4 ms·

I didn't have a lot of respect for David Girard before this, and this essay really made me certain: David Girard is not very sharp. I revisited a few of Vitalik

I didn't have a lot of respect for David Girard before this, and this essay really made me certain: David Girard is not very sharp. I revisited a few of Vitalik's recent essays and in all honesty believe they're lucid[1] and content-rich[2] even when he strays outside his domain of specialization[3]. Girard seems like a mid-tier but highly-focused motivated reasoner[4] who is working on a specific brand of anti-tech journalism. Nothing to see here really, even if you dislike crypto and Vitalik's projects. [1]: https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/09/09/ens.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/09/09/ens.html [2]: https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/08/04/zkevm.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/08/04/zkevm.html [3]: https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/07/13/networkstates.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/07/13/networkstates.html [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning

cosmicexplorer 4y ago
His name is spelled "Gerard".
weare138 4y ago
[flagged]
kerkeslager 4y ago
Did you actually read [3]? I think that contains lots of good examples of what Gerard describes as "bizarre conspiracy theory economics". That article centers around a political map by Balaji, which presents this weird idea that the New York Times (and woke-ists) controls the US in a balance of three competing ideologies, the other two being crypto-anarchists and communists. Even if we ignore that the political compass is an obvious oversimplification, Balaji clearly doesn't even understand the political compass: the communists are presented as being authoritarian social centrists, why the NYT is presented as being just anarchist as the crypto-anarchists, despite the self-evident incorrectness of also saying that they control the US. Buterin himself seems to understand that a lot of what Balaji is saying is, well, crazy, so a big part of that article is giving alternate arguments for his idea of network states so that people can still agree with Buterin, without agreeing with Balaji. But, while Buterin does present 4 critiques of Balaji, notably absent from those critiques is this bizarre map of the political landscape. Does Buterin actually agree with Balaji's map? And even if we generously assume Buterin doesn't agree with Balaji on that, why even bring Balaji into this? The ideas Buterin actually does espouse didn't originate with Balaji--surely Buterin could have found a less schizoid starting point for his presentation. As for your links [1] and [2]: sure, those are great, but Gerard is specifically talking about Buterin's philosophical writings. While I do agree with Gerard's point that some basic education could have prevented some of Buterin's bad technical ideas, I generally do think Buterin is extremely technically intelligent, and I don't see anything that indicates that Gerard would disagree. Finally [4]: never, ever, is calling someone out for motivated reasoning a good argument. You're also guilty of motivated reasoning, as is every human that ever reasoned. Showing my own hand here: I tend to disagree with Gerard on almost everything, but I'll at least give Gerard credit that my disagreements with him tend to be pretty nuanced. Buterin, on the other hand, I tend to agree with on technical points, which is most of his writing--but his philosophy tends to be pretty wacko, as Gerard points out.
- balsam 4y ago
  Some people in my area point out the resemblance to Jack Ma.. the juxtaposition of cringey intellectual frontmanship and otherworldly wealth/bone structure.

cosmicexplorer 4y ago

His name is spelled "Gerard".

weare138 4y ago

[flagged]

kerkeslager 4y ago

Did you actually read [3]? I think that contains lots of good examples of what Gerard describes as "bizarre conspiracy theory economics". That article centers around a political map by Balaji, which presents this weird idea that the New York Times (and woke-ists) controls the US in a balance of three competing ideologies, the other two being crypto-anarchists and communists. Even if we ignore that the political compass is an obvious oversimplification, Balaji clearly doesn't even understand the political compass: the communists are presented as being authoritarian social centrists, why the NYT is presented as being just anarchist as the crypto-anarchists, despite the self-evident incorrectness of also saying that they control the US. Buterin himself seems to understand that a lot of what Balaji is saying is, well, crazy, so a big part of that article is giving alternate arguments for his idea of network states so that people can still agree with Buterin, without agreeing with Balaji. But, while Buterin does present 4 critiques of Balaji, notably absent from those critiques is this bizarre map of the political landscape. Does Buterin actually agree with Balaji's map? And even if we generously assume Buterin doesn't agree with Balaji on that, why even bring Balaji into this? The ideas Buterin actually does espouse didn't originate with Balaji--surely Buterin could have found a less schizoid starting point for his presentation. As for your links [1] and [2]: sure, those are great, but Gerard is specifically talking about Buterin's philosophical writings. While I do agree with Gerard's point that some basic education could have prevented some of Buterin's bad technical ideas, I generally do think Buterin is extremely technically intelligent, and I don't see anything that indicates that Gerard would disagree. Finally [4]: never, ever, is calling someone out for motivated reasoning a good argument. You're also guilty of motivated reasoning, as is every human that ever reasoned. Showing my own hand here: I tend to disagree with Gerard on almost everything, but I'll at least give Gerard credit that my disagreements with him tend to be pretty nuanced. Buterin, on the other hand, I tend to agree with on technical points, which is most of his writing--but his philosophy tends to be pretty wacko, as Gerard points out.

balsam 4y ago
Some people in my area point out the resemblance to Jack Ma.. the juxtaposition of cringey intellectual frontmanship and otherworldly wealth/bone structure.