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A description of Zaphod from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reminds me of Elon: "He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and na

A description of Zaphod from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reminds me of Elon: "He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which."

api 7y ago
This describes most geniuses. Just in these (hackers and engineers) circles I've met quite a few extraordinarily intelligent idiots. This includes one outstanding biomedical genius who thinks the Earth is 6000 years old, one almost superhuman programmer who thinks Hitler was misunderstood, and one who thinks the Earth is flat.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I don't think it's unique to geniuses, or that Mr. Musk is a genius. I think it's just mathematical odds, and also human beings being human. If a homeless guy says that drinking pee is good for your health, people say he's crazy. If a guy with 20 million Twitter followers says drinking pee is good for your health, people say he's a genius.
  - ipodopt 7y ago
    Nah, I got another theory. Basically, people that tend to be more 'intelligent'/'successful' are better at learning. You optimize learning in a similar fashion to a start-up. By failing fast. In general I think you tend to hear alot of silly thoughts from very 'intelligent'/'successful' people because they tend to speak their thought often and early (even if they do not have a grasp on it yet). Which leads to quick correction and refinement. Or in other words faster learning.
    - api 7y ago
      I agree about being better at learning. Maybe they (we?) tend to sometimes vastly underestimate the difficulty of learning in certain highly complex areas (like medicine) due to past successes learning difficult (but not as difficult) things.
  - api 7y ago
    Musk is definitely by all accounts a genius, at least in certain domains. See my other comment about non-transferrability of expertise. I think the reason there are so many genius morons is that people assume their expertise magically transfers, and so they skip doing the work required to gain expertise in a completely different area. "I can code, so I can reevaluate history and political science." "I can do organic chem really well, so I can read a creationist polemic and dismiss all of geology because it seems to make sense to me."
    - mping 7y ago
      Aka engineer's disease
- manigandham 7y ago
  Eric Weinstein calls this "high-variance". Individuals who are genius-level producers yet unpleasant to downright terrible to deal with. The extremes of capability and intuition are sometimes bounded by similar extremes in other traits, and other times it's just an outcome of the different mental model.
deleted 7y ago
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api 7y ago

This describes most geniuses. Just in these (hackers and engineers) circles I've met quite a few extraordinarily intelligent idiots. This includes one outstanding biomedical genius who thinks the Earth is 6000 years old, one almost superhuman programmer who thinks Hitler was misunderstood, and one who thinks the Earth is flat.

reaperducer 7y ago
I don't think it's unique to geniuses, or that Mr. Musk is a genius. I think it's just mathematical odds, and also human beings being human. If a homeless guy says that drinking pee is good for your health, people say he's crazy. If a guy with 20 million Twitter followers says drinking pee is good for your health, people say he's a genius.
- ipodopt 7y ago
  Nah, I got another theory. Basically, people that tend to be more 'intelligent'/'successful' are better at learning. You optimize learning in a similar fashion to a start-up. By failing fast. In general I think you tend to hear alot of silly thoughts from very 'intelligent'/'successful' people because they tend to speak their thought often and early (even if they do not have a grasp on it yet). Which leads to quick correction and refinement. Or in other words faster learning.
  - api 7y ago
    I agree about being better at learning. Maybe they (we?) tend to sometimes vastly underestimate the difficulty of learning in certain highly complex areas (like medicine) due to past successes learning difficult (but not as difficult) things.
- api 7y ago
  Musk is definitely by all accounts a genius, at least in certain domains. See my other comment about non-transferrability of expertise. I think the reason there are so many genius morons is that people assume their expertise magically transfers, and so they skip doing the work required to gain expertise in a completely different area. "I can code, so I can reevaluate history and political science." "I can do organic chem really well, so I can read a creationist polemic and dismiss all of geology because it seems to make sense to me."
  - mping 7y ago
    Aka engineer's disease
manigandham 7y ago
Eric Weinstein calls this "high-variance". Individuals who are genius-level producers yet unpleasant to downright terrible to deal with. The extremes of capability and intuition are sometimes bounded by similar extremes in other traits, and other times it's just an outcome of the different mental model.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]