7 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
  2. Jul 2021
  3. Dec 2020
    1. Its called the Dunning-Kruger effect

      The Dunning-Kruger effect is undoubtedly important, but since stupidity has always existed, this doesn't explain why the problem has become worse in recent years.

      I think David Riesman hinted at it in his 1959 The Lonely Crowed. Specifically, the transition from a production-oriented economy to a consumption-oriented one has increased the distance between personal experience and expertise that has consequences.

      Once there were many workers whose jobs involved listening to and excepting expert guidance. An auto mechanic knew the wrong kind of oil would ruin an engine; a railroad worker knew some steels work better as rails in difference circumstances; a seamstress knew there were important differences between different thread materials. They received expert advice, and saw what happened when it was ignored.

      The vast majority of expertise can be denied without any consequence at all to the individual. Even when there are consequences -- such as with the brain-surgeon example from the article -- the denying individual isn't likely to learn any lesson. Honestly, how often can a patient actually see the consequence of that doctor's advice, when alternative narratives are pervasive?

      This is a large part of a more general trend towards individualized epistemology, based on each individual's tribal affiliations and social identification.

      Education could overcome it, but that requires winning the coordination game that has always crippled education.

  4. Oct 2020
    1. At last, he is in the moonlit graveyard - the oldest of the dreams. It is peaceful, cool and damp, as the rolling, boggy fields stretch out in all directions. He hears her calling pathetically from the bottom of the graves, ut by now he knows there is nothing he can do but stare. She begs to be released, to dream of this place no more, but there is nothing he can do.

      Naomi Herne

  5. Dec 2015