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Persuasion through status rather than argument

robkhenderson.com

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Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#2
Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with"

More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#3
post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Over unity, infinite compression algorithms, perpetual motion machines, tidal energy (unless you think subsidy is the goal in itself) and so on.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#4
post #3
post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Over unity, infinite compression algorithms, perpetual motion machines, tidal energy (unless you think subsidy is the goal in itself) and so on.

Which smart people believed in infinite compression algorithms or true perpetual motion?

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#5
post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Hyperloop is probably a good example in the context of the article.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#7
post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Seems relevant to the past couple days’ of events re: OpenAI.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#8
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over unity, infinite compression algorithms, perpetual motion machines, tidal energy (unless you think subsidy is the goal in itself) and so on.

Which smart people believed in infinite compression algorithms or true perpetual motion?

Various folks into the 21st century.

Edit: point taken.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_...

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#9
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over unity, infinite compression algorithms, perpetual motion machines, tidal energy (unless you think subsidy is the goal in itself) and so on.

Which smart people believed in infinite compression algorithms or true perpetual motion?

More than one that I've personally known. They miss just a tiny sliver of theory and they believe that their smarts are large enough to be able to see something that everybody else must have missed.
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