Based Camp - Based Camp： Garden Gnomes are Destroying Academia

00:00:00.000 When somebody comes up with a genuinely novel idea, their idea is often treated like an insane

00:00:05.160 cult. And you see this with an academia today. The difference we have today is that ironically,

00:00:12.320 the academic system has more monopoly on what's considered truth than the church ever had.

00:00:19.360 And so it is very hard for new ideas to form. And when a new idea does form,

00:00:24.700 people are punished severely. Would you like to know more?

00:00:28.860 Hello, gorgeous.

00:00:30.620 Hello, Simone. I am excited to be chatting today. What are we talking about?

00:00:34.900 Well, you're being like Professor Malcolm, because we have a quote to discuss. This is like homeworky.

00:00:40.800 It reminds me of my honors classes in college.

00:00:44.800 The article was called The Midwit Minus on a sub stack by somebody called Millennial Woes.

00:00:50.220 And I don't think it's that much of a red sub stack either.

00:00:52.080 All right. Because he has convinced himself by embracing fashionable ideas that he is very wise,

00:00:58.360 he will not accept that anybody is wiser than him, unless they also embrace those fashionable ideas.

00:01:05.360 In his mind, that is the only thing that could prove the person to be as wise as him, let alone even wiser. 0.97

00:01:12.520 But a person wiser than him would never adopt those bullshit fashionable ideas. 0.95

00:01:17.420 So they would never appear in the midwit's perception is wiser than him. 1.00

00:01:22.580 Thus, the midwit is trapped in his midwittery. 0.99

00:01:26.060 I think this quote is describing a very real phenomenon in our society,

00:01:31.060 with how people judge what intelligence is, when they are creating this organically formed hierarchy

00:01:39.080 that determines truth within our society.

00:01:42.120 Okay.

00:01:42.920 So if you say something that is very antithetical to the accepted truth of society, 1.00

00:01:51.580 people will look at you as an idiot, right? 0.99

00:01:54.980 So it is very hard to say something that is genuinely innovative or moves things forward 1.00

00:02:00.980 without being looked at as an idiot. 0.96

00:02:04.080 It actually can become dangerous to say things that move things forward. 0.99

00:02:10.040 And this mindset is particularly true in academia.

00:02:14.620 I've worked in academia for a while,

00:02:16.700 and the hierarchy in intelligence is determined by an individual's ability to memorize obscure things

00:02:25.760 that other people who are widely agreed upon as smart have written or said,

00:02:31.240 determines a person's position within this local hierarchy,

00:02:34.460 not their ability to override those things or come up with new ideas that counter those things,

00:02:40.680 makes a lot of sense.

00:02:42.260 Because the people at the top of this hierarchy,

00:02:44.720 they're the people who everyone else is quoting.

00:02:46.700 And so they have a vested interest in ensuring that you are not disrupting the hierarchy.

00:02:55.040 This is something even famously, like Einstein got into when he got older,

00:02:57.980 where he would sort of snipe at people's careers if they disagreed with his ideas,

00:03:03.760 especially where it turned out that they were right later.

00:03:06.500 No, they were right.

00:03:07.620 Yeah.

00:03:08.760 And you see this across academic fields.

00:03:10.760 And then when somebody comes up with a genuinely novel idea, 0.83

00:03:12.880 a la Darwin, they're basically crazy.

00:03:16.140 Their idea is often treated like an insane cult. 0.94

00:03:20.540 And you see this within academia today.

00:03:23.000 The difference we have today is that, ironically,

00:03:27.360 the academic system has more monopoly on what's considered truth than the church ever had.

00:03:33.800 And so it is very hard for new ideas to form.

00:03:36.980 And when a new idea does form, people are punished severely if it goes against either the consensus

00:03:45.260 or things that are of interest to the academic consensus.

00:03:49.040 And I think it's one of the reasons why academia has been so slow at advancing.

00:03:53.340 But I think we also see this within the comments on our videos sometimes, you know.

00:03:57.260 You know, I've looked at some people who say negative things about our videos.

00:04:00.280 And I try to determine, like, what position are they coming from?

00:04:02.800 Because I never know.

00:04:03.580 Is somebody mad at us because they're a far leftist?

00:04:05.440 Are they mad at us because they're a far rightist?

00:04:07.680 So I can never really tell, you know.

00:04:09.240 And so I try to go into it.

00:04:10.200 And one guy who repeatedly comments sort of negative things on our videos,

00:04:14.860 it seems that he's predominantly, he's just like a generic philosopher, academic philosopher,

00:04:21.280 i.e. a philosophy parrot.

