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Notes -
The question isn't whether we know more than "you" (i.e. the man in the street - the idea that Silicon Valley-based Motteposters have superior access to intelligence and rationality than other Motteposters is straightforwardly silly), it is whether we know more than relevant domain experts.
How long it takes for a smart generalist to come unstuck is notoriously a measure of how legitimate a field of knowledge is, and there are plenty of legitimate fields of knowledge outside the core competence of "tech" - most obviously all the non-software engineering disciplines. Before Musk founded a rocket company, he found as many smart rocket guys as he could and listened to them. When he bought into and refounded a car company, he hired car guys and listened to them. But there is legitimate subject-matter expertise to be had outside STEM. When Musk took over large parts of the US government, he didn't bother to talk to people who understood governing, and DOGE came unstuck - and not just, or even mostly because Musk was too autistic to maintain public and political support for what he was doing per @ThisIsSin, but because he was taking an approach (what P J O'Rourke would call "balancing the budget by cutting helium funds") which everyone who understands the budget knows can't work because the math doesn't math.
Sounds like Musk didn't apply engineering first principles to his DOGE initiative. And as you pointed out, it takes time for a generally smart person to become an expert in the field, but I would like to point out that it all starts with first principles and that becoming a domain expert is always by applying first principles to their given interests.
Personally, my explanation for why Musk deviated from his successful formula is that Musk was ideologically captured, had increased drug use, and couldn't keep a cool head.
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