Sama> How should someone figure out how they should be useful?
Elon> Whatever this thing is you are trying to create.. What would be the utility delta compared to the current state of the art times how many people it would affect?
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Let me make my point in a less obtuse way. Most people make decisions about their careers based on opportunity and maximising profit. No one becomes a footballer to make the world a better place. This would all be fine as long as the capitalist market rewarded choices that make the world a better place. Obviously it does not and it's not the fault of a footballer that we as a civilisation choose to channel our available resources their way and not towards frivolous play like space exploration.
If anyone ever figures out a way to make the free market choose the greater good they will win all the Nobel prizes forever (we won't need Nobel prizes after that).
> Drug dealers
Perhaps drug dealers (and their suppliers) can implement testing, QA and proper labeling.
I'm not totally sure about software patent lawyers. But, deep down, my gut says that if software patent law wasn't to crappy, perhaps the occupation would be perceived in a better light. Maybe they could push for reform from the inside?
On the whole, I think every industry can do some introspection on how they can affect more people for the betterment of society. It would do us all some good.
If anyone ever figures out a way to make the free market choose the greater good they will win all the Nobel prizes forever (we won't need Nobel prizes after that).
An hour spent watching a football game is an hour less committing crime or doing other unsavory acts.
But agreed - that person would win all the Nobel Peace prizes.
But if you look at the worst offenders, you'll see that the professions that take the most profit normally also take the most power. And in yielding that power, they have a big share on the blame of making their negative utility profession lucrative.
Politics - which includes economics - is a much bigger challenge than AI.
We've completely transformed our understanding of science and technology, but our political and economic thinking would be recognisable to a Roman senator and a medieval banker.
Politics and economics are still waiting for a Copernican revolution. Our survival prospects as a species are limited until that revolution happens.
Even so, an individual can often choose to push for the greater good within the confines of free market forces.
A footballer can use their image to promote organizations that do good. A SaaS owner can help their customers become more secure and efficient. Lawyers can push for better oversight and reform.
Maybe we can't all be Elon, but we can all try to improve our surroundings.
Maybe I'm too young and naive, but I think it can be done.
Here's an example, Mozilla's Open Software Patent License, trying to do some reform from the inside: https://www.mozilla.org/about/policy/patents/
Maybe not, but Messi increases the happiness delta a lot for many, many people. I think the world is a much better place with him as a footballer than an accountant or something.
It doesn't generate its own pachinko balls, that's utterly orthogonal. Free market capitalism is what you DO with a population that has disposable income. You can't feed the bottom of it into the top, it doesn't even work that way.
It's not even optimal for reaching the highest developments of ideas and inventions, because local maximums will starve out the newer ideas that need to grow and become competitive. It does nothing about network effects and tends towards monopoly.
But it's a fantastic distribution mechanism for the wealth of existing populations: no overseer required! Within some known limitations it works very nicely.
NO wealth is ever created.
Not for the vast, vast majority of people watching football. Most people aren't engaging in crime or "unsavory acts" whenever they have to entertain themselves.
I think mass entertainment is definitely for the greater good, but not because it reduces crime in any appreciable fashion.
But to address your argument: you missed the "opportunity" bit. If you're a well-off, well educated person you can choose to do whatever you feel like and I'm sure some people do without worrying about money (perhaps they have lots already). Most people will chose the best paying job that is available to them. Sorry, but reality is on my side on this one. Go visit a factory if you want to see if people want self-realisation or money to survive. Again: please remember the "opportunity" part. If you tell a factory worker he can earn 4$ an hour assembling landmines or 2$ an hour assembling asthma inhalers I will eat my hat if they don't go with the money (and I wouldn't blame them for this).
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossib...
Just what the hell does anyone even mean by "make the world a better place"?!
I am willing to bet that if we held a forum to settle what a "better world" means, we'd have to adjourn it with no resolution. The questions of better world for whom, and on what terms, by what definition, what expense and, oh yeah, who pays the bill and why would never find one conclusion.
What you really mean to say is that Capitalist market rewarded choices does make the world a better place according to your definition of it. But don't lay claim to speak for the world when for many Capitalism market rewards are making the world a better place.
Yes, that would help a whole lot.
Not to mention the good social bits of being a fan of something and being able to bond with strangers over fandom.
This is why I distrust those that want to direct us toward a magical, "better world" and and do so by decrying voluntary exchanges between people as counter to their vision.
Yes
If you take away his great play doesn't it just make other players stick out more, and fans would derive happiness from other players?
No
Greatness isn't ONLY about being greater than others.
I read your comment as saying that most people choose a job based on maximising utility; one component of which is financial reward; and that top-class sports is one industry in which there is generally a consensus that "people are paid too much" - i.e. that there is a distortion; that perhaps their love of playing and the positives they contribute to society are already well priced in to their wages.
Also, it seems entirely reasonable to me that any market distortion implies an opportunity cost - that aggregate happiness; over time, would be greater; if we spent a little less on footballers and a little more on e.g. imho; carbon capture!
You even explicitly state that it would be extremely judgemental to blame individuals - i.e. footballers - for maximising their individual happiness at the expense of human society as a whole; and that instead this should be blamed on a market or political failure.
Footballers do have a connection with their fans and it is their admiration that is sought far more than money. So they are very much in it to bring happiness to the world, to put on the show. I don't see them working for free though.
I didn't miss the opportunity bit. It seems your logic there is backwards: It's precisely if I can choose to do whatever I feel like that I have opportunity, and precisely those people you agree may have other goals than maximizing profit.
Sure, if you have no money and have an "opportunity" to flip burgers, most people would take that job even if they were vegans. That's survival, but I don't think that says much about what they would choose to do.
A better example I think is when people decide to go back to school because they've realized they only get shitty jobs without education. In that situation, they could choose to do whatever. Do most people find a list of best-paying jobs and pick the one at the top to decide what they should study? I think they do not.
I certainly did not chose my profession from a profit motive and neither did most of the people I know. We did what we did because that is what we like or enjoy. Of course practical issues of making a living wage factors in.
I make a high salary now, but that is rather by accident. I just happened to be good in STEM subjects and enjoy math and programming. I didn't pursue it because it was an optimal economic decision.
I can fully relate to Elon Musk. When I try to pick a programming job e.g. I factor in many things such as salary, colleagues, location etc, but actually how useful the product seems is a major factor for me. I am generally willing to sacrifice salary to do something which I feel helps humanity more. E.g. I'd day a pay cut to develop a medical application over a horse betting application.
Of course money isn't irrelevant. If there is just too little money in medical software then I'd suck it up and sell my soul to betting, big oil or whatever ;-)