00:04:23.400 That parrots, what everyone considers, like, smart philosophers have said.

00:04:28.080 And that is how he determines that he's smart.

00:04:31.680 And so he thinks that we are crazy because I would never do that.

00:04:35.460 I find that to be very disinteresting.

00:04:36.840 Like, to, I say this parroting some random substacker.

00:04:41.140 But keep in mind, I'm parroting a substacker that doesn't have a big fan base.

00:04:44.040 So I am recognizing that this concept here potentially has a lot of merit.

00:04:49.180 So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, Simone.

00:04:51.100 This idea of determining intelligence and how people determine who is intelligent around them.

00:04:56.680 Well, I think a lot of this actually has to come with something that really blew my mind

00:05:00.860 when I was first researching the careers of artists, like, back in 2012 when we first met.

00:05:06.840 And a bunch of the artists that I interviewed essentially said,

00:05:10.500 well, I have to, like, play up the extent to which I am eccentric and weird and crazy and unstable-seeming.

00:05:15.760 Because if I don't do that, if I don't have, like, paints, like, splattered on my face and my hair is all messed up

00:05:20.580 and I'm kind of like, oh, hi, you know, like, really crazy,

00:05:24.400 that people, like, their art sells for less, you know, they just aren't really, you know, succeeding as artists.

00:05:30.200 They're not taken oddly.

00:05:31.740 They're not taken seriously, so to speak.

00:05:33.920 So I think what's really interesting is that there's this performative image of smartness that people are looking for.

00:05:41.360 Instead of really, like, validating, is this idea interesting?

00:05:44.780 It's more, does this person look like someone who's intellectual?

00:05:50.080 Do they look like a philosopher?

00:05:51.560 Do they look like a mathematician?

00:05:52.740 In fact, we've even, we've met people recently on a very different end of the spectrum,

00:05:57.280 more like on the technical or, like, data end of the spectrum,

00:05:59.960 who look very, like, analytical, engineering, and they just always get hired for these positions

00:06:08.120 because they're seen as looking like a trustworthy, reliable engineer,

00:06:13.360 even if actually their track record is abysmal and they don't work at all.

00:06:16.900 What I think of, when I see this quote, is I think of the people who style themselves as intellectuals

00:06:23.360 and also use really gatekeep-y terms, like, very advanced vocabulary.

00:06:30.080 They will grow beards.

00:06:31.340 They will wear, like, very professorial-looking clothes or weird clothes.

00:06:36.220 And it even makes me think, and we joke about this all the time,

00:06:39.520 about ornamental hermits or garden gnomes.

00:06:42.220 So during, like, around, like, Regency era in England, one fashionable thing for a while,

00:06:48.760 and actually this comes very back down to fashion, right?

00:06:51.480 Fashionable ideas.

00:06:52.680 One fashionable thing to do, if you were a lord with a house, like a manor house,

00:06:59.120 like a lot of property, you would set up this kind of weird, like, refuge or shack on your property,

00:07:05.080 and you would bring out an intellectual to live in the shack.

00:07:09.280 Like, and they often, like, in their, I guess, like, employment contracts,

00:07:12.640 they were not allowed to cut their facial hair, so they would have these beards.

00:07:16.760 In some cases, they weren't allowed to cut their nails, so they'd have these, like, gnarled nails.

00:07:21.160 And they were supposed to come out when you were entertaining house guests for, like, hunting trips

00:07:24.920 and house parties to pontificate and be smart and impress people.

00:07:29.860 And, of course, like, they weren't supposed to drink.

00:07:31.600 They would be caught, like, at the local pub all the time.

00:07:33.920 They were just supposed to, like, be alone with their books and, you know, provide intellectual inspiration.

00:07:39.780 And what I also think is really interesting is that people like that still do exist.

00:07:45.660 And that when, like, there are-

00:07:47.200 We see them in our circles.

00:07:48.000 And it's one of the worst things about being in these intellectual circles is if you are, like, known as being smart,

00:07:55.420 there's, like, this whole class of people that's, like, known as being smart,

00:07:58.780 but it's, like, actively really not smart, we call them anti-geniuses, is where this-

00:08:05.140 Before I get too far into the concept of anti-genius, there's two other things I want to discuss on this subject

00:08:09.340 that I think are really important.

00:08:10.700 Okay.

00:08:11.880 One is the Judgment of Paris, which I thought really related to what you were talking about in the art world,

00:08:16.520 which is you don't just see this in the world of intellectualism.

00:08:19.560 So the Judgment of Paris was this famous competition where, in Paris, where they did a blind tasting

00:08:25.160 and it was going to be a nothing burger, because they knew the outcome of French wines against American wines.

