Should you do something that nobody else but you could do? 2
This is essentially a peak impact optimization for one’s life. I began thinking this way about my own life before I found Open Philanthropy’s criteria for choosing important problems, but I have re-contextualized my thinking in relation to those criteria. I believe they are thorough and are a useful framework for thinking about any type of optimization:
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We’ve sought focus areas that are strong on some combination of the following criteria:
- Importance: How many individuals does this issue affect, and how deeply?
- Neglectedness: All else equal, we prefer causes that receive less attention from other actors, particularly other major philanthropists.
- Tractability: We look for clear ways in which a funder could contribute to progress.
For the sake of this discussion I will assume all possible work would pay equally and thus avoid the opportunity cost of Earning to give. Issues of pay cannot be ignored normally, but this allows us to focus on what the problem of the work itself.
Also, this type of optimization is restricted to discussions of how to do as much good as one can for the world. Many parts of one’s life should not be subject to this type of optimization, and I would argue that that is the path to being Over-optimization|optimal
This seems fine as it is. The arguments for this are basically Friendly Utilitarianism|utilitarian, but I won’t dive into this subject here.
Take everything you love, and see how many of them you can pack into an idea that fits the criteria above. The more open-minded you are about including your different interests, the more likely you will be to find a niche that is neglected. The harder part here will be to find a way to find tractability and importance within that niche.