3 ms·

I think the most valuable intellectual skill remaining is contrarian thinking which happens to be correct. LLMs are naive and have a very mainstream view on th

I think the most valuable intellectual skill remaining is contrarian thinking which happens to be correct. LLMs are naive and have a very mainstream view on things; this often leads them down suboptimal paths. If you can see through some of the mainstream BS on a number of topics, you can help LLMs avoid mistakes. It helps if you can think from first principles. I love using LLMs but I wouldn't trust one to write code unsupervised for some of my prized projects. They work incredibly well with supervision though.

pjc50 9mo ago
> contrarian thinking which happens to be correct Important qualifier there. There's a massive oversupply of contrarian thinking; it's cheap, popular (populist), and incorrect. All you have to do is take some piece of conventional wisdom and write the opposite. You don't have to supply evidence, or if you do then a single cherry-picked piece will suffice. I'd say something more like "Chesterton's Fence Inspection Company": there are reasons why things are the way they are, but if you dig into them, maybe you will find that the assumptions are no longer true? Or they turn out to be still true and important.
- jongjong 9mo ago
  Nowadays there are a lot of contrarian ideas which are correct. Some such ideas I've had for maybe 10 years; started out as speculative thoughts that I dismissed initially but the evidence kept piling up. At first, it was just my personal experience, then other people I met started making similar observations. Then I kept researching and the more I learned, the more plausible it seemed. Now there are major media figures discussing some of those ideas in front of millions of people. Some of this stuff I really thought was just me being paranoid, now open topic of discussion at a societal level. Just as one minor example, after working in blockchain space in Germany, I left the industry with a feeling that there was corruption in the sector involving government officials (just based on a lot of weird stuff I witnessed). At the time it was just a paranoid feeling; I couldn't make sense of what I'd experienced because I could not pin down a motivation. But fast forward a few years and I saw an interview in which Marc Andreessen mentioned that some US government officials under Biden actively went after certain blockchain projects and how some people were de-banked for apparently no reason. This was interesting to hear because I had lost access to one of my bank accounts a few years prior and the bank wouldn't tell me the reason. I also got audited by the tax authorities in Germany, though my tax record was perfect (they had to concede). This was weird considering my income level was not that high and my situation was relatively straight forward. I'm still not fully settled on a conclusion there but every year, my worldview seems to make more sense. I only recently managed to start taking advantage of what I'd been observing. For example, I anticipated the current precious metals rally a few years ago. Just based on my feeling/observation that crypto had been corrupted by governments and people would start looking for other assets. Before this, I just didn't have any capital to invest so I could not act on my accurate predictions; I could only watch in horror.

pjc50 9mo ago

> contrarian thinking which happens to be correct Important qualifier there. There's a massive oversupply of contrarian thinking; it's cheap, popular (populist), and incorrect. All you have to do is take some piece of conventional wisdom and write the opposite. You don't have to supply evidence, or if you do then a single cherry-picked piece will suffice. I'd say something more like "Chesterton's Fence Inspection Company": there are reasons why things are the way they are, but if you dig into them, maybe you will find that the assumptions are no longer true? Or they turn out to be still true and important.

jongjong 9mo ago
Nowadays there are a lot of contrarian ideas which are correct. Some such ideas I've had for maybe 10 years; started out as speculative thoughts that I dismissed initially but the evidence kept piling up. At first, it was just my personal experience, then other people I met started making similar observations. Then I kept researching and the more I learned, the more plausible it seemed. Now there are major media figures discussing some of those ideas in front of millions of people. Some of this stuff I really thought was just me being paranoid, now open topic of discussion at a societal level. Just as one minor example, after working in blockchain space in Germany, I left the industry with a feeling that there was corruption in the sector involving government officials (just based on a lot of weird stuff I witnessed). At the time it was just a paranoid feeling; I couldn't make sense of what I'd experienced because I could not pin down a motivation. But fast forward a few years and I saw an interview in which Marc Andreessen mentioned that some US government officials under Biden actively went after certain blockchain projects and how some people were de-banked for apparently no reason. This was interesting to hear because I had lost access to one of my bank accounts a few years prior and the bank wouldn't tell me the reason. I also got audited by the tax authorities in Germany, though my tax record was perfect (they had to concede). This was weird considering my income level was not that high and my situation was relatively straight forward. I'm still not fully settled on a conclusion there but every year, my worldview seems to make more sense. I only recently managed to start taking advantage of what I'd been observing. For example, I anticipated the current precious metals rally a few years ago. Just based on my feeling/observation that crypto had been corrupted by governments and people would start looking for other assets. Before this, I just didn't have any capital to invest so I could not act on my accurate predictions; I could only watch in horror.