Inadequacy and Modesty
Eliezer, as always, vastly overstates the value of his own intelligence and intelligence in general. I believe this essay is one of the worst he has ever written.<p>The reasoning on this is correct. The problem is, he is arguing from hilariously inaccurate axioms. For instance, he seems axiomatically convinced that &quot;creating trillions of dollars of value&quot; is an objective good. That is totally fine for people ideologically &quot;all in&quot; to ideologically cooky notions of macroeconomics, which is one of the most intellectually shaky disciplines still in circulation.<p>Since he seems familiar with the &quot;two economists walking down the street&quot; parable, I will offer him this one:<p>===<p>Two economists were walking down the street one day when they passed two large piles of dog turds.<p>The first economist said to the other, &quot;I&#x27;ll pay you $20,000 to eat one of those piles of turds.&quot; The second one agrees and chooses one of the piles and eats it. The first economist pays him his $20,000.<p>Then the second economist says, &quot;I&#x27;ll pay you $20,000 to eat the other pile of turds.&quot; The first one says okay, and eats the turds. The second economist pays him the $20,000.<p>They resume walking down the street.<p>After a while, the second economist says, &quot;You know, I don&#x27;t feel very good. We both have the same amount of money as when we started. The only difference is we&#x27;ve both eaten turds.&quot;<p>The first economist says: &quot;Ah, but you&#x27;re ignoring the fact that we&#x27;ve engaged in $40,000 worth of trade!&quot;