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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2163 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 27, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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I am very talented but I lack passion. I don't feel the urge to do or create anything. I don't want to express myself. I do absolutely nothing, and this has started to bother me.

Occasionally, I am motivated to make something, but it's because I see someone else's work and think I can easily do better. I always do.

Due to circumstances, I am going to be stuck in a limbo state for the next year, unable to pursue the only goal that I do have. During this time, what can I do to earn extra money online?

Game development seems like a good enough grift, right?

And, to be honest, what actually bothers me isn't that I don't do anything, but that I don't seem to have the natural urge that would lend itself to monetization.

I am a designer, I make all of my money from selling things I design online. The one thing I sell the most is not that exciting to me, so I spend a little time on that, then spend the rest of my time exploring other projects that I enjoy but don't make money from. I like to think that I'm funding my passion projects with money from boring shit I make that people do buy.

Occasionally, I am motivated to make something, but it's because I see someone else's work and think I can easily do better. I always do.

This is sort of a driver for me, as I'm a competitive person. Maybe try to tap into that energy for whatever you want to work on.

My dad's family had lots of alcoholics and mental disorders yet many successful business people, I really think that the addict genetics help me with the "natural urge" to monetize that you seem to lack.

How much money do you want to make in your year off? Do you need to make money or just feel bad that you're being lazy and want to challenge yourself? If you don't need to make money, honestly, I would just try to enjoy the time off. Once I got my passive income to a livable place I traveled for over a year and not thinking about making anything was great.

Thank you for a thoughtful response!

This is sort of a driver for me, as I'm a competitive person. Maybe try to tap into that energy for whatever you want to work on.

For me it's not even competitiveness, but this weird ego-strocking need that drives the little creativity I have. Once that need is satisfied, I am done. But producing something of worth requires sustained creativity.

Even just to grift, I would have to commit more fully than ever before. Without passion, all that remains is dedication. And the absence of an immediate need to make money removes any sense of urgency or survival instinct that would typically drive a person.

If you don't need to make money, honestly, I would just try to enjoy the time off. Once I got my passive income to a livable place I traveled for over a year and not thinking about making anything was great.

This is very good advice and something I will most likely end up doing. This whole issue seems like something I picked up through osmosis -- the creative hustle grindset mind virus.

Thank you again.

Game development seems like a good enough grift, right?

If the objective is to make money fast, this is probably not an ideal path . Game dev. is saturated beyond belief

To add some context, over half the games on Steam (which is a higher bar of entry than all games) never made more than $5,000. If you exclude AAA and AA games, that number drops to $4,000.

There have been plenty of game developers who say that if you account for time spent versus profits, for most of them it's significantly lower than minimum wage. You'd have to be turning out large volumes extremely shitty games with very little time invested to grift game development and at that point you might as well grift something else that could make you more money and doesn't flood the already saturated video game market with more crap.

If you want an easy grift with CS skills you need to stay away from anything self actualizing like video game development. Your best bet is to try to find a local company that needs a legacy system maintained.

Anything that seems cool or develops hot skills will have devs pounding at the door. Propping up an older business critical system where young devs don't want to learn the stack is a steady income for a solo dev.

Finding local companies who need your help is the major issue.

My advice to engineers looking for employment is that you can pick at most two of good pay, good work-life balance, and working on things that are cool.

There are some nuances with respect to "cares about quality code" or "incredibly change-averse," but broadly it's held every time I've found myself looking.

This extends much further than engineering. If you're willing to do something that's just kind of boring, that no one much cares about, but that brings utility, you have a much better chance at good pay and good hours. The higher the ratio of usefulness to interestingness, the better.

I don't disagree but what are some examples outside of engineering? Boring legal work?

Accounting, actuarial work, project management.

Don't fall for the passion meme

https://80000hours.org/articles/dont-follow-your-passion/

most people do not even have passions to begin with

The 80,000 hours guys largely did follow their passion, though, the founder is a philosophy prof and the site essentially exists to encourage future SBFs to work in finance so they can maximize their contributions to Effective Altruism charities. Besides, the site generally just tends to say ‘become a software engineer, a quant or an investment banker’, both easier said than done and as easily derived from a conversation with a high school guidance counselor to whom the question “which jobs pay the most” is posed.

the site essentially exists to encourage future SBFs to work in finance so they can maximize their contributions to Effective Altruism charities. Besides, the site generally just tends to say ‘become a software engineer, a quant or an investment banker’,

This is not true and in fact they have been saying for years and years that you probably shouldn't earn to give.

https://80000hours.org/2015/07/80000-hours-thinks-that-only-a-small-proportion-of-people-should-earn-to-give-long-term/

Yes, they backtracked a little, but only because the numbers suggest that unless you go into a handful of the most elite jobs you’re not taking to be earning to give any substantial amount. The new advice is also especially ridiculous becuase there aren’t huge amounts of well paid effective altruism jobs, there are barely enough for a handful of AI researchers and philosophers graduating from like the top 5-10 universities in the world. Your average grad, even ambitious and from a great college, isn’t getting an “EA job”. And almost all the valuable AI policy jobs go to middle aged people or certainly people with 10+ years of startup/VC/AI research experience and/or lobbying and political connections. Even your average competent Oxford PPE grad can’t just become an EA researcher easily, at least not with any hope of owning a home in Britain.

