“Against Modesty’s Bailey” by Zvi

Modesty arguments often say that you should mostly or entirely bow to ‘expert consensus’ or the views of particular others, and who are you to disagree. It has been a few years since I’ve properly addressed this so: My answer is that you are you. Other people are saying things for a wide variety of reasons, many of which are not about them paying attention and focusing on seeking this particular truth. Those people make mistakes all the time, and often have other motives and influences at work, especially social pressures and information cascades. Them being as smart as you, or smarter than you, does not exempt them from this, and them being higher status or credentialed or cooler definitely does not exempt them. A smart informed person sincerely thinking [X] can easily cease to be evidence for [X], once you have thought sufficiently about both [X] and why that person thinks [X]. Think for yourself, schmuck. Or, as I once put it: You Have The Right To Think, also the moral duty to do so. This post covers Eliezer Yudkowsky making a narrower claim than mine, about not conflating status with smarts [...] ---Outline:(01:39) Modesty's Bailey(02:30) Epistemic Peerage(03:45) The Exchange(08:52) Eliezer's Explanation(15:14) A Demonstration That Eliezer's Translation Accurately Describes Many People Whether Or Not It Describes Leopold(17:15) Wrong, Stupid and Low Status Are Three Distinct Things(20:03) A Quick Survey Of Some Reasons To Not Be Epistemically Modest(23:14) Against Modesty's Bailey --- First published: August 26th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PzEDEfBvTJsXewAyg/against-modesty-s-bailey --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.