I agree with the general point that idea generators are often overconfident and poorly calibrated, but I’m not super excited about conflating that with being disagreeable. There’s something there, in that being impatient with the failings of others can be a good impetus to create something better, but I think there are also plenty of generators who aren’t highly disagreeable, and if that’s the case it seems bad for the dichotomy as formulated here to catch on.
One example archetype of a generator who isn’t disagreeable is someone who is both very intelligent and very enthusiastic/excitable. This person will generate lots of cool new ideas they’re super excited about, and will likely still be overconfident and poorly calibrated, without feeling particularly motivated to yell about other people’s bad ideas.
This clustering is based on anecdotal data; I wouldn’t be too surprised if it were wrong. I’d be extremely curious for someone to do a cluster analysis here and see if there are any real clusters here.
I feel like I’ve noticed a distinct cluster of generators who are disagreeable, and have a hard time thinking of many who are agreeable. Maybe you could give some examples that come to mind to you? Anders Sandberg comes to my mind, and maybe some futurists and religious people.
My hunch is that few top intellectuals (that I respect) would score in the 70th percentile or above on the big 5 agreeableness chart, but I’m not sure. It’s an empirical question.
I don’t remember hearing about a generators/evaluators dichotomy before, that you & Stefan mention. I like that dichotomy too, it’s quite possible it’s better than the one I raise here.
At the very least I think we can be more confident in the generators/evaluators (or /assessors) dichotomy, than in the further claim that the former tend to be disagreeable.
I’m coming at this from science, where lot of top generators have a strong “this is so cool!” sort of vibe to them – they have a thousand ideas and can’t wait to try them out. Don’t get me wrong, I think disagreeable generators play an important role in science too, but it’s not my go-to image of a generator in that space.
[Wild speculation] It’s plausible to me that this varies by field, based on the degree to which that field tends to strike out into new frontiers of knowledge vs generate new theories for things that are already well-studied. In the latter case, in order for new ideas to be useful, the previous work on the topic needs to be wrong in some way – and if the people who did the previous work are still around they’ll probably want to fight you. So if you want to propose really new ideas in those sorts of fields you’ll need to get into fights – and so generators in these fields will be disproportionately disagreeable. Whereas if everyone agrees that there are oodles of things in the field that are criminally understudied, you can potentially get quite a long way as a generator before you need to start knocking down other people’s work.
Obviously if this theory I just made up has any validity, it will be more of a spectrum than a binary. But this sort of dynamic might be at play here.
Albert Einstein also comes to mind as an agreeable generator. I haven’t read his biography or anything, but based on the collage of stories I’ve heard about him, he never seemed like a very disagreeable person but obviously generated important new ideas.
Dr. Greger from NutritionFacts.org also seems like an agreeable generator. Actually he may be disagreeable in that he’s not shy about pointing out flaws in studies and others’ conceptions, but he does it in an enthusiastic, silly and not particularly abrasive way.
It’s interesting that some people may still disagree often but not be doing it in a disagreeable manner.
I agree with the general point that idea generators are often overconfident and poorly calibrated, but I’m not super excited about conflating that with being disagreeable. There’s something there, in that being impatient with the failings of others can be a good impetus to create something better, but I think there are also plenty of generators who aren’t highly disagreeable, and if that’s the case it seems bad for the dichotomy as formulated here to catch on.
One example archetype of a generator who isn’t disagreeable is someone who is both very intelligent and very enthusiastic/excitable. This person will generate lots of cool new ideas they’re super excited about, and will likely still be overconfident and poorly calibrated, without feeling particularly motivated to yell about other people’s bad ideas.
This clustering is based on anecdotal data; I wouldn’t be too surprised if it were wrong. I’d be extremely curious for someone to do a cluster analysis here and see if there are any real clusters here.
I feel like I’ve noticed a distinct cluster of generators who are disagreeable, and have a hard time thinking of many who are agreeable. Maybe you could give some examples that come to mind to you? Anders Sandberg comes to my mind, and maybe some futurists and religious people.
My hunch is that few top intellectuals (that I respect) would score in the 70th percentile or above on the big 5 agreeableness chart, but I’m not sure. It’s an empirical question.
I don’t remember hearing about a generators/evaluators dichotomy before, that you & Stefan mention. I like that dichotomy too, it’s quite possible it’s better than the one I raise here.
Spencer Greenberg also comes to mind; he once noted that his agreeableness is in the 77th percentile. I’d consider him a generator.
At the very least I think we can be more confident in the generators/evaluators (or /assessors) dichotomy, than in the further claim that the former tend to be disagreeable.
I’m coming at this from science, where lot of top generators have a strong “this is so cool!” sort of vibe to them – they have a thousand ideas and can’t wait to try them out. Don’t get me wrong, I think disagreeable generators play an important role in science too, but it’s not my go-to image of a generator in that space.
[Wild speculation] It’s plausible to me that this varies by field, based on the degree to which that field tends to strike out into new frontiers of knowledge vs generate new theories for things that are already well-studied. In the latter case, in order for new ideas to be useful, the previous work on the topic needs to be wrong in some way – and if the people who did the previous work are still around they’ll probably want to fight you. So if you want to propose really new ideas in those sorts of fields you’ll need to get into fights – and so generators in these fields will be disproportionately disagreeable. Whereas if everyone agrees that there are oodles of things in the field that are criminally understudied, you can potentially get quite a long way as a generator before you need to start knocking down other people’s work.
Obviously if this theory I just made up has any validity, it will be more of a spectrum than a binary. But this sort of dynamic might be at play here.
Albert Einstein also comes to mind as an agreeable generator. I haven’t read his biography or anything, but based on the collage of stories I’ve heard about him, he never seemed like a very disagreeable person but obviously generated important new ideas.
Dr. Greger from NutritionFacts.org also seems like an agreeable generator. Actually he may be disagreeable in that he’s not shy about pointing out flaws in studies and others’ conceptions, but he does it in an enthusiastic, silly and not particularly abrasive way.
It’s interesting that some people may still disagree often but not be doing it in a disagreeable manner.