00:08:31.360 Yes.

00:08:32.080 What could go wrong?

00:08:34.700 The American wines cleaned up.

00:08:37.960 And what it turned out is all these people who had been claiming to be experts and stuff like that,

00:08:42.020 they couldn't even tell the difference between the two wines.

00:08:44.380 And you have this whole hierarchy of, like, wine tasting, and there was that one experiment, which I love.

00:08:49.320 With sommeliers.

00:08:50.540 Yeah, sommeliers, where they couldn't even tell the difference between white and red wine.

00:08:53.800 Oh my gosh, it's so bad.

00:08:55.880 And I was like, oh my God.

00:08:57.740 So many of these fields, not everyone, like, some of them were still pretty good,

00:09:01.660 but the idea being is that the hierarchy of knowledge within a field can be almost entirely fabricated,

00:09:10.000 yet it can still be seen as a really high-knowledge field.

00:09:13.560 Yes.

00:09:13.860 And that is true with art.

00:09:15.740 Well, we often say it was art.

00:09:17.020 Like, if one of our kids comes to us and says, Daddy, I really want to be an artist.

00:09:20.780 I'm like, oh, well, then you're really going to need to practice and learn a lot about sales and marketing. 0.96

00:09:25.240 Because art, you don't need to know shit about art to be a famous artist. 0.97

00:09:30.220 Yeah, you have to have a killer network. 0.98

00:09:32.120 Yeah.

00:09:32.400 You have to have the right look.

00:09:34.620 Yeah.

00:09:35.340 Well, and this is, there was actually that study that was done on artists to find out who was paid the most,

00:09:39.380 and it was completely determinate on their network.

00:09:41.900 It was not determinate on how good they were as artists.

00:09:44.800 That, it's a completely, a, a, yeah, it's wild.

00:09:49.200 But anyway, back to the concept of an anti-genius and where this relates to garden gnomes, as we call them.

00:09:58.920 Ornamental hermits. 0.60

00:10:00.320 Ornamental hermits in our communities. 1.00

00:10:01.900 But we've come to calling them the shorthand gnomes, right?

00:10:04.740 And these are people who are just like professionally smart people,

00:10:08.840 but they are more people who are like word cells that got known as smart when they were really young,

00:10:14.760 because, like, they do seem to have a genuine competence in wording.

00:10:19.380 However, none of their ideas ever turn out to have any real world applicability,

00:10:25.480 and they don't seem to relate to any ability to change the world in any sort of a better way.

00:10:31.980 They're just theorizing ideas.

00:10:33.980 And it grinds my teeth when I, you know, someone who's built successful businesses,

00:10:38.720 who's made multiple calls about, oh, the politics are moving in this way,

00:10:42.640 and this is going to change about society, and then they come true.

00:10:45.100 And I'll be, you know, bandied about by rich people when they're bringing out their smart people.

00:10:52.620 And then there's this other group that's just like, always been wrong about everything,

00:10:56.620 but really good at sounding smart.

00:10:58.180 Well, but again, like, keep in mind, even, for example, in the startup world,

00:11:02.700 there are, like, successful entrepreneurs over here doing their thing,

00:11:05.880 and then there are people who are really, really good at raising funds.

00:11:09.640 And they just raise funds, and then they have a failed startup,

00:11:12.440 and then they, like, raise funds again.

00:11:14.460 So I think that there's this world of fashionable ideas,

00:11:18.300 performative signaling of legitimacy in whatever realm you're trying to play in,

00:11:23.440 and then there's the real thing.

00:11:24.740 And the question is, how can people know what the real thing is?

00:11:28.220 And why are people not necessarily judging what the real thing is?

00:11:32.860 We're underselling how damaging this concept of an anti-genius is, or anti-geniuses are.

00:11:38.760 So the way that we judge intelligence, meaningful intelligence,

00:11:42.780 is it's a person's ability to look at a set of information about the environment or the world today,

00:11:50.960 and use that information to accurately predict and or shape future outcomes.

00:11:57.620 Applicable intelligence.

00:11:58.700 We had the guy, David Rainey, who wrote the book on changing minds,

00:12:01.440 and he came to stay with us, and we were talking about, like, how do you create geniuses?

00:12:04.740 And we're like, everything, when we're trying to create a genius,

00:12:06.540 it's based around real-world applicability, real-world ability to succeed in real-world environments,

00:12:10.820 and this definition of intelligence.

00:12:12.680 But then you have these other people who,

00:12:15.700 sometimes they even know that the type of intelligence they have

00:12:18.520 doesn't have this sort of real-world applicability,

00:12:20.880 but their identity is based around being intelligent,

00:12:24.840 and their value within their social circles is based around being intelligent.

