[gizmo]

That so misses the point. Not all work that pays contributes equally to society. Some jobs that pay well (because they are of value to the employer) are harmful to society as a whole. If you harm society for 40 or 50 hours every week you're not going to make up for that with an hour or two of volunteer work.

[dreghgh]

You're talking about avoiding harmful work, whereas the article is discussing finding work mainly based on it being beneficial to the things you care about. These are two quite different things.

If you both have to cover a cost of living, and care about improving the world, there is some most efficient strategy which allows you maximise the latter, given the former as a constraint. (This obviously varies by individual, depending on your abilities, available work, etc.) How can one be sure that working at an 'altruistic' job is optimal, as opposed to for example working at a very highly paid job in some pointless but not harmful field, and contributing either some of your money, or some of your increased spare time?

The example of someone who doesn't care at all about altruism and who has maximised wealth while causing significant harm does not establish the right strategy for people who do care somewhat about both things.

[spicyusername]

In many, most(?), cases, it can be very difficult for the average person to understand what harms society or otherwise decide if what they are doing is harming society.

It is not hard to decide if you're hungry or if more money is better than less money.

[fallingknife]

Difficult only for the average person? I know nobody who is such a genius as to be able to decide what is best for society.

[xnickb]

Not disagreeing, but if not me, someone else would probably do an even better job at that harmful position. Everyone is replaceable. When does this become about changing the society?

[dvdkon]

I suppose making yourself more than an immediately replaceable cog in the machine is part of what the author is advocating, ideally in a societally beneficial position.

Moreover, many businesses operate under the "everyone is replaceable" model, implicitly adding "without much effort", but that's not really true. There are plenty of examples of political movements that never recovered from their leader or figurehead leaving. You can't just take any other politician and swap them, their positions are too personal. That's an extreme example, but I think it applies to most job positions that aren't just about following checklists, in varying degrees.