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?

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppetEnglish
    5•6 months ago

    The most interesting documentary I’ve ever seen was about Sherman’s March. I stumbled upon it on some random satellite channel in the 90’s. Not only was it unbiased, I’m not even sure it had an objective. It was like 3 hours long, and the guy just followed the path Sherman took through the South and interviewed random people he met along the way. Half the time they weren’t even talking about Sherman. Idk what made it so interesting. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this since it doesn’t really reinforce or dispute any of your points. Your response just made me think of it for the first time in ten years and I wanted to share.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Edit: I found it!

    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0091943/

    Here’s an example of some of the dialogue:

    Ross McElwee: I filmed, um, Dee Dee washing her dog, and I filmed, um, Steve going to the music company where he used to work.

    Ross’s father: There, now. How is that going to be useful?

    Ross McElwee: In this film?

    Ross’s father: Just in any film.

    • @[email protected]
      3•6 months ago

      It’s actually a very famous work! He went through a divorce and basically didn’t make the movie he said he would when it got funded lol

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppetEnglish
        1•6 months ago

        Haha, that’s kind of awesome. What he did make, ended up being really entertaining.

        • @[email protected]
          2•6 months ago

          That whole production is kind of amazing when you get down to it. Basically the opening minute or so with that animation was the only thing he promised to make that he actually did lol