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trust in experts. I used to believe that 'experts' in fields had some special access to knowledge that I didn't, but now I have a healthy distrust and at least some ability to form personal opinions on how accurate they are.

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Tim Urban

@waitbutwhy

Dec 8, 2021

What’s something you’ve changed your mind about?

5:03 PM · Dec 8, 2021

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Expert in fields do have a special knowledge not necessarily special access to it. That's a huge difference. How would you question the accuracy of design and engineering calculation of of a bridge, for example? (unless you are a civil engineer) Would you not cross it?

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distrust in elites (experts, institutions) has been the defining theme of the US and the West since 2015

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The expertise is still astounding - it's the context that matters.

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my trust in experts has gone down as well, but it depends *strongly* on the field if I feel I can form useful opinions there lots of areas are just so technically demanding that the appropriate response to distrusting experts is to not form any opinions at all imo

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Search “experts say”… all these billions of sayings cannot be all correct.

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Interesting. My perspective on this has gone in the opposite direction. The more I’ve looked into what it takes to reach a level of expertise in most fields the more trust I have in their advanced understanding of a topic compared to the general population.

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💯 experts are just well trained in doctrine.

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Bitcoin taught me this. Every single Nobel prize winning economist got it wrong.