Something one of my mentors told me in the mid-80's was: "Experts know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing." Seemingly, a lot of our current crop of "experts" just know nothing.
One of the problems with relying on experts is that we rely on the wrong ones. We followed Fauci even though he wasn't an epidemiologist, while ignoring Bhattacharya. That doesn't mean that an epidemiologist will be right for public policy in a pandemic. You also need economists and, yes, politicians. But right now, we're just in the position of discovering that our faucet leaks, and calling an electrician.
This is the real issue. Its not "experts" as a class, but the experts that are being elevated to authority. Those are being chosen based on their political utility and not based on actual expertise.
"The final nail in the experts’ authority-coffin, though, was when, after all the lockdown hysteria, they approved massive public marches by Black Lives Matter because, we were told, racism was a public health problem."
Lest we forget the earlier Public health embarrassment. The mandated Public health management tool for epidemics and STDs was "Contact Tracing" till it became politically inexpedient when it was used for HIV. Tracing led to the wrong people...
Yes, it’s long past time to publish the Epstein flight manifest and Biden’s visitor logs…and all the tapes from Diddy’s parties…the guest lists are just the program….
it is utterly certain that if the Establishment could have shown any big name Republicans, Trump, Musk, etc were on the Epstein List or at Diddy's parties, they would have leaked it faster than crap through a goose
I have an idea: maybe when we do what the experts say and it fails, they should be punished. Like, I don't know, fired or jailed and publicly humiliated. Kind of like in the Bible when Israel's kings would execute false prophets. If you keep putting Tony Fauci on the cover of magazines I don't think you can expect things to get better.
In D&D, "Intelligence" and "Wisdom" are uncorrelated attributes.
Our credentialed self-appointed elites may indeed be intelligent (though the jury is still out), but nothing about the process of higher education or failing upward through the bureaucracy for a lifetime selects for wisdom.
And let’s not forget that our ‘expert class’ overwhelmingly supported the presidential candidacy of a Chicago Democrat who ran as a ‘reformer.’ And then after that they tried to replace him with a Cook County Democrat who ‘had more experience than any other candidate in US history.’
Seriously, I did not make up that shit. It really happened.
As a rule I tried to avoid discussing politics with every day working people. My wife insists!
However this year I found myself getting unsolicited remarks about the election from a wide variety of people. What was startling is how hostile those comments were toward the Democrats. Men, women, old, young, white, black even openly gay people. As a reformed Californian now living in the Midwest I had grown accustomed to having to defend my traditional viewpoint.
I knew this election was going to be really different, what I didn’t expect was the collapse of the woke agenda. Certainly X had a lot to do with it, but more importantly everyone could see the emperor has no clothes.
My fondest wish is that we gut the entire government, start over again. Having to choose between an experienced government operative and a local butcher, I would always choose the butcher, they at least useful skills.
The expert class has paid lip service to the idea of the democratic marketplace enabling the best outcomes, but in reality what they have done is created a walled garden where only their ideas are allowed to flourish. This has led us to the brink of cultural, social, and economic disaster.
I read recently about the failure of our public education system. Iirc, the statistics were essentially: 50 years ago the US was #1 in the world for education, meaning verbal and math skills, for high school graduates. Now the US is #41. Yet the average SAT score hasn’t really changed much.
This suggests that today’s college freshmen are far less educated than the college freshmen of the 1970s. Demographically, colleges enroll fewer men and fewer ‘whites’, as a percentage, than they did 50 years ago. Thus, colleges are enrolling a higher percentage of people who attended inner-city schools.
So - even 30 years ago, saying you had a college education carried some prestige. It implied you were smarter and better educated than the ‘average’ person, and that you had been taught how to think. You had a better ability to reason-through a problem.
These days, that prestige is gone. Saying you have a college degree impresses no one. It certainly appears that recent college graduates haven’t been taught how to think, but instead they’ve been taught what to think. Instead of reasoning-through a problem they apply a prescribed response.
I guess my comments here are just a roundabout way of echoing Glenn’s phrase ‘credentialed but not educated’.
