Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?(nonzero.substack.com)
nonzero.substack.com
Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
https://nonzero.substack.com/p/is-eric-weinstein-a-crackpot
24 comments
"Ideas are ten a penny. It's a seller's market. "
Ideas being ten a penny would make them a buyers market - as the sellers aren't offering anything worth value nor scarce.
Edit - I agree with you though. Eric at least seems to admit his idea requires further development to get to testable a hypothesis(es?).
Ideas being ten a penny would make them a buyers market - as the sellers aren't offering anything worth value nor scarce.
Edit - I agree with you though. Eric at least seems to admit his idea requires further development to get to testable a hypothesis(es?).
He’s a smart, gifted orator, who fancies himself a misunderstood academic. Yet, this self-proclaimed outsider status is still just a chip on his shoulder. He has the resources and reach to bankroll his own research and get even with his old physics department, He _could_ put his money where his mouth is. But doesn’t. Why?
The answer is because he’s ten times the businessman than public intellectual. Playing Mr. Schizo on normie podcasts with the rest of the Dark Web Gang, is better business than actually trying to solve anything you’re bitching about. There is nothing outsider or punk rock about running in the same circles as Peter Thiel, no matter how much DMT you smoke.
The amount of acronyms for arcane theories and processes he “coined” himself reminds me of when Michael Scott declares bankruptcy out of a window. And his “audio essays” where he practically interviews himself reminds me of those gibberish podcasts designed to help listeners go to bed.
Weinstein is neither complicated or important. He’s been dancing on the knifes edge of quack pottery / People Who Should Be Taken Seriously™ for a while now. At some point in the future, another Epstein-tier banana peel will settle this once and for all.
The answer is because he’s ten times the businessman than public intellectual. Playing Mr. Schizo on normie podcasts with the rest of the Dark Web Gang, is better business than actually trying to solve anything you’re bitching about. There is nothing outsider or punk rock about running in the same circles as Peter Thiel, no matter how much DMT you smoke.
The amount of acronyms for arcane theories and processes he “coined” himself reminds me of when Michael Scott declares bankruptcy out of a window. And his “audio essays” where he practically interviews himself reminds me of those gibberish podcasts designed to help listeners go to bed.
Weinstein is neither complicated or important. He’s been dancing on the knifes edge of quack pottery / People Who Should Be Taken Seriously™ for a while now. At some point in the future, another Epstein-tier banana peel will settle this once and for all.
The summary I quote below represents the paranoid or less-successful-than-they-want-to-be professor. There are many at all levels of success and career development have literally devoted their lives to ideas they think will change the world if implemented. I've heard of people "scooping" ideas, decade long blockades on ideas, etc. People fail to cite the right people. Is that because they don't want to share glory or because it's not easy to keep up with research? The phrase "success has many fathers failure is an orphan" comes to mind.
----- he thinks his ideas are very important;
he thinks he doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves (especially for those important ideas);
he interprets in unflattering, even dark, terms the motivations of people who seem to keep him (or his relatives) from getting credit;
he strains to see pattern where it may not exist.
----- he thinks his ideas are very important;
he thinks he doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves (especially for those important ideas);
he interprets in unflattering, even dark, terms the motivations of people who seem to keep him (or his relatives) from getting credit;
he strains to see pattern where it may not exist.
My evaluation is that he is enormously intelligent. And like many people of enormous intelligence he suffers from something like an over-connected brain. He is too good at spotting connections between things, connections that potentially do not exist. The result is everything is a conspiracy - or some grand paradigm waiting to be unlocked. Definitely an interesting character and those sorts can push boundaries, but you should be careful about their conclusions.
This "over-connectedness" is also extremely common for brilliant people in finance. When you're surrounded by people playing dirty and things not being as they seem you develop a level of paranoia as a survival/coping mechanism.
Michael Burry, Ray Dalio, Eric Weinstein and the like are not usually paranoid or conspiratorial or contrarian, they're just more outspoken than most.
Michael Burry, Ray Dalio, Eric Weinstein and the like are not usually paranoid or conspiratorial or contrarian, they're just more outspoken than most.
I think the important part for these kinds of people is to weed out the false positives. But perhaps talking about all the connections is a social way, i.e have other people do it.
i feel weirdly qualified to comment on this since i've been somewhat of a fan of eric since his first joe rogan interview so here goes:
everytime i see an eric weinstein thread, i'm always surprised how many haters come out of the woodwork to shut him down (maybe he's deliberately being a controversial figure to growth-hack social media?), but anyway i generally like the guy
At his worst, he can be a bit full of himself and paints a picture like the world is out to get him. then again he met Epstein face to face.
