Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on The Litany Against Gurus - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 December 2007 08:11PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 December 2007 03:21:23AM 7 points [-]

Can you name 3 people who have transcended you in particular areas of rationality, and those areas? How about Spearman's g? Capacity/willpower for altruistic self-sacrifice? Conscientiousness? Tendency not to be overconfident about disastrous philosophical errors? Philosophical creativity? Mathematical creativity? Same questions with respect to 'rivaled.'

Daniel Kahneman undoubtedly knows more about heuristics and biases than I do; E. T. Jaynes was superior in manipulating and applying Bayesian calculus; Robyn Dawes has taught more students of rationality; Von Neumann was probably brighter than I am; Gandhi endured more for less; Edison put in longer hours; Epicurus seemed pretty skeptical; If Siddhārtha Gautama was a real person, he was one hell of an imaginative philosopher; Conway has probably created more math than I've learned.