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One of the things about tech bros I really don't like is that we generally think we are good in each field. Systems like proposed have been widely discussed & w

One of the things about tech bros I really don't like is that we generally think we are good in each field. Systems like proposed have been widely discussed & widely debated in the field Political Science (wherein my SO does research). This sounds to me like a simplified or applied version of Brennan's "epistocracy". There's a nice podcast about this: https://hiphination.org/season-3-episodes/s3-episode-5-demons-of-democracy/ https://hiphination.org/season-3-episodes/s3-episode-5-demon... Or, in text, a summary of the book "Against Democracy": https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17581394/against-democracy-book-epistocracy-jason-brennan https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17581394/against-democracy-boo... OT: Must-read on this subject and good reference material is Ruling the Void from Peter Mair.

stubybubs 3y ago
> One of the things about tech bros I really don't like is that we generally think we are good in each field. This is, in fact, the worst thing about tech bros and other highly paid experts in specific fields. I've grown up enough to learn that my earlier ideas have been terribly wrong because they've lacked perspective. Doesn't matter how good I am at X, there's just no substitute for experience with Z. The top-tier tech bros have been proving this in the last few years. Many of them have enjoyed the kind of success that they have simply by living in a particular period in history that was very friendly to massive IPOs making them fabulously wealthy. Their more recent decisions have been in many cases absolutely disastrous, and anything dealing with real people is generally laughably bad. See the metaverse gamble, recent Twitter, or poisonous permethrin-treated mosquito nets for examples. They often times have no idea what they're doing. Edit: another non-tech example is how biomedical researchers want to make people with paraplegia walk. Ask people with paraplegia what they want and they'll tell you bladder control and the ability to have sex. Just listen to people.
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  The typical high achiever in technical fields is the beneficiary of a better than average capacity for working memory, which is the critical bottleneck for learning complex rule-driven material in a short period of time, such as in school. But this capacity has little if any bearing on one's ability to reflect on a diffuse and unstructured corpus of information accumulated over extended periods of time, nor in cultivating the habit of remaining in suspended judgment necessary for fair, unmotivated and context-sensitive appraisal.

stubybubs 3y ago

> One of the things about tech bros I really don't like is that we generally think we are good in each field. This is, in fact, the worst thing about tech bros and other highly paid experts in specific fields. I've grown up enough to learn that my earlier ideas have been terribly wrong because they've lacked perspective. Doesn't matter how good I am at X, there's just no substitute for experience with Z. The top-tier tech bros have been proving this in the last few years. Many of them have enjoyed the kind of success that they have simply by living in a particular period in history that was very friendly to massive IPOs making them fabulously wealthy. Their more recent decisions have been in many cases absolutely disastrous, and anything dealing with real people is generally laughably bad. See the metaverse gamble, recent Twitter, or poisonous permethrin-treated mosquito nets for examples. They often times have no idea what they're doing. Edit: another non-tech example is how biomedical researchers want to make people with paraplegia walk. Ask people with paraplegia what they want and they'll tell you bladder control and the ability to have sex. Just listen to people.

ChainOfFools 3y ago
The typical high achiever in technical fields is the beneficiary of a better than average capacity for working memory, which is the critical bottleneck for learning complex rule-driven material in a short period of time, such as in school. But this capacity has little if any bearing on one's ability to reflect on a diffuse and unstructured corpus of information accumulated over extended periods of time, nor in cultivating the habit of remaining in suspended judgment necessary for fair, unmotivated and context-sensitive appraisal.