But at his best he's a great conversationalist and intellectual on any and every subject. i enjoy his style, attitude, ideas, and perspective on math, music, and all things going on in the world.
I think his early portal episodes + his original joe rogan interview are "peak eric". His mantra about "escaping the planet" and "transcending" really resonated with me. I think lately he's kind of lost touch with his original message.
i respect him for "putting his money where his mouth is" and publishing his GU ideas -- even if they're wrong (it's all over my head) i think an academic-outsider putting out new ideas is cool and overall a good thing i'd like to see more of.
i've stopped following him as closely since his portal episodes have dropped off, so i'm not sure what he's done to become mired in all this controversy and criticism. But generally it feels like people are judging him through opinion pieces rather than making a first-hand judgment for themselves .. and (ultimately) missing out on some really great content and interviews.
go watch his original interview with joe rogan and some of his early portal episodes, i'd be surprised if it doesnt change your mind about him.
everytime i see an eric weinstein thread, i'm always surprised how many haters come out of the woodwork to shut him down (maybe he's deliberately being a controversial figure to growth-hack social media?), but anyway i generally like the guy
At his worst, he can be a bit full of himself and paints a picture like the world is out to get him. then again he met Epstein face to face.
But at his best he's a great conversationalist and intellectual on any and every subject. i enjoy his style, attitude, ideas, and perspective on math, music, and all things going on in the world.
I think his early portal episodes + his original joe rogan interview are "peak eric". His mantra about "escaping the planet" and "transcending" really resonated with me. I think lately he's kind of lost touch with his original message.
i respect him for "putting his money where his mouth is" and publishing his GU ideas -- even if they're wrong (it's all over my head) i think an academic-outsider putting out new ideas is cool and overall a good thing i'd like to see more of.
i've stopped following him as closely since his portal episodes have dropped off, so i'm not sure what he's done to become mired in all this controversy and criticism. But generally it feels like people are judging him through opinion pieces rather than making a first-hand judgment for themselves .. and (ultimately) missing out on some really great content and interviews.
go watch his original interview with joe rogan and some of his early portal episodes, i'd be surprised if it doesnt change your mind about him.
Very honest answer, for someone to show that much of what truley lies inside them, shows you have not been targeted YET by hateful peeps, not all areas of the phyce are bad, some people get off on others being happy Some get off on hurting others, to understand all this would take a lot of me explaining, it would go into many dimensions
sure, people in general want to make their friends happy and hurt their enemies. that's just tribalism.
or maybe you're referring to people who get off on hurting those weaker than them, that's just a power-trip.
but you know hate is really just a type of pain, and i pity the truly hateful more than i fear being targeted
or maybe you're referring to people who get off on hurting those weaker than them, that's just a power-trip.
but you know hate is really just a type of pain, and i pity the truly hateful more than i fear being targeted
emotions are like fingerprint's, its not likely that two people will have the same, if you ever meet someone who likes exactly what you like, all cozy like, then most probably their kissing your ass to manipulate you for something, but look into the fingerprint's, in whatever dimension, where the mani fold's lie, there are dead tone's , for example my dead area is hate so I have none, I can get angry but without the hate to fuel my indiscretions they don't have enough energy to arrive past a muon bus stop, some peeps dead areas are love, problem is that when making a judgement we have only one finger mark to measure it off against, which is relative and subjective, but everyone from Freud to Schopenhauer has imposed their subjective view as an objective one by using domination tactics and coke, they set it up to never be properly be argued against, and were unaware what harm they were doing, really to get to the nut of it all and get a good reach around to shove the wrench in the right direction, you would need someone someone who had a few different fingerprints, a different manifold on each digit, and obviously someone who understood that although monopoly might be the dominate game in town, it is by no means the best or most entertaining by a far mark, someone who understands not only that there are other games but and also understands the difference's between the rules and appreciates those nuance's
I think before addressing any of the specifics... the question to start with is "what if he is?" Are nutty crackpots something we need to worry about?
Newton was a crackpot, when he wasn't revolutionizing physics and maths. I'm not suggesting that Weinstein or other potential crackpots are Newton, just that they can coexist. At the least, a crackpot mindset can lead down paths less trodden.
That said... Weinstein. The most notable feature of Weinstein's headline appearances is his strident belligerence. No doubt he's conflicted with others in and around academia, been the thorn in a side, had "plots" against him. This is the office politics of academia. Like all office politics, it looms large. Weinstein, being who he is, tells the story from a "House of Cards" perspective, rather than a Dilbert perspective.
