Coming to the original disagreement: "Our disagreement is whether, on the margin, it is better to do more of one's own thinking vs try to sum up someone else’s."
Presumably there are situations where each is good, and it depends on your goals and abilities. A tough trade-off in my mind is balance between short-term and long-term goals. E.g. if you want to make a quick decision, finding out what others think and synthesising it will be faster than doing first-principles thinking. But, if you always do this, then you do not practice the skill of doing first-principles thinking, so you get stuck in this bad equilibrium. 'I do not think for myself because I am not good at it, and I am not good at it because I do not think for myself.'
Out of the reasons you listed, I weight 'Too few people think for themselves.' highly. In particular, the argument of 'wisdom of the crowds' implicitly relies on having enough people thinking for themselves.
Coming to the original disagreement: "Our disagreement is whether, on the margin, it is better to do more of one's own thinking vs try to sum up someone else’s."
Presumably there are situations where each is good, and it depends on your goals and abilities. A tough trade-off in my mind is balance between short-term and long-term goals. E.g. if you want to make a quick decision, finding out what others think and synthesising it will be faster than doing first-principles thinking. But, if you always do this, then you do not practice the skill of doing first-principles thinking, so you get stuck in this bad equilibrium. 'I do not think for myself because I am not good at it, and I am not good at it because I do not think for myself.'
Out of the reasons you listed, I weight 'Too few people think for themselves.' highly. In particular, the argument of 'wisdom of the crowds' implicitly relies on having enough people thinking for themselves.
Hmmmm thank you
You might enjoy The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson