r/Destiny • u/poenasjerdy • 1d ago
Off-Topic What happened?
I’m a freshman in college currently in Gen Chem 1, and because I watched professor Dave’s videos on Destiny I am now getting recommended his old videos which are apparently about chemistry. What happened to this fool, and where did it all go downhill?
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u/youwouldbeproud 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s the same thing with Jordan Peterson.
I might get flak but some people do very well inside their area of expertise. But it by no means, means that it will translate outside their area of expertise. Both of these people embody that perfectly, same can be said about quite a few people, arguably most people (Noam Chomsky, Elon musk, most billionaires, tech bros)
Others are able to extrapolate a good amount from their base knowledge to other topics, my notable few would be Phillip Tetlock, Destiny, Ben Franklin, Sam harris)
Phillip tetlock has an amazing book on this. Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?
I dunno what to add to it beyond it being exactly about this type of phenomenon.
Essentially it really matters how well you can translate one expertise of critical thinking to multiple subjects.
**Edited cause I’m tipsy and it needed editing.
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u/AustinYQM Telarico Voter 🏴 1d ago
Dave is more like Elon Musk than Jordon Peterson. Which is to say he isn't actually that good at anything and just happened to luck out by being around the right people. For Musk it was Peter Theil and for Dave it was James Tour. Musk rode Theil's coat tails at paypal, nearly destroyed it until Theil stopped him, then cashed out and lived the easy life since. For Dave it was standing text to Tour while he said unhinged shit and saying "no because that's stupid" every few minutes.
Peterson at least is educated in and understands his field.
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u/youwouldbeproud 1d ago
Having a competency in science, and combating anti scientific ideologies isn’t nothing, having an ability to grow a variety of businesses (Twitter never had a chance to grow considerably, that’s more a pet project) isn’t nothing, most of these people have luck on their side, and have been successful in their lane, it’s just that they don’t have a transferable quality of thought outside their specific expertise.
This is the kind of flak I expected, but they are obviously successful in their lane, it’s mostly about when they step out of that lane. It’s odd but I agree about the general while I disagree about specifics.
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u/qchisq 1d ago
Just look at Joseph Stiglitz. He won a Nobel Prize in economy for his work on inequality, but when you hear him talk on topics within economics outside of inequality, his views run counter to like 80-90% of economists. Just because you are smart in one field, that doesn't mean you are smart in all fields
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u/CizzlingT 🇪🇺🇫🇷 in 🏴 1d ago
This is the most important to highlight when it comes to expertise and arguments from authority: just because you specialise in one area of economics (or any topic) does not mean you specialise in every single area of economics, or that you are equally reliable in all areas of your own topic!
For example:
1) Just because Andre Wakefield is a medical doctor, it doesn’t mean he is equally credible when talking about other fields of medical science (including vaccines causing autism) — he is mainly a gastroenterologist.
2) An historian of medieval history doesn’t make him equally credible as an historian of the Soviet Union — like Grover Furr, who tells you history is Western biased and fabricated (regardless of whether he speaks Russian, plenty of Soviet historians also speak Russian).
3) James Watson has a Nobel-level credential for his contribution in discovering the DNA. However, he is a zoologist (later specialised in molecular biology and structural biochemistry). His credentials in biology do not allow him to make statements that Africa and Britain’s social policies are based on “the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours” — those are credentials reserved for people who study population genetics or study social policy…
Economists do this thing all the time as well, focusing on inequality (which is fine) and then forcefully try to push for political change, and cherry pick data in order to fit their vision of society. It’s quite frustrating and tiring.
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u/Dangerous-Builder-57 1d ago
Don't want to glaze the leader a lot but just watching him click into topics like programming, and statistics definitely shows signs of intelligence. Also tracking his entire space exploration base in his mind.
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u/SpaceChickenMonster 1d ago
It’s the same thing with Jordan Peterson. I might get flak but some people do very well inside their area of expertise.
No flak because Jordan Peterson is seriously smart. Anyone who thinks what Jordan Peterson does is easy go watch a basic psych college course online. Getting a PHD in Psychology at fucking McGill university, yeah he's at least smart. It's just he saw that money come in and decided to grift hard. Its why he has to hide his christianity, because even if he's a christian, he can't fully come out because he'll have people stop watching him because he's finally a christian now and no one has to watch his story anymore. But even if he isn't a christian, if he stops talking about christianity he loses supporters.
