
What are the 10 most harmful jobs? - robertwiblin
https://80000hours.org/2015/08/what-are-the-10-most-harmful-jobs/
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geebee
This wasn't a bad list. However, one factor I'd consider is the individual
role's role and options.

For instance, I've read (I think it was in "Fast food nation") that factory
farms in the US are often staffed by people who are not legally permitted to
work or reside in the US and who are at constant risk. They generally don't
have much education or options, and have no recourse if they are mistreated on
the job or denied pay. I'd also be disinclined to hold a burger flipper at
macky d's responsible for, well, macky d's.

A patent troll, on the other hand, is a well educated person, almost certainly
a US citizen or someone with legal rights and options, who had every
opportunity to choose a different path in life, and indeed still does.

By the way, there's this job where you collect vast amounts of personal
information about people, who may be unaware or only semi-aware of what is
being collected, and then using sophisticated machine learning to get them to
click on ads... where does that fall in the spectrum of harmful jobs?

~~~
robertwiblin
Do you think you suffer when you click on an ad you think is relevant to you?
I don't think internet ads do me much harm, especially well targeted ones I
want to click on.

~~~
yellowapple
> I don't think internet ads do me much harm

If you don't consider the absence of your own (or your loved ones') privacy as
"harm", then perhaps the job of inducing such an absence of privacy wouldn't
be considered "harmful" by your standards. By my standards, however, that _is_
considered "harmful" \- maybe not physically, but certainly psychologically.

Do you not consider the eating of a Big Mac harmful for the eater just because
the eater felt said Big Mac to be relevant to him/her?

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rc4algorithm
Christ. Has it ever occurred to these hipsters that factory farming feeds
people? It's simple science that conventional farming is the only way to feed
7+ billion (soon to be 9+ billion) people. And referring to slaughtered
chickens as "contributed deaths"... This makes me sad because I once had a
little faith in this project.

~~~
robertwiblin
A vegetarian diet is i) requires less land and energy, ii) as a result is
cheaper and iii) per $ is as nutritious as factory farmed meat. People in
poverty eat very little meat. In fact, all meat production and consumption, in
addition to factory farming, can be objected to on the further ground that it
raises food prices for the poor:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/business/worldbusiness/27i...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/business/worldbusiness/27iht-
meat.1.9525251.html?pagewanted=all). This is inevitable as meat production is
3-10x less energy and land efficient as eating plant products.

Finally, do you think that the chickens do not die?

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rc4algorithm
Do plants not die? Saying that people are causing death without clearly
qualifying that its farm animals is childish.

The environmental issue is legitimate, but they treated it as an afterthought.
It also brings up issues of personal liberty and how much we know about
vegetarianism's health effects.

And yes, people in the third world eat very little meat. But, you know what? I
bet a lot of them want to eat meat. Remember that that argument can be made
about anything even remotely nonessential.

~~~
griffinmahon
The plants dying point is somewhat irrelevant in this context as 80,000
Hours's philosophy stems from Peter Singer's brand of utilitarian ethics that
interpret suffering as it relates to experience, or consciousness.

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rc4algorithm
What a wonderful sentence. You can keep concocting winding philosophical
sentences like that to defend the dignity of chickens, and the rest of us will
keep trying feed people.

~~~
griffinmahon
I only made a clarification, not a stance on the matter.

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aidenn0
Obviously any such list will be colored by the ethical system of the author.

Many people see zero harm in slaughtering animals for food. A large fraction
of those also see a net positive in causing pain to those animals if it
reduces costs.

Some libertarians would see little to no harm done by those marketing harmful
products, and instead ascribe the moral weight of the harm to the consumers.

I'd be interested in seeing any empirical data on the weapons research angle.
My understanding is that wars have been approximately equally deadly to the
participants for much of recorded history. With the exception of weapons that
are a risk for near-extinction level events, my intuition is that opposing
sides in a war kill each other, regardless of how they are armed.

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yellowapple
I was really hoping this would be something about jobs that are
occupationally-hazardous, rather than an opinion piece judging various careers
based on subjective notions of "good" and "bad" without any real
qualification. Not that the points are _wrong_ , but the authors could have
delved further into _why_ those careers are immoral ones to have.

Also.

> [raising animals for food] involves killing, which is both painful and
> perhaps immoral in itself.

Not if done properly. There are numerous ways to kill an animal painlessly and
quickly; the most high-tech I've personally seen is the use of a high-voltage
electric current through the cranium of an animal (usually when working with
cows), which pretty much immediately shuts down the brain and any
consciousness the animal might have. Sedation/anaesthesia also helps
significantly. Smaller livestock can be decapitated (which, while likely not
painless per se, is quick if done properly) or a probe can be jammed into the
cranium to "stir" the brain and quickly shut it down (this is something you
may have very well experienced firsthand in your run-of-the-mill frog
dissection from grade school).

I personally disagree with the immorality (humans are naturally predators; I
don't judge my dog for eating meat, nor do I judge some guy walking down the
street with a bucket of fried chicken), but I realize that not everyone feels
the same, and I do agree with the immorality of _factory_ farming.

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dillon_bowen
This comments section reads like a bad joke. How many times do Rob and Ben
have to cite the overwhelming empirical evidence that 1) factory farming
really does harm animals (how does _anyone_ doubt this?), and 2) factory
farming is not preventing anyone from starving to death, before someone admits
they were wrong?

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probably_wrong
Factory farming considered worse than weapons research? Unless it refers to a
specific kind of farming of which I'm not aware, I think the author led their
own views cloud their judgement.

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Artistry121
Good point. It is possible that weapons research has positive externalities
and a deterrence factor. The lack of any armed forces on this list is somewhat
surprising - although definitely not all armed forces roles would belong.

Agriculture and the systems built around it in much of the world has serious
problems for the world and it's future.

~~~
robertwiblin
They were considered, see:

"Military decision-makers"

and

"Working in the army"

They didn't make the top ten in part for the reason you gave.

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dev360
Liberal bias? Ridiculous article. Show me the republican version then we can
reconcile.

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robertwiblin
What do you think conservatives would regard as the most harmful careers?

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drewrv
Professors, scientists, and school teachers are regularly demonized by the
republican party.

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robertwiblin
Much as I would love to be a contrarian it's pretty implausible that they are
the most harmful careers.

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gd1
It's pretty implausible that farming is a harmful career as well. But, oh
look, there they are at number 2.

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robertwiblin
Only factory farming of animals is on there, and given the suffering of the
animals involved I think it's a complete no-brainer that it overall does harm.

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gd1
No it fucking doesn't. It feeds the human race.

~~~
dev360
Exactly! If you don't see the political agenda behind this one, you are blind.
But I was doomed to be down voted when I made the comment above anyways given
the demographics on hackernews.

~~~
DanBC
You should probably have quoted the previous comment which would have given
more context.

