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Qualified experts of Lemmy, do people believe you when you answer questions in your field? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by essell to c/asklemmy

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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?

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[–] radix 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In your case, I'm guessing lots of people have heard the horror stories of shitty, scammy repair techs in various fields (automobiles being one prominent example). The good ones have to deal with the occupational reputation driven by the worst of them.

For me, I don't consider myself a real expert in any specific subject, but I'm adjacent to a number of financial areas. I try not to delve into the weeds of those internet discussions too often (like I said, not an ironclad expert), and even when I do, it's only to address the most egregious errors. Money can be an emotional topic, and many of those opinions are based on the way people want the world to be rather than the way it is, so show up with facts and references and they tend to understand.

[–] essell 3 points 6 months ago

That's a very reasoned and reasonable view of the question. Totally fair I'd say. Feeling a little emotionally frustrated by it today none the less.