Against the Tyranny of the So-Called Experts with Their Emotional Logic
The pretenders just don’t know what to do or how to act when the real deal comes to town . . .
"Ceterum censeo Islam esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
IIRC, Ayn Rand warned about the “experts” in Atlas Shrugged.
Kurt Schlichter has been putting out some really great work.
This ties in with this excellent analysis of ongur elite forcing us to listen to them re how to live, vote and believe!
Nassim Taleb Exposes The World’s “Intellectual-Yet-Idiot” Class!
What we have been seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.
But the problem is the one-eyed following the blind: these self-described members of the “intelligenzia” can’t find a coconut in Coconut Island, meaning they aren’t intelligent enough to define intelligence and fall into circularities?—?but their main skills is capacity to pass exams written by people like them.
With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30 years of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating at best only 1/3th of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers (or Montaigne and such filtered classical knowledge) with a better track record than these policymaking goons.
Indeed one can see that these academico-bureaucrats wanting to run our lives aren’t even rigorous, whether in medical statistics or policymaking. They cant tell science from scientism?—?in fact in their eyes scientism looks more scientific than real science. (For instance it is trivial to show the following: much of what the Cass-Sunstein-Richard Thaler types?—?those who want to “nudge” us into some behavior?—?much of what they call “rational” or “irrational” comes from their misunderstanding of probability theory and cosmetic use of first-order models.) They are prone to mistake the ensemble for the linear aggregation of its components as we saw in the chapter extending the minority rule.
The Intellectual Yet Idiot is a production of modernity hence has been accelerating since the mid twentieth century, to reach its local supremum today, along with the broad category of people without skin-in-the-game who have been invading many walks of life. Why? Simply, in many countries, the government’s role is ten times what it was a century ago (expressed in percentage of GDP). The IYI seems ubiquitous in our lives but is still a small minority and rarely seen outside specialized outlets, social media, and universities?—?most people have proper jobs and there are not many opening for the IYI.
Beware the semi-erudite who thinks he is an erudite.
The IYI pathologizes others for doing things he doesn’t understand without ever realizing it is his understanding that may be limited. He thinks people should act according to their best interests and he knows their interests, particularly if they are “red necks” or English non-crisp-vowel class who voted for Brexit.
When Plebeians do something that makes sense to them, but not to him, the IYI uses the term “uneducated”. What we generally call participation in the political process, he calls by two distinct designations: “democracy” when it fits the IYI, and “populism” when the plebeians dare voting in a way that contradicts his preferences. While rich people believe in one tax dollar one vote, more humanistic ones in one man one vote, Monsanto in one lobbyist one vote, the IYI believes in one Ivy League degree one-vote, with some equivalence for foreign elite schools, and PhDs as these are needed in the club.
One of my favorites is what I call
THE ASSUMPTION OF CROSS-FIELD COMPETENCE.
This happens when you assume that someone who is competent in one area is competent in other areas.
One of my favorites was the two mile run in the Army.
The assumption was that the faster you could run two miles, the better Soldier you were.
Now, this was based on the assumption that if you could run two miles fast, it was because you were motivated and then trained hard to run two miles. Anyone so motivated would then also be motivated to train hard in all other aspects of being a Soldier.
Nice assumption, but it doesn’t hold up.
Some people are physically gifted to run a fast two miles. They don’t need to be motivated to train.
Some people who are physically gifted to run two miles are not mentally gifted.
Some people who can run two miles quickly are swine who lie and steal.
I also see this with lawyers running for office.
Lawyers are great at arguing. Look at Obama. He’s happiest when he’s arguing.
Running the Executive Branch?
He doesn’t know how, so he goes golfing to ignore his responsibilities.
"Ideas have consequences." - Weaver.
The "Hillarian" idea--that declaring one's self a highly qualified "expert" by virtue of twenty-five years of claiming to be one--was soundly rejected by "the People" in most Counties in the U. S., on November 8, 2016.
By contrast, a newcomer to the world of politics whose claim of being a builder/developer could be substantiated by examining the buildings and real estate developments which exist because of his ability to envision, plan and cause to be brought into being by his efforts.
"As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?" - Federalist Papers, No. 63, 1788
Lawyers have a saying:
When the facts are on your side, use the facts. When the facts aren’t on your side, use experts.
Just a small point here. “Elite” and “Elitist “ are two different things. The “Elitists” try to self define ( soi disant ) as elite in the absence of any valid claim. That the media and others contribute to this confuses who and what these people really are which are poseurs.