30 ms·

Something I have always appreciated. I'm much less anxious working with very intelligent people, even if their intelligence eclipses mine. They don't have unusu

Something I have always appreciated. I'm much less anxious working with very intelligent people, even if their intelligence eclipses mine. They don't have unusual ideas about what I should or should not be able to grasp. They can recognize which of my ideas are intelligent and which of my ideas are half-baked. Working with unintelligent people, you need to spend more time building up a reputation. They cannot tell if you're intelligent based on what you say, or how you explain things -- only if you get results. This is nerve wracking for multiple reasons, but chiefly because intelligent people can be wrong, or unlucky, etc, and so only judging someone based on results is partially to judge based on luck.

argee 6mo ago
Unintelligent people can also be right, or lucky, etc, and someone judging on those criteria can end up getting swept up in making some very bad decisions based on dubious advice.
- everdrive 6mo ago
  One the most important lessons I ever learned in my career was not to mindlessly disregard a known bullshitter. He'll be right enough that you'll look foolish even if he hasn't earned his reputation.
johnbarron 6mo ago
>> I'm much less anxious working with very intelligent people, even if their intelligence eclipses mine. They don't have unusual ideas about what I should or should not be able to grasp. They can recognize which of my ideas are intelligent and which of my ideas are half-baked. Funny, because Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize winner for inventing PCR, one of the most important tools in the history of molecular biology, the technique that made modern genetics and COVID testing possible, could not recognize that his ideas about AIDS being a hoax were half baked. Or his belief in astrology. Nobel laureate. Astrology... Linus Pauling with his two Nobel Prizes, could not recognize that his vitamin C cures cancer crusade was half baked. James Watson decoded DNA itself and could not recognize that his ideas about race were half-baked. William Shockley another Nobel Prize...for inventing the transistor, probably the most consequential invention of the 20th century, could not recognize that touring college campuses promoting eugenics and forced sterilization was half-baked. Bill Gates could not recognize that hanging out with a convicted sex trafficker after the conviction was half baked. Larry Summers could not recognize that speculating about womens brains at a public conference was half baked. Intelligent people are great at recognizing which of your ideas are half-baked and they can also be catastrophically bad at recognizing which of their own are.The smarter they are, the more elaborate the justification, the more airtight the rationalization, and the more spectacular the eventual collapse. Peter Thiel being the prime example... Watch out for smart people... they are the worst judges of their own stupidity...
- thegrim33 6mo ago
  The paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging other's intelligence. Nobody is claiming that intelligent people are completely infallible, nobody is claiming that they're incapable of ever believing in incorrect things.
  - johnbarron 6mo ago
    You say “the paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging others intelligence.” Lets talk about what the paper actually shows...since you all and the rest of this HN thread :-) are confidently defending a claim you apparently... have not even scrutinized...It says so much, that from the hundreds of comments mine is the only downvoted. The study is about 198 German psychology students watching 1-minute video clips... That is your entire evidentiary base for a sweeping claim about intelligence and judgment. The “valid cues” that drove accuracy were speech clarity and vocabulary...meaning the finding is essentially “people who are good at verbal processing noticed verbal cues.”. That is close to tautological, not some profound discovery about social perception. ;-) But here is the part you really missed. The original commenter I replied to was not making the paper narrow claim. They said intelligent people “can recognize which of my ideas are intelligent and which of my ideas are half-baked.” That is a much broader claim about intelligent people general judgment quality and exactly the kind of overreach my examples were dismantling. I was not arguing against the paper. I was arguing against the commenter extrapolation, which you are now also making by hiding behind the paper :-) as if it supports what was actually said. Now...even if we stay strictly within the paper own claims: Correlational design, no causal inference possible, tiny unrepresentative sample, restricted intelligence range, zero validity (a 1-min clip vs. actual human interaction), multiple predictors tested with no correction for multiple comparisons, and half the authors own hypotheses failed. The effect size could be trivially small for all the headline tells you. You are defending a study you probably read only as a headline, against criticisms you did not understand and were aimed at something else entirely. The irony of confidently misjudging what argument you are even responding to, in a thread about people ability to judge accurately, is not lost on me.
    - 6mo ago

argee 6mo ago

Unintelligent people can also be right, or lucky, etc, and someone judging on those criteria can end up getting swept up in making some very bad decisions based on dubious advice.

everdrive 6mo ago
One the most important lessons I ever learned in my career was not to mindlessly disregard a known bullshitter. He'll be right enough that you'll look foolish even if he hasn't earned his reputation.

johnbarron 6mo ago

>> I'm much less anxious working with very intelligent people, even if their intelligence eclipses mine. They don't have unusual ideas about what I should or should not be able to grasp. They can recognize which of my ideas are intelligent and which of my ideas are half-baked. Funny, because Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize winner for inventing PCR, one of the most important tools in the history of molecular biology, the technique that made modern genetics and COVID testing possible, could not recognize that his ideas about AIDS being a hoax were half baked. Or his belief in astrology. Nobel laureate. Astrology... Linus Pauling with his two Nobel Prizes, could not recognize that his vitamin C cures cancer crusade was half baked. James Watson decoded DNA itself and could not recognize that his ideas about race were half-baked. William Shockley another Nobel Prize...for inventing the transistor, probably the most consequential invention of the 20th century, could not recognize that touring college campuses promoting eugenics and forced sterilization was half-baked. Bill Gates could not recognize that hanging out with a convicted sex trafficker after the conviction was half baked. Larry Summers could not recognize that speculating about womens brains at a public conference was half baked. Intelligent people are great at recognizing which of your ideas are half-baked and they can also be catastrophically bad at recognizing which of their own are.The smarter they are, the more elaborate the justification, the more airtight the rationalization, and the more spectacular the eventual collapse. Peter Thiel being the prime example... Watch out for smart people... they are the worst judges of their own stupidity...

thegrim33 6mo ago
The paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging other's intelligence. Nobody is claiming that intelligent people are completely infallible, nobody is claiming that they're incapable of ever believing in incorrect things.
- johnbarron 6mo ago
  You say “the paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging others intelligence.” Lets talk about what the paper actually shows...since you all and the rest of this HN thread :-) are confidently defending a claim you apparently... have not even scrutinized...It says so much, that from the hundreds of comments mine is the only downvoted. The study is about 198 German psychology students watching 1-minute video clips... That is your entire evidentiary base for a sweeping claim about intelligence and judgment. The “valid cues” that drove accuracy were speech clarity and vocabulary...meaning the finding is essentially “people who are good at verbal processing noticed verbal cues.”. That is close to tautological, not some profound discovery about social perception. ;-) But here is the part you really missed. The original commenter I replied to was not making the paper narrow claim. They said intelligent people “can recognize which of my ideas are intelligent and which of my ideas are half-baked.” That is a much broader claim about intelligent people general judgment quality and exactly the kind of overreach my examples were dismantling. I was not arguing against the paper. I was arguing against the commenter extrapolation, which you are now also making by hiding behind the paper :-) as if it supports what was actually said. Now...even if we stay strictly within the paper own claims: Correlational design, no causal inference possible, tiny unrepresentative sample, restricted intelligence range, zero validity (a 1-min clip vs. actual human interaction), multiple predictors tested with no correction for multiple comparisons, and half the authors own hypotheses failed. The effect size could be trivially small for all the headline tells you. You are defending a study you probably read only as a headline, against criticisms you did not understand and were aimed at something else entirely. The irony of confidently misjudging what argument you are even responding to, in a thread about people ability to judge accurately, is not lost on me.
  - 6mo ago