00:12:28.060 And people can get into this really early.

00:12:30.160 Like, they get good grades on tests and stuff like that in high school,

00:12:32.760 and then it turns out they're just not good at actually performing in real-world environments.

00:12:37.300 So now they have this identity as an intelligent person.

00:12:40.120 Well, and actually, let's point out, like, related to this,

00:12:42.740 is one of the top things parents are told not to tell their kids.

00:12:46.200 Never tell your kid they're smart.

00:12:47.420 Always praise them for working hard.

00:12:49.780 Because if someone is told they're smart,

00:12:51.960 they will then stop taking risks,

00:12:53.780 because they never want to do something where they can be proven not smart,

00:12:56.940 because it's part of their identity.

00:12:58.040 This is a good problem with it.

00:12:59.480 Well, they feed in, right?

00:13:00.800 This is a cumulative effect,

00:13:02.180 is when people grow up with this reputation of being this wunderkind,

00:13:06.040 it actually affects their outcomes,

00:13:08.000 because now they're not taking risks,

00:13:09.540 now they're not really expressing that much intellectual humility,

00:13:12.380 or being willing to fail in a way where they can learn real things,

00:13:15.600 because they can't let go of that identity.

00:13:18.360 They can't risk it.

00:13:19.360 But they also need the people around them to constantly fail.

00:13:22.780 That's another thing.

00:13:23.760 To maintain their position,

00:13:25.560 they need to talk down to people who may have, like,

00:13:29.780 genuine measurable success in the real world,

00:13:31.440 and they need projects that are happening around them in their ecosystem to constantly fail.

00:13:36.820 And so, a great historical example,

00:13:41.660 if you're talking about, like, a historical example of an anti-genius,

00:13:43.980 one of these people who's known as being smart,

00:13:45.820 but has never been successful at anything,

00:13:47.680 and makes their living off of parasitizing wealthy people,

00:13:51.100 would be Resputin.

00:13:52.440 I think he's the classic example of this.

00:13:55.180 And they constantly,

00:13:56.400 well, they damage the communities that they're in,

00:13:58.240 because once you get one of these sort of parasitic anti-geniuses attached to you,

00:14:02.960 as, like, a wealthy person,

00:14:03.820 they will siphon your money and your reputation

00:14:06.680 to increase their public image,

00:14:10.060 or how far they can broadcast their ideas and reputation,

00:14:13.880 because that is the commodity in which they trade

00:14:17.080 in a way that can be very damaging to you as an individual.

00:14:20.960 There's some famous modern examples of anti-genius.

00:14:23.420 I don't know if I want to make beefs.

00:14:25.140 Who's the one who I can talk about where I won't make a beef?

00:14:27.340 Greta Thornburg.

00:14:28.300 Greta Thornburg's a classic anti-genius. 1.00

00:14:30.000 Obviously, she's a child. 1.00

00:14:31.500 She's not smart. 0.99

00:14:32.380 Like, she's an actual...

00:14:34.460 Hey, there are really smart children out there.

00:14:36.500 I think the bigger issue is she's towing the line. 1.00

00:14:38.400 She doesn't have any unique ideas. 1.00

00:14:39.980 She's saying exactly what...

00:14:41.000 Yeah, but people would bandy her about, 0.99

00:14:43.540 like, oh, you have ideas.

00:14:44.860 And so what anti-geniuses often do within a modern ecosystem

00:14:47.520 is they make their entire career

00:14:49.280 around tearing down a specific field.

00:14:52.380 That is what they will do.

00:14:54.260 And since we are associated with things like the EA...

00:14:59.300 Don't name names.

00:14:59.920 Don't name names.

00:15:00.500 I won't name names.

00:15:01.640 But I would say a good sign of an anti-genius

00:15:03.500 is they've made their career around tearing down

00:15:06.620 other fields around sensationalism,

00:15:09.620 but they've never actually accomplished anything of their own

00:15:12.260 within the field of any real merit.

00:15:14.180 So that's one type of anti-genius you'll see.

00:15:16.760 The second type of anti-genius you'll see

00:15:18.700 is the mystical anti-genius.

00:15:20.640 So these individuals hide that their ideas are really bad

00:15:24.960 by covering them in forms of mysticism

00:15:29.140 that can't be proven absolutely right or wrong,

00:15:32.580 but that can sound really smart. 0.99

00:15:35.220 Oh, like the pseudo-profound bullshit thing? 0.99

00:15:38.400 Yeah. 1.00

00:15:38.840 But some people are so good at pseudo-profound bullshit 0.99

00:15:41.060 that you're just not going to be able to catch them on it. 1.00

00:15:43.660 Yeah.

