Cipolla

• CipollaJan 24, 2025, 1:01 PM

  −1 points

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  on: Cipolla’s Quick takes

  Not a proper quick take and perhaps off-topic on this forum. But given that I know some people here are into health I give it a shot.
  
  I would be very grateful if someone could point me to some excellent doctors around Europe, website, or some sort of diet that can be good to improve my health.

  I have been having some health issues:

  • getting sick frequently, feeling feverish most of the time

  • Difficulty breathing, with some pain sometime when I am also sick

    • It turns out I have recently developed asthma too. Initially a couple of doctors thought it was anxiety, and after a year and a half I really pushed to get a proper test.

  • A burning sensation on my left chest, since I took the covid vaccine

  • Slight hypertension

  • And most importantly a continuous head confusion (similar to when I used to get a fever) since two years ago! Sometimes it has head tingling, with hands and feet tingling too, and sometimes a headache.

  • I am fit, and try to workout when I can.^[1]

  All the doctors that I have met do not have a single clue, and do not seem interested into solving the problem or investigate.^[2] I am not even looking for a cure now. Just a diagnosis.

  I am not rich so my budget is limited. But life has become so difficult.

  1. ^

     With my breathing problems I can do a 10km at around 4:40 km/​min, but suddenly not on my top of my game (4:10 km/​min).

  2. ^

     If it is not an easy ibuprofen or similar, they quickly give up. I have a big suspicion that doctors are not trained well, so they might be all effectively incompetent at dealing with situations that are not solved by the usual medicines they prescribe. I plan one day to write a post, as methods of rationality and AI might help in diagnosing situations.

• CipollaJan 17, 2025, 10:53 AM

  4 points

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  in reply to: Joseph_Chu’s comment on: Joseph_Chu’s Shortform

  First of all, do not give up! And keep fighting/​trying to reach your goals :)

  I am not sure how the 80,000 Hours career advising and the Long-Term Future Fund work, but it might be good if they check some internal bias that selects people from certain universities. So, we shouldn’t take it personal as not worthy enough.

  I attended one of these schools, and I guarantee you most of the people there are quite normal.^[1] It could be that many of the successful applicants at the funds have some kind of support that you do not currently have.

  Many jobs are prioritised for people coming from elite schools and/​or with the right connections. Or at least this is what I have seen. We might get rejected even if we are better than someone else.

  What to do then? I would say you need to higher your chances of achieving your goals. One way is to play in some unexplored space. You gotta find a niche, and connect with people. Talk to people, and spam people around to get the ball rolling :)

  By the end of the day, you gotta believe in yourself, no matter how smart/​athletic/​contributing you are. And this is what I say is the most important trait.^[2]

  Keep up!

  1. ^

     People I met that entered just for a master are nothing special, except for a few really amazing people, graduate/​PhD level I would say 50-50, and undergraduate level is the one with the highest variance, with truly out of sample kids or just low performance. I have also met people from some non-elite/​low-ranking schools, and some of them are very intelligent and would be easily in the top cohort at elite schools.

  2. ^

     If I ever found a company, I will choose people based on character and competence. Piece of paper where one studied won’t matter.

• CipollaDec 30, 2024, 3:35 PM

  1 point

  1 ∶ 1

  on: Cipolla’s Quick takes

  There should be more talk about concentration of power, decoupling from the masses, and social fragmentation around here.
  
  Disruptive technologies amplify the economic inequality gap within countries, and between countries.

  • New technologies, like automation or farming, quickly benefit a few number of people, basically the owners

    • As new technology emerges, the general population will see wage stagnation, job displacements, and will be able to get some benefit from the new technology only after a long time

  • New disruptive technologies tend to directly benefit fewer and fewer people, while a larger side of the population has less to offer

    • While it is true that often new technologies will increase the benefits for everybody, e.g. more food, on the other hand the gap between people is humongous (e.g. food quality is way different), and who owns the food can steer the choices of the many

  • At some point, the few people will not need anymore the general population to reach certain goals, and this can go on and on, especially with an exponential increase in technology (just look for the fact that now tech companies basically dwarf most of the others, and in the past century we had manufacturing companies, so these has never reached the power of the tech companies)

  • Coupled to the fact that human individuals in the most developed countries are becoming more and more individualistic, with capillary technology it will be very easy for powerful players with amazing technology to steer humanity

  Which are the consequences of this? I do not see many people discussing it on the forum.
  
  While it is true that the AI itself might doom humanity, I consider human dynamics to be a greater threat (just for the fact that investing in AI can increase the likelihood of these fewer people to own the world, and this might increase the likelihood of humanity AI doom).

  This is a better defined problem to the usual AI safety talk. I think it should be something that needs to be addressed asap with public discourse. We need to focus on the right things in my opinion.
  
  It might also have some implicit benefits on usual AI safety (and to be sincere, I do not see current AI research level at the level of research in math or fundamental physics, where first principles approaches and taking your own time to deeply think about problems are preferred, but this is another topic for another day).

