Yes, fake experts are everywhere and draw from the Well without peeling back the layers of abstraction or demonstrating knowledge by putting something back in the Well. This writing seems to me to be an elaborate way of saying this, and it makes me wonder if he has been professionally or personally jilted by such personalities in his knowledge domain(s). The article oozes with insecurity.
Beware the Casual Polymath
91–100 of 123 posts
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about generalists who aren't willing to bullshit? ;)
I would suggest that 'bullshitting' in this case would be a willingness to openly converse and express spontaneous opinions with a third party in order to learn more about a subject. Caveat: The more eager you are, the likely more you'll be taken as a bullshitter.
> openly converse and express spontaneous opinions with a third party in order to learn more about a subject
No, it means confidently express spontaneous opinions and made up facts with a third party with in order to look more knowledgeable then you are and push for whatever you want to push for.
Bullshiting typically involves people who are not willing to learn about a subject.
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#93But, it seems like there are more polymaths in the past than now - more people who were extremely smart, even if the general intelligence of people nowadays has increased. I think being a "casual" polymath is the important part: like the article mentions, you'd need a deep understanding of a subject to actually have it's interdisciplinary benefits. I think with the Internet today, it's easy to see so many interesting…
Why do you think there were more people who were extremely smart? It does not seem that way to me.
Plus, there is also effect of us glorifying past people more then contemporary people.
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#94[deleted]
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#95This 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 work in an academic field and took a strong and useful interest in another field. I really don't think I overestimate my abilities, I say things like I a jack of all trades and 'x think I'm great at y and y think I'm great at x'. But still people think especially talented. I even see quiet disagreement from experts in x or y who are maybe not so keen to criticise me publicly. I feel the issue is that others over estimate my abilities. Maybe a case of conflating value (which is real) with ability?
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#96This article seems to define a polymath as someone who is an expert in one domain and has opinions in other domains - those opinions being given greater value because of their other expertise. However - I'd argue that a polymath is someone with expertise in multiple domains. And the real value of the generalist is the ability to join the dots between specialties. We can argue if polymaths exist - or who might be one - but I think the definition stands. My background is medicine and I've seen first and the different contributions that generalists make vs specialists.
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#97This 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 work in an academic field and took a strong and useful interest in another field. I really don't think I overestimate my abilities, I say things like I a jack of all trades and 'x think I'm great at y and y think I'm great at x'. But still people think especially talented. I even see quiet disagreement from experts in x or y who are maybe not so keen to criticise me publicly. I feel the issue is that others over es…
It helps to think of your abilities on multiple axes -- sort of like a spider chart. Your expertise is actually the "area under the curve." You may very well be the foremost expert (comparatively) in certain regions of the spider chart. Ironically, building expertise in multiple domains actually helps you specialize relative to others.
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#98This 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 don't overestimate the awesome value of my own input either
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#99There is a lot of well-aimed critique in this comment section and the piece could benefit from rigorous editing and scrapping of the examples which are very unfortunately chosen. I think the steel man for this piece is: 1.) Qualified generalists and charlatan generalists look the same if you aren't an expert in the fields in which they opine. 2.) Experts in one field using their native lens to make conclusions about…
Yes, yes - I would add - many 'software' people have to become successful in their own disciplines - and then also develop insights into the domains relevant to the problems they solve. For example, I'll bet HFT finance devs. know quite a lot about that kind of trading, probably more than most people with financial backgrounds who are not involved in trading at all.
The article under discussion could probably benefit a great deal from a concrete definition of what a polymath is. Or at least, what the author believes a true polymath to be.
Software development does indeed beget an odd practice, in which practitioners can accumulate a large body of domain specific knowledge, almost by osmosis.
While I don't know if it can be seen as evidence of polymathematical competency, it does make me wonder if this 'skill', misconstrued, is what the article is attacking.
But the only way to make that clear, is to illustrate the difference between:
- People who happen to accumulate deep knowledge of different fields, in the pursuit of others goals (like software engineers).
- People who obtain competency in apparently diverse skills, that are obviously related (like the author's basketball player, a musician who can play many instruments, or a polylinguist).
- People who truly do have, or have developed, competency in two or more fields.
The last of which the article suggests is rare, but also muddies the definition by denigrating the most famous exemplar (Da Vinci).
Again, what would have helped, was a clearer, or alternative, definition of what we expect a polymath to be. Certainly, if the author is intent on ignoring Da Vinci (?), then you could possibly take Filippo Brunelleschi, or Descartes, and work backwards from there.
But this is just an idea...
Re: Beware the Casual Polymath
#100Prestigious institutions in different fields have been producing terrible knowledge and terrible predictions for a very long time. From the World Health Organization, to the economist elite in 2008, to the nutrition world, to psychology...
We don't seem to live in a world where one can just trust prestigious institutions, but a world in which those prestigious institutions need to be built.