All of Luca Parodi's Comments + Replies

To be fair mine regarding the link-to-articles tendency is not a well-formed opinion, just something I've felt during some online and offline conversations. Especially from other fellow rationalists, when they quote a Scott's article or an obscure post on the sequences when not absolutely needed. 

By the way, I think it's also a bad idea to demand more work from people you are communicating with, like informally requesting them to read a full article instead of trying to explain your point in plain terms. 

Let's put it this way: we can have the pri... (read more)

As a side and personal comment, I don't like too much the tendency in EA to link to articles when trying to make a point. Years ago I hung out a bit with Objectivists, both in person and online. Something that frustrated me a lot was that, for every question I asked, they linked (if online) or referred (if offline) an article from Ayn Rand or from Leonard Peikoff, saying "read this". Instead of linking articles, I think it's way better to try to explain ourselves in our own words.

P.s. I am referring to this passage

As a minor point, I want to push back a ti

... (read more)
6
Charles Dillon
1y
I think the point is well made by Lorenzo, as someone who understands what the linked text is referring to and doesn't need to click on the link. I think it is good that the link is there for those who do not know what he meant or want clarification. In general I think it is a bad idea to demand more work from people communicating with you - it discourages them from trying to communicate in the first place. This is similar to the trivial inconvenience point itself.

I totally agree. 

In my couple of years of experience as a fully committed EA, I've noticed IQ signalling is too many times more valued than trying to be clear and socially aware. I think that EA tends to attract a certain type of person (we know the drill: neurodivergent, high IQ, introvert, socially awkward, upper-class, UK/US born) and that's great if this grouping-tendency makes people comfortable to be themselves. But the other side of the story is that a communication culture which is designed to favour a certain kind of person will become unwelc... (read more)

Thanks for the comment, Lorenzo. A few random counterpoints to what you said, some positive and some critical.

1. On point one I don't share at all your confidence, quite the opposite. I would like that - i.e. that by asking for clarifications I'll look smarter  - but my impression is that on a deep and untrained-by-system-2 level, you will be perceived as the dumb foreigner who doesn't understand for a long time, let's say for the first few years in which you interact daily with native English speakers. To find out who's right should we try to test ou... (read more)

2
Amber Dawn
1y
Your points B and C are so right, btw! As a native English speaker, I can't speak any second language nearly as well as most non-native English speaking EAs. I'm super impressed with all of you, and far from thinking you're stupid or slow, interacting with you makes me feel stupid because I couldn't discuss highly technical things in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Mandarin...
4
Tessa
1y
In terms of trivial inconveniences / perception and gratitude for the work people are doing to speak English, one other small note: there may be more native English speakers than you realize who have spent periods speaking another language? In EA contexts, it's pretty much always the case that the shared level of English between myself and my conversation partner is higher, since my Spanish is around a B2 level and my French around B1... but I have spent ~6 months each in countries that speak those languages and know it's hard! I've gotten feedback before when I'm speaking too quickly, and I've always been grateful for it. Do you have any other suggestions for how native English speakers can indicate willingness to receive feedback ― I sometimes worry about making people self-conscious by drawing attention to their (good but non-native) level of English, but maybe adding something in my EAG bio like "I know it can be exhausting to speak English all day if you're not a native speaker, please tell me to slow down if I'm speaking too fast!" would be helpful?
5
Lorenzo Buonanno
1y
Thanks for the reply! On 1. (asking for someone to repeat makes you look dumber/smarter) I would be interested to bet on this, but I worry that replies to a poll would be biased in my favour (as you said, system 2 and system 1 could disagree). It might also depend a lot on details and context, but if you are also interested we can try to operationalize a bet! On 2. (SNR) it was meant to be a tongue in cheek self-deprecating joke about using too much jargon, sorry it didn't come across that way! (I was thinking of Signal-to-Noise-Ratio , basically a way to repeat what I previously wrote with random jargon). I agree this point doesn't apply much to parties and crowded social settings. On 5. (Recording conversations) agree, depends a lot on context. On the trivial inconveniences, I am conflicted. I guess I defer to others with more experience in the community. In general I would be curious to hear tips for non-native speakers from native speakers. Sometimes I feel that the language situation is as uncomfortable for one group as it is for the other, and I wonder what we could do to make it better.

