There’s a related dynamic where someone is an Alice in at least one area (usually many), but then they over-update and think they’re better at epistemology/insight/etc than they really are and become an Alex in other areas.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-dilbert-afterlife comes to mind as a case study of this (at least if I’m remembering one of the points Scott makes right), and in my opinion @Said Achmiz is an example of this (edit: albeit not a late stage one). They have noticed things/problems most people missed, then update to an overly strong prior on “I don’t understand this thing”->”something is actually wrong here” or “I think X even though others don’t”->”X is true”. Which to be fair, most people have an overly strong prior on “I don’t understand this thing”->”I’m just going to accept it and assume it’s for good reason and maybe even perpetuate/enforce it” or “I think X even though others don’t”->”X must be wrong”, and the art is figuring out how to gracefuly notice and then navigate confusion
There’s a related dynamic where someone is an Alice in at least one area (usually many), but then they over-update and think they’re better at epistemology/insight/etc than they really are and become an Alex in other areas.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-dilbert-afterlife comes to mind as a case study of this (at least if I’m remembering one of the points Scott makes right), and in my opinion @Said Achmiz is an example of this (edit: albeit not a late stage one). They have noticed things/problems most people missed, then update to an overly strong prior on “I don’t understand this thing”->”something is actually wrong here” or “I think X even though others don’t”->”X is true”. Which to be fair, most people have an overly strong prior on “I don’t understand this thing”->”I’m just going to accept it and assume it’s for good reason and maybe even perpetuate/enforce it” or “I think X even though others don’t”->”X must be wrong”, and the art is figuring out how to gracefuly notice and then navigate confusion