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He's saying implausible sounding ideas should be dismissed because they are implausible, not because of the credibility of the person behind it. Then he makes o
by fighterpilot 5y ago
He's saying implausible sounding ideas should be dismissed because they are implausible, not because of the credibility of the person behind it. Then he makes one exception which is when the person is credible.
That's different to saying that the idea should be dismissed merely due to lack of credibility of the person, which is what the second statement is talking about. The primary reason for dismissal in his first statement is the idea's implausibility, not the credibility of the person.
If his first statement said "all ideas should be dismissed, but for ones proposed by credible people", then that would be inconsistent with his second statement.
- Misdicorl 5y agoWouldn't a criticism of the form "you have no idea what you're talking about here. You don't have credential x or experience y" satisfy both constraints? You've demonstrated the person does not have the necessary domain experience. And yet you've not addressed the idea at all and only the person who proposed it.
- fighterpilot 5y agoIt wouldn't because the way that is worded suggests that the reason for dismissal is the credibility of the person and not if the implausibility of the idea. What would follow from his first statement: "Your idea sounds really implausible, and so I'm going to dismiss it on that basis. And since you're not a domain expert I'm not going to put special effort into suspending judgement, I'm just going to go with my initial implausibility determination." What would follow from his second statement: "I'm going to dismiss your idea because you're not a domain expert. The idea's plausibility didn't really factor into my decision." I would agree though that his use of very simple language has left some ambiguity here.