Ok, putting aside MWI, maybe our positions are significantly more similar than it initially seemed. I agree with
A world which knew what its own elite truthfinders looked like would be a very different world from this one.
I’ve taken your comments such as
Depends on how crazy the domain experts are being, in this mad world of ours.
to carry connotations of the type “the fraction of people who exhibit high epistemic rationality outside of their immediate areas of expertise is vanishingly small.”
I think that there are thousands of people worldwide who exhibit very high epistemic rationality in most domains that they think about. I think that most of these people are invisible owing to the paucity of elites online. I agree that epistemic standards are generally very poor, and that high status academics generally do poorly outside of their immediate areas of expertise.
I think that there are thousands of people worldwide who exhibit very high epistemic rationality in most domains that they think about. I think that most of these people are invisible owing to the paucity of elites online.
Where does this impression come from? Are they people you’ve encountered personally? If so, what gave you the impression that they exhibited “very high epistemic rationality in most domains that they think about”?
To clarify, when I wrote “very high epistemic rationality” I didn’t mean “very accurate beliefs,” but rather “aware of what they know and what they don’t.” I also see the qualifier “most” as significant — I think that any given person has some marked blind spots. Of course, the boundary that I’m using is fuzzy, but the standard that I have in mind is something like “at the level of the 15 most epistemically rational members of the LW community.”
“Thousands” is at the “1 in a million” level, so in relative terms, my claim is pretty weak. If one disputes the claim, one needs a story explaining how the fraction could be so small. It doesn’t suffice to say “I haven’t personally seen almost any such people,” because there are so many people who one hasn’t seen, and the relevant people may be in unexpected places.
I’ve had the subjective impression that ~ 2% of those who I know outside of the LW/EA spheres fit this description. To be sure, there’s a selection effect, but I’ve had essentially no exposure to physics, business, finance or public policy, nor to people in very populous countries such as India and China. The people who I know who fit this description don’t seem to think that they’re extremely rare, which suggests that their experiences are similar to my own (though I recognize that “it’s a small world,” i.e. these people’s social circles may overlap in nonobvious ways).
Some of the people who GiveWell has had conversations with come across very favorably in the notes. (I recognize that I’m making a jump from “their area of specialty” to “most topics that they think about” Here I’m extrapolating from the people who I know who are very strong in their area of specialty.) I think that Carl’s comment about the Gates Foundation is relevant.
I updated in the direction of people being more rational than I had thought for reason that I gave at the end of my post Many weak arguments and the typical mind.
I don’t have high confidence here: maybe ~ 50% (i.e. I’m giving a median case estimate).
Ok, putting aside MWI, maybe our positions are significantly more similar than it initially seemed. I agree with
I’ve taken your comments such as
to carry connotations of the type “the fraction of people who exhibit high epistemic rationality outside of their immediate areas of expertise is vanishingly small.”
I think that there are thousands of people worldwide who exhibit very high epistemic rationality in most domains that they think about. I think that most of these people are invisible owing to the paucity of elites online. I agree that epistemic standards are generally very poor, and that high status academics generally do poorly outside of their immediate areas of expertise.
Where does this impression come from? Are they people you’ve encountered personally? If so, what gave you the impression that they exhibited “very high epistemic rationality in most domains that they think about”?
To clarify, when I wrote “very high epistemic rationality” I didn’t mean “very accurate beliefs,” but rather “aware of what they know and what they don’t.” I also see the qualifier “most” as significant — I think that any given person has some marked blind spots. Of course, the boundary that I’m using is fuzzy, but the standard that I have in mind is something like “at the level of the 15 most epistemically rational members of the LW community.”
“Thousands” is at the “1 in a million” level, so in relative terms, my claim is pretty weak. If one disputes the claim, one needs a story explaining how the fraction could be so small. It doesn’t suffice to say “I haven’t personally seen almost any such people,” because there are so many people who one hasn’t seen, and the relevant people may be in unexpected places.
I’ve had the subjective impression that ~ 2% of those who I know outside of the LW/EA spheres fit this description. To be sure, there’s a selection effect, but I’ve had essentially no exposure to physics, business, finance or public policy, nor to people in very populous countries such as India and China. The people who I know who fit this description don’t seem to think that they’re extremely rare, which suggests that their experiences are similar to my own (though I recognize that “it’s a small world,” i.e. these people’s social circles may overlap in nonobvious ways).
Some of the people who GiveWell has had conversations with come across very favorably in the notes. (I recognize that I’m making a jump from “their area of specialty” to “most topics that they think about” Here I’m extrapolating from the people who I know who are very strong in their area of specialty.) I think that Carl’s comment about the Gates Foundation is relevant.
I updated in the direction of people being more rational than I had thought for reason that I gave at the end of my post Many weak arguments and the typical mind.
I don’t have high confidence here: maybe ~ 50% (i.e. I’m giving a median case estimate).