In fields where it’s possible to make progress with first-principles arguments/armchair reasoning, I think smart non-experts stand a chance of outperforming. I don’t want to make strong claims about the likelihood of success here; I just want to say that it’s a live possibility. I am much more comfortable saying that outperforming conventional wisdom is extremely unlikely on topics where first-principles arguments/armchair reasoning are insufficient.
(As it happens, EAs aren’t really disputing the experts in philosophy, but that’s beside the point...)
So basically, just philosophy, math, and some very simple applied math (like, say, the exponential growth of an epidemic), but already that last example is quite shaky.
In fields where it’s possible to make progress with first-principles arguments/armchair reasoning, I think smart non-experts stand a chance of outperforming. I don’t want to make strong claims about the likelihood of success here; I just want to say that it’s a live possibility. I am much more comfortable saying that outperforming conventional wisdom is extremely unlikely on topics where first-principles arguments/armchair reasoning are insufficient.
(As it happens, EAs aren’t really disputing the experts in philosophy, but that’s beside the point...)
So basically, just philosophy, math, and some very simple applied math (like, say, the exponential growth of an epidemic), but already that last example is quite shaky.