The internet has made a lot of people armchair experts happy to offer their perspective with a degree of certainty, without doing the work to identify gaps in their knowledge. Often the mark of genuine expertise is knowing the limitations of your knowledge.
This isn’t a social media thing exclusively of course, I’ve met it in the real world too.
When I worked as a repair technician, members of the public would ask me for my diagnosis of faults and then debate them with me.
I’ve dedicated the second half of my life to understanding people and how they work, in this field it’s even worse because everyone has opinions on that topic!
And yet my friend who has a physics PhD doesn’t endure people explaining why his theories about battery tech are incorrect because of an article they read or an anecdote from someone’s past.
So I’m curious, do some fields and experience this more than others?
If you have a field of expertise do you find people love to debate you without taking into account the gulf of awareness, skills and knowledge?
In your case, I’m guessing lots of people have heard the horror stories of shitty, scammy repair techs in various fields (automobiles being one prominent example). The good ones have to deal with the occupational reputation driven by the worst of them.
For me, I don’t consider myself a real expert in any specific subject, but I’m adjacent to a number of financial areas. I try not to delve into the weeds of those internet discussions too often (like I said, not an ironclad expert), and even when I do, it’s only to address the most egregious errors. Money can be an emotional topic, and many of those opinions are based on the way people want the world to be rather than the way it is, so show up with facts and references and they tend to understand.
That’s a very reasoned and reasonable view of the question. Totally fair I’d say. Feeling a little emotionally frustrated by it today none the less.
Im no expert but after 15 years in mail and parcel logistics I know shit. Ive been told Im “too close to the issue” to be objective. I even posted links to business services for a major international carrier to back up what I said and apparently any evidence I provide is “Biased”
So the only people you can turn to for factual answers are people with no fucking idea apparently.
One of the things that irated me most from Reddit was the fact that if someone’s response came quickly enough, upvotes will ensure everyone believe it and downvoting it was like peeing on a wildfire.
I like that kbin shows both upvotes and downvotes which tells me when something is controversial enough to give it some thought rather than believe it blindly.
I know it’s a massive cliché talking about the hive mind on Reddit, but it was a cliché for a reason!
Yes. Because none of my coworkers want to openly admit that they’re just as geeky and autistic about the global IP schema and the routing tables as I.
“Is that NTP server we installed on that ship in Galveston last year available via VPN?”.
“Yup, 172.20.72.21”
lmao. I worked at FDA for about a decade, was one of the main programmers for their system that tracks approval of biologics, as well as the system that tracks and handles approvals of individual biological lots. And then the MAGAts started making up bullshit conspiracy stuff about how biologics are developed and approved … :/
Those people turn everything they touch into shit.
The Midas Shart
The Mierdas Touch
spoiler
sdfsaf
Well, the thing is, sometimes I don’t even believe me, despite the better part of two decades of experience.
Impostor syndrome kinda sucks.
But at the same time, I’ve come to be suspicious of any engineering who doesn’t have at least a dash of impostor syndrome. It’s always a good reflex to check your assumptions, imo.
Was chatting with my manager about this last week. A fabricator of mine gave me a bit of back talk about how I wanted them to build something. He asked me why I don’t just put my foot down. Told him that I never want to be in the position where someone knows that I am wrong but is afraid to say something to me. He agreed.
Being approachable is not win-win. You deal with people undermining you but hopefully one of them has a bright idea that makes it worth it.
What you’re describing feels like the Dunning–Kruger effect. When you don’t know you know very little, you have more confidence than you’re likely to have after spending decades on a subject.
When you start asking questions in response you’re likely to pull someone further into realizing what they actually don’t know, killing their confidence. Of course this doesn’t work when they’re being zealots (or otherwise protecting their own sanity)…
Heh, yeah. Spotting DK tendencies is also an important skill, especially when you get to the point where you’re screening candidates for your team. A surprising amount of people think they can just bull through an interview without going into real detail. I have caught more than a few people blatantly misrepresenting their resumes.
