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I think the key statement to realize here is this, > Most implausible-sounding ideas are in fact bad and could be safely dismissed. But not when they're propos

I think the key statement to realize here is this, > Most implausible-sounding ideas are in fact bad and could be safely dismissed. But not when they're proposed by reasonable domain experts. Off the top of my head, I vaguely remember that the latter half of the careers of many "greats" like Einstein, Fermi, Erdos were riddled with pursuing directions which bore no fruit (to this day). I don't quite think that crazy bets work on "average". On average they fail. It mostly so happens that crazy bets are on "average" taken by people with a network that can attract able and passionate people, who can see through an idea to its conclusion. This is where experts come in. Experts often rely on validation by their "community", and by the nature of community dynamics need to upsell. They naturally attract the kind of people needed to execute crazy ideas. But then attracting such talent also has a corrective effect on the originally crazy idea, such that it has a higher chance of succeeding by minimizing the blind spots, the unknown unknowns.

marcosdumay 5y ago
> Off the top of my head, I vaguely remember that the latter half of the careers of many "greats" like Einstein, Fermi, Erdos were riddled with pursuing directions which bore no fruit (to this day). I don't know about Erdos, but the other had ambitious ideas, not crazy ones. Evidence that they weren't crazy is that the problems they were working on are still seen as the ones to solve by most of the physics community. In fact, on the case of Einstein, he worked on much crazier ideas on the beginning of his career. I don't think any respected physicist ever thought about solving Brownian motion, and the photoelectric effect was an interesting curiosity but mostly of interest of "those inventors out there", not of researchers.
agalunar 5y ago
This is the whole "black swan" idea that Nassim Taleb writes about – events that are very rare and unpredictable but completely life-changing. This might be a poor paraphrase, but roughly: We're not very good at reasoning about these sorts of events, and domain experts are not immune. It's easy to believe you have more predictive or explanative power than you actually do, and to expose yourself to unacceptable risk as a result.
- activatedgeek 5y ago
  In this particular case, my argument is more along the lines of what this "team of experts" does is a conscious choice throughout. Black swan events can probably describe a lot of things, but my understanding is that an individual or a team does not really set themselves up for black swan events. It just happens.
the_af 5y ago
> I vaguely remember that the latter half of the careers of many "greats" like Einstein, Fermi, Erdos were riddled with pursuing directions which bore no fruit And don't forget Newton!
- activatedgeek 5y ago
  Oh wow! I totally missed all the alchemy and theology studies he was into.

marcosdumay 5y ago

> Off the top of my head, I vaguely remember that the latter half of the careers of many "greats" like Einstein, Fermi, Erdos were riddled with pursuing directions which bore no fruit (to this day). I don't know about Erdos, but the other had ambitious ideas, not crazy ones. Evidence that they weren't crazy is that the problems they were working on are still seen as the ones to solve by most of the physics community. In fact, on the case of Einstein, he worked on much crazier ideas on the beginning of his career. I don't think any respected physicist ever thought about solving Brownian motion, and the photoelectric effect was an interesting curiosity but mostly of interest of "those inventors out there", not of researchers.

agalunar 5y ago

This is the whole "black swan" idea that Nassim Taleb writes about – events that are very rare and unpredictable but completely life-changing. This might be a poor paraphrase, but roughly: We're not very good at reasoning about these sorts of events, and domain experts are not immune. It's easy to believe you have more predictive or explanative power than you actually do, and to expose yourself to unacceptable risk as a result.

activatedgeek 5y ago
In this particular case, my argument is more along the lines of what this "team of experts" does is a conscious choice throughout. Black swan events can probably describe a lot of things, but my understanding is that an individual or a team does not really set themselves up for black swan events. It just happens.

the_af 5y ago

> I vaguely remember that the latter half of the careers of many "greats" like Einstein, Fermi, Erdos were riddled with pursuing directions which bore no fruit And don't forget Newton!

activatedgeek 5y ago
Oh wow! I totally missed all the alchemy and theology studies he was into.