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Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

commoncog.com

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Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#91

Post by koonsolo »

xyzelement wrote: post #81
krisoft wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see zero problem with having no children and studying evolution. You don’t need to become superconductive to study the physics of superconductivity. You don’t need to become infected by every virus to study virology, and you definietly don’t need to be a virus to be a good virologist. So why would you need to pass on your genes to study evolution?

// So why would you need to pass on your genes to study evolution? You can study whatever you want, I am questioning if you can be considered "expert" if you profoundly fail at the topic of your field.

You can also be an expert on healthy food, but don't have the self control to actually follow your own advice.

In the end, those are 2 different domains. Knowing a certain theory and overcoming all the limitations of applying those are very different.

Let me give you another example: Formula 1 or MotoGP. The engineers are not driving the thing, and the drivers are not engineering it. Claiming that one needs to be able to be a master in the other is weird.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#92

Post by synetic »

selykg wrote: post #73
xyzelement wrote: post #71

Not directly related to the article but I had two amusing encounters with expertise recently. I sat next to an Econ professor (at an Ivy) on a flight. I told him I had worked at a hedge fund, and he was like "wow, I could never put myself in a situation where my living depended on my economic theories being right." A good friend of mine is a kinda-famous evolutionary biologist. He's in his mid-40s now, unmarried and…

As far as the economist. I suspect he understands that they're theories, thus, to some extent guesses. Some data might support it, but does it hold true in every case? Probably not. Does it hold true in most cases? Maybe not. Would he bet money, effectively what a hedge fund does in my very limited experience here? Sounds like no. This to me sounds like a simple example of he understands the limitations of his work!…

It was a joke (most likely) in the part of the economist. Self deprecation.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#93

Post by wesapien »

fidotron wrote: post #11

There is clearly a major problem with this in SV. A lot of people seem to confuse confidence with expertise, and fail to grasp that a scary proportion of the time the individual is so confident because they don’t understand the problems with what they are doing. Furthermore, modern software management practice doesn’t want this because it wants replaceable cogs. If you can recognize expertise you have to appreciate t…

Wouldn't it be better to hire a mixture of specialists and generalists especially today when diversity should be focused in thought rather than looks. Someone not me said that specialists are a master of one and connector of none.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#94

Post by motohagiography »

xyzelement wrote: post #71

Not directly related to the article but I had two amusing encounters with expertise recently. I sat next to an Econ professor (at an Ivy) on a flight. I told him I had worked at a hedge fund, and he was like "wow, I could never put myself in a situation where my living depended on my economic theories being right." A good friend of mine is a kinda-famous evolutionary biologist. He's in his mid-40s now, unmarried and…

I'd venture the difference is being a professor vs. a practitioner. To profess is to talk and teach and expand the opportunities of the discipline by lodging the ideas in peoples minds. A practitioner is someone who actually does something, but it doesn't really scale much past their own ability to physically do it. They have a practice. One plants, the other harvests. Such a good question to pose though.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#95

Post by selykg »

xyzelement wrote: post #80
selykg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as the economist. I suspect he understands that they're theories, thus, to some extent guesses. Some data might support it, but does it hold true in every case? Probably not. Does it hold true in most cases? Maybe not. Would he bet money, effectively what a hedge fund does in my very limited experience here? Sounds like no. This to me sounds like a simple example of he understands the limitations of his work!…

Yup, your explanation resonates with what I think are the superficial reasons society is accepting of both of these cases. You have to think a little bit deeper to feel why this might be problematic. If the economist weighs the risk to not put too much stock in these theories (no pun intended actually), why does he not likewise hesitate to teach these theories to his students? Like "I don't believe 100% that this is…

I don't really agree with any of that. You seem to be really trying hard to draw lines to make these seem more than they are.

Economics is complicated because at a fundamental level you're trying to understand people and their decisions. Sorry but you're really never going to "solve" that problem. Stuff will forever be a theory.

You are also assuming that the economist is teaching this and saying "this is how it works, it's 100% accurate" and not starting off with "this is a theory, and we work towards making it better over time with new data and new ideas." Just because something may not be 100% perfect does not mean you don't strive to improve what you have and you won't improve what you have if you just let it rot on the vine and not teach the next generation.

The biology one is even more convoluted. Having an _interest_ in something does not mean you have to "be" the interest. A simple example, I work to live, not live to work. I am not my work. My work is only here to support me living my life. You are claiming that the biologist is a failure because they didn't want, or couldn't, create offspring despite their interest being in evolutionary biology. That's some kind of weird argument to make there man...