Don’t get me wrong - by all means, use a bit of spin to get shit past the HR idiots. When I, as a knowledgeable and experienced engineer, ask you a pointed question about something in particular, I won’t particularly mind if you straight up tell me that you spun that on the res a bit and point out the areas of the domain you’re stronger or weaker. Depending on the context, it might actually work in your favor, because I genuinely appreciate when someone tells me the limits of their knowledge. But if you try to bullshit me, and I catch you, that’s a black mark on your candidacy. And if you keep lying, or try that more than once, I’m going to quickly end the call and remove you from consideration.
I can cite an example for each of the above situations.
It really depends on the subject.
If it’s programming/hardware in general then there’s not much debate.
But when it comes to discussing “buzz words” or other hot topic items (cryptocurrency or AI/ML Models) then there will be a lot more debates.
It varies, I think the most important part for any kind of online discussion is to establish credibility based on the argument not credibility based on title or degree.
It’s also important to recognize a challenge on its own merits. I don’t care if you flip burgers at Wendy’s, if you can argue a point on the merits I’ll hear you out (and try to politely explain why you’re wrong – in understandable language – if needed).
I hate the “trust me bro I’m a X, it’s an elite field, it would take years to explain this to you and you wouldn’t even understand anyways” attitude some professionals take. The real experts that I’ve met and I respect can simplify the subject matter they’re an expert of (to be digestible and reasonable to most people) and I aspire to be that insightful.
That’s totally fair, I agree.
The version that upsets me most is when I offer a perspective from my expertise, well founded and reasonable, and rather than ask questions to understand or offer a competing idea, people so often just say that I must be an idiot and know nothing about the topic.
I can hardly reply with “no, you’re the stupid one!” coz that just really doesn’t help.
There are serious limits to this. We can’t discount title/degree because you can’t possibly be able to accurately assess the credibility of every argument.
If a doctor shows me a picture and says “you have cancer, here’s the tumor,” I’m going to probably take that at face value. Because I can’t assess the imaging like they/their technician can, which I am basing off their credentials.
Any doctor worth their salt is going to be able to answer the question “how do you know that?” way better than “I just do” or “I have a medical degree” and that’s the point; I’ve yet to find a problem space where that isn’t the case. I don’t try to win arguments by waiving my credentials around and I don’t expect people to take my for “my word” just because of my credentials.
There are plenty of people with titles and fancy degrees that are not worth listening to, like the Ohio doctor (that somehow recently got her medical license back) that claimed the COVID vaccine was making people magnetic, Dr. Oz, etc.
Put another way, do you trust the alleged internet licensed electrician that says a ground wire makes you safer but can’t explain why, the alleged internet licensed electrician that says a ground wire is worthless, or the person that says “fuck who I am, ground wires are important because they allow tying things like a metal mixer’s body to an incomplete circuit, so that if the metal becomes electrified the circuit is instantly completed and the breaker trips. Alternatively, the circuit becomes completed when you touch the metal and you might die before the breaker trips. If you don’t have a ground you can protect humans with a GFCI which detects current loss at the outlet and cuts the power locally. However, a GFCI may not detect some situations that a ground wire would resolve, like an arc that makes use of a grounded portion of the appliance and may generate enough heat to start a fire. AFCIs have been created to help detect this situation. However, both GFCI and AFCI can fail and thus a ground wire is still a useful backup option that also has value for some sensitive electronics.”?
Most professionals aren’t going to volunteer all of that, but many will volunteer more and more if challenged/questioned.
For reference, my background is in Software Engineering but my father is an electrician at a factory, and a good friend of mine is a forensic electrical engineer. I have no formal credentials in electrical engineering … but I do know a fair bit about the what and why … because I have been inquisitive, I’ve questioned the experts that I’ve come across to understand their field and learned from them.