• CipollaOct 21, 2024, 7:56 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: ScienceMon🔸’s comment on: Ca­reer FOMO. How to exit?

  Thanks a lot! I will consider it :)

• CipollaOct 21, 2024, 7:55 AM

  1 point

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  on: Cipolla’s Quick takes

  I noticed the most successful people, in the sense of advancing their career and publishing papers, I meet at work have a certain belief in themselves. What is striking, no matter their age/​career stage, it is like they are already taking certain their success and where to go in the future.

  I also noticed this is something that people from non-working class backgrounds manage to do.

  Second point. They are good at finishing projects and delivering results in time.

  I noticed that this was somehow independent from how smart is someone.

  While I am very good at single tasks, I have always struggled with long term academic performance. I know it is true for some other people too.

  What kind of knowledge/​mentality am I missing? Because I feel stuck.

[Question] Ca­reer FOMO. How to exit?

• CipollaAug 19, 2024, 10:31 PM

  2 points

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  in reply to: Cipolla’s comment on: Cipolla’s Quick takes

  Hi @Neel Nanda , @Jason , I am sure it has been discussed several times in the community. I was actually checking that website as I am into a moment of my life where I would like to purse something I really like, and was looking for ways to do this.

  Now.

  Let’s say.

  Average hedge fund guy ~ ten billion dollars in donations (say I have 10^5 people, with 10% donation per year, with 10^6 million dollars per year). Mostly go to developing countries, as they would affect more people in need (globally).

  Investor ~ order of magnitude higher than the above (even if wrong), in profits. This is not marginal. Mostly go to invest more, shaping governments, etc...

  Assumption 1: just from profits, typical investor has an “exponential” advantage in shaping governments and the world in general.

  Assumption 2: this is for two reasons. First, you want societal stability. Second, you want appreciating assets. The two have to be in balance. Focusing on one can negatively influence the other.

  Assumption 3: in the last decades too focus on a mono-dimensional metric, piggy bank size, instead of organic growth (hedge fund guy too, they are focus on organic growth, but that 10% is becoming bigger in their eyes).

  Assumption 4: giving too much power, in this case bought with money, to a handful of people is very dangerous. No reason to have them aligned with “good” goals. Literally no reason.

  In my opinion, all of these points imply a higher chance of the unintended(?) consequences.

  One example is obviously profits going to an oil company with a business in Africa, and no interest into making sure that the money goes to the locals.

  Another one, a bit scarier: Western societal instability (of particular relevance, UK and US).

  Western country increased likelihood of instability, implies more poverty and social problems. More poverty → people are less willing to donate (I am assuming most of the donations individuals make do not come from just hedge fund folks) → millions of brothers and sisters in less developed countries count on that.

  If this happens, your average Joe quant’s action of working implied not just a harm to a Western country, but also to their good cause (as instability in Western stable countries makes more difficult to reach EA goals).

  I think quant jobs are cool and have nice perks. I just wonder how much thought did 80000 hours folks put before advising those jobs given that the usual target are young ambitious people/​experienced science researchers.

  Perhaps I misunderstood the goal of the 80000 hours website, and maybe they refer to general, and not “good”, impact.

• CipollaAug 17, 2024, 6:23 PM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 10

  on: Cipolla’s Quick takes

  I am not sure why https://​​80000hours.org/​​ suggests hedge funds or banking as potential career paths, if you wanna have a positive impact on the world (short/​​long term).

  See for example here https://​​80000hours.org/​​career-reviews/​​front-office-finance/​​ or https://​​80000hours.org/​​career-reviews/​​trading-in-quantitative-hedge-funds/​​ .

  If I understand, the main rationale is:

  • we need to fund “good causes”

  • such jobs are high earning → potentially good earnings to give more

  • plus, advantages for personal life/​career

  I agree that these are very alluring and mentally stimulating jobs (I would also would like to have fun while earning lots of money in a short amount of time). Though, I am not sure about their net positive impact.

  Even if mathematicians/​physicists working in hedge funds/​banks do not cause direct market crashes (assumption), there is a big potential for harm: someone very rich is becoming even richer.

  There is no reason for which these extremely wealthy individuals/​institutions are aligned with EA goals /​ doing good.

  It just increases the probability of wealth inequality, and skewing government level policies, as we already know such people have big power to influence regulators.

  In practice, the assumption above falls, and the reality is scarier.
  
  The links above mention about possible societal harms, but then, why keep the pages?

  Just my two cents.

Cipolla’s Quick takes

Car­ing only about your child may in­crease hu­man suffering

• CipollaAug 9, 2024, 8:08 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Conor Barnes 🔶’s comment on: Are un­paid UN in­tern­ships a good idea?

  Right. You saw it from a point of view of an individual, and not the concept. Thanks.

Are un­paid UN in­tern­ships a good idea?