I think there are many ways someone with his lack of expertise can still be valuable, including:

- Making connections to other subjects that an expert would miss. The hall of fame of sigmoid predictions is just excellent, I already know I'm going to be reminded of it some time in the future. Very entertaining way to get the point across.

- Writing about tricky concepts in a very accessible and elegant way, which experts are notoriously bad at doing themselves - they are often optimizing for other specialists.

- Being able to write with an air of speculation and experimentation with ideas that experts and institutions often can't afford. Experts have to maintain their track record; Scott Alexander can say "lol just double the timeline"

you do you, I don't come here for superficially informed-looking articles written by people who are in fact not experts, informed or educated, I come here for the real deal

it doesn't help that sCotT aLexAndEr is also as close as you can come to the modern dressed up version of a eugenicist (again, not based on any actual expertise)

but I rest my case