00:15:43.980 And us saying all this,

00:15:47.960 this is actually one of our more dangerous videos

00:15:49.880 because I'm afraid that somebody who is 0.95

00:15:53.240 one of these anti-geniuses will see this

00:15:55.280 and recognize how threatening we are to their income streams

00:15:57.560 if we spread this just like, I think, obvious...

00:16:00.980 But here's the thing is I genuinely don't believe people

00:16:04.560 who fall for performative geniuses

00:16:08.080 are going to stop falling for them.

00:16:11.000 Like you've spent decades trying to convince people

00:16:15.180 to stop listening to either like scam artists,

00:16:19.640 like I'm not saying these people are scam artists,

00:16:22.160 but like you've tried to convince people for years

00:16:24.580 to stop listening to scam artists

00:16:25.960 or stop listening to people who are just performative

00:16:28.240 We do financial advising for some, you know, elderly people.

00:16:33.120 Exactly.

00:16:33.760 And like nothing you say.

00:16:35.820 Scams is just like a constant,

00:16:37.580 no matter how many times I'm like, this is a scam.

00:16:39.520 This is exactly like the scam you got hit with last time.

00:16:42.260 Here's how you can recognize these scams in the future.

00:16:45.000 And it's the same thing with these groups.

00:16:47.660 You know, we're like, okay, you know,

00:16:48.940 this is another anti-genius.

00:16:50.440 But no, yeah, but no one ever, ever,

00:16:54.100 no matter what you say, has changed their views.

00:16:56.460 So I don't actually think anything you're saying.

00:16:58.500 Well, I think if I reach young people early enough,

00:17:00.660 they'll begin to build up pattern recognition around that.

00:17:02.980 And so that's why I hope our channel

00:17:04.260 and our podcast does reach.

00:17:05.880 I mean, I like that we have older fans,

00:17:07.320 but I think that if you can catch someone

00:17:09.420 with some of these pattern recognition things

00:17:11.020 when they're younger, before they build ideas,

00:17:13.360 like this is what a smart person looks like.

00:17:15.420 This is what I, and they'll think,

00:17:17.160 oh, they do this.

00:17:18.180 They talk like this.

00:17:19.100 They have these degrees.

00:17:20.120 Like none of those things are actual signs

00:17:21.460 of a smart person.

00:17:22.200 A smart person is their ability to predict

00:17:25.000 or affect future outcomes

00:17:26.400 with knowledge of the current world.

00:17:28.320 Right, well, so that's actually

00:17:29.020 what I wanted to ask you.

00:17:29.940 Like, so what are your tips to people

00:17:31.780 on like, should you actually consider this person

00:17:36.700 an expert in a field

00:17:38.280 or someone who has like really interesting ideas

00:17:40.820 or someone that you should turn to for wisdom?

00:17:42.940 And how do you determine whether someone is

00:17:45.180 maybe acting like a genius in their field,

00:17:48.820 but not actually someone who's going to give you advice

00:17:51.300 that will get you where you want to be?

00:17:52.520 Yeah, so I think that there's a few core things here.

00:17:56.120 One, if when they're coming to you,

00:17:58.640 their primary recommendation is other people

00:18:01.160 say they're smart or other people

00:18:04.000 who are generally thought of as smart say they're smart,

00:18:06.120 but they don't seem to have ever

00:18:08.460 actually accomplished anything concrete,

00:18:10.840 then that's a really big red flag

00:18:14.200 because people who are actually that smart

00:18:16.600 generally don't have that hard of time

00:18:19.060 accomplishing things.

00:18:19.820 Like whether it's starting a company

00:18:21.980 and making it successful

00:18:22.880 or coming up with a new scientific theory

00:18:24.560 or, and a sign of a true genius,

00:18:27.420 I think like the highest level of genius

00:18:29.200 that we would say

00:18:29.880 is somebody who has been independently smart

00:18:32.740 in multiple fields

00:18:33.920 where their intelligence was in one field,

00:18:37.160 didn't contribute or contributed only minorly

00:18:40.440 to their ability to be successful

00:18:42.140 within another field.

00:18:43.520 So if they can consistently come at multiple fields

00:18:47.060 and be successful in them, I'm like, wow,

00:18:48.840 that's like the opposite of an anti-genius.

00:18:50.540 That's like a super genius.

00:18:52.120 I would call that because a person can be successful

00:18:54.500 in a field accidentally sometimes.

