Does the state deserve your talent? Impact in the public vs private sector

Once a month, we pick a big question and invite someone who has spent a lifetime wrestling with it to come speak. We then take philosophy back to its roots as a social exercise while we discuss the speaker’s ideas with wine and bites. This month we will host UN representative Joao Moraes Abreu, a Brazilian economist whose free healthcare tools have reached over 100 municipalities and help support a massive national healthcare system. We'll discuss the questions: > what are the features of government generally? > what types of problems are governments good at solving, and where do they fail? > Is it better to make a change from within an existing system, or from the outside? > Ultimately, for young people who want to make an impact or a career: does the state deserve your talent? Joao has extensive firsthand experience with the limitations of both private and public sector work, and he'll join us for this event to discuss what tradeoffs you'll need to make if you're setting out to make an impact on the world or make a name for yourself. There's no required reading, and we'll have a cheat sheet for common topics at the door. If you're interested in going more in-depth on these ideas before the event, check out these writings: > What can be accomplished from within a system that can't be accomplished outside of it? From Protest to Politics by Bayard Rustin (https://tinyurl.com/ye29ubyd) > How can I structure my participation in government? Chapter 1 of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (https://tinyurl.com/5y36rhee) > What are the moral issues with change from inside the system? Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands (https://tinyurl.com/jey7w9cy)