"Rule by experts" goes all the way back to the vision of the original Progressives at the turn of the century (20th, not 21st). Of course back then they were a lot less circumspect about advertising that they were in favor of getting rid of anyone they considered 'deplorables', if you know anything about the history of Margaret Sanger.
I believe it actually goes back to beginning civilizations in Egypt, Greece, Rome, China and elsewhere. All had their equivalent of the Chinese mandarins, whether they were called councilors or even priests, and received deferential, f not reverential, treatment by their inferiors. Although some of the mechanisms of politics have changed, the basic structure (ruler, advisors, enforcers, subjects) really hasn't changed much at all.
It's going to get ugly as power slips from the grasp of the technocratic elite. The lawfare against Trump may well prove to be only the opening shots on Ft. Sumter in an upcoming civil war. Which way will it go? Will we get George Washington and Revolution American Style? Or do we get Robespierre and the Reign of Terror?
Europe is probably too far gone. But, then again, except for a few decades over two millennia ago, Europe has no history or experience with democracy and has always been governed by monarchs and the elite. The EU is simply rule by the inbred Habsburgs and Bourbons by a different name. With its war on farmers, unreliable green energy, the self-destruction of its manufacturing base, no freedom of speech, and unsustainable mass migration, it's tough to see this ending well in Europe.
You forgot to mention that the vast majority of “experts” were taught at colleges with 90% Democrats as professors. At Princeton, there is only 1 known Republican/conservative, Robbie George, out of 800 professors. George is the very public token; but the Princeton President couldn’t name another. George knows 23, basically all in the closet.
The govt should require edu orgs that get tax exemptions to have at least 30% Rep, & 30% Dem, professors. Otherwise the rich colleges should be paying “their fair share” like other rich companies.
Something one of my mentors told me in the mid-80's was: "Experts know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing." Seemingly, a lot of our current crop of "experts" just know nothing.
One of the problems with relying on experts is that we rely on the wrong ones. We followed Fauci even though he wasn't an epidemiologist, while ignoring Bhattacharya. That doesn't mean that an epidemiologist will be right for public policy in a pandemic. You also need economists and, yes, politicians. But right now, we're just in the position of discovering that our faucet leaks, and calling an electrician.
This is the real issue. Its not "experts" as a class, but the experts that are being elevated to authority. Those are being chosen based on their political utility and not based on actual expertise.
That and the more generalized issue with the belief that expertise in one narrow area applies broadly to even non-related areas.
And if our experts had decent PI in graduate school, they would have be warned. You aren't a generalist if you get a PHD.
"The final nail in the experts’ authority-coffin, though, was when, after all the lockdown hysteria, they approved massive public marches by Black Lives Matter because, we were told, racism was a public health problem."
Lest we forget the earlier Public health embarrassment. The mandated Public health management tool for epidemics and STDs was "Contact Tracing" till it became politically inexpedient when it was used for HIV. Tracing led to the wrong people...
Much like Epstein's flight manifests, Diddy's guest lists and Biden's Delaware home visitors logs?
Yes, it’s long past time to publish the Epstein flight manifest and Biden’s visitor logs…and all the tapes from Diddy’s parties…the guest lists are just the program….
I assume there are no GOP names on the Epstein list because they never leaked.
it is utterly certain that if the Establishment could have shown any big name Republicans, Trump, Musk, etc were on the Epstein List or at Diddy's parties, they would have leaked it faster than crap through a goose
One of your best written pieces in some time. Well done.
I have an idea: maybe when we do what the experts say and it fails, they should be punished. Like, I don't know, fired or jailed and publicly humiliated. Kind of like in the Bible when Israel's kings would execute false prophets. If you keep putting Tony Fauci on the cover of magazines I don't think you can expect things to get better.
In D&D, "Intelligence" and "Wisdom" are uncorrelated attributes.
Our credentialed self-appointed elites may indeed be intelligent (though the jury is still out), but nothing about the process of higher education or failing upward through the bureaucracy for a lifetime selects for wisdom.
IMHO, wisdom is better than intelligence both in D&D and the real world.
Intelligence allows you to calculate your exact terminal velocity if you step off the roof
Wisdom gives you the judgement, not to do it, even if you don't know the exact velocity...
