What is the deal with these people who are super-successful offline (e.g. Chamath, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk), but on social media have such mediocre, cringe, or bad opinions, getting easily-verifiable facts wrong or just repeating sale or boring stuff, or digging in when wrong? Why is there such a large disconnect between being so successful in one domain (e.g. creating companies) and the ability to produce good, well-informed opinions online?
My answer: People who are really successful offline tend to be specialists--they find something that works, and then scale or repeat it. People who have "good opinions about a broad range of topics" are generalists, but this does not necesailty lead to large wealth, which typically requires specialization.
Generalists tend to be higher IQ and get bored more easily, seeking novelty, but this comes at the cost mastery at a skill to become wealthy. Becoming a billionaire at running restaurants means knowing everything about the restaurant industry--perhaps not exactly intellectually simulating work--but necessary for success. Specialists can be really smart, but I would say generalists are smarter in the aggregate. There is no "industry person" who is as broadly read about history and other humanists topics as Moldbug, for example, as the ultimate generalist.
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Sure, but there's formal membership and there's an active and enthusiastic participation. I'm sure you could survive even in Nazi Germany without being a commander of Einsatzgruppe. And morality has a connection to it - if high IQ does not prevent you from being the worst kind of bad that everybody brings up when they need the obvious example of bad, why would it prevent you from lesser bad things?
It's not a morality thing. It's about crafting a message that appeals to intended recipients ,and this is deceptively hard, even when trying to preach to choir.
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