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.”
Eliezer_Yudkowsky wrote:
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.”