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Should suffering be avoided? Not if it's useful..?
Self-coercion should be avoided, yes. When we coerce ourself, we are not creating knowledge and instead arbitrarily favoring one idea over another. If a part of you disagrees that something is useful, then don’t do it!
You can always find a common preference with yourself. Problems are soluble. Do not act on ideas that have pending criticisms.
https://veritula.com/ideas/2281-rational-decision-making-expanding-on-2112
Just because lots of things are excruciating doesn’t mean life necessarily involves those things. Life doesn’t have to be difficult in this way.
You can find a passion, have fun 100% of the time, and never coerce yourself. (That’s an ideal we can fall short of – if we ‘only’ have fun 90% of the time, that’s still infinitely better than dooming ourselves to a life we hate.)
It would be fantasy/reckless if, for example, you were in your mid 40s, had a family to take care of, and had no savings.
Why does it have to be a career? You could try it for a year or six months or whatever. If you don’t like it, you switch to something else. That’d be fine.
You didn’t mark this as a criticism, but it sounds like one. Consider revising your idea to mark it as a criticism. (No changes to the text necessary for that.)
The questions here are over what is practical, secure and strategic, all largely in the financial sense--or so I think.
There’s nothing practical about working a job you hate. There’s nothing practical about fighting yourself.
Where does one draw the line between passion and security?
There’s no security in not pursuing your passion, and there’s no need to make this kind of tradeoff anyway.
The Fountainhead is on my list. Listened to ‘The Simplest Thing in the World’. One message seems to be that one's creativity will continuously resist attempts to coerce it into doing something it doesn't want. A will of its own. I feel such resistance acutely at this current job, more so but no differently than during previous jobs and assignments, as we all have. But what is the import of the story to the present debate? My creative muse will continue fighting me so long as I'm trying to steer it towards other things? I have no doubt. The questions here are over what is practical, secure and strategic, all largely in the financial sense--or so I think. Where does one draw the line between passion and security? Maybe there is no general-purpose explanation. I will continue reflecting.
I find this point irrefutable, aside from the risk being educated or calculated... Maybe it is those things...
What I would ultimately love to do is pivot into AGI research as a career, but when is pursuing that educated risk-taking vs fantasy?
This brings us back to our conversation about discipline. Maybe we can recapitulate here, or maybe best done elsewhere. Lots of things are excruciating, like homework and exams; should I not have done them? Exercise as well. There seem to be problems which can only be solved by maintaining other problems..!
Should suffering be avoided? Not if it's useful..? I'm still conflicted about this.
Good thought, in general. But the dislocation would take significant time and resources itself. The current lease arrangement also cannot be exited without a heavy fee. I also moved recently, I would love to not do that again for some time.
So far this has proven ineffective, though a skill which could be improved. However, questions remain for me over whether self-disciplining is good, in general, and where to draw the line between coercion and healthy structure.
A related idea is to become more disciplined with my time, getting more out of the off days.
I think I've compressed other activities as much as possible. With the current job, I don't think I can increase focus on research any further. The concerns are over the tradeoffs of leaving the day job (finances, impact to employability, etc.).
Yes, very little time and energy for research while working, a handful of hours a week. The intermittence carries its own cost, I also find.
Large overlap with idea #3783 – effectively a duplicate. You could revise that idea to include finding “a much better job that allows you the energy for research.”
This seems more like a specific implementation of #3782 than a standalone criticism.
Have you fully used your cash to free time/energy after work?
You may have money for laundry services, cleaning, cooking, and so on. All the other things that take time in your day can be removed with money, giving you space to do research just fine
Leaving the job means more time for research. It also means more time to find a much better job that allows you the energy for research.
Leaving gives space for better balance.
How much time and energy do you really have for research while working? 1hr daily? 2 hours daily? 4 hours daily?
Leaving your job allows for the possibility of consistent high quality research daily.
Consider your current balance of working and research.
Could you cut other activities, keep the job, and increase focus on research?
This is solved by actively doing some visible stuff you'd want to do anyway as an AGI researcher.
This is solved by actively doing some visible stuff you'd want to do anyway as an AGI researcher.
This is solved by actively doing some visible stuff you'd want to do anyway as an AGI researchers.
One rule of thumb financial advisors have told me in the past is to have enough cash on hand to last at least six months without an income.
If you don’t, quitting your job right now could be a bad idea, and your first priority should be to build enough runway.
(This is not financial advice – follow at your own risk.)