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Comment by lend000 | Hacker News Reader

This appeal to authority always bothers me. Polymaths are capable of making bigger contributions in any field they involve themselves in than the average phD can in their own field of expertise. Look at Musk, Tesla, Von Neumann, Hughes, Da Vinci, Edison, Ben Franklin.

However, I wouldn't limit this to being a "genius" thing -- there may actually be something significant to being able to apply knowledge and patterns in one or more field to a seemingly unrelated field, and people who tend to be interested enough to learn and think about a lot of different fields in depth have a better base of mental abstractions for inventing in a new field, even if they don't score ridiculously high on an IQ test.

Note that this is just a general rant -- re: the article, I don't think the pitch is particularly interesting or noteworthy.

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Science and technology has moved on significantly since the Da Vinci days and modern day “geniuses” like Musk surround themselves with experts in each field.

On some topics you just have to accept that someone who has spent years of their live dedicated to a complex topic might actually be better placed to judge a solution than someone who specialises in an entirely unrelated field but happens to demonstrate a passing interest. Particularly when the topic is literally a matter of life or death.

On average, sure. And that may be a rational reason for a busy investor to reject a pitch meeting, but that's never a reason to dismiss an idea once you've read it, or in a forum where there is no cost to that idea existing (such as HN).

It’s a reason enough to be skeptical. How often have you read on here someone saying “can’t you just do x y and z” to a problem that is grossly more complex than the commenter initially appreciates?

A better stance would be to take such pitches as an interesting take but one which still requires peer review.

Edit: Remember when Musk tried to pitch a submarine to save those children stuck in a Thai cave and how local divers have to point out the passage ways were too narrow for even Musks child size sub? Being smart doesn’t mean you are equality qualified to resolve hard problems in other people’s fields.

It's an excuse not to think. Now, if you feel that YOU are not qualified to evaluate the idea, that's a different story. Don't act on the idea until it comes from someone you trust. But that's no reason to tell others it's unworthy of their evaluation.

Citing Elon Musk in this context is definitely not making the point you think it’s making.

Name one aeronautical engineer phD who deserves more credit for giving America the ability to put humans in space next month than Musk.

He's quite involved with technical decisions. His social media behavior is irrelevant here -- this is about the ability to innovate outside of physics or economics, which is what he learned about in college.

> putting humans back on the moon next month

Wait what? Despite the pandemic?

Oops. Edited, misread the last launch headline. Just Earth orbit, although still an important milestone for America to have shuttle capability again.

> Name one aeronautical engineer phD who deserves more credit for giving America the ability to put humans in space next month than Musk.

Why limit it to them? Without the Internet, there would have been no X.com, no PayPal, no billion dollar paycheck. If "funding" a large project is the equivalent of "being a scientific genius", I think we'll add a lot of geniuses to the books, and we should probably include every government official that makes decisions about funding large projects.

And really ... who deserves more credit for putting a man on the moon than Karl Marx? Without Marx no communism, without communism no Soviet Union, without SU no American fear of losing dominance, and without that no ambitious and well-funded space program.

Marx was a bit further removed from day to day decisions on rocket architecture than Musk if I understand correctly.

Why not? It doesn't matter if he's... Elon Musk. What he's accomplished in fields he wasn't trained in is significant. I think that makes OPs point just fine.

Unlike the other people in the list, Musk (and Huges) have never made a significant scientific discovery or invention.

He seems to have a rare skill for building large successful innovative companies with revolutionary products. Not sure if that’s below or above the level of accomplishment of the reference group.

Because Elon Musk has made a series of incorrect, misleading, and ignorant statements about the Coronavirus crisis in order to benefit himself personally.

Beware of congratulating yourself on spotting one fallacy (appeal to authority) while faceplanting into another (selection bias).

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