If we had to be confident we were an expert in something before writing about it, we'd barely get anything done. I'm quite happy writing as I learn, in fact being wrong in public is a good way of correcting false beliefs!
As long as we make our level of expertise clear when wading into new territory, I think it's fine.
1. I think I disagree generally with the idea that writing on a variety of topics makes you a polymath. In my understanding, a polymath makes significant contributions to multiple fields. Being a generalist writer doesn't exactly fit within this definition.
2. I think it's sometimes great to hear the perspectives of "unqualified" individuals. For example, even though Einstein was not a theologian, his perspective on religion is interesting to hear because(!) he's an expert from another field.
3. I really don't care about someone's credentials, just the weight of his/her argument. If you're interesting/informative, you could be a McDonald's fry chef for all I care.
I'm guilty of being a person who reads your blog but doesn't want to read 100 articles about the anthropic principle. (I haven't quite made it through one yet, tbh.) I don't mind your polymath qualities because I like to read various takes on various issues. I don't treat your words as particularly authoritative. The problem comes (if there is a problem) when you become wildly popular and people develop parasocial relationships with you and hang on your every word, while you're still the same just basic thinking dude you ever were. But that's kinda the dream, isn't it?
Makes sense! I agree--you shouldn't take my views that seriously in general. The mere fact that I assert P gives you little reason to believe P, unless I adduce impressive reasons for P.
Im not sure I’m completely understanding your logic here, tbh. It seems like you’re right from a superforecaster perspective—according to Tetlock and others, generalists are better at making predictions. However, in terms of being able to write quality articles (which seems to be your purpose as a writer of a blog), it seems like you should mostly stick to your comparative advantage.
While you may not be as popular of a blogger like that, you can at least have higher certainty that you are giving good information and producing pieces of original value, if that is indeed your goal. It does seem that the shift to polymaths is happening —people would rather go to one place than many for information— but it also seems like this a bad thing, as people will get lower quality information.
Also, I would point out that there may be reputational concerns, and from a public intellectual perspective, you may only want to put out opinions on topics (especially controversial ones) that you are highly certain about. While it’s bad that people might be like “oh, this person has x opinion I don’t like on this matter so I don’t take him seriously on y,” it certainly happens. This is especially true if you want to do effective work and really care about how many people you influence and in what way you do it.
Just as a general point, it seems like this type of anti domain expert view goes against some of your philosophical beliefs. It certainly seems to many outsiders that some of your philosophical conclusions are pretty unintuitive to the casual learner/polymath and, while I’m not saying that that is in itself something wrong, it seems like in your own subject you’re taking the view of “but this time it will be different” and that we should really investigate into the very unintuitive consequences that philosophy domain experts come across. I really think that you expressed almost the opposite of these views in respect to philosophy in your article “Arguments in Philosiohy are mysterious like arguments in math.”
But if I only wrote about things I'm especially informed about, I'd have a very boring blog. No one wants to hear 10000 things about anthropics. I'd also expect generalists to generally be more interesting writing about subjects than experts for they're less in the weeds.
This is certainly possible but it goes the other way too--and moreso. If I write things people agree with, they'll read more of my other stuff.
I agree that there are some topics that are hard to intelligently write about if you're not well-versed in them. Philosophy is one of those topics! So is, e.g. physics--and I don't write about physics! You should only write about topics if they're the sorts of things that can be intelligently covered by laypeople or you are informed about some topic.
i guess it's more a question of your broader epistemic diet as if that's in good order it will screen you off from wasting time on the many wrong but popular views
If we had to be confident we were an expert in something before writing about it, we'd barely get anything done. I'm quite happy writing as I learn, in fact being wrong in public is a good way of correcting false beliefs!
As long as we make our level of expertise clear when wading into new territory, I think it's fine.
Great article! A few thoughts:
1. I think I disagree generally with the idea that writing on a variety of topics makes you a polymath. In my understanding, a polymath makes significant contributions to multiple fields. Being a generalist writer doesn't exactly fit within this definition.
2. I think it's sometimes great to hear the perspectives of "unqualified" individuals. For example, even though Einstein was not a theologian, his perspective on religion is interesting to hear because(!) he's an expert from another field.
3. I really don't care about someone's credentials, just the weight of his/her argument. If you're interesting/informative, you could be a McDonald's fry chef for all I care.
1. Could be. I was mostly discussing the way ADS used it.
2. Agreed!
I'm guilty of being a person who reads your blog but doesn't want to read 100 articles about the anthropic principle. (I haven't quite made it through one yet, tbh.) I don't mind your polymath qualities because I like to read various takes on various issues. I don't treat your words as particularly authoritative. The problem comes (if there is a problem) when you become wildly popular and people develop parasocial relationships with you and hang on your every word, while you're still the same just basic thinking dude you ever were. But that's kinda the dream, isn't it?
Makes sense! I agree--you shouldn't take my views that seriously in general. The mere fact that I assert P gives you little reason to believe P, unless I adduce impressive reasons for P.
Im not sure I’m completely understanding your logic here, tbh. It seems like you’re right from a superforecaster perspective—according to Tetlock and others, generalists are better at making predictions. However, in terms of being able to write quality articles (which seems to be your purpose as a writer of a blog), it seems like you should mostly stick to your comparative advantage.
While you may not be as popular of a blogger like that, you can at least have higher certainty that you are giving good information and producing pieces of original value, if that is indeed your goal. It does seem that the shift to polymaths is happening —people would rather go to one place than many for information— but it also seems like this a bad thing, as people will get lower quality information.
Also, I would point out that there may be reputational concerns, and from a public intellectual perspective, you may only want to put out opinions on topics (especially controversial ones) that you are highly certain about. While it’s bad that people might be like “oh, this person has x opinion I don’t like on this matter so I don’t take him seriously on y,” it certainly happens. This is especially true if you want to do effective work and really care about how many people you influence and in what way you do it.
Just as a general point, it seems like this type of anti domain expert view goes against some of your philosophical beliefs. It certainly seems to many outsiders that some of your philosophical conclusions are pretty unintuitive to the casual learner/polymath and, while I’m not saying that that is in itself something wrong, it seems like in your own subject you’re taking the view of “but this time it will be different” and that we should really investigate into the very unintuitive consequences that philosophy domain experts come across. I really think that you expressed almost the opposite of these views in respect to philosophy in your article “Arguments in Philosiohy are mysterious like arguments in math.”
But if I only wrote about things I'm especially informed about, I'd have a very boring blog. No one wants to hear 10000 things about anthropics. I'd also expect generalists to generally be more interesting writing about subjects than experts for they're less in the weeds.
This is certainly possible but it goes the other way too--and moreso. If I write things people agree with, they'll read more of my other stuff.
I agree that there are some topics that are hard to intelligently write about if you're not well-versed in them. Philosophy is one of those topics! So is, e.g. physics--and I don't write about physics! You should only write about topics if they're the sorts of things that can be intelligently covered by laypeople or you are informed about some topic.
i'd be inclined to agree if it weren't for the sloppy work you did on the hbd piece.
https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/thoughts-on-thoughts-on-hbd
i guess it's more a question of your broader epistemic diet as if that's in good order it will screen you off from wasting time on the many wrong but popular views
That glorious Anglo Saxon institution: the intelligent layman!
Love the "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann..." at the very end.