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Younger people suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect. I had strong opinions about a wide range of things in my 20s. As I aged, I became very good at a few thing

Younger people suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect. I had strong opinions about a wide range of things in my 20s. As I aged, I became very good at a few things and in doing so, I became less sure of my convictions on most matters. In some cases, I completely reversed my beliefs. That's not brain damage; it's the realization that there is a near-infinite amount to know about any given subject, and that the world can be a much more deceptive and deeper place than we're taught about in school. As you become really good at a few things, you realize the same depth exists in all subject matter, and that if you are coming to strong conclusions based on cursory knowledge, you are probably also an idiot. You might call it wisdom...

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Younger people suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect. I had strong opinions about a wide range of things in my 20s. As I aged, I became very good at a few things and in doing so, I became less sure of my convictions on most matters. You aren't describing the Dunning-Kruger effect. Essentially, D-K can be summarized as "people's opinion of their own relative confidence tends to be drawn toward the 70th percentile, with those whose actual competence is lower being overconfident and those whose competence is higher being underconfident." You seem to be describing the popular misconception of D-K as if it were the actual D-K effect, that is, that the least competent were not merely the most overconfident but actually the most confident -- the idea that those who think they are very competent are actual the most incompetent. Whereas in the actual D-K effect, those who have the highest opinion of their own competence are actually even farther above average than their self-image suggests.