Yes, they backtracked a little

Your claim: "the site generally just tends to say ‘become a software engineer, a quant or an investment banker’,"

Actual recommendation: only about 20% of people should earn to give

It's not a bit of backtracking, it's a total reversal.

only because the numbers suggest that unless you go into a handful of the most elite jobs you’re not taking to be earning to give any substantial amount.

Interesting claim. Let's check what the reasoning actually is.

Effective Altruism organizations are generally reporting that they are more talent-constrained than money-constrained.

Some effective altruists who are earning to give are doing so very successfully, and indeed can each already pay the salaries of a number of other people doing directly valuable work; this will only increase as they progress in their careers.

GoodVentures is looking to spend most of its multi-billion dollar resources over the next 30-40 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if other multi-billion dollar foundations also got explicitly on board with effective altruism. This would create a pressing need for talented people to spend this money well, rather than raise more money.

In general, important ideas seem to get funding: GiveDirectly has scaled up to moving $7 million/yr in cash transfers in just a few years; research into the responsible development of artificial intelligence now has major donors, including Elon Musk and Open Philanthropy, putting millions of dollars behind it, despite being an extremely niche area just a couple of years ago. Many people (i) want to make an impact, but only in a way that they also find personally enjoyable or which doesn’t disrupt their other life plans; (ii) don’t find many careers with direct impact enjoyable or practical; (iii) do find a particular high-earning career enjoyable and compatible with their other plans. For those people, earning to give can be a great option. But it potentially means that people who are open to pursuing any career path should pursue a different and more neglected option than earning to give.

In fact the reasons mostly revolve around the fact that there is simply a greater need for people actually doing work than more money. Perhaps you can spin this into what you said, but it strikes me as misleading and disingenuous.

Let's also take a look at the earning to give example on their [career guide] (https://80000hours.org/career-guide/high-impact-jobs/).

He decided to train up to become a software engineer, and eventually got a job at Google.

We're not talking about one of a "handful of most elite jobs" here.

The new advice is also especially ridiculous becuase there aren’t huge amounts of well paid effective altruism jobs, there are barely enough for a handful of AI researchers and philosophers graduating from like the top 5-10 universities in the world.

This is a confusing pivot from the earlier claim that the site still mostly exists to get people to become SBFs. Nevertheless, let's look at their shortlist of career types.

  1. Earning to give
  2. Advocacy and communication
  3. (Fundamental) research
  4. Government
  5. Work for a nonprofit

There's plenty of career paths here that don't require you to become an AI philosopher. They constantly harp on global health concerns. None of these are going to make you rich, but then again, that really means you can't complain about them focusing exclusively on lucre.

Is this an autistically long response? Yes. However, it really grinds my gears when people make totally unsubstantiated and contradictory complaints about 80000 hours. There's plenty of legitimate disagreement to have, but this line of argument just has no basis in reality.

Yes sure, it's funny when Will Macaskill tells you not to do philosophy.

https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/philosophy-academia/

EA no longer suggests earning to give as a top career option. They are talent constrained so they'll tell you to work for an effective organisation. So now the meme is to become an AI safety researcher.

Ben says he thinks the right person in the right role is worth the equivalent of $3-10M/year

https://80000hours.org/2021/07/effective-altruism-growing/

EA and 80k hours are not there to help the average student with career advice. They exist to recruit top tier talent into the ecosystem. That's why the EA hubs are in London, Oxford and Cambridge.

All that said, I agree with the passion article. I don't think it's a good frame to think about things.

I have a suspicion that ‘real world’ businesses are much easier to make money in than the internet. Consider that online you’re competing with every smart autist in the third world, some of them are undoubtedly smarter and more informed about the market than you, and many are much more driven for the reasons you outline anyway, plus at least some will have much more capital for ads etc. By contrast in a local business, the trades etc you only compete with a few guys of modest intelligence in your town or whatever.

A few smart guys in Cambodia can sell gacha slop to Americans, make YouTube videos with LLMs, market crypto scams etc. What they can’t do is work for a local car dealership or become a plumber in small town USA, the richest society on earth. That’s your advantage. (If you don’t live in the rich world, disregard the above.)

