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It's not a bad attitude though. Experts with authority granted to them in the form of titles have failed us, and keep failing us in so many areas. Ranging from

It's not a bad attitude though. Experts with authority granted to them in the form of titles have failed us, and keep failing us in so many areas. Ranging from nutrition to psychology, we really shouldn't put their work on a pedestal. Techies are a smart bunch on average and can stomach a lot more complexity than the average joe. It makes sense for them to try to pick up stuff outside of their line of work. Take Elon Musk as the most successful example. Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself.

kiba 10y ago
Elon Musk made himself into an expert. I would consider him an authority on rocketry.
- arvinjoar 10y ago
  Kind of proving my point? :) He did have to go aginst the grain though[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo
  - sn9 10y ago
    He's hardly a typical case. People who get into graduate physics programs at Stanford rarely are. And the amount of information one has to add to a solid undergrad education in physics to do rocketry is relatively minor compared to the amount most dilettantes need to add to become an expert.
stomato 10y ago
> Take Elon Musk as the most successful example. Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself. I'm not sure what you mean. Elon Musk is an extremely purpose-driven, incredibly intelligent person in addition to being successful. From wikipedia: 'He is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Motors; co-founder and chairman of SolarCity; co-chairman of OpenAI; co-founder of Zip2; and founder of X.com which merged with PayPal of Confinity. As of June 2016, he has an estimated net worth of US$11.5 billion, making him the 83rd wealthiest person in the world. Musk has stated that the goals of SolarCity, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX revolve around his vision to change the world and humanity. His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reducing the "risk of human extinction" by "making life multiplanetary" by setting up a human colony on Mars. In addition to his primary business pursuits, he has also envisioned a high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop, and has proposed a VTOL supersonic jet aircraft with electric fan propulsion, known as the Musk electric jet.' These are not things that just a "successful" person does. He breaks the mold from tech: the mind of Nikola Tesla but with much more business sense.
- tomp 10y ago
  S/he means that Elon Musk set up a rocket company and a car/battery company, without previously being an expert in either of these things. Sure, he became an expert by learning, but he also noticed and used many things that earlier experts have missed.
mtberatwork 10y ago
> Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself. Not deferring to experts when you posses surface level knowledge (or less) of a subject is a sure-fire way to shoot yourself in the foot.
- baldfat 10y ago
  He is just being a cynic thinking he is a intellectual skeptic. Cynic : Cynics are distrustful of any advice or information that they do not agree with themselves. Cynics do not accept any claim that challenges their belief system. "Being skeptical, not cynical, helps us in forming beliefs that are in agreement with evidence." http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/08/im-a-skeptic-not-a-cynic/ http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/08/im-a-skepti...
  - arvinjoar 10y ago
    That's quite a conclusion, given so little data. Priors may vary I guess.
    - baldfat 10y ago
      No their was plenty of data. I run into cynics all the time that just doubts everything "Experts" says and their arguments are not about the actual data or implementation of the data.
      - colejohnson66 10y ago
        The biggest I've run into are people who believe in homeopathy. Give them all the evidence that it doesn't work and they'll disregard it in favor of their anecdotal evidence combined with confirmation bias.
        mwfunk 10y ago
        I think it's a really common form of irrationality (or cognitive bias?). Antivaxers, 9/11 truthers, moon landing skeptics, Holocaust skeptics, etc. are the same way. I think part of the appeal is that it's more comforting for them to believe in BS than live with the existential angst of the uncertainty and the unknowability of so much of life/reality/other people, but for whatever reason they can't see that motivation within themselves.
tpeo 10y ago
There's a difference between "thinking for yourself" and "uncritically discouting past work". And that's the difference between asking yourself whether power poses really work and and coming in kicking doors, yelling that psychology is bullshit. First one is engaging in very much reasonable level of critical thought, whereas the second is just thinking "Dunning-Kruger is okay, when I do it". On a side note, I don't quite get what Elon Musk has to do with this. Isn't hea millionaire paying big bucks for expert engineering talent to put his rockets up in the air?
- arvinjoar 10y ago
  I'm not saying Psychology is bullshit, why would you frame what I said as such? I think it's in general super interesting. I'm just saying that you can gain a lot more from it by evaluating things critically than you can from swallowing anything and everything that's in vogue uncritically because some authority figure tells you it's the Truth. Also, to nitpick, Dunning-Kruger is certainly ok when the top performers do it, if you care to look at the actual graph[1]. Elon Musk is very much involved in the engineering of his projects, he's not a Steve Jobs-style CEO. As tomp pointed out[2], Elon was willing to look at things outside of his area of expertise, and guess what, he actually managed to learn quite a lot about those things. [1] http://i.imgur.com/bJXQWRY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/bJXQWRY.jpg [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12814851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12814851
  - tpeo 10y ago
    I mentioned power poses and psychology because it occurred to me as an example since you happened to mention psychology. I don't personally have any knowledge regarding your attitudes towards psychology nor did I intend to frame what you said in any way. Prior findings must be indeed critically evaluated. That's not the issue. The issue is refusing to even acknowledge them or to acknowledge current field wisdom due to some unwarranted sense of superiority. Taking the dangerous and daring approach to crossing expertise fields instead of being careful is fine, of course. Everyone is free to do whatever they want! But if the daring do fail, they will look like complete asses. They had been given plenty of warning before hand. And, this is the key and the real reason why I'm saying all this, the daring will fail more often than the careful. The most frequent reason why people try to enter a new field is because they think they might have some superior insight on the matter, whereas the development of each field is chiefly constrained by the amount of data available to it. Ideas are never in short supply relative to data. This isn't to say that outsiders can't make meaningful contributions, or that cross-field collaboration is useless, far from it. But that there isn't much that can done beyond what's warranted by the data. I'll pass up the opportunity to talk about Musk, because I don't feel I'm qualified to do it. But as for your nitpick: I don't see why top performers incorrectly gauging their own ability would be "okay". They would pass up great opportunities because they perceive their ability to be lower than what it actually is, and they might experience unwarranted anxiety and feelings of inadequacy (something like an impostor syndrome) if they incorrectly perceive their ability to be lower that that of their peers. There are many ways in which this might not be "okay".
ebbv 10y ago
Yes I love how Elon doesn't hire rocket engineers and scientists or consult with NASA. Oh wait he does those things.
- arvinjoar 10y ago
  If you had read my comment a little more charitably, you might have noticed that I never said you shouldn't consult or listen to experts, but simply that you shouldn't assume someone who is not an expert can't figure things out in a field outside their line of work. Experts weren't always so kind to Elon[1] either. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo
wallace_f 10y ago
Thank you for that. To add to that, this reminds me of the kind of Epaulettes Feynman talked about in SYJMF -- creating titles, awards and distinctions to create an aura around experts. This kind of "aura" of trust and distinction is something that I think in 100 years we will look back on the same way we look at experts of our past: imagine how you view religious leaders who held the keys to understanding life and the universe, or doctors who did more harm than good. Here's an anecdote. Post WWII the Nobel Prize was awarded for the lobotomy procedure... Experts with authority and all the fanciest Feynman-epaulettes that the world has dreamt up have failed us, that's a certain fact.
livingparadox 10y ago
On a side note, disregarding experts is most certainly not what Rob Rinehart is doing. They specifically only regard expert, peer-reviewed literature as authoritative sources for formula changes. Trying to depend on your own analysis is a poor substitute for standing on the shoulders of giants.

