As someone who is an expert in one area and as dependent as anyone else in others, and who also hates appeals to authority -
To me, the correct stance is that any should be able to question things that don’t make intuitive sense or that one suspects might be a perspective motivated by financial considerations instead of expertise.
Note that I said question. Not invent your own replacement fever-dream explanation.
Questions require good-faith attempts to find information and understand.
Not pitch something where its main virtue is that it makes ignorance feel good actually.
I generally agree, but there is a level of ignorance where you don’t even really know what questions to ask, and subjects complicated enough that you just aren’t equipped to understand an answer without needing a lot of background education first because they just aren’t intuitive at all by nature. At that point, is there really much value in asking the question?
Determining where that line is is hard sometimes, but I do think it’s there.
This breaks down pretty quickly though because laypeople fundamentally don’t engage with the world scientifically. The default mode is “can I believe this” but science requires “have I excluded everything else”. The former feels like the job is done, so why put in more work?
There’s a reason peer reviewed studies are so important.
It’s literally other people with knowledge on the subject questioning the results of a study until everyone agrees to the conclusion.
It’s not just one person pulling something out of their ass and saying “Look! This thing!” and everyone just going along with it. It’s questioned and proven multiple times.
I just want people to trust. Being skeptical and wanting to learn is perfectly fine, but also, people do go to school for these things for years, you know? Have a little a faith they aren’t lying to you.
You’re both spot on. We live in a deliberately low trust society with grief merchants heckling experts for the sole intention of division.
I don’t know how we can get back to a high trust society, but it did exist once, and I think the first step to it is education and the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine in the media
As someone who is an expert in one area and as dependent as anyone else in others, and who also hates appeals to authority -
To me, the correct stance is that any should be able to question things that don’t make intuitive sense or that one suspects might be a perspective motivated by financial considerations instead of expertise.
Note that I said question. Not invent your own replacement fever-dream explanation.
Questions require good-faith attempts to find information and understand.
Not pitch something where its main virtue is that it makes ignorance feel good actually.
I generally agree, but there is a level of ignorance where you don’t even really know what questions to ask, and subjects complicated enough that you just aren’t equipped to understand an answer without needing a lot of background education first because they just aren’t intuitive at all by nature. At that point, is there really much value in asking the question?
Determining where that line is is hard sometimes, but I do think it’s there.
This breaks down pretty quickly though because laypeople fundamentally don’t engage with the world scientifically. The default mode is “can I believe this” but science requires “have I excluded everything else”. The former feels like the job is done, so why put in more work?
There’s a reason peer reviewed studies are so important.
It’s literally other people with knowledge on the subject questioning the results of a study until everyone agrees to the conclusion.
It’s not just one person pulling something out of their ass and saying “Look! This thing!” and everyone just going along with it. It’s questioned and proven multiple times.
I just want people to trust. Being skeptical and wanting to learn is perfectly fine, but also, people do go to school for these things for years, you know? Have a little a faith they aren’t lying to you.
By “you” I just mean people generally, of course.
You’re both spot on. We live in a deliberately low trust society with grief merchants heckling experts for the sole intention of division.
I don’t know how we can get back to a high trust society, but it did exist once, and I think the first step to it is education and the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine in the media