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Think tank researcher and economics professor? These are good careers for people who want to change things? Citation needed.
by neilk 11y ago
Think tank researcher and economics professor? These are good careers for people who want to change things? Citation needed.
- BenjaminTodd 11y agoClick through to the individual profiles to see the reasoning.
- plaguuuuuu 11y agoThis bothered me. There's enough of these people. Society needs disruptive change in order to save the planet, feed the hungry, end homelessness, end the slave trade, etc. I was looking for something along these lines.
- BenjaminTodd 11y agoYou could use a think tank or econ phd position to research policies with potential for disruptive change. We also recommend startups highly. What paths do you think we should look into more?
- plaguuuuuu 11y agoedit: I get what the organisation is trying to do now. Just doing the survey put me off a bit though, even once I read through other parts of the site. IMO there's a lot of hand waving and not enough hard info - particularly keeping in mind the target audience is students - on exactly what sort of social impact each role has. To me it looked like the site was just saying hey... you can become a researcher at a think tank... then doesn't solve the main problem for students, as they still have no idea how that contributes to society in a meaningful way as they aren't presented with any concrete examples. I do think that more career paths should be featured. The main one that comes to mind is education. I'll note that think tanks have been harping on about it for years with little progress. The attitude towards it in the US is bizarre; people from overseas are shocked when they find out how little money teachers are paid and even more so how teachers are looked down upon as a result. Hence the average quality of teachers is lower compared to other countries and the impacts on society are subtle and widespread. Having police in schools seems completely insane to outsiders. Becoming a teacher would make a small difference. Convincing talented graduates to enter the field and transform it would make a larger difference. I strongly recommend including some professions that may not be sexy or lucrative, but have the potential to make a difference.
- BenjaminTodd 11y agoOk, thanks for taking the time to read through. I agree another big part of the equation is what causes to focus on. We have separate content on that but it needs a lot of work: https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/ https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/
- yarrel 11y agoYou need to read this - http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/ http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-i...
- barbs 11y agoMe too. Maybe our skill-set isn't best suited for these problems?
- a3voices 11y agoThe hungry are being fed without disruptive change. The world currently has the lowest poverty rates in all of human history.
- aflinik 11y agoAccording to this quiz, you can either have small guaranteed impact or bet on something bigger while accepting you might fail. I wonder what's their take on bootstrapped startups, that have potential to grow exponentially but don't rush it valley-style. Biggest long-running tech companies had positive revenue since very early in their life (if not day 1).