I’m increasingly finding JBP utterly uninteresting and his thinking unsophisticated
Discussion
Me too
(To be clear, I was never too much on his bandwagon, but thought he had a few interesting things to say, my disappointment/observation comes from the surprise that he literally only had those few interesting things to say)
Same, but also note that not everyone comes from the same place.
Some people need to hear things that are uninteresting to us...
Yeah, I agree but I guess I should add that I think his thinking is not just uninteresting, I think it’s also sloppy which is the worst kind of thinking, since it feels productive but it takes you nowhere
He has a lot of blind spots. But he’s human and coming from the right place at least. Shame he’s been trapped into perpetually arguing the same narrative topics. I think he has a lot to offer given his domain of expertise.
True, but again - even this pushes some people forward. People see value in that.
I've had a conversation about sloppy thinking with my favorite current thinker Robin Hanson. He says that many people do sloppy thinking and he likes precise thinking. There's a lack of it in this world, but it's hard to recognize and even spread.
We are used to read short "tweet" sized bites, shorten complex topics in "ted talks", reels and short videos. When you write a well argued 50 page blog, no one reads it.
So in this world, sloppy thinking can deliver value in the same way that tarot cards (a random number generator) can just take you out of the idea loop you're stuck in. In this regard, it's more valuable that it's different than what people are stuck with than a real intellectual quality.
There’s no such thing as precise thinking. The world is too fucking complicated for that. We have to roll with it, in a big jazz.
There is. Precise thinking does not instantly reveal the truth, it just makes your assumptions and possibilities explicit.
For example see Hanson's The age of em, or Grabby aliens. Both talk about hypothetical futures, but all the assumptions are known and you can judge if they are plausible and thus judge if the idea is good.
Sloppy thinking is babbling associations and archetypal ideas, without the way to judge it.
I suppose I am conflating precise and accurate.
But “all the assumptions are known” is too strong an assertion for me. How could you ever know?
They do not have to be true, they are just explicit.
It is like building a mathematical theory. If A, B and C and not D, then E, F and G.... Does not say that A, B, C and D values are known, only if they are known and as stated, you can make the inference. It does not say anything about a world when they are not known.
Also, you can parametrize. Check the Grabby Aliens, first the videos and then the paper, you can see exactly what I mean:
Assuming a simplistic model may be rational and even “precise” but it does not tell us anything quantitative about said precision.
I.e. there are always unknowns outside of any model. Arguably this is the only rational assumption you can make: that you don’t know what you don’t know.
Your model relies on an assumed continuum of past events. In the grabby alien example it goes so far as to assume a model of the universe which we cannot explain “errrrr dark matter or something”, its practical to do so but to claim a precision to the extent of “no unknowns” I think it verging on hubris.
I agree with this, but you can still make assumptions. Again: your thinking works in the environment where the assumptions are valid and then you only argue that they are reasonable, but of course they are not true.
It's better than random blabbing, which might be true, but you cannot evaluate the situation in which it's true.
I wrote a book about thinking in uncertainty, hopefully I'll translate to English too and you can cover also unknown unknowns, that's not such a big problem.
Another good example is Wolfram's physics. He thinks about all the possible universes with all possible inference rules and he still can make useful predictions about reality, even though it's super general.
Once the novelty wears off, this kinda thing tends to happen. He's been Mr. common sense anyway, he never struck me as very deep.
I only liked his university lectures that he recorded like 10 years ago, then he went too try hard and ends up sounding dumb
If you don’t find value in his endeavors, it says more about you
Saaame.
His older videos have many gems of wisdom I'd love to get across to many young people.
He quite literally fell of a cliff and his most recent content is over-sold. If you've seen 3h of his older talks, you probably won't learn much more. He finds everything "so fascinating" even though the regular audience knows exactly where he's going.