I think its not only geeks, I think its anyone, and perhaps with good reason. I think a big factor is that clearly the experts have more or less proven themselv

I think its not only geeks, I think its anyone, and perhaps with good reason. I think a big factor is that clearly the experts have more or less proven themselves to be as clueless as the pretend-experts, perhaps worse. Essentially what we've seen take place in the economic world is equivalent to some winner-take-all wild west where anything goes, leaving us to not put so much faith in the theoretical prowess of the CEO's, the FED, and Wallstreet as we did before. When you have people at the top making incredibly bad mistakes, it removes respect for them and instills a (false?) sense of authority in everyone else. The same thing takes place when a religious leader is shown to not be so moral, all of a sudden, despite you not having taken priesthood lessons or anything, you may now have a right to express morality more than him/her.