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#96

Post by phkahler »

xyzelement wrote: post #71

Not directly related to the article but I had two amusing encounters with expertise recently. I sat next to an Econ professor (at an Ivy) on a flight. I told him I had worked at a hedge fund, and he was like "wow, I could never put myself in a situation where my living depended on my economic theories being right." A good friend of mine is a kinda-famous evolutionary biologist. He's in his mid-40s now, unmarried and…

I can tie these together. Even if the biologist is in favor of eugenics (selective breeding of humans) he probably also knows that we are not good judges of overall fitness. The econ guy may have some great ideas, but he knows the difference between theory and practice. In both cases they "know what they don't know". On a more personal level, maybe the biologist just wants to follow his heart (which is actually the correct move), and the economist likes to play it safe?

"You do you" is the correct answer in almost every case. Evolution does not pre-select and deliberately make copies. It's a process where individuals do their thing and let the chips fall where they may. The process takes care of the rest.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#97

Post by yobbo »

yohannesk wrote: post #62
bazooka wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not deflective. Your comments are rather dense. The orthodoxy of ‘changing frame’ and ‘putting it in a language they understand’ is layman drivel. It is not always possible to do so and it is overwhelmingly untractable if you eskew the fundamental reasons in a discussion with a non-expert that insists on technical justification and just doesn’t take your cookie-cutter time/money/competitive advantage talking po…

What real life project only involves experts on specific field? Are you working on toy problems? Isn't there cost/benefit analysis to everything? If I understand something well, I can explain it to non-experts in understandable way. If I can't, then I probably lack full grasp of the topic

> I can explain it to non-experts in understandable way

Ok? But you are required to motivate a decision that is based on terms, conditions, probabilities, consequences that can only be encoded at knowledge-level A. When projected down to knowledge-level C, it sounds like "otherwise bad things might happen".

The jargon is not what matters. The logic of the decision is not meaningful or believable without knowledge of the "physics of the system" at level A.

Most people understand nuclear bombs in layman terms, and they understand them intuitively from watching videos and pictures. Without videos and pictures, no one would care.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#98

Post by gilleain »

xyzelement wrote: post #80
selykg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as the economist. I suspect he understands that they're theories, thus, to some extent guesses. Some data might support it, but does it hold true in every case? Probably not. Does it hold true in most cases? Maybe not. Would he bet money, effectively what a hedge fund does in my very limited experience here? Sounds like no. This to me sounds like a simple example of he understands the limitations of his work!…

Yup, your explanation resonates with what I think are the superficial reasons society is accepting of both of these cases. You have to think a little bit deeper to feel why this might be problematic. If the economist weighs the risk to not put too much stock in these theories (no pun intended actually), why does he not likewise hesitate to teach these theories to his students? Like "I don't believe 100% that this is…

The biologist example is, respectfully, ridiculous.

Would you expect experts in criminal psychology to be serial killers?

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#99

Post by DharmaPolice »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #21
jiggawatts wrote: post #2

This is an extremely important article to read for professionals of all sorts, not just freelancers. It's an issue that I struggle with nearly daily. I can't convince customers to pay me what I'm worth, because they can't judge my true value. Meanwhile, they'll happily pay Deloitte or Accenture 3x as much as what I charge, and then take the misguided ramblings of a junior-sold-as-senior at face value, not knowing the…

> When I watched AlphaZero play chess, I was just a tiny bit impressed. I watched it beat the Go grandmaster and I was not very impressed. Then I watched it play Dota 2 -- in which I've sunk several thousand hours -- and holy crap. Wow! It was suddenly terrifying how good it was, because I could judge the nuance of what it was doing Funny, my game of choice is StarCraft 2 and when I watched AlphaStar beat StarCraft 2…

My knowledge of Starcraft 2 is pretty limited so this is my lack of expertise speaking but it always felt like a strange choice to demonstrate AI skill. Even limiting the AI to human level actions per minute - so much of the game seems to about efficient multitasking which obviously computers are good at.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#100

Post by c22 »

bena wrote: post #88
xyzelement wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// So why would you need to pass on your genes to study evolution? You can study whatever you want, I am questioning if you can be considered "expert" if you profoundly fail at the topic of your field.

How does not having kids cause you to be a failure at evolutionary biology?

If anything it sounds like the expert has correctly identified the fact that expertise in evolutionary biology confers no evolutionary advantage.
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