kiba 10y ago

Elon Musk made himself into an expert. I would consider him an authority on rocketry.

arvinjoar 10y ago
Kind of proving my point? :) He did have to go aginst the grain though[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo
- sn9 10y ago
  He's hardly a typical case. People who get into graduate physics programs at Stanford rarely are. And the amount of information one has to add to a solid undergrad education in physics to do rocketry is relatively minor compared to the amount most dilettantes need to add to become an expert.

stomato 10y ago

> Take Elon Musk as the most successful example. Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself. I'm not sure what you mean. Elon Musk is an extremely purpose-driven, incredibly intelligent person in addition to being successful. From wikipedia: 'He is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Motors; co-founder and chairman of SolarCity; co-chairman of OpenAI; co-founder of Zip2; and founder of X.com which merged with PayPal of Confinity. As of June 2016, he has an estimated net worth of US$11.5 billion, making him the 83rd wealthiest person in the world. Musk has stated that the goals of SolarCity, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX revolve around his vision to change the world and humanity. His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reducing the "risk of human extinction" by "making life multiplanetary" by setting up a human colony on Mars. In addition to his primary business pursuits, he has also envisioned a high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop, and has proposed a VTOL supersonic jet aircraft with electric fan propulsion, known as the Musk electric jet.' These are not things that just a "successful" person does. He breaks the mold from tech: the mind of Nikola Tesla but with much more business sense.

tomp 10y ago
S/he means that Elon Musk set up a rocket company and a car/battery company, without previously being an expert in either of these things. Sure, he became an expert by learning, but he also noticed and used many things that earlier experts have missed.

mtberatwork 10y ago

> Deferring to experts is a poor substitute for thinking for yourself. Not deferring to experts when you posses surface level knowledge (or less) of a subject is a sure-fire way to shoot yourself in the foot.