That said, Weinstein's beyond the reach of the dreaded DISC now. No one can suppress your ideas now, but you also can't claim that they are. Be free Eric.
Idea suppression is real, crackpottery is real and the grey area between them is real.
"Weinstein does appear to have a higher degree of crackpottery than most people, but look at some parts of his psychology that drive it: he thinks his ideas are very important; he thinks he doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves (especially for those important ideas); he interprets in unflattering, even dark, terms the motivations of people who seem to keep him (or his relatives) from getting credit; he strains to see pattern where it may not exist. I could go on, but the point is this: Don’t pretty much all of us have these tendencies? Aren’t they just parts of human nature."
Newton was a crackpot, when he wasn't revolutionizing physics and maths. I'm not suggesting that Weinstein or other potential crackpots are Newton, just that they can coexist. At the least, a crackpot mindset can lead down paths less trodden.
That said... Weinstein. The most notable feature of Weinstein's headline appearances is his strident belligerence. No doubt he's conflicted with others in and around academia, been the thorn in a side, had "plots" against him. This is the office politics of academia. Like all office politics, it looms large. Weinstein, being who he is, tells the story from a "House of Cards" perspective, rather than a Dilbert perspective.
That said, Weinstein's beyond the reach of the dreaded DISC now. No one can suppress your ideas now, but you also can't claim that they are. Be free Eric.
Idea suppression is real, crackpottery is real and the grey area between them is real.
"Weinstein does appear to have a higher degree of crackpottery than most people, but look at some parts of his psychology that drive it: he thinks his ideas are very important; he thinks he doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves (especially for those important ideas); he interprets in unflattering, even dark, terms the motivations of people who seem to keep him (or his relatives) from getting credit; he strains to see pattern where it may not exist. I could go on, but the point is this: Don’t pretty much all of us have these tendencies? Aren’t they just parts of human nature."
> he’s developed a unified field theory—a “theory of everything”—that, if correct, could not only put him next to Einstein in the physics pantheon
It's hard to state how monumental marrying GR and Quantum mechanics would be. Along with it, you'd get quantization of gravity, one of the holy grails.
Yeah he'd be up there with Einstein.
It's hard to state how monumental marrying GR and Quantum mechanics would be. Along with it, you'd get quantization of gravity, one of the holy grails.
Yeah he'd be up there with Einstein.
What does Eric Weinstein do? He rambles about every subject, positing awkward contrarian points of view, mixing in politics, physics (not just any physics but "theory of everything" physics), mathematics, Jeffery Epstein, BLM, beefs about higher education (specifically Harvard)-- ALL within the same long discussions/monologues.
Does that mean he's a crackpot? Well, he's definitely an outsider. He tends towards obfuscation and using turgid, roundabout rhetoric to say simple things. He will also sometimes throw out PHD level arcane mathematics vocab when he's talking to a general audience without trying to explain what he's actually saying. He devises acronyms like "DISC" and just uses them like everyone already knows what they mean.
The thing I simply don't understand is how come he can get so much exposure? He was on Lex Fridman twice (maybe 3 times?), Joe Rogan, and has had relatively healthy traffic on his podcast. The backstory is he cofounded something called the "intellectual dark web". Looking closer that just appears to be a loose coalition of vaguely libertarian folks that are neither intellectual, nor "dark" (they all have high profiles and don't have secret identities), nor really "a web" because its a relatively small number of people.
What has he _actually_ done? He's PHD from Harvard, so certainly he's smart. He's been working a day-job as a managing director for a Peter Theil money thing, so he's probably wealthy. Other than that, he appears to be a good cocktail party conversationalist, with probably more people laughing at him than with him (the guy is utterly humorless). Does that make him a crackpot? He's not worthy of the attention he gets, IMHO, and that makes the question moot.
Does that mean he's a crackpot? Well, he's definitely an outsider. He tends towards obfuscation and using turgid, roundabout rhetoric to say simple things. He will also sometimes throw out PHD level arcane mathematics vocab when he's talking to a general audience without trying to explain what he's actually saying. He devises acronyms like "DISC" and just uses them like everyone already knows what they mean.
The thing I simply don't understand is how come he can get so much exposure? He was on Lex Fridman twice (maybe 3 times?), Joe Rogan, and has had relatively healthy traffic on his podcast. The backstory is he cofounded something called the "intellectual dark web". Looking closer that just appears to be a loose coalition of vaguely libertarian folks that are neither intellectual, nor "dark" (they all have high profiles and don't have secret identities), nor really "a web" because its a relatively small number of people.
