The internet has made a lot of people armchair experts happy to offer their perspective with a degree of certainty, without doing the work to identify gaps in their knowledge. Often the mark of genuine expertise is knowing the limitations of your knowledge.

This isn’t a social media thing exclusively of course, I’ve met it in the real world too.

When I worked as a repair technician, members of the public would ask me for my diagnosis of faults and then debate them with me.

I’ve dedicated the second half of my life to understanding people and how they work, in this field it’s even worse because everyone has opinions on that topic!

And yet my friend who has a physics PhD doesn’t endure people explaining why his theories about battery tech are incorrect because of an article they read or an anecdote from someone’s past.

So I’m curious, do some fields experience this more than others?

If you have a field of expertise do you find people love to debate you without taking into account the gulf of awareness, skills and knowledge?

  • @Hobo
    link
    61 month ago

    Who the hell is space karen?

      • Limfjorden
        cake
        link
        fedilink
        English
        101 month ago

        African-American guy

        Never thought about him this way, but true!

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          61 month ago

          I read an article about a (white) guy born in - maybe - Zimbabwe but definitely Africa. He moved to the US and his school had a scholarship / fund for African-Americans. He was the only pupil that qualified so applied for a laugh. Can’t remember how it ended.

          I’d like to think that “Spaceship Karen” doesn’t find the phrase funny - but being such a glorious champion of free speech he’ll just have to suck it up.

      • @Hobo
        link
        41 month ago

        Ohhhhhh. I should’ve guessed that. Sorry can be a bit dense sometimes.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          41 month ago

          Tbh my brain immediately gave me a fifty-fifty. Say what you want about Bezos but, in my head, he’s more of a Cruella than a Karen. I then guessed the lady in the post was talking about the other space guy. I don’t blame you drawing a temporary blank, new names and all that.