It could be that prestigious second-movers deserve the credit if they are responsible for getting people to pay attention to the previously neglected topics, and possibly we already credit first-movers more than we should (which is why I said “optimize for academic fame” instead of “positive social impact”). Which brings up a question: what determines the topics that academia pays attention to? If we had a good model for that, maybe we could use it to generate some munchkin ideas for making it pay attention to important but neglected ideas?
He has another post about how if you say something outrageous that later becomes common wisdom, you won’t be widely admired for having said it first; you will still be thought of as a crank.
Cognitive bias is now much more popular and fashionable than it was when I first started talking to my friends about it after reading Eliezer’s posts. I predict that zero people will say “so it looks like this Eliezer guy you keep talking about was ahead of the curve on cognitive bias, maybe it’s worth hearing some of his other ideas?”
Hanson has a post somewhere about how the first-movers often don’t get credited, just the prestigious second-movers.
Sociology of science calls this the Matthew Effect
Ohh. “Kolmogorov Complexity” was actually invented by Solomonoff. Interesting.
It could be that prestigious second-movers deserve the credit if they are responsible for getting people to pay attention to the previously neglected topics, and possibly we already credit first-movers more than we should (which is why I said “optimize for academic fame” instead of “positive social impact”). Which brings up a question: what determines the topics that academia pays attention to? If we had a good model for that, maybe we could use it to generate some munchkin ideas for making it pay attention to important but neglected ideas?
I hope the irony was intentional. (Here’s the post, btw.)
He has another post about how if you say something outrageous that later becomes common wisdom, you won’t be widely admired for having said it first; you will still be thought of as a crank.
Cognitive bias is now much more popular and fashionable than it was when I first started talking to my friends about it after reading Eliezer’s posts. I predict that zero people will say “so it looks like this Eliezer guy you keep talking about was ahead of the curve on cognitive bias, maybe it’s worth hearing some of his other ideas?”