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Exactly this. In uni I got offered internships as part of the course, to write my Master's thesis. An engineering firm in Aerospace offered me a job doing som

Exactly this. In uni I got offered internships as part of the course, to write my Master's thesis. An engineering firm in Aerospace offered me a job doing something with airplanes. Pretty interesting, but paid £12K/yr, which really isn't much money, even for a student. I kept my mouth shut (uni wanted us to take whatever came) and got offered a job at a major chip manufacturer, but in marketing. Also interesting, £15K/yr. I took it and learned a bunch about that business. I went to visit a friend in London who'd gotten an internship working at an investment bank. £38K/yr. What do you suppose I applied to when I graduated? It wasn't engineering or marketing. As things happened, I'm still an engineer. I just make algorithms to move money around, and that's also got nerd value, since there's interesting problems in financial trading as well. I've literally has days where I made more money for myself than I would have gotten in a whole year at either of the other careers. I also ran into people who'd dumped those careers to work in finance, because the incentive is so strong (colleague directly told me he saw his boss's payslip, then decided to leave).

bumby 4y ago
I had a professor who’s brother worked in finance and he openly admitted his brother sometimes paid more in taxes than he got in salary. So I understand where you’re coming from. And I do think some of that finance work has value. But let me ask, if you had to put a percentage on it, how many of the best and brightest would you want going into finance vs say, medicine or physics? At what point does it tip to being a worse outcome for society? What percentage should go to ad-spend software jobs? The problem as I see it is when we’re acting on a value system with the singular goal of making the most money, it can become a sort of prisoner’s dilemma where the rational choice at the individual level leads to worse outcomes for the group (to include the individual making the choice)
- lordnacho 4y ago
  I don't know what the right amount is, but with the numbers being where they are, it just seems like doing any of the jobs that are considered socially useful (doctor/nurse/policeman/research/etc) is simply too big a sacrifice if you have the choice. You might be right about the prisoner's dilemma: if you are an engineer and you get an offer from the cure for cancer research group, vs potentially 7 figures in a few years, it's going to be awfully hard to save humanity.

bumby 4y ago

I had a professor who’s brother worked in finance and he openly admitted his brother sometimes paid more in taxes than he got in salary. So I understand where you’re coming from. And I do think some of that finance work has value. But let me ask, if you had to put a percentage on it, how many of the best and brightest would you want going into finance vs say, medicine or physics? At what point does it tip to being a worse outcome for society? What percentage should go to ad-spend software jobs? The problem as I see it is when we’re acting on a value system with the singular goal of making the most money, it can become a sort of prisoner’s dilemma where the rational choice at the individual level leads to worse outcomes for the group (to include the individual making the choice)

lordnacho 4y ago
I don't know what the right amount is, but with the numbers being where they are, it just seems like doing any of the jobs that are considered socially useful (doctor/nurse/policeman/research/etc) is simply too big a sacrifice if you have the choice. You might be right about the prisoner's dilemma: if you are an engineer and you get an offer from the cure for cancer research group, vs potentially 7 figures in a few years, it's going to be awfully hard to save humanity.