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> Being a polymath, I’ve (...) I don't know, at this stage calling yourself polymath is a big red flag for me. Like calling yourself an "intellectual" or "thou
by lkdfjlkdfjlg 3y ago
> Being a polymath, I’ve (...)
I don't know, at this stage calling yourself polymath is a big red flag for me. Like calling yourself an "intellectual" or "thought leader".
- SantalBlush 3y agoI'd personally add "autodidact" to that list as well.
- whimsicalism 3y agoI disagree - polymath to me implies Newton or Euler, autodidact just implies that you are good at learning on your own.
- SantalBlush 3y agoAgreed, but whether or not someone is capable of accurately self-assessing how well they've learned a topic depends on how well they've actually learned the topic. This means someone can do a bad job of learning a topic on their own, but still believe they're an autodidact. I think that happens a lot.
- conductr 3y agoThese days it comes off very much as “I have liked and subscribed to multiple varied topics/channels on YouTube making me quite knowledgeable and naturally that makes me special/intellectual in a world where everyone else are ASMR seeking simpletons”
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- reducesuffering 3y agoI think in these intellectual bubbles, people wildly overestimate how much the average person has any interest or knowledge in the kind of breadth things like HN and OvercomingBias offer. Polymaths are highly over-represented here. There are 18m people in Greater Los Angeles. How many are involved in anything close to the variety of topics HN and OvercomingBias ponder?
- SamBam 3y agoMy first reaction as well. His bio [1] does seem to support the assertion, and I've heard of his work on prediction markets and the term the Great Filter, but that same bio is also all sorts of red-flaggy to me. He has "1100 media mentions?" You need to put that in your university bio page? 1. https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/bio.html https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/bio.html
- aodonnell2536 3y agoMost true polymaths (and autodidacts in the colloquial sense) don’t refer to themselves as such, solely looking at their breadth of work is enough
- Havoc 3y agoSame for multipotentiate or whatever that word is people stick on their LinkedIn