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> the privilege is being able to get a salary without caring about his activity that adds the most value for society. I'm not aware of almost anyone except for

by HWR_14 5y ago

> the privilege is being able to get a salary without caring about his activity that adds the most value for society. I'm not aware of almost anyone except for academics that prioritize maximizing societal good. I guess in addition to teachers, firefighters and librarians as well. Certainly I doubt anyone on this board does that.

marcosdumay 5y ago
What? Most professionals have to do the task that brings the most value if they want to make a living. Teachers so teach, firefighters do fight fires when those appear, and librarians do organize books. They don't get to not pay attention to those tasks and still be successful.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > Most professionals have to do the task that brings the most value if they want to make a living. The comment was "worry about bringing the most value to society". And you think that's what pretty much anyone does? Finance, ad-tech, real-estate flippers, and numerous others may not even add any value. Others are all about internalizing profit and externalizing costs. At the very least, "bringing value so society" is a tertiary goal for most people. I choose a few people who could be making more doing something else. I'm sure, some people who work at nonprofits could also make more in a different field. But those are the only people I've seen worry about bringing value to society.
  - RhysU 5y ago
    > Finance, ad-tech, real-estate flippers, and numerous others may not even add any value. Know anyone who got an advertised rate on a mortgage to buy a freshly renovated home? The fun fact about valuable things is that people often pay for them with money. Where money changes hands there's value changing hands.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      > Know anyone who got an advertised rate on a mortgage to buy a freshly renovated home? No. I know people who got an advertised rate to buy a non-recently-renovated home (including one who decided to take a year-ish sabbatical to totally rebuild and repair the house herself as a life-goal). Others either didn't renovate the old style or renovated it the way they wanted. I take that back. I do know at least one person who bought a freshly renovated home out of foreclosure auction. But that was because of the price, not the renovations. But again, you're conflating "add any value" to "worry about adding the most value to society"
      - RhysU 5y ago
        > But again, you're conflating "add any value" to "worry about adding the most value to society" Good point. "The most" implies that there's some objective total ordering. Subjectively, I think people are guided by their subjectively personal notions of "adding value" and "society". For example, if you looked at my behavior from the outside, I am not adding the most value to society in your metric. But I swear that I am a rational, optimizing agent in my own goofy metric. :)

by HWR_14 5y ago

marcosdumay 5y ago

What? Most professionals have to do the task that brings the most value if they want to make a living. Teachers so teach, firefighters do fight fires when those appear, and librarians do organize books. They don't get to not pay attention to those tasks and still be successful.

HWR_14 5y ago
> Most professionals have to do the task that brings the most value if they want to make a living. The comment was "worry about bringing the most value to society". And you think that's what pretty much anyone does? Finance, ad-tech, real-estate flippers, and numerous others may not even add any value. Others are all about internalizing profit and externalizing costs. At the very least, "bringing value so society" is a tertiary goal for most people. I choose a few people who could be making more doing something else. I'm sure, some people who work at nonprofits could also make more in a different field. But those are the only people I've seen worry about bringing value to society.
- RhysU 5y ago
  > Finance, ad-tech, real-estate flippers, and numerous others may not even add any value. Know anyone who got an advertised rate on a mortgage to buy a freshly renovated home? The fun fact about valuable things is that people often pay for them with money. Where money changes hands there's value changing hands.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > Know anyone who got an advertised rate on a mortgage to buy a freshly renovated home? No. I know people who got an advertised rate to buy a non-recently-renovated home (including one who decided to take a year-ish sabbatical to totally rebuild and repair the house herself as a life-goal). Others either didn't renovate the old style or renovated it the way they wanted. I take that back. I do know at least one person who bought a freshly renovated home out of foreclosure auction. But that was because of the price, not the renovations. But again, you're conflating "add any value" to "worry about adding the most value to society"
    - RhysU 5y ago
      > But again, you're conflating "add any value" to "worry about adding the most value to society" Good point. "The most" implies that there's some objective total ordering. Subjectively, I think people are guided by their subjectively personal notions of "adding value" and "society". For example, if you looked at my behavior from the outside, I am not adding the most value to society in your metric. But I swear that I am a rational, optimizing agent in my own goofy metric. :)