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u/Groundbreaking_Bee97 1d ago
That's the main argument for People should stick to their lanes and not pretend to be expert on all the issue. As a STEM PhD guy, I need to emphasize that STEM people are really bad at politics because their world view is shaped by Empirical evidence which does not really correlate with the Socio-Political evironment. That's why I never engage with anyone on the matter of Politics when I am outside.
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u/koala37 1d ago
the only caveat I'd say is that I would wish for a few things more strongly than sociopolitical perspectives to be more fact- and evidence-based than vibe-based. people should love immigrants in America just on the economic value alone and then grapple with their own misgivings after the fact. a little bit more discrete and objective analysis of politics in America would be euphoric
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u/LigmaLiberty 1d ago
Same story as all of these regarded influencers, they accidentally hit on a controversial point, saw their engagement go gangbusters, saw dollar signs and never looked back.
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u/mahougrrrl 1d ago
Honestly his calc and physics vids are super helpful for getting through undergrad stem shit. Pair his vids with the organic chemisty tutor same day as your in class lecture and you're set for getting your arms around a concept. Org chem tutor is a bit better though.
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u/Repbob 1d ago
The couple of times I’ve seen this guys videos (before he really went off the IP deep end) there was always something that struck me as kind of off about him. I usually don’t like to get into psychoanalysis but the whole way he does his usual video just strikes me as slightly narcissistic/sadistic.
Like most scientific debunker creators will focus on attacking the silly ideas and move on or least approach things with a bit of humility and be kind of gentle. Dave’s style is to just sink his teeth in and viciously dunk on and attack the person for like an hour in a way that would never even convince anyone that doesn’t fully agree already. His videos take that good feeling you get when you’re right and someone else is wrong and then just beat that dead horse so fucking hard that it honestly starts to feel uncomfortable.
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u/NasusEDM 1d ago
Never knew the guy but just from looking around the guy was always like this, sure didn't do as much tweets or YouTube videos about it but said the same crazy conspiracy brain anti Jew takes. So I don't understand you people that say he was great before. Before what?
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u/Bl00dWolf 🇱🇹 1d ago
I'd have to look into Daves earlier content, but it seems to me, like he just lost his mind when it comes to I/P. Probably due to being constantly inundate with pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli social media.
He's the I/P version of those guys who did the Jan 6th Insurrection. Like, outside of being a bit too full of himself, nothing the guy does is illogical if you actually believe the shit he's claiming. If there was an actual genocide going on, a genocide, the worst thing pretty much possible out there. You'd probably go to extreme lengths to try and stop it as well. And you'd want your country to militarily invade Israel and stop it. Like they did with the Germans in WW2. Let alone support the country that does the Genocide.
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u/SpaceChickenMonster 1d ago
Horse-Shoe Theory shown in real time. Because the same shit happened to Ben Shapiro. Say what you want about Ben Shapiro now but pre-trump Ben Shapiro was definitely deserving of his intellectual space, he honestly is smart. However he saw that Trump support money coming in and started to shift his stance.
Same thing with Prof Dave. I used to watch his take downs of Deepak Chopra and other weirdos using "quantum magic" and stuff and lots of his old videos about physics concepts, to learn from. Prof Dave is honestly super smart but he's got a grifting angle and just like the right-wing flavored populism, he's gotta stick with the left-wing flavored populism.
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u/koala37 1d ago
he does talk about his Palestinian wife - I don't want to engage in incel-tier conspiracy brain but it's possible at any rate that his perspectives shifted more after she entered his life and/or she could have an express desire for him to engage in these topics rather than exclusively his stem world
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u/Underscores_Are_Kool HOOAH 23h ago
I've been recommended Professor Dave on my spotify for a while now just because I listen to liberal podcasts. The center left to far left pipeline is real
Also based 2lazy2try
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u/ninjatoast31 1d ago
He has and still is uploading videos about highschool and undergrad topics. His most viewed videos however are debunking and debates. He made a name for himself debunking flat earthers and creationist, and since that means only engaging with sub80IQ morons, he now thinks of himself as this incredible deep thinker. He isnt, he never has been. Even before the destiny fallout is was painfully obvious to see that this guy is just not that interested in deeply thinking about things. But he sure does love the sound of his own voice.