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Comment by Hnrobert42 | Hacker News Reader

In 4-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris brags that he is a judo champion because he found a loophole in the judging criteria. By forcing people out of bounds 3 times in a match, he could disqualify them and win by default. Ok, sure. Those are the rules, and he won. But in any way that really matters, he was not a judo champion.

Further, this guy’s association with Tim Ferris (see his Youtube) is an automatic disqualification in my book.

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The fact that Ferris is completely transparent about how he won tells me that he probably doesn’t actually think of himself as a war machine.

You are also underestimating Judo here, too. It’s all about grappling and throws, positioning. Maybe keep that in mind a little bit when you say he won by forcing his opponent out of bounds. It’s not a street fight.

In judo, intentionally pushing opponent out of bounds is against the rules. Explicitly.

Ok.. so he’s still transparent about how he won. I’m not even going to google the specifics about what happened because judo is hardly something he legitimizes his image on. He’s not “judo champion” Tim Ferris.

Be that as it may, judo is pretty fierce and legit. I used to work as a bouncer with an ex multiple black belt judo champion. Not world class or anything but this guy was crazy, I’ve seen him take out pretty tough guys like it was nothing. If Tim Ferris could force him or someone like him out of bounds then colour me impressed.

He also made his initial fortune by selling dietary supplements with no scientific backing. And on and on. He is a con artist. He is open about it, but that is part of his con.

So your argument to dismiss this blogpost is guilt by association, am I understanding you correctly?

Yes, this is the current flavor of the month to show off one’s level of internet outrage. See: Scott Alexander / Astral Codex Ten.

It’s funny, I’d never heard of Scott before the HN outrage. I’m now a paying subscriber and have been enjoying his writing.

I've also enjoyed his writing but I can most certainly see his biases. He has a peculiar way of thoroughly researching some assumptions but then apparently having a complete blindspot to others, which is only made more apparently by how critically thinking all his posts are. I guess that's most people, though, they just rarely do so with the precision and eloquence of scott.

Have you seen this?

https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001

No, I haven't. Thanks for sending this over. I don't know the parties reporting.

Scott Alexander was recently exposed as horrifyingly racist and naive among other things. Just FYI.

https://twitter.com/ArsonAtDennys/status/1362153191102677001

The blog post's author lists a Ferriss book as one of his "3 favorite books" in a video on his channel, so it's more like "guilt by endorsement".

That's still guilt by association.

No. That is not what guilt by association means.

Yes. This article is about how to read a lot of books. In the author’s Youtube channel, he has Tim Ferris talking about speed reading. If the author is holding up that con artist as an exemplar, I will take the risk of skipping this post.

Interesting, "holding a title" vs "being a champion", it's like "passing an exam" vs "learning".

If I recall correctly I think Ali makes this distinction on his videos when he speaks about dedicating time to pass the exam or learning as much as you can from a topic, are two different issues, sadly.

I'd disqualify neither of them, it's just about defining what's the goal.

Tim hacked the competition. This is Hacker News. Why are you here? ;) (I don't want to insult you, I just wanted to formulate my point it in a slightly more provocative way. That hacking is also about finding such loopholes.)

Of all qualms you could have against Ferriss, this is the pettiest.

It is explicitly against the judo rules.

What are some more reasonable qualms to have? As a recent fan of Ferriss, I'm curious if there's something I'm missing.

Haha. It as just the easiest the type out on an iPhone.

There was a bit of a scandal about this a few years ago. As I recall, no one could find any record of Tim Ferris ever winning the Chinese kickboxing competition he claimed to have won. Was that ever resolved?

In a sense, I suppose, his point is valid either way. It is much easier to claim to have done something than to have actually done it, and you get the sane benefits either way.

So, lifehack?

https://www.martialdevelopment.com/how-to-win-kickboxing-wro...

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