baldfat 10y ago
He is just being a cynic thinking he is a intellectual skeptic. Cynic : Cynics are distrustful of any advice or information that they do not agree with themselves. Cynics do not accept any claim that challenges their belief system. "Being skeptical, not cynical, helps us in forming beliefs that are in agreement with evidence." http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/08/im-a-skeptic-not-a-cynic/ http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/08/im-a-skepti...
- arvinjoar 10y ago
  That's quite a conclusion, given so little data. Priors may vary I guess.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    No their was plenty of data. I run into cynics all the time that just doubts everything "Experts" says and their arguments are not about the actual data or implementation of the data.
    - colejohnson66 10y ago
      The biggest I've run into are people who believe in homeopathy. Give them all the evidence that it doesn't work and they'll disregard it in favor of their anecdotal evidence combined with confirmation bias.
      - mwfunk 10y ago
        I think it's a really common form of irrationality (or cognitive bias?). Antivaxers, 9/11 truthers, moon landing skeptics, Holocaust skeptics, etc. are the same way. I think part of the appeal is that it's more comforting for them to believe in BS than live with the existential angst of the uncertainty and the unknowability of so much of life/reality/other people, but for whatever reason they can't see that motivation within themselves.

tpeo 10y ago

There's a difference between "thinking for yourself" and "uncritically discouting past work". And that's the difference between asking yourself whether power poses really work and and coming in kicking doors, yelling that psychology is bullshit. First one is engaging in very much reasonable level of critical thought, whereas the second is just thinking "Dunning-Kruger is okay, when I do it". On a side note, I don't quite get what Elon Musk has to do with this. Isn't hea millionaire paying big bucks for expert engineering talent to put his rockets up in the air?

arvinjoar 10y ago
I'm not saying Psychology is bullshit, why would you frame what I said as such? I think it's in general super interesting. I'm just saying that you can gain a lot more from it by evaluating things critically than you can from swallowing anything and everything that's in vogue uncritically because some authority figure tells you it's the Truth. Also, to nitpick, Dunning-Kruger is certainly ok when the top performers do it, if you care to look at the actual graph[1]. Elon Musk is very much involved in the engineering of his projects, he's not a Steve Jobs-style CEO. As tomp pointed out[2], Elon was willing to look at things outside of his area of expertise, and guess what, he actually managed to learn quite a lot about those things. [1] http://i.imgur.com/bJXQWRY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/bJXQWRY.jpg [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12814851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12814851
- tpeo 10y ago
  I mentioned power poses and psychology because it occurred to me as an example since you happened to mention psychology. I don't personally have any knowledge regarding your attitudes towards psychology nor did I intend to frame what you said in any way. Prior findings must be indeed critically evaluated. That's not the issue. The issue is refusing to even acknowledge them or to acknowledge current field wisdom due to some unwarranted sense of superiority. Taking the dangerous and daring approach to crossing expertise fields instead of being careful is fine, of course. Everyone is free to do whatever they want! But if the daring do fail, they will look like complete asses. They had been given plenty of warning before hand. And, this is the key and the real reason why I'm saying all this, the daring will fail more often than the careful. The most frequent reason why people try to enter a new field is because they think they might have some superior insight on the matter, whereas the development of each field is chiefly constrained by the amount of data available to it. Ideas are never in short supply relative to data. This isn't to say that outsiders can't make meaningful contributions, or that cross-field collaboration is useless, far from it. But that there isn't much that can done beyond what's warranted by the data. I'll pass up the opportunity to talk about Musk, because I don't feel I'm qualified to do it. But as for your nitpick: I don't see why top performers incorrectly gauging their own ability would be "okay". They would pass up great opportunities because they perceive their ability to be lower than what it actually is, and they might experience unwarranted anxiety and feelings of inadequacy (something like an impostor syndrome) if they incorrectly perceive their ability to be lower that that of their peers. There are many ways in which this might not be "okay".

ebbv 10y ago

Yes I love how Elon doesn't hire rocket engineers and scientists or consult with NASA. Oh wait he does those things.

arvinjoar 10y ago
If you had read my comment a little more charitably, you might have noticed that I never said you shouldn't consult or listen to experts, but simply that you shouldn't assume someone who is not an expert can't figure things out in a field outside their line of work. Experts weren't always so kind to Elon[1] either. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P8UKBAOfGo

wallace_f 10y ago

Thank you for that. To add to that, this reminds me of the kind of Epaulettes Feynman talked about in SYJMF -- creating titles, awards and distinctions to create an aura around experts. This kind of "aura" of trust and distinction is something that I think in 100 years we will look back on the same way we look at experts of our past: imagine how you view religious leaders who held the keys to understanding life and the universe, or doctors who did more harm than good. Here's an anecdote. Post WWII the Nobel Prize was awarded for the lobotomy procedure... Experts with authority and all the fanciest Feynman-epaulettes that the world has dreamt up have failed us, that's a certain fact.

livingparadox 10y ago

On a side note, disregarding experts is most certainly not what Rob Rinehart is doing. They specifically only regard expert, peer-reviewed literature as authoritative sources for formula changes. Trying to depend on your own analysis is a poor substitute for standing on the shoulders of giants.