00:18:56.500 For sure.

00:18:57.320 It's really hard to be accidentally successful

00:18:59.720 in multiple fields in, in, in different areas.

00:19:02.920 Then you like that.

00:19:03.660 And of course, shock calling.

00:19:05.280 Like if, if someone said, I'm going to do this,

00:19:08.260 especially if people doubt them

00:19:09.600 and then they do it, that that's a big thing.

00:19:12.440 And yeah, cross-disciplinary accomplishment,

00:19:14.280 I think is, is also super huge

00:19:16.140 and, and hard to replicate if you, if you haven't,

00:19:21.360 if you haven't really mastered like life and wisdom.

00:19:25.640 Well, if you don't have a genuine understanding

00:19:26.920 of the world, you know, if you're understanding,

00:19:29.400 if you're under, if whatever special access

00:19:31.660 to knowledge you have doesn't have real world applicability,

00:19:35.120 you don't have special access to knowledge.

00:19:37.800 What you have is an ability to convince people

00:19:39.700 you have a special access to knowledge.

00:19:41.100 And for you to say, it's not a, it is a scam.

00:19:44.200 If your knowledge has no way to measure it

00:19:47.520 in no real world applicability,

00:19:49.280 it's just that you're good at convincing people of that.

00:19:53.080 That's not knowledge.

00:19:54.760 That's, and this is what, well,

00:19:57.060 I think Mensa is a great way to sort for anti-geniuses. 1.00

00:20:00.020 I know.

00:20:01.040 Because if somebody was a real genius,

00:20:02.900 they wouldn't be in Mensa.

00:20:04.220 They'd be out there making a lot of money.

00:20:05.700 They'd be out there doing something.

00:20:07.500 Their, their special access to information

00:20:09.580 about the world would give them some competitive edge.

00:20:12.200 If it has, if it's given them so little competitive edge

00:20:15.060 that the way they prove that they're smart

00:20:17.900 is through Mensa, then they're likely not smart.

00:20:21.040 And this is why a lot of Mensa, it's funny.

00:20:22.740 A lot of Mensa has become, they say like a big problem

00:20:25.100 with Mensa is it's become like a board game

00:20:26.560 and like crime solving society.

00:20:28.260 What?

00:20:28.540 Or like no crime nights and stuff like that.

00:20:30.320 Like just like nerdy things.

00:20:32.380 I guess if you have time to waste on joining

00:20:34.600 and participating in Mensa,

00:20:36.040 you are not really succeeding in the real world.

00:20:39.040 Well, yeah, that seems like an obvious truism to me.

00:20:43.280 Do you disagree or?

00:20:44.840 No, I don't disagree.

00:20:45.680 I think that that's a, that's a good identifier.

00:20:47.660 I think what you also pointed to earlier,

00:20:49.320 which is that a really common thing among these people,

00:20:52.000 like, you know, CEOs of startups

00:20:54.100 who constantly raise money,

00:20:55.260 then like blow up their startups

00:20:56.900 and then just do it again.

00:20:57.860 Or like people who say that they're experts in a field,

00:20:59.980 but just aren't,

00:21:01.340 they don't really know what they're talking about.

00:21:02.620 Is they're really, really, really good with words

00:21:05.160 and they're very convincing.

00:21:06.940 They're charismatic.

00:21:08.340 And I think that's another thing is

00:21:09.760 I even just saw someone like tweet about this today,

00:21:12.220 that, that it's, it's really hard to like,

00:21:15.800 a lot of people just assume if someone is eloquent,

00:21:18.120 if someone is well-spoken,

00:21:19.460 they're really good writer,

00:21:20.520 that that, that means that they must be

00:21:23.320 generally very smart.

00:21:25.420 It's the word cell version of autism.

00:21:28.100 So if somebody is like that sort of autistic, 1.00

00:21:30.700 really good at engineering,

00:21:31.700 and you can talk to them

00:21:33.060 and you can immediately know,

00:21:33.860 oh, this person might be good at engineering,

00:21:35.320 but I'm not going to like,

00:21:36.540 let them impart me with their life philosophy

00:21:39.060 or let them impart me with like,

00:21:42.020 a certain type of tax advice

00:21:43.080 that I know they know nothing about.

00:21:44.540 But if you happen to have that level of intelligence,

00:21:47.840 but it's really narrowly focused at word selling,

00:21:52.000 then you can become actually very dangerous

00:21:54.800 because people improperly judge your level of competence

00:21:58.780 and entrust you with things they shouldn't trust you with.

