I’m the creator of the intellectuals market. I didn’t add Musk but I allowed someone to do it. I don’t have a strong view, I’m no fan of the guy, but after digging a little he seemed like a fine candidate. ‘Intellectual’ is a vague category, it includes overrated crackpots and actual geniuses, talking heads and academics. The point of the market is precisely that the public or the media or some combination thereof sometimes recognize as intellectuals people who aren’t great thinkers and fails to appreciate some who are.

For those reasons I found the debate over whether Musk counts as an intellectual utterly idiotic. Enough people think he is one, given the vague conception of intellectual that we must operate with. If you think he’s not, then he’s overrated. Bet and move on.

@NicoDelon I think it's good he was in the market but I also think he's obviously not actually an intellectual. Anyway, I think most people are just having fun rather than seriously concerned about the question.

This poll doubles as "Does manifold actually understand what being an intelectual means?"

@GazDownright I don't believe in being a prescriptivist when it comes to definitions like this.

If Elon has promoted himself as an “intellectual” — leaving aside any other self-promotion — I have missed it. How did this even come up?

Of all the provocative things we could say about Elon, I don’t see how “he is not an intellectual” or “he is so” is even in the picture. It’s like discussing whether he’s a natural brunet. Or arguing about whether the hat he wore in some photo is Loro Piana.

@ClubmasterTransparent CosmicCookie suggested that Elon shouldn't have been in the market on overrated/underrated intellectuals because he is not an intellectual. @TimothyJohnson5c16 disagreed and they got into a debate. Then I made this market!

CosmicCookie has since been banned from the Discord 😁

@jim Oh dear, So we’re all smart people here. Can we direct our resources anywhere else than this issue of Elon/intellectual or no? This would benefit not only humanity but IMO the universe. Maybe alternate universes too.

@ClubmasterTransparent I think this poll has resolved the issue once and for all: he is not an intellectual! Therefore, we can move on with our lives (although I am not convinced we will proceed to benefit humanity).

I'm sure that the world in which Musk never expressed their thoughts about other things than engineering or being-a-ceo, this poll would have resolved to yes instantaneously.

It's silly that those things matter for our understanding of what is an intellectual.

@Jono3h Maybe, that depends who you ask.

The positive case (which I agree with) is that Elon has transformed multiple major industries by making accurate bets on future technology.

The negative case is that some people define an "intellectual" to mean someone whose primary output is ideas, not products.

@TimothyJohnson5c16 he hasn't merely made accurate bets, he's put the work in. As in, engineering work as much as business. People seem to think he is just there to provide the money or make high-level business decisions - this is totally false. The guy is a micromanager and a better engineer than most of the people who work for him.

In fact, to me it's not clear how good some of these bets would have been, if not for having a ridiculously driven and productive engineer and and businessperson like Musk at the helm.

Being able to run a business well is an intellectual task, but I can see most don't think of it that way. Engineering is more seen as intellectual though, and he does plenty of that (and has historically).

I kind of love how Musk breaks people's brains.

@chrisjbillington Yeah, the standard narrative for Musk haters is now:

• He's only rich because his daddy owned an emerald mine

• He's not even an engineer, because real engineers did all the work and he took the credit

• He's not even that intelligent

All of those are pretty absurd, but it's amazing how quickly the haters convinced themselves of all three.

I’m not in the disco, 🪩

But I find this poll slightly racist tbh

Would this have been asked if Elo was NOT an Afro-Canadian?

How rude

I've created a market in case anyone wants to bet on the outcome: https://manifold.markets/TimothyJohnson5c16/does-manifold-believe-that-elon-mus?r=VGltb3RoeUpvaG5zb241YzE2

@TimothyJohnson5c16

Don’t be a copycat Timmy