Eliezer Yudkowsky

And the reason we don't think of the alternative explanation, I'm stupid, is not, I suspect, that we think so highly of ourselves.

It's just that we don't think of ourselves at all.

We just see a chaotic feature of the environment.

So now it's occurred to me that my productivity problem may not be chaos, but my own stupidity.

And that may or may not help anything.

It certainly doesn't fix the problem right away.

Saying, I'm ignorant, doesn't make you knowledgeable.

But it is at least a different path than saying it's too chaotic.

Argument screens off authority.

Black Belt Bazian, aka Steven, tries to explain the asymmetry between good arguments and good authority, but it doesn't seem to be resolving the comments on my blog post, Reversed Stupidity is Not Intelligence, so let me take my own stab at it.

Scenario one.

Barry is a famous geologist.

Charles is a 14-year-old juvenile delinquent with a long arrest record and occasional psychotic episodes.

Barry flatly asserts to Arthur some counterintuitive statement about rocks, and Arthur judges it 90% probable.

Then, Charles makes an equally counterintuitive flat assertion about rocks, and Arthur judges it 10% probable.

Clearly, Arthur is taking the speaker's authority into account in deciding whether to believe the speaker's assertions.

Scenario 2.

David makes a counterintuitive statement about physics and gives Arthur a detailed explanation of the arguments, including references.

Ernie makes an equally counterintuitive statement, but gives an unconvincing argument involving several leaps of faith.

Both David and Ernie assert that this is the best explanation they can possibly give to anyone, not just Arthur.