00:22:01.520 And a point I want to make to something Simone kept saying,

00:22:03.680 so if somebody fails at a startup,

00:22:05.580 even multiple startups,

00:22:06.840 that doesn't mean they're dumb.

00:22:08.320 It's how they failed at those multiple startups, 0.93

00:22:10.760 which is a sign as to whether or not 0.99

00:22:12.160 they're actually dumb. 0.98

00:22:13.140 That is not to say that people with this sort of ability 1.00

00:22:15.780 can't multiple times raise money for something

00:22:18.160 and have people.

00:22:19.160 I've actually noticed most of the people

00:22:21.400 who I thought were anti-geniuses

00:22:22.920 in the startup world have washed out.

00:22:24.560 Because I can think of some off the top of my head

00:22:27.220 who I thought were absolutely anti-geniuses.

00:22:29.720 I was like, okay, right now,

00:22:31.560 everyone thinks this person is smarter than me,

00:22:33.200 but I can tell they're not actually that smart.

00:22:35.280 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:35.640 Like they just raised for something

00:22:36.880 and you're just like,

00:22:37.820 I'm, this is going to crash and burn.

00:22:39.580 Oh, and I always grinded my teeth

00:22:41.460 when they were like a higher status than me

00:22:43.400 in intelligence.

00:22:43.880 They're like, well, we got to ask

00:22:44.680 a really smart person.

00:22:46.100 And then they have crashed and burned

00:22:47.180 and now they're just generally known

00:22:48.540 as like smart people

00:22:49.540 who go to parties as smart people.

00:22:51.260 But like VCs quickly learn

00:22:52.940 not to give them money.

00:22:53.740 One other point,

00:22:54.840 and I think this is also important

00:22:56.040 and related to what we're talking about

00:22:57.460 is sometimes you can be a true,

00:22:59.360 genuine genius in one field.

00:23:01.120 And then another common fallacy

00:23:02.880 I see people demonstrate

00:23:04.820 is that they assume

00:23:06.220 that they're just a genius.

00:23:07.820 So like, oh,

00:23:08.900 like maybe they're like

00:23:09.860 a world-class physicist

00:23:11.100 and then they start giving people health advice

00:23:13.280 and no one really questions it

00:23:15.160 because they're like,

00:23:15.480 oh yeah, Nobel laureate.

00:23:16.620 Like, no, let's hear what this guy has to say.

00:23:18.820 And like, they really have,

00:23:20.260 they don't really understand

00:23:21.100 what they're talking about,

00:23:21.860 but they're so used to being super,

00:23:24.380 super good in their own field.

00:23:25.620 And they actually have the experience

00:23:28.080 and credentials and research

00:23:29.560 and, you know, like life in their field

00:23:32.580 to actually be really smart 1.00

00:23:33.740 that they don't know what it's like to be dumb. 0.99

00:23:36.620 Like they can't understand 1.00

00:23:37.620 that they're ignorant in another field. 0.97

00:23:39.060 And then they start basically 0.96

00:23:40.640 misleading a lot of people.

00:23:42.780 Well, and I need to also make clear

00:23:43.880 that this is a cultural perspective we have.

00:23:46.320 It is not a truism.

00:23:47.960 So different cultures,

00:23:49.820 because I have defined

00:23:50.620 how our culture defines intelligence.

00:23:52.380 And by this definition of intelligence,

00:23:53.880 these people are not intelligent.

00:23:55.800 Different cultures relate to reality

00:23:57.520 in different ways.

00:23:58.360 And they may believe

00:23:59.300 that there's like some underlying

00:24:00.740 metaphysicalness to reality

00:24:02.860 and that these people swim really well

00:24:04.960 within those environments.

00:24:06.300 And that they're not actually

00:24:07.980 as damaging within those environments

00:24:09.460 because they're able to focus

00:24:11.000 all of their ideas

00:24:12.300 instead of on like tearing other people down

00:24:14.940 on advancing this weird

00:24:17.380 sort of word-sell-y art.

00:24:20.460 And so that's really fine.

00:24:21.940 And it also, it changes the way

00:24:23.120 that we, you and I,

00:24:24.360 have interacted with the world.

00:24:25.660 We've written a number

00:24:26.320 of best-selling books now.

00:24:27.900 Our podcast is growing.

00:24:28.920 You know, I'd love that it grew faster,

00:24:30.160 but it's growing, right?

00:24:31.220 And a lot of people are like,

00:24:32.160 you guys seem like really like

00:24:33.740 cogent intellectuals

00:24:34.780 with a hard view of the world

00:24:36.600 that you really thought through

00:24:37.600 within a lot of different domains.

00:24:39.480 Like, why are you just now

00:24:41.140 entering the intellectual space?

