On the issue of Critical Thinking, whilst it's true that for most people engaging with Critical Thinking the result is that they either begin to hold pretty crazy/outlandish beliefs or they use the stuff they learnt to unjustly reinforce their own beliefs by deflecting valid criticism in a manner that is superficially deep but mostly amounts to treating people extremely uncharitably.
There is still the question of how do you know which experts to defer to and how do you know if and when you should use your own judgment. The best way to illustrate the second issue is by presupposing that you are good at thinking or a Scott Alexander type, and figuring out what relevant fact out their in the world proves this to be true, you then realize that even people who aren't good at thinking would also be able to point to "things they also regard as such facts" and so how in principle would you be able to internally reason to the conclusion that you are better than average.
Even if you point to stuff such as your reputation on Metaculus or your fancy Harvard degree or your past 5 year performance on the stock market or your IQ or your training as a clairvoyant or the number of twitch followers you have or the fact you have a fields medal or the fact you are the pope or the fact that you were contacted by Jehovah 1 whilst watching late night television etc. How do you know which of these objective metrics is the correct way of determining if you are an expert or worthy of thinking for yourself, after all people who choose the wrong metric thought they chose the right metric.
It seems their really isn't a way to internally reason to the conclusion you are better at thinking than average, or at least the correct way of reasoning to such a conclusion wouldn't motivate people who are bad at thinking to either accept they are bad or good at thinking. As such you sort of have to take it for granted you are better than average if you think you are, you can also apply the same style of reasoning to which experts you defer to.
I don't mean this to be condescending or paternalistic, but this post is surprisingly thoughtful and mature. For anyone, especially someone so young.
Just FYI, Scott is right about population. I know you are in the thrall of straight utilitarianism, like you were libertarianism before. It took me until my 50s to get out completely: https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
For whom does the summed utility of a larger population matter? Average utility matters for those experiencing it. Antinatalist population ethics is far more sophisticated than you give it justice for being. Better Never to Have Been/ The Human Predicament are not easily dismissed.
On the issue of Critical Thinking, whilst it's true that for most people engaging with Critical Thinking the result is that they either begin to hold pretty crazy/outlandish beliefs or they use the stuff they learnt to unjustly reinforce their own beliefs by deflecting valid criticism in a manner that is superficially deep but mostly amounts to treating people extremely uncharitably.
There is still the question of how do you know which experts to defer to and how do you know if and when you should use your own judgment. The best way to illustrate the second issue is by presupposing that you are good at thinking or a Scott Alexander type, and figuring out what relevant fact out their in the world proves this to be true, you then realize that even people who aren't good at thinking would also be able to point to "things they also regard as such facts" and so how in principle would you be able to internally reason to the conclusion that you are better than average.
Even if you point to stuff such as your reputation on Metaculus or your fancy Harvard degree or your past 5 year performance on the stock market or your IQ or your training as a clairvoyant or the number of twitch followers you have or the fact you have a fields medal or the fact you are the pope or the fact that you were contacted by Jehovah 1 whilst watching late night television etc. How do you know which of these objective metrics is the correct way of determining if you are an expert or worthy of thinking for yourself, after all people who choose the wrong metric thought they chose the right metric.
It seems their really isn't a way to internally reason to the conclusion you are better at thinking than average, or at least the correct way of reasoning to such a conclusion wouldn't motivate people who are bad at thinking to either accept they are bad or good at thinking. As such you sort of have to take it for granted you are better than average if you think you are, you can also apply the same style of reasoning to which experts you defer to.
I don't mean this to be condescending or paternalistic, but this post is surprisingly thoughtful and mature. For anyone, especially someone so young.
Just FYI, Scott is right about population. I know you are in the thrall of straight utilitarianism, like you were libertarianism before. It took me until my 50s to get out completely: https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
My submission for the smartest person on the internet:
Terry Tao [https://terrytao.wordpress.com/]
Amusingly, Scott has an old blog post about exactly this issue: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/26/rule-genius-in-not-out/
For whom does the summed utility of a larger population matter? Average utility matters for those experiencing it. Antinatalist population ethics is far more sophisticated than you give it justice for being. Better Never to Have Been/ The Human Predicament are not easily dismissed.
Wait, Scott Alexander is the smartest person on the Internet? He's written before about his painful, uphill struggles with calculus.
Don't misread me, here; Scott is a great writer, but there are a lot of people on the Internet.
book titles are capitalized (eg 'Manufacturing Consent')