What has he _actually_ done? He's PHD from Harvard, so certainly he's smart. He's been working a day-job as a managing director for a Peter Theil money thing, so he's probably wealthy. Other than that, he appears to be a good cocktail party conversationalist, with probably more people laughing at him than with him (the guy is utterly humorless). Does that make him a crackpot? He's not worthy of the attention he gets, IMHO, and that makes the question moot.
Gee Whiz, why would he get all that exposure ?
Huh ?
Anyone ?
hahaha
Well, yeah, it's not obvious to me.
Eric's personal experience with Epstein is very interesting.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dJNjH4SP6vwJ
The author's attempt to hide behind such a thin vanner, does little to hide his bullying behaviours from all but those poor fools who are clueless to manipulation. Also he takes aim at those who can see the manipulation but are too cowardly to stand up for what they percive is a bully, he also trumpet call's to all those who can see what's he's up to, which is putting a mark on Weinstien, painting an unrealistic portrait of a weak man so those cowards who relish banding together to exploit the weak come out the woodwork.
One of the most amusing part's is at the end paragraph where in a final flourish and bow of his grubby soul's performance, he relishes scraping and pleading to us the audience that he is good person and how dare someone mention crackpot obviously gloryfieing in his deception of us, Don't count yet chickens sunshine.
Truth is he spent much time plotting and planning everyword because he gets a tingle being a sh#t stirrer. Truth is he has no control over these urges to get a tingle because his mind has been given no time to build resiliunce because he has lead himself down a path where all the processing power left to his brain is allocated to keeping his fantasy alive, trying to shoehorn truth into the narrative is beyond his grasp anymore The emotionaly disfigured phyce of the author is so blinded by its own misinformed Glee that its sly persona and style will go unnoticed and the mark he has put on Weinstien will be his downfall.
Now who cares if this piece of... calls Weinstien a crackpot, I like crackots, met a few and had good times with most. The author is trying to manipulate us, by fear, by evil and many methods displayed throughout the article, are we who read HN really going to pretend this is ok? that their is nothing wrong with this? This is not an arena for bull baiting and has lowered tone and standard of HN considerably
One of the most amusing part's is at the end paragraph where in a final flourish and bow of his grubby soul's performance, he relishes scraping and pleading to us the audience that he is good person and how dare someone mention crackpot obviously gloryfieing in his deception of us, Don't count yet chickens sunshine.
Truth is he spent much time plotting and planning everyword because he gets a tingle being a sh#t stirrer. Truth is he has no control over these urges to get a tingle because his mind has been given no time to build resiliunce because he has lead himself down a path where all the processing power left to his brain is allocated to keeping his fantasy alive, trying to shoehorn truth into the narrative is beyond his grasp anymore The emotionaly disfigured phyce of the author is so blinded by its own misinformed Glee that its sly persona and style will go unnoticed and the mark he has put on Weinstien will be his downfall.
Your brain can only process so many emotions at once and if you have a strong uncontrolable emotion, like fantasying a make-believe world where you are not seen as the creepy pathetic little runt that you are, then your brain will not have time to critique said fantasy and you will become more separated from reality as your own primal urges lead you to gaslight yourself, cutting yourself off forever from the portrait you protray to others.
I too have strong emotional urges, for peace, for fairness, for joy, but recently a new powerful urge is surfacing in me, an urge to tell the truth born from a realisation that our kindness is now doing much harm, I'm being mindful that it should not blindside me, but in all honesty feel similar to Raymond, I feel like God would be unhappy with me if I didn't, so to you who wrote this, do you know you have laid bare your pathetic emotional landscape for all to see and from now on people will only use, avoid pray for or pity you. If you think I'm mistaking it is only proof of what a misguided poor deluded fool you have become
Now who cares if this piece of... calls Weinstien a crackpot, I like crackots, met a few and had good times with most. The author is trying to manipulate us, by fear, by evil and many methods displayed throughout the article, are we who read HN really going to pretend this is ok? that their is nothing wrong with this? This is not an arena for bull baiting and has lowered tone and standard of HN considerably
> He says he would have become famous in math and physics circles decades ago had his ideas not been squelched by what he calls the “Distributed Idea Suppression Complex” (DISC).
Yes, he's a crackpot. Next.
Yes, he's a crackpot. Next.
The author disagrees:
So, all told, I think I’ll refrain from applying the ‘crackpot’ label here. I don’t think we should marginalize Weinstein’s ideas by stigmatizing him—even if he’s trying to do that to someone else.
