I notice I'm confused. If the question is "who judges who", isn't it begging the question to use "a weighted average of intellectuals"? Maybe in the year 1000, nobody knew how to read, so those rare elites had Good Opinions; and in 2026, everyone is at least somewhat intellectual, and most of them aren't in social contact with Elon Musk - instead, they have a one-sided parasocial relationship. Who cares if they have badly-founded opinions, they don't actually have any social contact with the guy.
I think there's certainly something to be said about populism - I love everything I read from Joseph Heath - but this seems like a very weak lever on it
I notice I'm confused. If the question is "who judges who", isn't it begging the question to use "a weighted average of intellectuals"? Maybe in the year 1000, nobody knew how to read, so those rare elites had Good Opinions; and in 2026, everyone is at least somewhat intellectual, and most of them aren't in social contact with Elon Musk - instead, they have a one-sided parasocial relationship. Who cares if they have badly-founded opinions, they don't actually have any social contact with the guy.
I think there's certainly something to be said about populism - I love everything I read from Joseph Heath - but this seems like a very weak lever on it
I agree that I'm looking at percentiles here, not absolutes. But I thought it would be much easier to estimate percentiles.