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by roenxi 1367 days ago
People are trying to copy the smartest person in the room, but don't themselves have a good way of evaluating how smart an idea is. When that strategy produces a miss, it produces a rather absurd one (like in this anecdote).

But the strategy itself is good, particularly if the group correctly identifies who has the best ideas. Copying smart people works if you can find them.
2 comments
marcosdumay 1367 days ago
> Copying smart people works if you can find them.

Well, works more often than not (I hope your downside risks are low). While understanding what they are doing works almost every time.

Besides, it works more often than not, in a simple setting where there is no antagonistic communicator. In a word with propaganda and politics, it fails almost every time.

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a1369209993 1367 days ago
> understanding what they are doing works almost every time.

To be fair, understanding what they are doing requires being smart yourself (usualy not as smart as coming up with it in the first place, but only usually), and while smartness isn't always or completely unlearnable, in practice it's usually hard and/or impractical, especially if you're not smart to begin with.

Of course, distinguishing (honest) smart people from (possibly smart) con artists also generally requires being smart, so that doesn't help much.

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ouid 1367 days ago
>The strategy itself is good.

You cannot factor the strategy from its implementation here. I think that was trying to be your point but then you contradicted yourself. I must encourage you to commit. A dumb person who tries to find smart people will find only con-artists. Its the law of lemons.

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roenxi 1367 days ago
A strategy doesn't have to work every time to be good. "Dumb people" can and do find people smarter than themselves and put in an effort to copy them. Usually that is a good idea - better than trying to go it alone, any way.
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ouid 1367 days ago
My brother in christ, most of the people who voted for donald trump did so because they think he's smart. Its a good goal. its a terrible strategy.
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roenxi 1366 days ago
That is a slightly different situation though, isn't it? The US presidential elections are a choice between 2 options, usually both bad. The results suggest all 3 candidates in the last 2 US elections are borderline unelectable and both parties are engaged in a bizarre war to find the worst candidate people will vote for.

Which is not at all the same as the fairly typical group dynamics.

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