What If Zeus Was Right?

The myth of Prometheus is a famous story that talks about the titular demigod who stole fire from Zeus and gave it as a gift to humans. Zeus got pissed and as a punishment, chained him and directed an eagle to eat his liver every day which would grow back the next day ¹. But what is the point of this story? What should we learn from it?

I am in my junior year at a premier engineering school and am supposed to make a few critical life decisions by the end of this year. Although, it might not strike as obvious but as I think about what I want to do post university, I increasingly find myself in the shoes of my dear Prometheus.

Setting the ground

Sometime back, I had this intriguing conversation with a friend with a decent job offer but prior active interest in research. The conversation revolved around their apprehensions to commit to the research path realising that it is an arduous one and that the job pays well (disproportionately well according to industry standards) which would ensure a prosperous life ahead. As you may imagine, this all boils down to the obvious question: research or job?³

Ignorance or apathy?

As the conversation unfolded, I realised how incredibly inept our education system is in preparing us to make these important decisions in life. The irony is that IIT Delhi teaches us about language, ethics, and “professional responsibility” but fails to acknowledge that decision-making is an important issue that is faced by thousands of students every year and feigns ignorance².

Money as an instrumental goal

A strong argument in favour of the job path is simply that money is an instrumental goal for almost any imaginable terminal goal. No matter what the future might hold or one’s future wants changes, with money almost all such demands can be met. Thus, acquiring money should be a first subgoal. No doubt about it.

Economic sorting

But at the same time, imagine this scenario: around 10 lakh students sit for JEE and around 5K get into the top IITs. Controlling for other factors, they are the best minds in the country. Now, if one examines the economic structure of society, it is based on an ability-based pay model which basically means that people sort themselves into occupation automatically based on their skills and talents - something that I call “economic sorting”. A society functions if all occupations are filled by competent individuals, right from the garbage collector to the top scientists in the country ⁴.

Upward mobility in this hierarchy is implicitly restricited. But the other way around is not. Now, imagine if the doctor refuses to perform his duty and chooses to become a saint. Sure, nothing wrong about it. That’s freedom of choice. Now, what if groups of doctors giving up their profession and becoming saints for some macroscopic reason. Well, as a society, we’re screwed because there is a competency-production mismatch. A doctor is a valuable asset of the society because there are few of them then house-helps and so on. We might not realise but 10 lakh to 5K compression applied means that there are very few students with the developed and trained mental faculties to even comprehend the kind of problems that humanity faces at an abstract level. Thus, it is a responsibility of these bright minds to solve those problems that are hard (or outright incomprehensible) for the majority.

Why economic sorting makes sense

But why should anyone? Why should I “sacrifice” my life to something that is less rewarding when I clearly have the choice? Well, simply because that ensures long-term sustenance of humanity and makes a net positive society in terms of outcome. Think of the counterfactual scenario when people refused to work for high-stakes low-reward jobs. What’s the worst that can happen? Important research would be delayed. Research leads to better technology which leads to more economic productivity (for brevity, let’s call this the amount of work needed to earn 1 dollar). So, now we have to work harder. Harder work means more miserable working conditions which means more inequality between the haves and the have-nots which means more social unrest and thus, an unstable and unhappy society for everyone. I haven’t touched upon the impact on the environment and the earth in general. As long as we don’t conquer the stars, the earth is our only abode and thus protecting it as a collective measure makes sense. One of the reasons why rich countries pay poor countries to pollute less. Since the counterfactual outcome is undesirable by any sound human being, economic sorting makes sense.

The road less travelled is also the hardest road

Let us not kid ourselves though. If I have one piece of chapati and I was with another person. If my objective was to make everyone better off, I would have to give half of my food to him which leaves me with only half a chapati now which is, however, enough for my hunger. In general, people will eat the whole chapati alone and let the other person starve. Greed is a deeply ingrained human tendency which shapes most of our modern societal structures - the basis of a capitalist society, for example. There’s nothing bad about capitalism, in fact, it’s a magnificent example of how microscopic incentives can be harnessed to enable macroscopic behaviour in non-trusting strangers but it clearly doesn’t support long-term equitable sustenance. The problem arises from the majority low-stakes high-pay driven by a capitalist motivation strongly inducing the minority high-stakes low-pay to deviate.

The current dilemma: What if Zeus was right?

Imagine a scenario when one did spend their life researching forgoing wealth and comfort and in fact enduring much struggle and toil. Is it worth it? If you have been rational, then clearly not. You are the biggest non-rational person to have chosen a path of minimum personal utility when there was an alternative higher valued option. What did Prometheus gain from being irrational and giving the fire to humanity? And this is where my current dilemma lies; which also happens to be the curious title of this post. What if Zeus was right? The entire argument for sacrificing one’s life for others rests on the assumption that a world without it would not survive. But that doesn’t imply that the world with such sacrifice is bound to survive.

Groups of humans are inefficient and conflicting structures. They have never been able to gain amicable consensus on decision-making or direct collective effort for a long sustainable time. What is the point of giving the fire to others if they would destroy the “purity” of it by exploiting it and eventually destroying us and the planet anyway? In fact, this was one of the justifications used by the proponents of colonisation - most humans are not educated, therefore their decisions are inherently flawed. Therefore, they need to be governed guided by a small set of more able humans.

What’s the point anyway?

Phew, where are we after all this? Should one go for research or a job? To be honest, I don’t know. But that seems to be the case with most people. This post intended to show the nuances of reasoning that goes on to these life critical decisions. And how most of us are so terrible at it.

Footnotes

1: Clearly, the Greeks liked such perpetual recursive punishments. Cue in Tantalos and Atlas.

2: I hope our incredibly frank and funny Dean of Academics will take note of this and take tangible steps towards filling this gaping hole.

3: This question may not even arise for most students but in this particular case, we are specifically talking about people who have two options that roughly lie on the same utility boundary.

4: Sure, you can talk about equal opportunities for individuals and bring in human rights but the argument isn’t about the state and its duties. From a purely economic standpoint, the above argument holds.