Both categories of people reap most of the benefits of having actual knowledge/understanding with a fraction of the effort. But the cost of that is that they MUST take respect/honor seriously. It’s their proxy signal for truth, via social proof.
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20% of the time, you might be right and even then 80% of those cases it might not matter because rewards are tied to the social mechanisms like popular appeal or rules compliance. So nerdery might only be a winning posture 4% of the time net and you might never hit those cases.
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So to return to original question: there are 2 epistemologies here, and it’s not expert vs lay or insider vs outsider, It is respect-based epistemology vs nerdery-based epistemology.
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let’s call those running on respect epistemology, whether insider bureaucrats or outsider button-pushers... Eloi. Surface [of knowledge] dwellers. Those who work to understand and pay a cost 96% of time, and win 4% when others lose: Morlocks Interior [of knowledge] dwellers.
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In the short term the Eloi will generally win. In the long term, Morlocks will occasionally win big. Not 4% of the time, that’s just being right when others are wrong and it mattering. It also has to matter in a big way to make up for steady costs. So about 0.32% maybe.
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By this it is not at all clear that Morlocks have long-term evolutionary advantage, contra both H. G. Wells and Neal Stephenson. The Eloi might prevail if things get lucky for them.
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