I think Musk was the first person I noticed to really abuse this phrase.

Not that it's not a useful phrase—of course it is. But it seems like it's an abuse of what should be called "core agreed assumptions" or something.

▲ godelski 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah he abuses a lot of phrases... He does provide a master class on psuedointellectualism though. Drops enough vernacular that layman think he's smart and even enough that experts might think they're in good company if they don't pay too close attention. But I think the biggest clue that it's fake is how dismissive he is of nuance and detail. It's such a classic defense from psuedointellectuals because they know if they venture into depth then the gig is up. Meanwhile, look at any two nerds arguing. It's always nuanced and over minute things that they'll always insist are very important (because often it is, but only at that level).

▲ naasking 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> Meanwhile, look at any two nerds arguing. It's always nuanced and over minute things that they'll always insist are very important (because often it is, but only at that level).

Sorry, but no, nerds are huge bikeshedders, and often miss the forest for the trees. I think this also explains how dismissive you are of experts who have actually worked with Musk and don't seem to share your low opinion of his expertise in certain areas. Often the importance of nuance is overblown, as it typically only has third or fourth order effects that can be ignored in favour of focusing on the first and second order factors that dominate.

▲ godelski an hour ago | parent | next [-]

  > nerds are huge bikeshedders

How can you judge if it is bikeshedding or actual warranted issues if you don't have expertise?

Think about it this way, every big problem can be broken down into a bunch of much smaller problems, right? That's generally how we solve things. So obviously small problems come together to create big problems. The main difference between an expert and a novice is the ability to see how these small things interact. So, how do you, as a non-expert, know if the nuance is unimportant or important?

  > how dismissive you are of experts who have actually worked with Musk and don't seem to share your low opinion of his expertise in certain areas.

Experts currently working with him or experts who used to work with him? I think you're using a really weird bias. People that are paid by him are suckups? Why is that surprising? Especially when he's known for firing people who are critical of him. Did you forget that whole thing when he bought twitter[0]? Not to mention the other founders of Tesla talking about how he was not an actual founder or SpaceX employees saying he doesn't understand rockets, or AI people saying he doesn't understand AI. But of course he doesn't, he's been promising fully autonomous self-driving cars "next year" since like 2014. No sane ML expert will tell you such a thing is possible, even now. Sure, your Reddit Armchair expert will make the claim, but who cares, they don't actually know anything.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-fire-staff...

▲ MangoToupe 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I think this also explains how dismissive you are of experts who have actually worked with Musk and don't seem to share your low opinion of his expertise in certain areas.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

---

I think there's also something of a "gell-mann amnesia" effect going on here. I could buy him being a manufacturing genius or whatever for a while because I know nothing about car or rocket manufacturing. But as soon as he bought twitter, I realized he was an absolute moron who had never built or successfully software himself in his life (or perhaps his brain had simply severely atrophied since his time at PayPal to the point he should be aware), but wanted to sling buzzwords as if he were a coder.

	▲	godelski an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think it is more that he fires people who criticize him. That happened when he bought Twitter, so I'm not surprised people are cautious. Good use of Gell-Mann Amnesia too. I have started using it as a litmus test of sorts. When I encounter a new source I'll go look for something I have domain expertise in. If it seems accurate enough, I'll tend to trust domains I don't have expertise in. If it is inaccurate, I just don't trust them. Actually this is also a strategy I suggest people use with chatbots, as sometimes small details can be critical while other times they are inconsequential. Since the chatbots are not great at nuances this tends to be a good check, but the difficulty is ensuring you prompt as naively as you would in a subject you're less knowledgeable in.

▲ chermi 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Lol apparently reasoning by analogy is first principles to him -- see human drivers using only vision therefore no lidar somehow being "first principles".

▲ godelski 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

  > see human drivers using only vision

Which is such a naive assumption too! Do you not feel the road? Listen to the road? I mean you might not think you do the latter but I bet if you closed your eyes you could get a decent estimate of how fast you are going.

▲ naasking 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe I missed it, but I've never seen him claim that using only vision is "first principles" thinking. However, relying only on vision can make sense once you realize that roads and signage and everything is literally designed around vision. Any system that does not prioritize vision cannot deal with unexpected obstacles, like new signage. If your vision is good enough to see obstacles and understand signage, the added usefulness of lidar relative to the cost seems pretty low, and if you don't have vision and have only lidar, then your system will not be flexible enough, and if you have lidar and vision, then your system will be more expensive than a system without lidar.

	▲	godelski an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Lidar is cheap now. But no, roads are not designed with just vision in mind. Designers use tecture not just for grip but to help communicate things to the driver. There's many subtler ones, but the most obvious one is the grooves you often find on the edge of highways that are used to warn you if you're veering off. This vibrates the car and creates a loud noise. That's two more senses that you're constantly using while driving even if you don't recognize it. Sure, I wouldn't rely on smell, but it is also a useful sense for some diagnostics and may help in some edge cases. But my point is that we're not just vision based creatures. You think about vision more, but the others are very important.