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“Balaji is a friend of mine and is neither a dumbshit nor a clown,” tweeted economics blogger Noah Smith last June, defending Balaji from critics.

tootie 3y ago
I think there's a lack of appropriate adjectives for people like Balaji and also Musk or even Marc Andreesen. It's plainly obvious that none of them are actually dumb. These are clearly people with high IQs and active imaginations. Where they fall down is in being prone to being wildly irrational. They're also just self-absorbed and seemingly lacking in empathy and compassion.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  It's a different form of rationality, one that is self-referential. They understand the Internet as a medium for discourse, where the audience is extremely large but the number of other memes competing for attention is also very large. They also understand that the more outrageous and anger-provoking a statement is, the more likely it is to go viral. Therefore, the way to ensure that your statements actually have an impact is to hype them up to the most provocative, outrageous form that you can, see who bites, piss people off, and get them talking. We're discussing this article, after all, right? We know who Balaji is. While look at how many very rational "Show HN" posts here fail to get traction or reach the front page. Oftentimes, there's a kernel of a true idea behind the hype, but it's been taken to the most extreme form possible simply because the most extreme form is the only one that goes viral.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    > the most extreme form is the only one that goes viral. Thus social media drives society insane.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc This video will make you angry is correct yet again.
- LarryDarrell 3y ago
  I call it "Engineer Brain" after watching a talented relative descend into madness trying learn virology during the pandemic. It was further crystalized after the Titan submersible incident and reading about the terminal hubris of Stockton Rush. We spend our lives specializing into ever smaller subdomains of already small domains. A lifetime of bending your brain in one direction, being well compensated, being told you are smart... it leads to tremendous gaffs once you step out of your little specialized world. It's important to maintain a deep humbleness and acknowledge the gaps in your knowledge. Don't disregard experts in other fields because they are saying things that conflict with your biases. Learn to identify your biases and think about how they may limit you from gaining understanding. It's much more fun to go through life with the attitude of not knowing everything and listening to people who know what they know.
  - throwaway48476 3y ago
    It would be far worse to silo everything off to "experts" in their field. Usually such deference is just a cop out for not learning what they learned. Often the best work is done when combining the knowledge of people from different fields. Humility is important but more collaboration is needed, not less.
    - LarryDarrell 3y ago
      I don't disagree. My two examples were people who not only did not collaborate, but actively resented the knowledge offered from experts different fields. I do think that past successful collaboration can lead to a bias though. As a programmer I've solved problems for a variety of disparate industries and fields. I know just enough to know I'm vastly ignorant of those fields save for a little part that I helped solve problems for. But I've seen colleagues go the opposite route.
      - throwaway48476 3y ago
        When criticized by people outside the field the reaction seems to be either to ignore or to explain. Lately I've been watching videos tangential to conspiracies. Too many choose defensiveness when the truth is easier and more interesting. https://youtube.com/watch?v=MhkTo9Rk6_4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=MhkTo9Rk6_4 https://youtu.be/RJTbcfHY3AU https://youtu.be/RJTbcfHY3AU
- danans 3y ago
  > These are clearly people with high IQs and active imaginations. Where they fall down is in being prone to being wildly irrational. They're also just self-absorbed and seemingly lacking in empathy and compassion. What you are missing is that extreme wealth insulates them from any significant personal consequences of their logical imaginativeness, so such feedback never gets incorporated into their logic. If the rest of us espoused fascism and then lost our jobs and standing in our communities, we would be in real trouble. For the tech uber-wealthy (pun intended), money is community. Your community (peers or acolytes) will keep boosting you as long as you have it, because it completes the circular logic that explains your success.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    The most dangerous thing to the dictators is yes men.
    - danans 3y ago
      I tend to see it the opposite way. Yes men are the ones who enable dictators (also cult leaders). Perhaps that's what you actually meant?
      - pixl97 3y ago
        This is a weird case of yes to both... Think of it this way, the yes man will enable the leader to drive the fully loaded truck at 100MPH even when the brakes are bad. The yes man also won't tell the leader they are rapidly approaching a cliff either.
- DEADMINCE 3y ago
  > These are clearly people with high IQs and active imaginations. I only see evidence of wealth. Not talent, skill or ability.
- consumer451 3y ago
  But they are doing just fine. Only those of us who see this as the insanity that it is, are falling down. What mechanisms can fix this?
AzzieElbab 3y ago
To those unfamiliar with Noah Smith, he is a leftist and very, very blue.
- khuey 3y ago
  Noah is only a leftist if anyone to the left of Attila the Hun is a leftist. Noah is very much a neoliberal.
  - spencerflem 3y ago
    adding to this: From the wikipeida: Smith has appeared on the Neoliberal Project's podcast multiple times[21] and was labeled the "Chief Neoliberal Shill" by the group in 201 And to be completely clear, noeliberalism and leftism are NOT one and the same. Leftism is defined by a goal of communism or socialism. "Smith has expressed disagreements with socialism and communism". Calling Noah (Or Biden, Or most mainstream democrat politicians) leftist is totally incorrect and one of my pet peeves that online commenters tend to do.
    - AzzieElbab 3y ago
      "Leftism is defined by a goal of communism or socialism"—but that is just communism. No other ideology seeks communism as a goal, and socialism is just a stepping stone to communism, or at least that is what they taught me in my Soviet high school.
      - spencerflem 3y ago
        Yeah, imo communism is a subset of leftism, which includes other ideas all of which are defined by a general opposition to global free market capitalism. I'm sure there's better definitions too, but neoliberals are not a leftist in any of them.
        AzzieElbab 3y ago
        But you defined leftism as a subset of communism. Not the other way around

tootie 3y ago

I think there's a lack of appropriate adjectives for people like Balaji and also Musk or even Marc Andreesen. It's plainly obvious that none of them are actually dumb. These are clearly people with high IQs and active imaginations. Where they fall down is in being prone to being wildly irrational. They're also just self-absorbed and seemingly lacking in empathy and compassion.