And let’s not forget that our ‘expert class’ overwhelmingly supported the presidential candidacy of a Chicago Democrat who ran as a ‘reformer.’ And then after that they tried to replace him with a Cook County Democrat who ‘had more experience than any other candidate in US history.’
Seriously, I did not make up that shit. It really happened.
The Climate Catastrophe could also be mentioned here.
I do believe that the German factory workers bit is about Green climatism
Good catch. Thanks.
As a rule I tried to avoid discussing politics with every day working people. My wife insists!
However this year I found myself getting unsolicited remarks about the election from a wide variety of people. What was startling is how hostile those comments were toward the Democrats. Men, women, old, young, white, black even openly gay people. As a reformed Californian now living in the Midwest I had grown accustomed to having to defend my traditional viewpoint.
I knew this election was going to be really different, what I didn’t expect was the collapse of the woke agenda. Certainly X had a lot to do with it, but more importantly everyone could see the emperor has no clothes.
My fondest wish is that we gut the entire government, start over again. Having to choose between an experienced government operative and a local butcher, I would always choose the butcher, they at least useful skills.
The expert class has paid lip service to the idea of the democratic marketplace enabling the best outcomes, but in reality what they have done is created a walled garden where only their ideas are allowed to flourish. This has led us to the brink of cultural, social, and economic disaster.
I read recently about the failure of our public education system. Iirc, the statistics were essentially: 50 years ago the US was #1 in the world for education, meaning verbal and math skills, for high school graduates. Now the US is #41. Yet the average SAT score hasn’t really changed much.
This suggests that today’s college freshmen are far less educated than the college freshmen of the 1970s. Demographically, colleges enroll fewer men and fewer ‘whites’, as a percentage, than they did 50 years ago. Thus, colleges are enrolling a higher percentage of people who attended inner-city schools.
So - even 30 years ago, saying you had a college education carried some prestige. It implied you were smarter and better educated than the ‘average’ person, and that you had been taught how to think. You had a better ability to reason-through a problem.
These days, that prestige is gone. Saying you have a college degree impresses no one. It certainly appears that recent college graduates haven’t been taught how to think, but instead they’ve been taught what to think. Instead of reasoning-through a problem they apply a prescribed response.
I guess my comments here are just a roundabout way of echoing Glenn’s phrase ‘credentialed but not educated’.
He still won't get red pilled. But, maybe he will be more cynical
"Rule by experts" goes all the way back to the vision of the original Progressives at the turn of the century (20th, not 21st). Of course back then they were a lot less circumspect about advertising that they were in favor of getting rid of anyone they considered 'deplorables', if you know anything about the history of Margaret Sanger.
I believe it actually goes back to beginning civilizations in Egypt, Greece, Rome, China and elsewhere. All had their equivalent of the Chinese mandarins, whether they were called councilors or even priests, and received deferential, f not reverential, treatment by their inferiors. Although some of the mechanisms of politics have changed, the basic structure (ruler, advisors, enforcers, subjects) really hasn't changed much at all.
It's going to get ugly as power slips from the grasp of the technocratic elite. The lawfare against Trump may well prove to be only the opening shots on Ft. Sumter in an upcoming civil war. Which way will it go? Will we get George Washington and Revolution American Style? Or do we get Robespierre and the Reign of Terror?
Europe is probably too far gone. But, then again, except for a few decades over two millennia ago, Europe has no history or experience with democracy and has always been governed by monarchs and the elite. The EU is simply rule by the inbred Habsburgs and Bourbons by a different name. With its war on farmers, unreliable green energy, the self-destruction of its manufacturing base, no freedom of speech, and unsustainable mass migration, it's tough to see this ending well in Europe.
You forgot to mention that the vast majority of “experts” were taught at colleges with 90% Democrats as professors. At Princeton, there is only 1 known Republican/conservative, Robbie George, out of 800 professors. George is the very public token; but the Princeton President couldn’t name another. George knows 23, basically all in the closet.
The govt should require edu orgs that get tax exemptions to have at least 30% Rep, & 30% Dem, professors. Otherwise the rich colleges should be paying “their fair share” like other rich companies.