How Do You Spot A Fake Expert?

When I was a graduate student, the problem I was obsessed with problem is how does a non-expert recognize an expert? And the dumb way to think about the problem is to think, oh, there's some class of special experts. But really, most of us are non-experts in 99% of the world and experts in at most 01% of the world. So, we're constantly having to recognize non-experts and figure out who to trust. But we're constantly having to overextend ourselves and become vulnerable. And then we try to secure it with hyperaccessible metrics. Imagine away the complexity. Uh they suppose that there's some easily accessible moment, some test for real expertise. But I think the worry is if there's not a mechanical easy test for expertise, then we're plunged in the I think the true awful existential dilemma of the modern world, which is there we are surrounded by people that are true experts and sensitives about forms of value and forms of life that we know nothing about. And we're surrounded by posers and fakers and exploiters.