Did other smart people put as much time and fail? It’s not about size… find the post that you think required the most intelligence to make, that’s from where you estimate intelligence, from size you estimate persistence. With regards to topics, it also covers his opinions, many of which have low independent probability of being correct. That’s not very good—think what the reactions very smart people would have—it may be that the community is smarter than average but has an intelligence cut off point. Picture a much narrower bell curve centred at 115.
My first reaction to “Bayesian” this and that was, “too many words about too trivial topic”. We have coolest presidents on lowest denomination coins, and we have many coolest mathematician names on things that many 5th graders routinely reinvent on a math olympiad.
That plus I will only think someone is particularly bright if they successfully did something that smart people tried to do and failed. I apply that to myself and I sure won’t give a break to someone with a fanclub beyond ‘bright enough to get a fanclub’. (I would say he thinks he is very bright, but as of whenever he actually is, that has not been demonstrated as far as I can see)