John Salter
Posts 3
Comments30
Warning: brutally honest take that's critical of your plans
It doesn't seem like either of those paths is the most impactful for you based on the information presented. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that you'd be an especially good fit for either. It seems like you have little background or capabilities relevant to either medicine or AI.
Don't get me wrong, you're evidently very capable; it's outrageously difficult to get into graduate medicine.
I can't comment on AI, but I've worked in global health. What proportion of the most impactful people in global health have medical degrees? I'm not familiar with anyone suggesting this as being an efficient way to get into global health. We don't know much about your situation, so generic advice is the best I've got - here are some paths worth considering:
* found, work at, or volunteer for a global health startup
* do a global health masters
* work at WHO / UN to build connections
* apply to Charity Entrepreneurship
* do internships to figure out the conditions under which you do your best work
I've thought about this a little. I think a business that helps eliminate the subset of managerial practices that are simultaneously bad for workers and the company is worth considering.
For example, there seems to be an inverted U relationship between productivity (in many fields) and hours worked. For some businesses, reducing worker hours would both more them more productive and happier. Companies would likely pay to have external consultants identify such problems and rectify them.
You could then reinvest the profits into scaling the business.
Like any startup, I think this would have a 99% chance of failure, but I think it might still be worth giving it a shot because of how much good you could do if it worked (without a single philanthropic dollar invested)
Resolute proved successful so we've doubled down.
* more coaches
* dramatically increased training
* more specialists
This is an advert for two such specialists.
Our coaching isn't designed for effective altruists specifically. Rethink Wellbeing is much better positioned than us to offer this type of thing long-term. That being said, I'll keep donating it to EAs so long as we have spare capacity.
There's an annoying trend of funders using non-descriptive names. It makes it harder to remember what they do. It seems mutually negative for a bunch of reasons.
1. Makes you appear lower down search rankings for relevant terms e.g. "Farmed Animal Welfare Funder"
2. Makes it harder to remember what they do, so people forget and have to click on their website over and over to remind themselves
-> more relevant people forgetting what you do and thus not applying & more irrelevant people viewing your information (thus wasting their time)
Compare and contrast to something like "Mental Health Funding Circle" or "EA Animal Welfare Fund" where it's immediately apparent to both the relevant and irrelevant.
Strongly upvoted. People massively underestimate how many EAs struggle emotionally and the consequences it has on their impact. It goes all the way up to the most senior people. They're willing to admit it privately, but few are brave enough to post about it publicly. We need more posts like this!