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Comment by apo | Hacker News Reader

> Which leads to a caveat. Miranda is a very talented fellow; so are most of the other “high fliers” who crop up in “Range.” What worries me is that this emphasis — what social scientists call “restriction of range” — might skew Epstein’s moral just a bit.

I'm surprised that Dunning-Kruger wasn't mentioned here. High-flier generalists are especially vulnerable to self-deception. Their charisma, and the adulation it generates, conceals the consequences of weak understanding of specific topics. This species of generalist is very vulnerable to being blindsided by nuances readily apparent to those who have taken the time and effort to master a topic.

The Dunning-Kruger generalist tends to end up in a position of power, often with disastrous consequences. The current US administration's cabinet is full of them, for example.

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Best example of this would be Steve Jobs haranguing the CEO of Dow Corning, telling him he didn't know anything about the chemical structure of glass.

The Dunning-Kruger effect would apply just as much to a specialist as it would a generalist. No matter how specialized one gets, there’s always the possible cognitive bias that they think they know more than they do. There’s also the risk of tunnel vision and compartmentalization, where the specialist, unaware of of relevant information existing in some other silo continues to try to fit round pegs into square holes.

You could even argue that the Dunning-Kruger effect applies MORE to specialists than generalists, as generalists are already approaching problems as if they don't have as much experience as a specialist and are more likely to research and learn as part of the problem solving process instead of assume that they are already experts at this and make a mistake.

So true. It’s the feeling of, “the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know.”

I feel like most successful generalists approach problems from a perspective of "never stop learning" that is contrary to a false sense of confidence.

In other words, my perspective as a generalist is not that I already know enough about a topic (enough to be dangerous), but rather that I don't know many things but know how to learn quickly.

I think there is some truth that being a generalist requires a degree of confidence and charisma to constantly wade into things out of your depth, but without a healthy dose of fear and respect for the unknown, you're likely to get burned before getting very far.

A Dunning-Kruger generalist just seems like someone who has always gotten lucky with projects and has never had to reckon with running up against their lack of knowledge.

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