I think there are many ways someone with his lack of expertise can still be valuable, including:
- Making connections to other subjects that an expert would miss. The hall of fame of sigmoid predictions is just excellent, I already know I'm going to be reminded of it some time in the future. Very entertaining way to get the point across.
- Writing about tricky concepts in a very accessible and elegant way, which experts are notoriously bad at doing themselves - they are often optimizing for other specialists.
- Being able to write with an air of speculation and experimentation with ideas that experts and institutions often can't afford. Experts have to maintain their track record; Scott Alexander can say "lol just double the timeline"
- Making connections to other subjects that an expert would miss. The hall of fame of sigmoid predictions is just excellent, I already know I'm going to be reminded of it some time in the future. Very entertaining way to get the point across.
- Writing about tricky concepts in a very accessible and elegant way, which experts are notoriously bad at doing themselves - they are often optimizing for other specialists.
- Being able to write with an air of speculation and experimentation with ideas that experts and institutions often can't afford. Experts have to maintain their track record; Scott Alexander can say "lol just double the timeline"