I didn’t say they go “just trust me” and we both know plenty of people can’t assess even a good explanation.
I worked in politics and have a degree in international affairs so not at all for that. But I got good enough at coding and Linux that it became my career and people tend to trust me on that stuff.
There’s certain fields where everyone thinks they’d be good at it and they’re wrong. Voice acting is probably one. Seems easy but it’s really fucking not. And most people who think they understand politics don’t know basics about how legislative committees work, much less negotiated rulemaking.
If anyone is curious, it’s an American thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiated_rulemaking
Most bills are vague and give regulatory agencies leeway on how to interpret them. It’s like Congress passes a law that says, “No cookies after 8pm.” and a regulatory agency has to decide what is a cookie and which time zone and how to enforce it. A lot of actual policy happens during the rule making progress (called “reg neg”).
Hey! There was just an example of that on Lemmy. Some judge ruled that tacos are sandwiches.
Edit: here it is
https://www.wishtv.com/news/indiana-news/indiana-judge-rules-tacos-burritos-are-sandwiches/
I struggle to make my mum take my advice about subjects of my field of expertise for which I had spent 5 cruel years at Uni. So I am at peace now not being able to make my point across the internet.
LMAO. No. You can’t convince an overconfident idiot with facts and experience.
I work in IT and security, where everyone is an expert. Couple that with my inability to tell half-thruths about complex subjects I have incomplete info about, and I come out as incompetent. Yay.
Are you one of the people I depend on who write useful information on the internet sharing their expertise?
I strive to be. Not enough time for everything.
That’s my experience too. There’s always a “bigger expert”.
They tell you you’re expertise is irrelevant. They’re the real expert.
What a joke
I’m a CFI. on the subjects of aerodynamics, navigation, instrumentation, aircraft systems, aviation law, my word is usually accepted. I’m apparently the least knowledgeable person in the world on the subjects of aviation physiology and aeromedical factors. What could a pilot possibly know about hypoxia?
I’ve read a lot of Greek mythology but never met hypoxia. Was she one of the nymphs?
I know a thing or two about my field, no one should believe anyone who claims to be an expert in it. No such thing exists.
Yes. I work in the aerospace industry. I’m a woman. When Space Karen first appeared on the scene, he immediately had millions of young, impressionable fanboys. Fanboys who would passionately disagree with you when you explained how something Space Karen spouted into the ether one day didn’t will it into existence. And Space Karen said a lot of dumb shit.
Nevertheless, he said it, you disagree, you are wrong because you disagree with something he said, and your education, skills, experience, and qualifications over many years are meaningless.
That went on for years before he finally showed himself to be the narcissistic manchild many of us saw in the beginning. It’s a double-edged sword…on one hand you feel vindicated, but on the other you wish it didn’t have to come to this to make it happen.
Lol space Karen, nicely put!
Who the hell is space karen?
The African-American guy who won’t shut up and also killed Twitter.
African-American guy
Never thought about him this way, but true!
I read an article about a (white) guy born in - maybe - Zimbabwe but definitely Africa. He moved to the US and his school had a scholarship / fund for African-Americans. He was the only pupil that qualified so applied for a laugh. Can’t remember how it ended.
I’d like to think that “Spaceship Karen” doesn’t find the phrase funny - but being such a glorious champion of free speech he’ll just have to suck it up.
Ohhhhhh. I should’ve guessed that. Sorry can be a bit dense sometimes.
Tbh my brain immediately gave me a fifty-fifty. Say what you want about Bezos but, in my head, he’s more of a Cruella than a Karen. I then guessed the lady in the post was talking about the other space guy. I don’t blame you drawing a temporary blank, new names and all that.
The worse is that you didn’t even had to be that well studied to know he was full of bullshit from the start, I remember even before he was Space Karen when he tried to be Train Karen, and their fanboys wouldn’t understand that vacuum tubes Km long for transporting people were a BAD idea for several reasons.
