I often get asked for my opinions on a wide variety of subjects.
But I’m not an expert on everything. Far from it.
In fact, I'm an expert only in a narrow band of human knowledge, software engineering, and even then, since the field is incredibly broad, I am by no means an expert in all of it. I'd like to think I'm pretty good with back-end and distributed systems. However, I'm not the person to consult for anything that has to do with the front-end or things like embedded systems.
Nevertheless, I get asked constantly about things where my depth of knowledge is that I simply have an opinion.
“What’s your take on A.I.?”
“What’s your take on spirituality and philosophy?”
“What’s your skincare routine?”
It’s all very flattering. But I try my best not to let it get to my head.
There’s a phenomenon out there called “Nobel Disease,” the informal term for the embrace of strange or scientifically unsound ideas by some Nobel Prize winners, usually later in life.
Basically, the idea is that once people reach a certain level of fame and notoriety, it’s really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that their opinions and judgment will be stellar for everything. If someone is brilliant in one field it follows that they must be brilliant in other things, right?
Well, no. Here is a smattering of examples of Nobel Disease:
Luc Montagnier won the prize in 1980 for co-discovering HIV. Montagnier claimed that solutions containing the DNA of pathogenic bacteria and viruses could emit low frequency radio waves that induce surrounding water molecules to become arranged into "nanostructures". He suggested water could retain the "memory" of substances with which it had been in contact. He further claimed that DNA sequence information could be 'teleported' to a separate test tube of purified water via these radio waves.
Kary Mullis won the Nobel Prize in 1993 for the development of the polymerase chain reaction. Mullis held views contradicting the scientific consensus, asserting that HIV doesn't cause AIDS due to the virus's low detection rate in individuals with the disease. In his autobiography, he admitted to believing in astrology and mentioned an interaction with a glowing, speaking raccoon, which he speculated could have been an alien.
James Watson was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize, together with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material," or simply put, for discovering DNA. Since at least 2000, Watson has consistently and publicly claimed that black people are inherently less intelligent than white people, and that exposure to sunlight in tropical regions and higher levels of melanin cause dark-skinned people to have a higher sex drive.
The list is surprisingly long.
So please, continue to ask me questions, and I’ll do my best to answer. Obviously I haven’t come anywhere close to winning a Nobel prize, but I could see a situation where I develop the symptoms of Nobel Disease. Please always be skeptical about what I write, and to call me out if I say questionable things.
Always keep in mind that experts in one field, even brilliant ones, can still be idiots in other domains.
Do you have a good example of people that are brilliant in some things but absolute idiots in others? Let me know by responding to this email.
If you’re on my Discord you know that I’ve been live-streaming interviews from industry insiders. I decided to make the recordings of these talks available on my Patreon as a new perk. These recordings have previously only been available to members of Speedrun To Promotion.
I’ve uploaded the first one this week, a conversation with Alex Marple. Alex is a colleague of mine at Prime Video and was able to get to Principal Engineer in record time. I’ll be uploading the other videos in the back catalog over time, along with upcoming interviews.
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