Why would you expect someone who has a high correct contrarian factor in one area to have it in another?
Bad beliefs do seem to travel in packs (according to Penn and Teller, and Eliezer, anyhow). Lots of alien conspiracy nuts are government conspiracy nuts as well. That’s not surprising, because bad beliefs are easy to pick up and they seem to be tribally maintained by the same tribe that maintains other bad beliefs.
But good beliefs? Really good ones? They’re difficult. They take years. If you don’t know of Less Wrong (or similar) as a source of good beliefs, you probably only have one set of good beliefs in your narrow area (like economics or quantum physics but not both). And you know what? You shouldn’t be expected to have more, if that’s the one set that you use to affect the world.
Barring only a few people with interdisciplinary interests, I would expect that the economists who are the best at predicting the stock market would answer “What’s a many-worlds interpretation?” to Eliezer’s question.
I think people who are subject matter experts are likely to have several correct contrarian beliefs in their subject area. This should provide at least some clustering.
People would also tend to have clusters of correct beliefs in areas their friends were subject matter experts in.
Why would you expect someone who has a high correct contrarian factor in one area to have it in another?
Bad beliefs do seem to travel in packs (according to Penn and Teller, and Eliezer, anyhow). Lots of alien conspiracy nuts are government conspiracy nuts as well. That’s not surprising, because bad beliefs are easy to pick up and they seem to be tribally maintained by the same tribe that maintains other bad beliefs.
But good beliefs? Really good ones? They’re difficult. They take years. If you don’t know of Less Wrong (or similar) as a source of good beliefs, you probably only have one set of good beliefs in your narrow area (like economics or quantum physics but not both). And you know what? You shouldn’t be expected to have more, if that’s the one set that you use to affect the world.
Barring only a few people with interdisciplinary interests, I would expect that the economists who are the best at predicting the stock market would answer “What’s a many-worlds interpretation?” to Eliezer’s question.
I think people who are subject matter experts are likely to have several correct contrarian beliefs in their subject area. This should provide at least some clustering. People would also tend to have clusters of correct beliefs in areas their friends were subject matter experts in.