nostrademons 3y ago
It's a different form of rationality, one that is self-referential. They understand the Internet as a medium for discourse, where the audience is extremely large but the number of other memes competing for attention is also very large. They also understand that the more outrageous and anger-provoking a statement is, the more likely it is to go viral. Therefore, the way to ensure that your statements actually have an impact is to hype them up to the most provocative, outrageous form that you can, see who bites, piss people off, and get them talking. We're discussing this article, after all, right? We know who Balaji is. While look at how many very rational "Show HN" posts here fail to get traction or reach the front page. Oftentimes, there's a kernel of a true idea behind the hype, but it's been taken to the most extreme form possible simply because the most extreme form is the only one that goes viral.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > the most extreme form is the only one that goes viral. Thus social media drives society insane.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc This video will make you angry is correct yet again.
LarryDarrell 3y ago
I call it "Engineer Brain" after watching a talented relative descend into madness trying learn virology during the pandemic. It was further crystalized after the Titan submersible incident and reading about the terminal hubris of Stockton Rush. We spend our lives specializing into ever smaller subdomains of already small domains. A lifetime of bending your brain in one direction, being well compensated, being told you are smart... it leads to tremendous gaffs once you step out of your little specialized world. It's important to maintain a deep humbleness and acknowledge the gaps in your knowledge. Don't disregard experts in other fields because they are saying things that conflict with your biases. Learn to identify your biases and think about how they may limit you from gaining understanding. It's much more fun to go through life with the attitude of not knowing everything and listening to people who know what they know.
- throwaway48476 3y ago
  It would be far worse to silo everything off to "experts" in their field. Usually such deference is just a cop out for not learning what they learned. Often the best work is done when combining the knowledge of people from different fields. Humility is important but more collaboration is needed, not less.
  - LarryDarrell 3y ago
    I don't disagree. My two examples were people who not only did not collaborate, but actively resented the knowledge offered from experts different fields. I do think that past successful collaboration can lead to a bias though. As a programmer I've solved problems for a variety of disparate industries and fields. I know just enough to know I'm vastly ignorant of those fields save for a little part that I helped solve problems for. But I've seen colleagues go the opposite route.
    - throwaway48476 3y ago
      When criticized by people outside the field the reaction seems to be either to ignore or to explain. Lately I've been watching videos tangential to conspiracies. Too many choose defensiveness when the truth is easier and more interesting. https://youtube.com/watch?v=MhkTo9Rk6_4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=MhkTo9Rk6_4 https://youtu.be/RJTbcfHY3AU https://youtu.be/RJTbcfHY3AU
danans 3y ago
> These are clearly people with high IQs and active imaginations. Where they fall down is in being prone to being wildly irrational. They're also just self-absorbed and seemingly lacking in empathy and compassion. What you are missing is that extreme wealth insulates them from any significant personal consequences of their logical imaginativeness, so such feedback never gets incorporated into their logic. If the rest of us espoused fascism and then lost our jobs and standing in our communities, we would be in real trouble. For the tech uber-wealthy (pun intended), money is community. Your community (peers or acolytes) will keep boosting you as long as you have it, because it completes the circular logic that explains your success.
- pixl97 3y ago
  The most dangerous thing to the dictators is yes men.
  - danans 3y ago
    I tend to see it the opposite way. Yes men are the ones who enable dictators (also cult leaders). Perhaps that's what you actually meant?
    - pixl97 3y ago
      This is a weird case of yes to both... Think of it this way, the yes man will enable the leader to drive the fully loaded truck at 100MPH even when the brakes are bad. The yes man also won't tell the leader they are rapidly approaching a cliff either.
DEADMINCE 3y ago
> These are clearly people with high IQs and active imaginations. I only see evidence of wealth. Not talent, skill or ability.
consumer451 3y ago
But they are doing just fine. Only those of us who see this as the insanity that it is, are falling down. What mechanisms can fix this?

AzzieElbab 3y ago

To those unfamiliar with Noah Smith, he is a leftist and very, very blue.

khuey 3y ago
Noah is only a leftist if anyone to the left of Attila the Hun is a leftist. Noah is very much a neoliberal.
- spencerflem 3y ago
  adding to this: From the wikipeida: Smith has appeared on the Neoliberal Project's podcast multiple times[21] and was labeled the "Chief Neoliberal Shill" by the group in 201 And to be completely clear, noeliberalism and leftism are NOT one and the same. Leftism is defined by a goal of communism or socialism. "Smith has expressed disagreements with socialism and communism". Calling Noah (Or Biden, Or most mainstream democrat politicians) leftist is totally incorrect and one of my pet peeves that online commenters tend to do.
  - AzzieElbab 3y ago
    "Leftism is defined by a goal of communism or socialism"—but that is just communism. No other ideology seeks communism as a goal, and socialism is just a stepping stone to communism, or at least that is what they taught me in my Soviet high school.
    - spencerflem 3y ago
      Yeah, imo communism is a subset of leftism, which includes other ideas all of which are defined by a general opposition to global free market capitalism. I'm sure there's better definitions too, but neoliberals are not a leftist in any of them.
      - AzzieElbab 3y ago
        But you defined leftism as a subset of communism. Not the other way around