't lay claim to speak for the world when for many Capitalism market rewards are making the world a better place.
- awesomerobot 10y ago
  Hitler thought he was making the world a better place.
  - sbuttgereit 10y ago
    As did Pol Pot and other mass murderers. This is why I distrust those that want to direct us toward a magical, "better world" and and do so by decrying voluntary exchanges between people as counter to their vision.
- gameshot911 10y ago
  The world is a better place when our desires are attained.
  - Bakary 10y ago
    Desires are almost bottomless though
    - entwife 10y ago
      If only there was a way, a vehicle so to speak, for liberating ourselves from the suffering of our desires.
  - pvdebbe 10y ago
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
> What about all the people working in marketing, software patent lawyers, drug dealers? You want them to quit their jobs? Yes, that would help a whole lot.
Kenji 10y ago
I think you're wrong about one thing. You see, you always think of the greater good as you define it. However, watching a football star is the desire of many, and they pay money for it, so the football star is in fact doing it for the greater good by entertaining many. Capitalism moves in the direction of where the money is - and the money is in things people want. So capitalism is a most efficient machine to produce things for the greater good. Any other definition of 'greater good', i.e. yours, would have to be forced on them by the force of law and ultimately, threats and violence.
- sabertoothed 10y ago
  That's not necessarily true. Especially not if you also consider externalities.
icc97 10y ago
Quite the opposite, they should be given unions and then we can finally admit to all living in Ankh-Morpork [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh-Morpork
saiya-jin 10y ago
Now this is an insult to number of jobs which are chosen by skilled enough to get better paid jobs but they won't. Examples - doctors & nurses, most people in disaster orgs like Red Cross, Doctors without Frontiers etc. and I am sure many other types of jobs out there (corporate vs creative job, anybody?)
crc32 10y ago
I think quite a few of the respondents are missing the point because you said that most people choose to "maximise profit" which has a negative connotation. (Or apparently so, in their minds) I read your comment as saying that most people choose a job based on maximising utility; one component of which is financial reward; and that top-class sports is one industry in which there is generally a consensus that "people are paid too much" - i.e. that there is a distortion; that perhaps their love of playing and the positives they contribute to society are already well priced in to their wages. Also, it seems entirely reasonable to me that any market distortion implies an opportunity cost - that aggregate happiness; over time, would be greater; if we spent a little less on footballers and a little more on e.g. imho; carbon capture! You even explicitly state that it would be extremely judgemental to blame individuals - i.e. footballers - for maximising their individual happiness at the expense of human society as a whole; and that instead this should be blamed on a market or political failure.
jernfrost 10y ago
Really you chose your career only from a profit motive? What are you, a sales person? I certainly did not chose my profession from a profit motive and neither did most of the people I know. We did what we did because that is what we like or enjoy. Of course practical issues of making a living wage factors in. I make a high salary now, but that is rather by accident. I just happened to be good in STEM subjects and enjoy math and programming. I didn't pursue it because it was an optimal economic decision. I can fully relate to Elon Musk. When I try to pick a programming job e.g. I factor in many things such as salary, colleagues, location etc, but actually how useful the product seems is a major factor for me. I am generally willing to sacrifice salary to do something which I feel helps humanity more. E.g. I'd day a pay cut to develop a medical application over a horse betting application. Of course money isn't irrelevant. If there is just too little money in medical software then I'd suck it up and sell my soul to betting, big oil or whatever ;-)

by Paul_S 10y ago

leesalminen 10y ago

'Tis an interesting point. > Drug dealers Perhaps drug dealers (and their suppliers) can implement testing, QA and proper labeling. I'm not totally sure about software patent lawyers. But, deep down, my gut says that if software patent law wasn't to crappy, perhaps the occupation would be perceived in a better light. Maybe they could push for reform from the inside? On the whole, I think every industry can do some introspection on how they can affect more people for the betterment of society. It would do us all some good.

