It's because they believe in a particular ideology of greatness, that it is some ontological thing, that there are great people and great ideas and great achievements for really real. The reason, of course, is that they think they are among the elect. It's Uncle Andrew in C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew:
"But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.”
Since their reasoning on this is completely self-absorbed, they can hardly be expected to take their effective altruism reasoning seriously and think "Since we are on a planet of so many billions, there must be so many Shakespeares now amongst us". That feels a bit too much like democracy or something icky like that. More, I suspect, they think that they personally represent some sort of heretofore unknown god-tier greatness--that perhaps there are so many more Shakespeares, but there has never been anybody so great as themselves, or so very few. A Napoleon or two before, and only a few more now. It's warmed-over Carlyle.
Their absolute confidence is striking. I try to think a lot about our cultural lives, but I am completely reluctant to make any such sweeping judgments. I think Hume* had some sound reasoning on what artistic judgments require: calm and delicate sensibility, experience, points of comparison, and lack of prejudice, including that prejudice to which we are all prone to judge based solely upon standards of our place and age. But these fellows don’t think they need any of this, just a banal observation on population and literacy growth, and then to ask “well, what are the odds?” (Although SBF thinks “Bayesian priors” is a cooler way to say that). No need to really spend any time thinking any of this through. Which I sense is their approach to most questions.
*Whom some call Britain’s greatest philosopher, though by now there must be lads and lasses walking the streets of Edinburgh who far surpass him...
The observation about SBF relying on Bayes born in 1702 to debunk Shakespeare made me smile.
It's because they believe in a particular ideology of greatness, that it is some ontological thing, that there are great people and great ideas and great achievements for really real. The reason, of course, is that they think they are among the elect. It's Uncle Andrew in C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew:
"But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.”
Since their reasoning on this is completely self-absorbed, they can hardly be expected to take their effective altruism reasoning seriously and think "Since we are on a planet of so many billions, there must be so many Shakespeares now amongst us". That feels a bit too much like democracy or something icky like that. More, I suspect, they think that they personally represent some sort of heretofore unknown god-tier greatness--that perhaps there are so many more Shakespeares, but there has never been anybody so great as themselves, or so very few. A Napoleon or two before, and only a few more now. It's warmed-over Carlyle.
Their absolute confidence is striking. I try to think a lot about our cultural lives, but I am completely reluctant to make any such sweeping judgments. I think Hume* had some sound reasoning on what artistic judgments require: calm and delicate sensibility, experience, points of comparison, and lack of prejudice, including that prejudice to which we are all prone to judge based solely upon standards of our place and age. But these fellows don’t think they need any of this, just a banal observation on population and literacy growth, and then to ask “well, what are the odds?” (Although SBF thinks “Bayesian priors” is a cooler way to say that). No need to really spend any time thinking any of this through. Which I sense is their approach to most questions.
*Whom some call Britain’s greatest philosopher, though by now there must be lads and lasses walking the streets of Edinburgh who far surpass him...