So, all told, I think I’ll refrain from applying the ‘crackpot’ label here. I don’t think we should marginalize Weinstein’s ideas by stigmatizing him—even if he’s trying to do that to someone else.
The author merely disagreed on the stigmatizing tone of crackpot. But given that Eric Weinstein has a large following, is regularly invited to speak in publicized venues, has an important position in industry which should net him some nice connections, and has the money to actualize his ideas...
The failure to pursue his own ideas of unified physics for well over a decade, and the failure to develop consensus while saying everyone else is in conspiracy against him is what makes him, in the sum of all things, a crackpot.
The failure to pursue his own ideas of unified physics for well over a decade, and the failure to develop consensus while saying everyone else is in conspiracy against him is what makes him, in the sum of all things, a crackpot.
Note also that Substack itself has founders that donate content to alt-right outlets, and to paraphrase a figure from that universe (on another topic), it seems that they're not exactly allergic to the stuff. There's a lot of alt-right/IDW shilling on the site, which presumably reflects the places in which its been promoted. (There's also a bunch of not-partisan-warrior content, too, to be fair.)
I think a more important question than whether or not Eric Weinstein is a crackpot is: should we be spending time discussing Eric Weinstein at all?
Everything I've read so far suggests no. If his grand unified theory turns out to not be bullshit, we'll hear about it in due time.
I think a more important question than whether or not Eric Weinstein is a crackpot is: should we be spending time discussing Eric Weinstein at all?
Everything I've read so far suggests no. If his grand unified theory turns out to not be bullshit, we'll hear about it in due time.
I don't think we should call Weinstein alt-right. He's quite a conservative conspiracy prone guy and I don't particularly like him myself, but so far I haven't seen much suggesting far right leanings.
> should we be spending time discussing Eric Weinstein at all?
Fair question, perhaps not. We're doing that however because the guy is sort of famous by now and because he has made extraordinary claims about his own work and abilities. Extraordinary claims from sort of famous people inevitably draw attention.
> we'll hear about it in due time
I think it would be better if the question got settled sooner rather than later. If he's (mostly) right then he's a great misunderstood genius and we should start pursuing his theories and at the same time we should start draining the academic swamp that he alludes to. If he's wrong however, we should know it quickly so that we stop wasting our time with him.
> should we be spending time discussing Eric Weinstein at all?
Fair question, perhaps not. We're doing that however because the guy is sort of famous by now and because he has made extraordinary claims about his own work and abilities. Extraordinary claims from sort of famous people inevitably draw attention.
> we'll hear about it in due time
I think it would be better if the question got settled sooner rather than later. If he's (mostly) right then he's a great misunderstood genius and we should start pursuing his theories and at the same time we should start draining the academic swamp that he alludes to. If he's wrong however, we should know it quickly so that we stop wasting our time with him.
Everyone you disagree with is not 'alt-right'. It's impossible to have an intellectual discussion if it's just the race to the bottom of name-calling.
His paper is just an outline of his idea. He has not worked on in any detail despite having the idea for 10-20 years.
Ideas are ten a penny. It's a seller's market. Making them work in detail and as a whole is "doing the physics". As Sean Carroll has pointed out, it's better to cut the big grand idea into small solid pieces, work on them, then publish them one by one. It's this work that is missing.
Weinstein is the physics equivalent of "I have this great tech platform idea, I just need someone who knows how to program to make it happen for me". He doesn't need to convince mainstream physicists to volunteer. He has money, so he could award research grants to make others take a look.
EDIT errors found in his theory:
---
[Guest Post] Problems with Eric Weinstein's “Geometric Unity” https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/03/guest-post-problem...
>Our findings are that even aside from its status as Theory of Everything, GU contains serious technical gaps both mathematical and physical. In summary:
>* GU introduces a “shiab” operator that overlooks a required complexification step. Omitting this step creates a mathematical error but including it precludes having a physically sensible quantum theory.
>* The choice of gauge group for GU naively leads to a quantum gauge anomaly, thereby rendering the quantum theory inconsistent. Any straightforward attempt to eliminate this anomaly would make the shiab operator impossible to define, compounding the previous objection.
>* The setup of GU asserts that it will have supersymmetry. In 14 dimensions, adopting supersymmetry is highly restrictive. It implies that the proposed gauge group of GU cannot be correct and that the theory as stated is incomplete.
>* Essential technical details of GU are omitted, leaving many of the central claims unverifiable.