How to Solve the Expert Problem

The expert problem is that expertise is hard to define, and harder to trust. To some extent, this has caused the general public to avoid taking responsibility for learning for themselves. In other words, though there is distrust in expertise and experts, people have in general glommed on to one or another person to do the thinking for them. In some cases people claim “the algorithm” is dominating their attention span and processing of thoughts. That has dissolved the concept of expertise as well.

Whether you trust “the” experts, or no experts, the expert problem will not be solved until people return to the basics. How do you know what you know? What do you do to verify the things you think you know against your own level of certainty? Can you know anything – of course. Yet some people claim they don’t know what to believe about the stories which are presented from the news and media apparatus.

Without pretending to be an expert, and without succumbing to believing the first soothing voice you hear, how could you learn to better trust yourself?

Becoming an expert isn’t easy. You don’t have to be an expert on everything or anything either. But you need to know how to determine what an expert is, how to spot their inconsistencies, and discern across various experts your own opinions. If you don’t, you will easily be led astray by those who seek to take advantage of minds that are open to being filled with convincing yet inaccurate information.

Learn to be an expert…on expertise – at least.

Restoring Trust and Rebuilding Consensus

In 2020, as the world grappled with what COVID-19 is, we were inundated with a simple, yet profound slogan: trust the experts. Many repeated this, and used it as a bludgeon to silence those who did not hold the correct degree or have the right profession. Some experts were discredited because of their political affiliations, but everybody had to contend with the notion of expertise. What does it mean? Does it mean experts are always right or correct and telling the truth? Clearly not all of those things combined. Sadly, too few experts which were trotted out on television to tell the public what to do about COVID were there to promote medicines or individual stocks.

As the years have passed, the meaning of the phrase has become muddied. COVID is considered long gone, but the narratives are still being recycled. It’s almost like the public knows they missed something, but there is no expert left to tell them what that things is. With that in mind, how do we rebuild a society that can trust expertise, while also preserving the sovereignty of individual judgment?

Removing Frauds, Fakes, Phonies, and Grifters

Too many personalities were forced down our throats during this time. Voices of all shades and flavors were pushed on social media and via broadcast media, to reassure or suppress. They have to go. Some of them can, have, or will pivot. In the end, though, I think a lot of them know that the time is coming for them to face the music and move on. Get a new career, or go back to their old one.

But people who claim to not be an expert (in anything) yet still have a huge platform need to be dealt with. They are part of the problem, so to speak.

Experts in the Age of Uncertainty

A recent debate between podcasters Dave Smith and Douglas Murray highlighted the growing tension around the concept of expertise. Both men, known for their outspoken views on politics and society, have become central figures in shaping public discourse in recent years. Yet, as the COVID-19 campaign unfolded, they, like so many others, these guys both became players in a much larger conversation about who should be trusted with the truth. They were heard, for many, above any expert whatsoever. In other cases, their analysis about lies in the media are accurate, but not deep enough.

When Trump first shut things down with his emergency declaration in March of 2020, trust the experts became the rallying cry. A mantra echoed across every news outlet, social media post, and public address. Said among families, friends, and work circles.

The world naturally looked to epidemiologists, virologists, government officials, and journalists to guide us through an unprecedented crisis. But as the narrative evolved, it became clear that not all experts were in agreement, and even more concerning, not all expert advice was trustworthy. However, all of these important cogs in the wheels of society agreed to falsify the idea that COVID was a world-altering thing – but it wasn’t.

The very fact that a debate (which was barely a debate) between Dave Smith and Douglas Murray was such a big deal is evidence that something is very wrong here.

Dave Smith knows a lot of facts he can spit out.

Douglas Murray speaks with a wry British tone.

They both sound and look a certain kind of part.

But neither are experts on anything worth hearing.

Everything each of them says is just the same talking points you could get on different networks like FOX, CNN, or newspapers like Washington Post or Washington Examiner. They disagree on certain things, sure. But the way they disagree is absolutely the same rote stuff you could hear on Piers Morgan from any number of random guests. So it’s not even that these guys lack expertise. They lack originality.