I have a suspicion that ‘real world’ businesses are much easier to make money in than the internet. Consider that online you’re competing with every smart autist in the third world, some of them are undoubtedly smarter and more informed about the market than you,

Doubt it. A 'real' business , as in a brick and mortar business, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions to set up. Employees are time consuming and expensive, and you're always a lawsuit away from being shut down. Making money online is not easy, but it is cheaper. Once you find a good nice or method, the money rolls in easy. It does not even have a be a business--for example, take $50k and park it into 3x tech funds and make $500k as one guy on Reddit did[ 1] , and no competition from Cambodian guys either. Anyone can do this. A tangible biz can easily cost $500k to set up, and good luck increasing your $ by 10x in a few years.

  1. https://old.reddit.com/r/LETFs/comments/18qy7c8/my_net_worth_hit_530k_this_month_thanks_to_fngu/

Just because a sector has done well in the near past, it doesn’t mean it will keep doing so in the future as well. There is already a huge amount of future growth priced in the tech stocks. This is basically gambling with your money. Starting a business at least means you are putting your money on your own personal skills, network and competence as well as access to local information.

ust because a sector has done well in the near past, it doesn’t mean it will keep doing so in the future as well.

the goes same for regular biz. look at all the people who started contracting or landscaping businesses in 2005-2009 housing boom

for example, take $50k and park it into 3x tech funds and make $500k as one guy on Reddit did[ 1]

That's not exactly what happened there. Guy kept investing throughout: 8k/month in 2022 and 12k/ month in 2023 (and by implication, several thousand amonth before that as well). He did not just park 50k.

https://old.reddit.com/r/LETFs/comments/18qy7c8/my_net_worth_hit_530k_this_month_thanks_to_fngu/key8dzh

So if the guy started the 2022 with more than 113k (and we have no clue how much investment it took to get here, except that this is down from a high) He could have piled in 200k from 2019 to get to 113. For the next half a year, he kept losing money, WHILE piling in 8k/ month for half a year. But from 2022 to the end of 2023, he's contributed 240k plus his >113k starting point. So over 2 years he invested 353k+ to get to 537k. Still a FANTASTIC gain in 2 years, but not remotely parking 50k as you suggest.

It does not even have a be a business--for example, take $50k and park it into 3x tech funds and make $500k as one guy on Reddit did[ 1] , and no competition from Cambodian guys either. Anyone can do this.

That's just market-timing and sector-concentration with extra steps, aka gambling. On average, volatility decay crushes broadly-diversified triple-leveraged equity ETFs, much less sector-specific triple-leveraged equity ETFs, especially since leveraged equity ETFs typically reset daily.

they both have risks . market crash vs. not getting enough customers, lawsuits, or changing economic conditions

I know this is your thing but putting all your money into highly leveraged sector-specific funds isn’t always such a genius strategy.

You're only risking $50k. If the market crashes, maybe you lose 3/4 of it, but it can still recover. According to the stats , most small businesses fail within a decade. I would not say it's less risky --probably more risky because you are putting up more capital, with a 50% chance of a total loss (or even more if you continue to add money) within 5-10 years, going by the stats. Or in terms of risk, this is a highly skewed strategy in which the mean is boosted by a few outliers (like founding the next Starbucks) but the median is negative. Rental properties are probably better than $500k in business, imho, in terms of maximizing risk-adjusted returns and good median vs. mean returns.

This guy did not only risk 50k. He invested several thousand a month throughout. 8k/month in 2022 and 12k/month in 2023

Thank you for the advice.

You are correct. First world labor, even at minimum wage, will most of the time beat whatever you're likely to make online.

However, online work is my only option currently.

You can still exploit being legally and culturally American to find online remote work much much more appealing to anyone who is not

Read The World Beyond Your Head. Might get you out of your rut, might, not, either way it's interesting thought on the topic of discipline, motivation and flourishing.

I really don't know how the idea that having passion for the way you make money is an important trait. If you do have it, more power to you, but pretty much everyone for all of human history creates economic value because it's what you need to do to survive and thrive. I don't actually care about my current income source, but it's a good income source, so I take care of business.

Save the passion for hobbies.

Game development seems like a good enough grift, right?

You'll compete with a million autists who do it for free.

I'll compete with them regardless of what I choose to do. That's the problem with a lack of passion. The only question now is what should I do? I was also thinking of setting up Youtube slopfarms by training Loras for local LLMs to generate scripts. These would be much more entertaining compared to what GPT-4 generates.

I'll compete with them regardless of what I choose to do. That's the problem with a lack of passion.

No, because there are lots of more boring software jobs which don't have a million autists who want to do them for free. If anything, not having passion is a career strength, not a weakness. It leaves you free to pursue opportunities which pay well but aren't sexy.

Number one advice for regular motte life advice request post should always be avoid getting nerdsniped. Such a useful term

Not to mention the thousands buglike mobile game companies who do it for the majority of the market share.

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