00:24:43.060 And the answer is twofold.

00:24:44.760 One is we wanted to make sure

00:24:45.960 we had income streams

00:24:47.060 before we entered

00:24:47.760 the intellectual space

00:24:48.580 so we would never be determinate

00:24:50.480 on our audience for what we said

00:24:53.120 because we never want

00:24:54.520 to get audience captured.

00:24:55.360 We never want to enter a space

00:24:56.320 where I'm afraid to say something

00:24:57.660 because I know I'll lose some audience.

00:24:59.060 Like when we did that pro-Jewish episode,

00:25:00.660 we lost a number of subscribers.

00:25:02.620 And I was like, whatever.

00:25:05.060 But the other thing is,

00:25:06.300 is from our cultural perspective,

00:25:08.400 it would feel immoral

00:25:11.360 to go out and start acting like

00:25:13.940 I had any special access to knowledge

00:25:16.720 had I not first applied

00:25:18.540 that knowledge to the world

00:25:19.820 and had it allowed me

00:25:21.560 to out-compete other people

00:25:23.520 in multiple domains,

00:25:25.160 whether it's the academic domain

00:25:26.460 or the domain of the business world.

00:25:27.980 So like I started my career

00:25:29.560 in psychology

00:25:30.440 and I had a bunch of weird ideas

00:25:32.240 about how humans thought.

00:25:33.880 And when I brought those ideas

00:25:35.300 to my supervisor,

00:25:37.620 they were like,

00:25:38.040 this is just like a completely

00:25:39.040 different framework

00:25:40.240 for how the human mind works.

00:25:41.400 Like, why don't you just pick one thing

00:25:43.400 and work on that?

00:25:44.580 And I had this sort of epiphany

00:25:46.540 where I was like,

00:25:47.320 you know what?

00:25:48.380 If I actually do have

00:25:49.540 a better understanding

00:25:50.420 of how humans think

00:25:51.900 than the existing dogma

00:25:53.600 of the psychiatry community,

00:25:55.760 then I shouldn't go into psychology.

00:25:57.780 I should go into business school.

00:26:00.180 And that's why I ended up

00:26:01.920 going to get an MBA

00:26:02.960 because I was like,

00:26:03.700 let's apply these ideas

00:26:04.840 in real world environments

00:26:06.080 and see if they allow me

00:26:07.480 to out-compete other people.

00:26:08.820 And they did.

00:26:09.460 And now I am fairly confident

00:26:11.120 that most of my ideas

00:26:12.120 are pretty accurate.

00:26:13.220 And not just within business,

00:26:14.540 within my relationships.

00:26:15.360 I think we have

00:26:15.700 a pretty healthy relationship.

00:26:16.900 Like, I wouldn't be going out there

00:26:18.060 giving people relationship advice

00:26:19.600 or advice on how

00:26:20.760 to structure their lives

00:26:21.900 if I didn't have

00:26:23.280 my own life together.

00:26:24.520 Like, for example,

00:26:26.520 if I was a,

00:26:27.700 hypothetically,

00:26:29.080 if I was a drug addict

00:26:30.480 who like had like a room

00:26:31.820 that was a disaster,

00:26:32.860 I wouldn't be going out there

00:26:33.860 telling people to make their beds

00:26:35.160 or that stoicism

00:26:35.900 is the answer

00:26:36.580 to all of life's stories.

00:26:37.420 Oh, sick burn, Mel. 0.99

00:26:40.280 And with that,

00:26:41.440 hold on.

00:26:42.840 There are some people

00:26:43.620 who are much smarter than us

00:26:44.820 who are waiting at daycare.

00:26:46.800 Oh my gosh,

00:26:47.900 our little toddlers.

00:26:49.740 Cots, cots, cots.

00:26:50.940 Get them home.

00:26:52.320 We got to make them

00:26:53.500 better than us.

00:26:54.960 Yes.

00:26:55.520 So, sorry.

00:26:56.500 We have to end this conversation,

00:26:57.820 but I love talking about this.

00:26:59.660 I love talking about it too.

00:27:01.240 And this one might have been

00:27:02.000 too spicy.

00:27:02.660 I don't know.

00:27:03.180 I'm going to have to,

00:27:03.700 I'm going to have to edit out

00:27:04.840 a lot of parts

00:27:05.420 where I might allude

00:27:06.120 to specific individuals.

00:27:07.260 I love you.

00:27:10.120 I love you too, Malcolm.

00:27:11.760 Tally-ho.

Based Camp - July 11, 2023

Based Camp： Garden Gnomes are Destroying Academia

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