The Problem with Public Expertise

One of the talking points against the internet and social media is that it has led to the death of expertise.

The issue with this is that, when you move away from the hard sciences and engineering, which still leaves vast swathes of public policy, the experts aren’t much, if any, better than laypeople.

The majority of pundits got the Iraq war wrong. The majority of economists (the vast majority) did not see the housing/CDO bubble and did not expect the financial collapse.

The people that were the gatekeepers of the old media pick, suck. Almost all of them got wrong the two most important issues of 2000s.

So the idea that the internet and social media is worse seems questionable.

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As for fake news, I will point out, again, that the New York Times liked about the Iraq war. Fake news.

With devastating consequences.

This isn’t to say that no filters or regulation would be good, but I don’t trust this government or these social media companies to decide who gets to talk.

I think anyone who does is foolish.