It provides evidence in favour of him being correct. If there weren’t other sources of information on Hubbard’s activities, I’d expect him to be of genius-level intelligence.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was; he clearly had an almost uniquely good understanding of what it takes to build a successful cult (though his early links with the OTO probably helped). New religious movements start all the time, and not one in a hundred reaches Scientology’s level of success. You can be both a genius and a charlatan. It’s easier to be the latter if you’re the former, actually.
Although his writing’s admittedly pretty terrible.
I wouldn’t expect genius level technical intelligence. Self deception is important part of effective deception; you have to believe a lie to build a good lie. Avoiding self deception is important part of technical accomplishment.
Furthermore, knowing that someone has no technical accomplishments is very different from not knowing if someone has technical accomplishments.
Yes. Worked at 3 failed start-ups, founded successful start-up (and know of several more failed ones). Self deception is incredibly destructive to any accomplishment that is not involving deception of other people. You need to know how good your skill set is, how good your product is, how good your idea is. You can’t be falling in love with brainfarts.
In any case, talents require extensive practice with feedback (are massively enhanced by that), and no technical accomplishments at age above 30 pretty much excludes any possibility of technical talent of any significance nowadays. (Yes, some odd case may discover they are awesome inventor, at age past 30, but they suffer from lack of earlier practice, and it’d be incredibly foolish of anyone who knows of own natural talent since teen, not to practice properly)
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was; he clearly had an almost uniquely good understanding of what it takes to build a successful cult (though his early links with the OTO probably helped). New religious movements start all the time, and not one in a hundred reaches Scientology’s level of success. You can be both a genius and a charlatan. It’s easier to be the latter if you’re the former, actually.
Although his writing’s admittedly pretty terrible.
I wouldn’t expect genius level technical intelligence. Self deception is important part of effective deception; you have to believe a lie to build a good lie. Avoiding self deception is important part of technical accomplishment.
Furthermore, knowing that someone has no technical accomplishments is very different from not knowing if someone has technical accomplishments.
This does not seem obvious to me, in general. Do you have experience making technical accomplishments?
Yes. Worked at 3 failed start-ups, founded successful start-up (and know of several more failed ones). Self deception is incredibly destructive to any accomplishment that is not involving deception of other people. You need to know how good your skill set is, how good your product is, how good your idea is. You can’t be falling in love with brainfarts.
In any case, talents require extensive practice with feedback (are massively enhanced by that), and no technical accomplishments at age above 30 pretty much excludes any possibility of technical talent of any significance nowadays. (Yes, some odd case may discover they are awesome inventor, at age past 30, but they suffer from lack of earlier practice, and it’d be incredibly foolish of anyone who knows of own natural talent since teen, not to practice properly)