Wei_Dai comments on High Status and Stupidity: Why? - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 January 2010 04:36PM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 12 January 2010 11:55:44PM 8 points [-]

Here's my hypothesis: once you achieve high status, a part of your mind makes you lose interest in the thing that you achieved high status with in the first place. You might feel obligated to maintain an appearance of interest, and defend your position from time to time, but you no longer feel a burning need to know the truth.

One solution that might work (and I think has worked for me, although I didn't consciously choose it) is to periodically start over. Once you've achieved recognition in some area, and no longer have as much interest in it as you used to, go into a different community focused on a different topic, and start over from a low-status (or at least not very high status) position. Of course this doesn't work unless there are several things that you can work on whose marginal utilities aren't too far apart. (It probably doesn't apply to Eliezer for example.)

I refuse to conform to people's expectations of a wise sage who always speaks with kindness and sober deliberation, of which I have said: "I am not bloody Gandalf."

I'm not sure the benefit of this one is higher than the cost.