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Beware the Casual Polymath

applieddivinitystudies.com

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Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#41

Post by gerdesj »

flipactual wrote: post #2

This seems much less about being casual or being a polymath and more about those who overestimate the value of their own input I’m leaving this comment only because I most often do not overestimate the value of my input and therefor don’t leave comments, but this seems the perfect place to deviate

"I’m leaving this comment only because I most often do not overestimate the value of my input and therefor don’t leave comments, but this seems the perfect place to deviate"

You are a bot and a lazy bot. You can't even be arsed to spel (lol) therefor(e) properly. That was obviously dropped in.

Feel free to play.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#42

Post by gerdesj »

plaidfuji wrote: post #40

Assuming this isn’t some GPT-3 garbage, why does any of this matter? I can’t discern why I should care whether the author is right or wrong - the implications of the argument seem to be centered entirely around whether Twitter popularity is deserved or not, or just semantics about the definition of “polymath”.

The first line is:

"We live in times of great disaggregation, and yet, seem to learn increasingly from generalists."

This is an experiment. The whole thing was probably written by kittens.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#43

Post by eyelidlessness »

onecommentman wrote: post #16
flipactual wrote: post #2

This seems much less about being casual or being a polymath and more about those who overestimate the value of their own input I’m leaving this comment only because I most often do not overestimate the value of my input and therefor don’t leave comments, but this seems the perfect place to deviate

Which may mean you underestimate the value of your input and, in some sense, leech off the contributions of others...leaving a vacuum that gets filled by shills and hacks. Why would you do that? A little preparation and basic work-study and critical thinking skills is all a post needs, along with something you really want to say and is actually worth saying, of course. Maybe once a day, maybe once a week or once a mo…

> A little preparation and basic work-study and critical thinking skills is all a post needs, along with something you really want to say and is actually worth saying, of course.

Unless you have high confidence in your ability to grasp the subject, this can be considerably daunting to someone who isn’t blessed with high confidence generally. And one can at least infer that gaining that confidence may involve significant time and effort. Especially in a forum where existing contributions are:

- high volume - scored by peers - fast moving - particularly accepting of critical feedback along some lines but biased against other kinds of critical feedback

This can be very discouraging. I know from my own experience that even as someone who has a tendency to challenge, I find myself constrained by my lack of experience on many subjects, my estimation of the time involved to become conversant, and my general feeling of limited time and energy. And... yeah, then I find myself more inclined to read others’ opinions, more confident than my own, and defer to trusting them unless I have a strong instinct otherwise.

That seems like a pretty normal reaction for someone with limited attention and study resources? Am I missing something?

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#45

Post by LeonB »

I think the term “halo effect” could’ve been referenced in there in several places. When someone is good (or successful) at one thing we assume them to be good at many other things.

(Interesting article though.)

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#46

Post by liweiyang »

I'm about 95% certain this article was written with GPT or some similar algorithm. I don't have clear evidence for this other than that personal experience writing code that utilized the API looking at the outputs it gives on the playground defaults extensively. This looks exactly like what GPT output looks like to my eyes. If I'm wrong I apologize for the insult but the article doesn't appear very cohesive or coherent in my opinion and immediately jumps out as being written by GPT.

The other articles on the website it should be noted, are written in a style that looks very different from the style of this article.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#47

Post by gerdesj »

Am I seeing the same thing as you? Below is a CnP from the start of what I see when I follow the link. It's absolute rubbish. This is an experiment.

------------------ 8In the past, an expert in one field of Psychology might have been forced to teach a broad survey class. Today, you could have each lecture delivered by the world’s leading expert.

Outside of academia, you might follow one writer’s account to learn about SaaS pricing, another to understand the intricacies of the electoral college, and yet another to understand personal finance. In economic terms, content disaggregation enabled by digital platforms ought to create efficienciencies through intellectual hyper-specialization."

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#48

Post by sigy »

gerdesj wrote: post #20

Well there are some pretty deep evaluations of that post here already. It's bollocks. Quite involved bollocks but really big, round and very, very hairy. Probably machine generated.

I had the same impression. The only other alternative possibility I could come up with was that the author was willingly playing in meta irony, or that they were someone who feels extremely specialized in something and must cast aspersions at those who are not.

My counterpoint to this article would simply be:

Beware of opinions of self-selecting experts, especially those with a chip on their shoulder.

As mentioned above in the discussion, you do really need specialists and generalists working together to solve the hardest problems. The specialists deserve no more credit for progress than the systems thinkers who choose to operate at the macro level and understand full well why this is essential.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#49

Post by garmaine »

gerdesj wrote: post #47

Am I seeing the same thing as you? Below is a CnP from the start of what I see when I follow the link. It's absolute rubbish. This is an experiment. ------------------ 8 In the past, an expert in one field of Psychology might have been forced to teach a broad survey class. Today, you could have each lecture delivered by the world’s leading expert. Outside of academia, you might follow one writer’s account to learn ab…

Yes. And it is absolute rubbish.

The rest of the article seems (I skimmed it when I lost interest, so I could be wrong!) to be about something very specific: media outlets no longer relying on true domain experts, but rather outsourcing that expertise to the same group of rotating general-experts. The Daily Show had a running gag where the same set of comedian actors were used, but every time they were shown on-screen as Senior (Farcically Specific Domain) Expert. This is now reality as you see the same talking heads speaking authoritatively on whatever the important issue of the day is. That is a problem.

But yeah, the quote that starts this article reaches way beyond this specific problem and makes a bogus claim.

Re: Beware the Casual Polymath

#50

Post by jackfoxy »

Wow, so much divergence in the comments from what the OP is telling us.

;tldr Generalists are good for some things, but why educate yourself on a topic from a generalist when you have access to the experts?

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