> 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.