Various cases of NPD online. The NPD-afflicted individuals usually are too arrogant to study or do anything difficult where they can measurably fail, and instead opt to blog on the topics where they don’t know the fundamentals, promoting misinformed opinions. Some even live on donations for performing work that they never tried to study for doing. It’s unclear what attracts normal people to such individuals, but I guess if you don’t think yourself a supergenius you can still think yourself clever for following a genius whom you can detect without relying on such ordinary things as credentials or achievements, as described here.
It’s more a question of how charitably you read LW, maybe? The phenomenon I am speaking of is quite generic. About 1% of people are clinical narcissists (probably more), that’s a lot of people, and the narcissists dedicate more resources to self promotion, and take on projects that no well calibrated person of same expertise would attempt, such as e.g. making a free energy generator without having studied physics or invented anything not so grandiose first.
Various cases of NPD online. The NPD-afflicted individuals usually are too arrogant to study or do anything difficult where they can measurably fail, and instead opt to blog on the topics where they don’t know the fundamentals, promoting misinformed opinions. Some even live on donations for performing work that they never tried to study for doing. It’s unclear what attracts normal people to such individuals, but I guess if you don’t think yourself a supergenius you can still think yourself clever for following a genius whom you can detect without relying on such ordinary things as credentials or achievements, as described here.
You know, an uncharitable reading of this would almost sort-of kinda maybe construe it as a rebuke of the LW community. Almost.
It’s more a question of how charitably you read LW, maybe? The phenomenon I am speaking of is quite generic. About 1% of people are clinical narcissists (probably more), that’s a lot of people, and the narcissists dedicate more resources to self promotion, and take on projects that no well calibrated person of same expertise would attempt, such as e.g. making a free energy generator without having studied physics or invented anything not so grandiose first.
Unfortunately, it’s actually a generic phenomenon, as I note (and that it is is important).
Which of course doesn’t preclude (the possibility of) shrink’s comment being intended as a rebuke of the LW community.
Well, yeah. But it really isn’t just that, but a pattern.
Ooh, burn!
Your last link explains the ire I expressed in my other comment, thank you.
Sounds like the LaRouche cult.
edit: that last link is excellent. The ingroup-outgroup thing gone pathological. All the ingroup needs is a defined enemy and WHAM! cult.
OMG, is that the real “shrink”? If so—we’re not worthy! I own a copy of every one of your books.