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How come only experts are/should be allowed to speak on a subject? This leads to a technocracy, which while enticing those in the pseudo-aristocracy, it sucks f

How come only experts are/should be allowed to speak on a subject? This leads to a technocracy, which while enticing those in the pseudo-aristocracy, it sucks for everybody else involved. Every time I see someone post this all that goes through my head is this person has an ego and thinks they should speak for the country/world.

ravi-delia 5y ago
The person you replied to said nothing to imply they disagree with you. Perhaps we are forced to choose as a society between technocracy and misinformation. I'm suspicious of that line of argument myself, but "technocracy is bad" and "misinformation isn't a problem" are separate arguments.
- tekknik 5y ago
  Sure they did, it was implied in these three points: > - The less expert you are at a subject, the more energy is required to sift through the crap. > - Most people are either not expert at anything, or are expert in a narrow field of interest. > - Information no longer flows in the same way it once did: it now diffuses through a social graph which is prone to significant network effects. Non-experts can have a bigger influence than experts, even when the information they share is entirely meritless. Echo-chambers form naturally and require a lot of deliberate and conscious effort to get out from. It is very difficult to reach certain pockets of the graph.
  - ravi-delia 5y ago
    That only argues that non-experts will be fooled. The universe is under no obligation to make misinformation less bad just because technocracy is even worse. Maybe we're just screwed! Between you and me I suspect it's not that big of an issue, but no matter how bad technocracy is (and I agree that it's very bad) it still has no bearing on whether non-experts proliferate misinformation.
cyanydeez 5y ago
what youre really asking is "why do credentials matter and why should randomly samplibg information not result in a appropriate confidence in a result" after all, we knew for decades that the average guess for a cows weight tends to be more accu4ate than any individual guess. the probablem as you are responding to, is how cheap messaging is and how effortless it is to both produce information and entrain the body politik in its recitation. these can be over come by what you deride, credentialling and weighting sources. because in the exam0le od the cown, theres no people interested in giving wrong answers or mani0ulating responders to effecr a skew on the answers. we know and have directly seen that is a naive point of view. as such, your response takes a simplistic exam0le and broadly interprets everything naively.
- tekknik 5y ago
  > what youre really asking is "why do credentials matter and why should randomly samplibg information not result in a appropriate confidence in a result" No, not at all. What I'm saying, is that one's ability to speak on ones experiences with some subject should not be gaited by credentials. One should also not create a rank structure based off of credentials. Is it not apparent to you yet that one can be an expert without any formal credentials? > the probablem as you are responding to, is how cheap messaging is and how effortless it is to both produce information and entrain the body politik in its recitation. > these can be over come by what you deride, credentialling and weighting sources. because in the exam0le od the cown, theres no people interested in giving wrong answers or mani0ulating responders to effecr a skew on the answers. What are you fighting to hard to protect here? You want more people to take the COVID vaccine? What exactly, as there's many more solutions than just listening to your closets high ranking technocrat.
epgui 5y ago
As others have pointed out, I am not suggesting (nor do I think) that only experts should be allowed to speak on a given subject. However, it is my (perhaps vain) hope that people understand that there is value in expertise. I highly recommend the following read: it's something so many people get wrong, and it's highly pragmatic. https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/03/20/the-rules-of-logic-part-6-appealing-to-authority-vs-deferring-to-experts/ https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/03/20/the-rules-of-logic-...
- tekknik 5y ago
  There's value in expertise, but at the end of the day it's not the experts life and decisions should be left to the individual. Once you realize this, these types of comments become meaningless.
  - epgui 5y ago
    It sounds like you're talking about something more specific (yet left unspecified) than me.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      It was clearly specified, I state it again: “it's not the experts life and decisions should be left to the individual”

ravi-delia 5y ago

The person you replied to said nothing to imply they disagree with you. Perhaps we are forced to choose as a society between technocracy and misinformation. I'm suspicious of that line of argument myself, but "technocracy is bad" and "misinformation isn't a problem" are separate arguments.

tekknik 5y ago
Sure they did, it was implied in these three points: > - The less expert you are at a subject, the more energy is required to sift through the crap. > - Most people are either not expert at anything, or are expert in a narrow field of interest. > - Information no longer flows in the same way it once did: it now diffuses through a social graph which is prone to significant network effects. Non-experts can have a bigger influence than experts, even when the information they share is entirely meritless. Echo-chambers form naturally and require a lot of deliberate and conscious effort to get out from. It is very difficult to reach certain pockets of the graph.
- ravi-delia 5y ago
  That only argues that non-experts will be fooled. The universe is under no obligation to make misinformation less bad just because technocracy is even worse. Maybe we're just screwed! Between you and me I suspect it's not that big of an issue, but no matter how bad technocracy is (and I agree that it's very bad) it still has no bearing on whether non-experts proliferate misinformation.

cyanydeez 5y ago

what youre really asking is "why do credentials matter and why should randomly samplibg information not result in a appropriate confidence in a result" after all, we knew for decades that the average guess for a cows weight tends to be more accu4ate than any individual guess. the probablem as you are responding to, is how cheap messaging is and how effortless it is to both produce information and entrain the body politik in its recitation. these can be over come by what you deride, credentialling and weighting sources. because in the exam0le od the cown, theres no people interested in giving wrong answers or mani0ulating responders to effecr a skew on the answers. we know and have directly seen that is a naive point of view. as such, your response takes a simplistic exam0le and broadly interprets everything naively.

tekknik 5y ago
> what youre really asking is "why do credentials matter and why should randomly samplibg information not result in a appropriate confidence in a result" No, not at all. What I'm saying, is that one's ability to speak on ones experiences with some subject should not be gaited by credentials. One should also not create a rank structure based off of credentials. Is it not apparent to you yet that one can be an expert without any formal credentials? > the probablem as you are responding to, is how cheap messaging is and how effortless it is to both produce information and entrain the body politik in its recitation. > these can be over come by what you deride, credentialling and weighting sources. because in the exam0le od the cown, theres no people interested in giving wrong answers or mani0ulating responders to effecr a skew on the answers. What are you fighting to hard to protect here? You want more people to take the COVID vaccine? What exactly, as there's many more solutions than just listening to your closets high ranking technocrat.

epgui 5y ago

As others have pointed out, I am not suggesting (nor do I think) that only experts should be allowed to speak on a given subject. However, it is my (perhaps vain) hope that people understand that there is value in expertise. I highly recommend the following read: it's something so many people get wrong, and it's highly pragmatic. https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/03/20/the-rules-of-logic-part-6-appealing-to-authority-vs-deferring-to-experts/ https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/03/20/the-rules-of-logic-...

tekknik 5y ago
There's value in expertise, but at the end of the day it's not the experts life and decisions should be left to the individual. Once you realize this, these types of comments become meaningless.
- epgui 5y ago
  It sounds like you're talking about something more specific (yet left unspecified) than me.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    It was clearly specified, I state it again: “it's not the experts life and decisions should be left to the individual”