Paul_S 10y ago
Let me make my point in a less obtuse way. Most people make decisions about their careers based on opportunity and maximising profit. No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place. This would all be fine as long as the capitalist market rewarded choices that make the world a better place. Obviously it does not and it's not the fault of a footballer that we as a civilisation choose to channel our available resources their way and not towards frivolous play like space exploration. If anyone ever figures out a way to make the free market choose the greater good they will win all the Nobel prizes forever (we won't need Nobel prizes after that).
- karmelapple 10y ago
  Why isn't some entertainment - even if it's somewhat frivolous - for the greater good? An hour spent watching a football game is an hour less committing crime or doing other unsavory acts. But agreed - that person would win all the Nobel Peace prizes.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > An hour spent watching a football game is an hour less committing crime or doing other unsavory acts. Not for the vast, vast majority of people watching football. Most people aren't engaging in crime or "unsavory acts" whenever they have to entertain themselves. I think mass entertainment is definitely for the greater good, but not because it reduces crime in any appreciable fashion.
    - karmelapple 10y ago
      Maybe not crime, but also stops people from doing any other bad things. Not to mention the good social bits of being a fan of something and being able to bond with strangers over fandom.
      - AstralStorm 10y ago
        Also stops some people from doing good things - they'd be bored, so they'd either go after politics (yup, either big or local), actual art (ok), maybe make something as in crafts (probably best outcome).
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  I'm wary of the specific claim about sports (or better, I do almost completely disagree with it). But if you look at the worst offenders, you'll see that the professions that take the most profit normally also take the most power. And in yielding that power, they have a big share on the blame of making their negative utility profession lucrative.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
reubenmorais 10y ago
> Maybe they could push for reform from the inside? Here's an example, Mozilla's Open Software Patent License, trying to do some reform from the inside: https://www.mozilla.org/about/policy/patents/ https://www.mozilla.org/about/policy/patents/

kamaal 10y ago

Not every one needs to subscribe to the world view that a person has to win spectacularly at big things to find meaning in life.

rlau26 10y ago

It's a team effort, not necessarily an individual effort. The people in marketing are the ones helping to bring the positive utility-delta stuff to light, so the utility delta actually happens.

Paul_S 10y ago
That strategy is similar to our current best strategy for bringing peace by killing more people than the enemy. It's proven to work but it is very wasteful on both sides.
- maroonblazer 10y ago
  Segmenting a market, analyzing user needs, determining optimal pricing and developing effective messaging (among other things) is wasteful...how?
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Segmenting a market is often suboptimal. See how Intel is "segmenting" their CPU market by hard locking features in "consumer" CPUs. This effectively means they are not available unless you pay big big money.
    - davidivadavid 10y ago
      Why is that suboptimal? It certainly is suboptimal for consumers in the short run, since it helps Intel increase producer surplus. How that producer surplus is used to create better technology has a pretty important role in determining whether it's optimal in the longer run.

lutorm 10y ago

I actually don't think that most people make decisions about their careers based on maximizing profit at all. In fact, I think very few people would choose a soul-sucking job running against their values just because it pays more.

dclowd9901 10y ago
Some people way happiness at a job more importantly than quality of life outside of it.
Paul_S 10y ago
The argument isn't about soul-sucking jobs, but about jobs that don't contribute to society. I'm sure there are people out there who enjoy cold-calling and scamming people. But to address your argument: you missed the "opportunity" bit. If you're a well-off, well educated person you can choose to do whatever you feel like and I'm sure some people do without worrying about money (perhaps they have lots already). Most people will chose the best paying job that is available to them. Sorry, but reality is on my side on this one. Go visit a factory if you want to see if people want self-realisation or money to survive. Again: please remember the "opportunity" part. If you tell a factory worker he can earn 4$ an hour assembling landmines or 2$ an hour assembling asthma inhalers I will eat my hat if they don't go with the money (and I wouldn't blame them for this).
- odbol_ 10y ago
  HN's privilege is showing pretty badly here in these comments. Seem to be completely oblivious to the oppressive squalor that most the world lives in, only thinking about which high-paying cushy job they should take to "change the world."
  - brain5ide 10y ago
    Well you know, we were talking about Elon Musk after all. So that kinda assumes, that we're not talking about jobs for survival kind of situation. Even if it is the vast majority of population.

jimbokun 10y ago

"No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place." Maybe not, but Messi increases the happiness delta a lot for many, many people. I think the world is a much better place with him as a footballer than an accountant or something.

colin725 10y ago
Are you sure the net happiness from football was really raised by Messi or did he simply shift it to his county and teams he plays for? If you take away his great play doesn't it just make other players stick out more, and fans would derive happiness from other players?
- NoodleIncident 10y ago
  Only one other player stands out as much. It seems silly to say that either should have been an accountant, because if he were, then the same arguments would apply to the other. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossible/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossib...
  - gd1 10y ago
    Given the way he has handled his taxes, it is safe to say that he would make a poor accountant anyway.
    - robotresearcher 10y ago
      I bet he has made one or more rich accountants.
- jimbokun 10y ago
  He raises the net happiness. He does things no one else does and is a joy to watch. It's like saying if a great musician never lived people would just listen to different music. Sure, but there would be a certain joy and pleasure people never would have experienced, and never realized they were missing.

tloble 10y ago

Nah bro, as a billionaire, I make all of my money to help the world.

