Your job matters

WARNING: ANGRY RANT

Most people spend around 35h per week working. Other than sleeping, is the single thing most people do during their adult lives. Still, horrible actions are justified by the phrase "it's just a job". There are always alternatives.

If you spend 7 hours a day furthering the interests of petrol companies, you are dedicating your life to killing the planet. In all likelyhood, you have alternatives. These alternatives will make less money, and may be less intellectually stimulating. You are murdering people for money and/or fun. Your impact to the world is worse than that of any serial killer. You are worse than any serial killer.

If you spend 7 hours a day creating addictive gambling products, you are a stain on this world. The harm you are doing will not be compensated by whatever you do in the other 17 hours of your day.

I used to create machines for casinos. It was fun, it was engaging, and it paid well. A dual mind was, where I hated what I did while I was not working, but loved doing it while I was on the clock. I did leave after 6 months to start my PhD, and deeply regret having worked there.

My current job helps finance renewable projects, and I love it both on the job and outside. It does not pay as much as what I could get with a PhD in mathematics, but I do feel like whatever I do, my total impact on the world will be positive. I do still act locally in my day to day actions - avoiding flights, consuming responsibly etc.- but whatever I do, my net contribution to the fight against climate change will be greatly positive, with my job vastly outweighting whatever else I do.

One of the thing that annoys me the most about all of this is that usually the people that do the most harm are the ones that have the most alternatives. These are the highly educated workers working on the most impactfull positions, which could easily get a job at tons of other positions. The other position will pay less, suck it, you will probably still have a nice salary. Another one will take the position, but the pool of possible hires will be smaller. The position will have to be filled by someone that is either worse, or is asking for more money.

26th August 2025

Starting this!

Why not.

14th June 2025