The General Factor Of Correctness

Riffing on Yudkowsky's 'Correct Contrarian Cluster,' Scott asks whether there is a 'General Factor of Correctness' — like g for IQ, do people right about one controversial question tend to be right about others? He decomposes the problem: (1) it would collapse into 'agree with expert consensus,' so analyze only DEVIATIONS from consensus (the correct-contrarian cluster); (2) is it just IQ/education? (data are inconsistent; Newton's alchemy and Pauling's vitamin C cut against, but maybe selection bias); (3) positive vs. negative selection (Bigfoot/ESP believers are probably worse at everything — a real but uninteresting factor); (4) correctness vs. calibration (the Good Judgment Project's superforecasters — a pharmacist beating CIA analysts by 30%, not via IQ/education/parroting — seem to have something more). The deep claim: this is 'in a sense the center of the entire rationalist project' — if domain-general good judgment exists separate from IQ and domain knowledge, cultivating it is hugely leveraged. Closes with discussion-question intuition pumps.

Quality 75 · Excellent. A rich, carefully decomposed treatment of a genuinely deep question (is rationality a transferable skill?), with the Good Judgment Project as its sharpest evidence and a clear statement of why it matters to the rationalist project. Excellent-low; appropriately exploratory/unresolved.

Claude’s paradigm shift 62 · Notable shift. The 'general factor of correctness / is good judgment domain-general' framing, with its four-problem decomposition, is a fresh and valuable extension of Yudkowsky's correct-contrarian idea. Notable.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A within-rationalist-discourse essay central to the project's self-conception; it articulates rather than changes. Within-blog influence.