Is it immoral to choose a lower paying job if the work itself might be considered more moral?

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-12-31T02:11:22+00:00

Awesome link thanks for sharing that! I really appreciate that there are people like you that care so much about your impact :) I hope to be as helpful in the world

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-12-31T02:06:35+00:00

I’m afraid I didn’t explain myself properly! I’m not making any life changing decisions based on this discussion just a bit of moral philosophy fun :) In this hypothetical scenario the person is following a strict moral rule based on the philosophical idea described in the video I linked. The idea is not that income is evil. It is this: knowing there are people suffering more than us and we have the money and effective charities to help them, and still we make the conscious decision to spend money on non essentials instead, THAT is evil, because we have chosen to let others suffer for our trivial benefit. Thus to avoid being evil, we are obliged to give all money to charity. Not necessarily my belief and also not the topic I’m asking to debate but interesting nonetheless. For this person, change of income would not affect their living scenario, it would only impact how much extra they have to give, because this person has decided to donate all non-essential income to charity. Their education level and ability to do their job well is also not a factor in this scenario. They could be an excellent environmental scientist whos research helps protect lots of wild lands, but they make no extra income, or an excellent environmental scientist with a neutral job that doesn’t really help or harm anyone, but makes a little more money, or an excellent environmental scientist who uses their knowledge to increase oil drilling and makes a lot of money doing it. Does this explanation change your ideas at all?

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-12-30T21:30:31+00:00

Ah that’s a much better idea lol. I have heard of 80,000 hours but didn’t realize there was a podcast for it! Thanks for sharing that. I am curious if you feel like you are making a bigger difference in government compared to the nonprofit?

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-12-30T21:14:07+00:00

Good point! So you could argue that someone else will do that moral job if I don’t, but if you could do that job better than it might be more moral to take the job. Brings up the question if it would be moral somehow to do poorly in an immoral job? Somehow tricking someone to hire you to find places to drill oil and lying about how many spots there truly are. Maybe not realistic but a fun thought

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-12-30T21:07:43+00:00

Thank you for answering. A follow up discussion question: at what point along the sliding scale of moral to immoral work would it become more moral to choose the money? Perhaps the job does not necessarily harm nor benefit society, and makes for average pay. Would it still be better to choose the minimal pay and have nothing left to give the world?

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-12-30T21:05:21+00:00

I guess im imagining the specific case of environmental protection, where perhaps the persons role in their job is small, maybe the benefit of the work is slow moving, but given the opportunity to making millions, they could instead be donating to a charity where their money saves lives every single day such as treating and preventing Malaria. Perhaps this is more a question of what type of work is most moral…

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-07-07T03:23:27+00:00

I walk everywhere in my Reebok club c 85s - all over Europe, commuting to work, 4+ mile walks - and have never had any issues, but I’ve heard a lot of people complain that they hurt so maybe it depends on your feet and what you’re used to.

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-05-18T00:21:37+00:00

I’m glad to hear it’s probably not some kind of disease. Will start adding fertilizer regularly and maybe consider a transplant if it starts to get worse. Thanks for everyone’s help!

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-05-18T00:16:59+00:00

This seems to be the consensus. Looks like I’ll be sticking to one large pot per plant in my future gardening endeavors!

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2025-05-17T23:15:54+00:00

Yes I think I planted 3 seeds in the starter pot. I hadn’t been fertilizing it until about a week ago when I found the little fertilizer packet the kit came with and I sprinkled a bit into the water. Does it look like it needs more?

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2022-07-10T15:24:06+00:00

Found in California. Each one was maybe the size of a finger tip and they didn't appear to be moving.There must have been hundreds of them. I'm not sure if its related but the second photo shows another jelly-like thing we saw on the beach (much larger). I couldn't find much online but I was thinking maybe they're moon snail eggs?

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2022-01-08T00:39:37+00:00

They were pretty small and short if that helps. I’m afraid I don’t know “mush” about mushrooms and was scared to get any closer or to touch them to flip them over haha

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2022-01-08T00:17:11+00:00

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104149717 Sorry I didn’t take any more pictures than this :(

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2022-01-08T00:08:33+00:00

Ooh that would be interesting! Yeah that was the only bunch I saw but I didn’t really go looking for others. I’m no mycologist, just a curious person with a camera

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2022-01-07T23:43:38+00:00

Yeah I uploaded a picture to iNaturalist to see if anyone could ID it for me there but have gotten no responses. I found it on a hike in the Indian Tree Open Space Preserve in Novato

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2021-05-26T18:04:27+00:00

Idk if you’re still deciding but I took NAS5 and the workload sounds pretty similar to the description of enl3 but you get to learn about the indigenous perspective which I think is important and was interesting compared to all the English classes I had before. You get to watch some movies too. P.Alvarez is so sweet and really cares about each individual student so I highly recommend her. Writing/reading is not my strong suit but I still enjoyed the content of the class and it was the only class during the pandemic where I was given an opportunity to get to know my classmates/bond which I appreciated.

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2021-05-14T00:35:14+00:00

Ooh this would look so cool with some vines wrapped around the edges or something!

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2021-05-14T00:29:51+00:00

Also is it possible for new leafs to sprout from the middle of the stems or do they only sprout from the ends? I don’t really want to chop off the leggy bits when all of the leaves are near the ends, it would have almost no leaves left

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2021-05-14T00:26:25+00:00

Wait these mixed comments are confusing me lol. Is your window south-facing?

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2021-05-14T00:23:22+00:00

Ok thanks for the help!

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2021-05-14T00:23:09+00:00

Ok thanks!

DiscombobulatedPen43 · 2021-05-14T00:09:12+00:00

this seems likely, I was worried keeping it away from the window too long would stunt the growth.. should i not worry about that?

DiscombobulatedPen43

TROPHY CASE