Eliezer_Yudkowsky wrote:
Robin, this verse is about following someone else - just following with intent to overtake, rather than following with intent to worship. When is it ever appropriate to do the latter?
I think it is often appropriate to do the excluded middle. I don't follow anybody to worship, but there are a core set of people that I don't really follow to overtake. I recognize that they have talents and abilities that exceed my own, primarily in thinking strategically and organizing the labor of others.
I have worked as an engineer/physicist in some fashion for 35 years. I always preferred "big ponds," working at Bell Labs (back when it was still Bell Labs), Caltech, and other good but not quite that stellar places. I CONSTANTLY worked around people who I could see to be superior in ability to me.
Having a discussion between "alphas" about following and its approriateness is interesting, but incomplete. It completely misses out on the much larger effect from the "betas."
Today's post, The Litany Against Gurus was originally published on 18 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Guardians of Ayn Rand, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.