On effective altruism, longtermism, crypto bro billionaires, and the boringness of maintenance

This morning I was reading a Vox article entitled How effective altruism let Sam Bankman-Fried happen, and if that title isn’t enough to scare you off, the first few paragraphs probably will be.

Of course, I am a glutton for punishment, especially when people in their third decade think they have solutions to all of the world’s problems. Not to be a crusty curmudgeon, even though as a “Gen X”er it seems to be my destiny. I just feel like you have to have first-hand memories of the 1980s for proper context on what’s happening today. Or maybe not, but you at least need to be even more cynical about the claimed promise of crypto than the author here. You know, cynical enough to not take the money in the first place.

The problem actually is longtermism

One section of the article begins with the subhead “The problem isn’t longtermism.” But I would argue that, in fact, it is the problem. Or rather, it’s one of a cluster of problems that all come out of the heads of people who think they are smarter than everyone else and somehow have The Answers that are beyond the grasp of mere mortals.

It’s the same mentality that lets a person make the choices (often building on past choices by their forbearers, the ones who allowed them to be “born on third base, thinking they’d hit a triple”) that lead to becoming a billionaire in the first place. It’s a status that can only be achieved on the backs of others.

But whether you’re a billionaire striver, an aspiring Mars colonist, just an ordinary “maker,” or a grandiose philosopher of the distant future, the common thread is that it’s more fun, more inspiring, to invent something — to inhabit a fresh, clean, newly-constructed mental space — than to do the messy, mundane, boring work of maintaining what we already have. Of cleaning up other people’s messes. Of learning how someone else’s invention works, because they’ve moved on to the Next Big Thing and now you’re the one charged with keeping the previous Next Big Thing up and running.

I get it. It’s the same for me, in many ways. I’m a “maker.” I work as a consultant, brought in to create new systems, that then get handed off to internal staff to keep running, while I move on to the next client. But I’m not claiming to solve all of the world’s problems; I’m just making something new that people ask me for when their old thing stops working.

OK, the problem actually is billionaires. Period.

It’s dangerous when the means to solve society’s big problems are concentrated in the hands of a small group of billionaires, and we are left to trust their vision for how that money should be used. These are the guys (and it’s pretty much always guys — bros, if you will) who get that thrill out of grandiose thinking, who don’t want to deal with the messy realities all around us. They don’t want to fix problems. They want to invent something, clean and shiny and new. Don’t clean up Earth; move to Mars. Don’t improve public transportation, distract us with ludicrous promises of tunnels and tubes, so we buy your fancy new cars instead. Don’t do the hard, complicated work to improve the actual lives of the billions of humans who are living in poverty today; concoct some imaginary future event that might kill billions of people, and invent a fancy new high-tech gizmo that will prevent that event from happening.

Later on, the article does get into a lot of the problems with big longtermist philosophy and silver spoon crypto bros who think they understand all of the world’s problems better than anyone who actually has any of those problems in their own lives.

But ultimately, for me, it all simply comes back to the idea that billionaires shouldn’t exist. And since they shouldn’t exist, they shouldn’t be making decisions about how to fund solutions to society’s problems.

Do What You Like

How “Do What You Love” Is a Recipe for Disappointment and/or Exploitation

Note: This is a rough sketch of some thoughts that have been simmering in my head for years and that were catalyzed by a conversation I had this morning on a walk with SLP. I may turn this into something more substantial and cohesive at some point in the future. But since I also may not do that, I wanted to post this early version, such as it is, so I don’t lose these ideas altogether.

The expectation that you will find a career doing The Thing you truly love tends to lead in one of three directions:

  1. Exploitation by an industrial complex that knows you will work more hours, for less pay, with more personal sacrifice, if you believe you are following your true passion.
  2. Loss of love for The Thing as you realize the compromises you need to make in order to turn a passion into a career.
  3. Cognitive dissonance as you struggle to rationalize that whatever it is you’ve ended up doing is The Thing you believe you truly love to do, when it is not.

Don’t give away The Thing that you love.

Many industries, especially academic and creative fields, are structured in a way that assumes the majority of their most talented workers do truly love the thing that they do, and they’re optimized to exploit that passion. The expectation that you will always go above and beyond, first because you want to but eventually because the structure of the job forces you to, is baked in. You will work more hours than you should, demand less pay than you deserve, and sacrifice other aspects of your life, because you are told it’s what the job requires, and you believe it. But what the job really requires is you. Your talents and your passion, and you should be compensated adequately for those, both in terms of pay and time off. But that rarely happens.

Compromise can be a killer.

There are many aspects of life where compromise is necessary and good. But compromising The Thing you love in order to turn it into a career can very easily suck that love out of The Thing. Clients may have unrealistic or illogical demands. Promoters will want you to do The Thing their way instead of the way you know works best for you.

“Do what you love” ≠ “Love what you do”

This may be the most dangerous path of all. Very few of us can land a job doing The Thing we truly love. Incremental shifts over time, impulsive decisions made long ago, or unexpected changes due to the complex challenges of life, all can lead a person into a place where they’ve invested years of time and energy into something that has little or nothing to do with their true passion in life. But that investment is hard to throw away, and it’s easy to try to convince yourself that you are doing The Thing you love, whatever it is that you’re actually doing. Admitting to yourself that you have no real interest or passion for the job you do can feel like a massive personal failure, but the real failure is denying your personal truth.

Do what you like.

Find a job that gives you satisfaction and fulfillment, but that you can walk away from at the end of the day… or walk away from entirely, if you realize it doesn’t suit you. This is a job that you are willing to invest in enough to take seriously, to do good work, to make a decent living and to contribute to society. It is not a job that you are willing to let make unreasonable demands upon your time, your energy, your family or your personal well-being.

A job you like doesn’t crush your spirit during the working hours, and it leaves you with a good amount of non-working hours to pursue your true passion, hobbies, leisure activities, family time, whatever it is you most want out of life.