CodeMage 10y ago

Believe it or not, there are different motivations people have for choosing their careers. Some become footballers because they want to rake in as much money as Beckham, others because they enjoy football so much that they decide that's what they want to do all the time. I'm pretty sure most people don't have just one overriding motivation for what they do, but an amalgam of different factors. Your statement about maximizing profit as a primary motivator is less of a factual statement and more of a revelation about your own motivations.

Paul_S 10y ago
Most of the world population doesn't have the kind of opportunities you do. You are probably at the top 5% of the 7 billion population. Chances are you can choose between a 100k job and a 120k job that you find unsavory and maybe you choose the lower paid one. Most of the population has different choices to make. You are the one projecting your privelaged position onto the rest of the world.

sbuttgereit 10y ago

...make the world a better place. Just what the hell does anyone even mean by "make the world a better place"?! I am willing to bet that if we held a forum to settle what a "better world" means, we'd have to adjourn it with no resolution. The questions of better world for whom, and on what terms, by what definition, what expense and, oh yeah, who pays the bill and why would never find one conclusion. What you really mean to say is that Capitalist market rewarded choices does make the world a better place according to your definition of it. But don't lay claim to speak for the world when for many Capitalism market rewards are making the world a better place.

awesomerobot 10y ago
Hitler thought he was making the world a better place.
- sbuttgereit 10y ago
  As did Pol Pot and other mass murderers. This is why I distrust those that want to direct us toward a magical, "better world" and and do so by decrying voluntary exchanges between people as counter to their vision.
gameshot911 10y ago
The world is a better place when our desires are attained.
- Bakary 10y ago
  Desires are almost bottomless though
  - entwife 10y ago
    If only there was a way, a vehicle so to speak, for liberating ourselves from the suffering of our desires.
- pvdebbe 10y ago

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

> What about all the people working in marketing, software patent lawyers, drug dealers? You want them to quit their jobs? Yes, that would help a whole lot.

Kenji 10y ago

I think you're wrong about one thing. You see, you always think of the greater good as you define it. However, watching a football star is the desire of many, and they pay money for it, so the football star is in fact doing it for the greater good by entertaining many. Capitalism moves in the direction of where the money is - and the money is in things people want. So capitalism is a most efficient machine to produce things for the greater good. Any other definition of 'greater good', i.e. yours, would have to be forced on them by the force of law and ultimately, threats and violence.

sabertoothed 10y ago
That's not necessarily true. Especially not if you also consider externalities.

icc97 10y ago

Quite the opposite, they should be given unions and then we can finally admit to all living in Ankh-Morpork [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh-Morpork

saiya-jin 10y ago

Now this is an insult to number of jobs which are chosen by skilled enough to get better paid jobs but they won't. Examples - doctors & nurses, most people in disaster orgs like Red Cross, Doctors without Frontiers etc. and I am sure many other types of jobs out there (corporate vs creative job, anybody?)

crc32 10y ago

I think quite a few of the respondents are missing the point because you said that most people choose to "maximise profit" which has a negative connotation. (Or apparently so, in their minds) I read your comment as saying that most people choose a job based on maximising utility; one component of which is financial reward; and that top-class sports is one industry in which there is generally a consensus that "people are paid too much" - i.e. that there is a distortion; that perhaps their love of playing and the positives they contribute to society are already well priced in to their wages. Also, it seems entirely reasonable to me that any market distortion implies an opportunity cost - that aggregate happiness; over time, would be greater; if we spent a little less on footballers and a little more on e.g. imho; carbon capture! You even explicitly state that it would be extremely judgemental to blame individuals - i.e. footballers - for maximising their individual happiness at the expense of human society as a whole; and that instead this should be blamed on a market or political failure.

jernfrost 10y ago

Really you chose your career only from a profit motive? What are you, a sales person? I certainly did not chose my profession from a profit motive and neither did most of the people I know. We did what we did because that is what we like or enjoy. Of course practical issues of making a living wage factors in. I make a high salary now, but that is rather by accident. I just happened to be good in STEM subjects and enjoy math and programming. I didn't pursue it because it was an optimal economic decision. I can fully relate to Elon Musk. When I try to pick a programming job e.g. I factor in many things such as salary, colleagues, location etc, but actually how useful the product seems is a major factor for me. I am generally willing to sacrifice salary to do something which I feel helps humanity more. E.g. I'd day a pay cut to develop a medical application over a horse betting application. Of course money isn't irrelevant. If there is just too little money in medical software then I'd suck it up and sell my soul to betting, big oil or whatever ;-)