Comparative advantage isn’t something that I actually ever think about when it comes to making long-term project decisions, and empirically when my friends have used it as a justification for their career choices I’ve tended to not feel their plans were good. I much prefer people to act on a secret they think they know but that others don’t.
Over time I’ve generally come to put far less trust into mine and others’ explicit reasoning for making long-term plans about what to work on (I have an old draft post on this I should maybe also push). The opening line in this essay by Paul Graham recommends one good way of not following your explicit reasoning for making long-term plans:
The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It’s to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.
I don’t know that I’d honestly advise anyone to ‘pick a career’ these days. I don’t think the big institutions (academia, government, news, etc) that you can rise up in are healthy enough or will last long-enough that planning around them on 10-20 year timescales to be one of the best ways to achieve tail outcomes with your life (I’m not sure I phrased that quite precisely right, but whatever). Focusing on projects that make you curious, make you excited, and that have good short-term feedback loops with reality seems better. Most of all, if your project is built around a potential secret, then really go for it.
Your advice seems pretty close to what I’m saying in this post, just with a different framing. Instead of “don’t think in terms of comparative advantage” I’m saying “be careful when thinking in terms of comparative advantage because it’s probably trickier than you think”. I guess my framing is more useful when someone already tends to think in terms of comparative advantage (for example because they learned about it in economics and it seems like a really important insight).
Most of all, if your project is built around a potential secret, then really go for it.
I’d add that in some situations (e.g., if the secret is relevant to some altruistic aim) instead of building a project around the secret (with the connotation of keeping it safe), the aim of your project should be to first disperse the secret amongst others who can help, and then possibly stepping out of the way once that’s done.
I’d add that in some situations (e.g., if the secret is relevant to some altruistic aim) instead of building a project around the secret (with the connotation of keeping it safe), the aim of your project should be to first disperse the secret amongst others who can help, and then possibly stepping out of the way once that’s done.
I do think there’s variance in the communicability of such insights. I think that, for example, Holden when thinking of starting GiveWell or Eliezer when thinking of building MIRI (initiall SIAI) both correctly just tried to build the thing they believed could exist, rather than first lower the inferential gap such that a much larger community could understand it. OTOH EY wrote the sequences, Holden has put a lot of work into making OpenPhil+GiveWell’s decision making understandable, and these have both had massive payoffs.
Interestingly, this fits with what Paul Graham replied to my email (about career advice) a while back:
I would choose whichever you find most interesting. It’s more important that you be excited about what you’re doing than which particular field you’re working in. Just ask yourself what would be cool, in an ambitious way, to know more about. --pg
Over time I’ve generally come to put far less trust into mine and others’ explicit reasoning for making long-term plans about what to work on (I have an old draft post on this I should maybe also push).
Have you released this post yet? It seems interesting to read and check whether or not it’s true.
Sorry if I’m belaboring the obvious, but aiming for secrets is an extreme form of comparative advantage. Maybe the framing is important, either by focusing on the tail or on risk or by some purely psychological effect, but the argument is exactly the same.
Comparative advantage isn’t something that I actually ever think about when it comes to making long-term project decisions, and empirically when my friends have used it as a justification for their career choices I’ve tended to not feel their plans were good. I much prefer people to act on a secret they think they know but that others don’t.
Over time I’ve generally come to put far less trust into mine and others’ explicit reasoning for making long-term plans about what to work on (I have an old draft post on this I should maybe also push). The opening line in this essay by Paul Graham recommends one good way of not following your explicit reasoning for making long-term plans:
I don’t know that I’d honestly advise anyone to ‘pick a career’ these days. I don’t think the big institutions (academia, government, news, etc) that you can rise up in are healthy enough or will last long-enough that planning around them on 10-20 year timescales to be one of the best ways to achieve tail outcomes with your life (I’m not sure I phrased that quite precisely right, but whatever). Focusing on projects that make you curious, make you excited, and that have good short-term feedback loops with reality seems better. Most of all, if your project is built around a potential secret, then really go for it.
Your advice seems pretty close to what I’m saying in this post, just with a different framing. Instead of “don’t think in terms of comparative advantage” I’m saying “be careful when thinking in terms of comparative advantage because it’s probably trickier than you think”. I guess my framing is more useful when someone already tends to think in terms of comparative advantage (for example because they learned about it in economics and it seems like a really important insight).
I’d add that in some situations (e.g., if the secret is relevant to some altruistic aim) instead of building a project around the secret (with the connotation of keeping it safe), the aim of your project should be to first disperse the secret amongst others who can help, and then possibly stepping out of the way once that’s done.
That seems correct.
I do think there’s variance in the communicability of such insights. I think that, for example, Holden when thinking of starting GiveWell or Eliezer when thinking of building MIRI (initiall SIAI) both correctly just tried to build the thing they believed could exist, rather than first lower the inferential gap such that a much larger community could understand it. OTOH EY wrote the sequences, Holden has put a lot of work into making OpenPhil+GiveWell’s decision making understandable, and these have both had massive payoffs.
Interestingly, this fits with what Paul Graham replied to my email (about career advice) a while back:
Have you released this post yet? It seems interesting to read and check whether or not it’s true.
Sorry if I’m belaboring the obvious, but aiming for secrets is an extreme form of comparative advantage. Maybe the framing is important, either by focusing on the tail or on risk or by some purely psychological effect, but the argument is exactly the same.