Hi Serena. I am the CEO and co-founder of School of Thinking, a fully EA-aligned media project with 25.000 followers across three social media profiles (YouTube, TikTok and Instagram) in two languages (Italian and English). Last month we had 700.000 views on the Italian IG profile only. So I guess we can already qualify as EA micro-influencers. 

1
SereneDesiree
2y
Followed! Keep up the good work! 

That's exactly what I need at this exact moment since I am going to establish my company here in the UK. Can I contact you in private to ask more questions? 

1
james
2y
Yup

Hi Baptiste! Not even a single connection to the Continental tradition could be found in School of Thinking :D. 

Actually, I have always been pretty clear in defining my approach as strongly analytical/anglo-saxon. Until now, fortunately, I haven't received any particular resistance regarding my approach but mainly positive feedback, probably because most of my followers are into STEM or already into analytical philosophy. 

Hi Jack. I am really into cognitive enhancement. In 2020 (right before COVID) I did a two months research period at Bernhard Hommel's cognitive enhancement lab in Leiden. While I was a Cognitive Science student in Milan I did an exam with Roberta Ferrucci and one with Alberto Priori, two prominent TDCS as a cognitive enancher experts. At the last EAxOxford I spoke with Anders Sandberg about cognitive enhancement as an EA cause area. All to say that I am interested in what you are doing and that could be valuable to connect more people that are into "seriou... (read more)

1
Jake Toth
2y
Hi Luca, That sounds really interesting, it is good to hear from others in this space! I have connected with you on LinkedIn, hopefully, we can find a way to work on this together in the future.

I have hang-ups about money in general. For several years after university I lived on about $12k a year (which is low by UK standards, though high by world ones). It's pretty surreal to be able to even consider applying for say 5x this as a salary. It's like going to a fancy restaurant for the first time ("the waiters bring the food to the table?") I just can't shake how surreal this all is.

 

I grow up in a relatively poor family in Italy. I learned English from scratch at 21. I graduated at 26 (way above the UK/US standards). I was able to survive at ... (read more)

It's a good question. The contents will not be the same, the strategy will. The idea is to enable different chapters to create content independently following common guidelines and best practices (in terms of graphics, tone of voice, etc). 

Epistemic status: I re-made this meme to correct a typo and I made another typo. This is probably 'cause (Source: Måneskin) I'm Italiano  

4
Luca Parodi
2y
Epistemic status: I re-made this meme to correct a typo and I made another typo. This is probably 'cause (Source: Måneskin) I'm Italiano  

Writing an introduction to School of Thinking

I am considering the option of working on an EA-related full-time project that I will start in December in part remotely as a digital-nomad, especially in order to know people from other EA communities mainly all around Europe.

Since I've been interested in these topics for years (and I have almost started a PhD at Leiden University about this) I am pondering the possibility of writing something in the same cluster of this post but slightly different - e.g. like "The case for cognitive enhancement as a priority cause", a reading list or something like that. 

But before that I want briefly to tell you my story. I think it could be valuable for this conversation by looking at like at a Minimum Viable Product for what you said here

"...For example, we could improve at teaching ra... (read more)

7
Baptiste Roucau
2y
Sounds like very interesting work! As a Frenchman, it's encouraging to see this uptake in another "latin" European country. I think this analytic/critical thinking culture is also underdeveloped in France. I'm curious: in your project, do you make connections to the  long tradition of (mostly Continental?) philosophical work in Italy? Have you encountered any resistance to the typically anglo-saxon "vibe" of these ideas? In France, it's not uncommon to dismiss some intellectual/political ideas (e.g., intersectionality) as "imported from America" and therefore irrelevant.

Your initial point reminds me in some sense the orthogonality thesis by Nick Bostrom, but applied to humans. High IQ individuals acted in history to pursue completely different goals, so it's not automatic to assume that by improving humanity's intelligence as a whole we would assure for sure a better future to anyone.

At the same time I think we could be pretty much confident to assume that an higher IQ-level of humanity could at least enable more individuals to find optimal solutions to minimize the risks of undesirable moral outcomes from the actions of high-intelligent but morally-questionable individuals, while at the same time working on solving more efficiently other and more relevant problems.