Go dig for numbers yourself, and assume he is a genius until you find numbers, that will be very rational. Meanwhile most of people have a general feel of how rare it would be that a person with supposedly genius level untested insights into a technical topic (in so much as most geniuses fail to have those insights) would have nothing impressive that was tested, at age of, what, 32? edit: Then also, the geniuses know of that feeling and generally produce the accomplishments in question if they want to be taken seriously.
Starting a nonprofit on a subject unfamiliar to most and successfully soliciting donations, starting an 8.5-million-view blog, writing over 2 million words on wide-ranging controversial topics so well that the only sustained criticism to be made is “it’s long” and minor nitpicks, writing an extensive work of fiction that dominated its genre, and making some novel and interesting inroads into decision theory all seem, to me, to be evidence in favour of genius-level intelligence. These are evidence because the overwhelming default in every case for simply ‘smart’ people is to fail.
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.
You’re familiar with the concept that someone looking like Hitler doesn’t make them fascist, right?
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)
I’d also point out that if you read the investigative Hubbard biographies, you see many classic signs of con artistry: constant changes of location, careers, ideologies, bankruptcies or court cases in their wake, endless lies about their credentials, and so on. Most of these do not match Eliezer at all—the only similarities are flux in ideas and projects which don’t always pan out (like Flare), but that could be said of an ordinary academic AI researcher as well. (Most academic software is used for some publications and abandoned to bitrot.)
Numbers?
Go dig for numbers yourself, and assume he is a genius until you find numbers, that will be very rational. Meanwhile most of people have a general feel of how rare it would be that a person with supposedly genius level untested insights into a technical topic (in so much as most geniuses fail to have those insights) would have nothing impressive that was tested, at age of, what, 32? edit: Then also, the geniuses know of that feeling and generally produce the accomplishments in question if they want to be taken seriously.
Starting a nonprofit on a subject unfamiliar to most and successfully soliciting donations, starting an 8.5-million-view blog, writing over 2 million words on wide-ranging controversial topics so well that the only sustained criticism to be made is “it’s long” and minor nitpicks, writing an extensive work of fiction that dominated its genre, and making some novel and interesting inroads into decision theory all seem, to me, to be evidence in favour of genius-level intelligence. These are evidence because the overwhelming default in every case for simply ‘smart’ people is to fail.
Many a con men accomplish this.
The overwhelming default for those capable of significant technical accomplishment is not to spend time on such activities.
Ultimately there’s many more successful ventures like this, such as scientology, and if I use this kind of metric on L. Ron Hubbard...
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.
You’re familiar with the concept that someone looking like Hitler doesn’t make them fascist, right?
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)
I’d also point out that if you read the investigative Hubbard biographies, you see many classic signs of con artistry: constant changes of location, careers, ideologies, bankruptcies or court cases in their wake, endless lies about their credentials, and so on. Most of these do not match Eliezer at all—the only similarities are flux in ideas and projects which don’t always pan out (like Flare), but that could be said of an ordinary academic AI researcher as well. (Most academic software is used for some publications and abandoned to bitrot.)