That might be even more important today, but that also gives rise to a lot of fringe nonsense. Because the direct response to distrusting expertise, is trusting what appears to be a total lack of expertise. That’s how things like Holocaust denial and flat Earth became popular online in the last 5 years especially. Qanon type conspiracies which have virtually no basis in fact, appear to some people as more trustworthy because there is no individual person to distrust with it. They appear naturally occurring in some way; almost like a part of the world instead of a creation.

Dave Smith & Douglas Murray debating these topics offered no new insight.

They offered no solutions. No investigative findings. It was all broad & generic.

Yet they podcasted on the Joe Rogan experience to millions of people, for 3-ish hours and then had hundreds of hours of more podcast commentary about their meaningless debate. There have been debates…about their meaningless debate. Douglas Murray published an op-ed in the NY Post. I have written about it, though mostly I wrote about this, which is that neither of these guys are really very societally beneficial. Their work is equally valueless. Nobody learns anything. Nobody changes their mind. Very little is agreed upon, including how their respective opinions can or should be valued. It’s weird. Kind of like high school debate club, but with higher stakes.

Consensus Should Not Be A Dirty Word

When they said “trust the experts,” this generally referred to doctors. Medical professionals. The people telling you to mask up, get a vaccine, and socially distance as well. Government officials and the public who repeated those claims (even as they changed or evolved) were considered experts or as trustworthy as an expert should be. Yet, there are a lot of fields of study which COVID infected.

So which field of study, and which experts, do you think are necessary for solving problems? When I was getting my Philosophy degree at Temple University, one of my classes discussed Pragmatism. A central and critical insight from this was that one of the most important things in a debate is to make sure people are on the same page.

Taking that a step further, ensuring people are working from the same definitions of things is usually assumed. However, it shouldn’t always be assumed. In fact, a lot of disagreements can ultimately be boiled down to a miscommunication or differentiation between semantics. One of the sticking points in the Dave Smith Douglas Murray debate was about the morality of war. Smith got on a high horse about his views.

Murray was very callous and cold about his.

However, Smith was just arguing that the debate should be on the terms he believes are morally superior, correct, and right.

Yet that question (which terms are the right ones for the debate at hand) is never answered. Therefore, Smith’s expertise gets called into question there and later, since he is not a military “expert.” As a 40+ year old man, he is free to hold beliefs about morality and as a father he probably has had to alter some of his previously held beliefs. Is he an expert on the question(s) of morality? Perhaps. That might be an interesting debate. But more important (to me) is how does a person like Dave Smith ultimately use his experiences. He uses it to try to win debates. To me that’s fruitless.

Murray is the same.

These guys could not seem to even come to a consensus about whether or not they were “debating.”

What Expertise Solves This Part of the Problem?

There are experts in every field – medicine, law, economics, media, policy, and more.

When I was in lower education, I was in an “interdisciplinary program” where we studied the interplay between Science, History, English, and other subjects. That is something I am eternally grateful for. Because it showed me that in combination with the core pragmatic inclination, ensuring that the correct fields of study are being taken into account is incredibly important.

To me, COVID was an economic and social experiment more than a medical or biological phenomenon. That is one of the main differences between how I processed the situation compared to “the experts” and podcasters who dominated opinion shaping. This is also why nobody would speak with me about it. If you look at things from my perspective, you see all the other parts much more clearly, including the medical lies. Including the authoritarian overreach. Including the market manipulation.

In fact, if you allow me, I can clear up everything.

Mix of Experts Can Get Muddy

In AI, there are certain models which are considered “mix of experts.” That is basically a combination of multiple models, each of which take on a specific expert function. One might be the data processor. Another could be doing research. Yet a third may be the compiler of thoughts into a production for the user.

If you think of the same consensus formation, experts frequently disagree within their own fields. So not only does a person need to learn how to trust an expert within certain fields. They need to learn how to combine those expert opinions and sort out when things conflict or conflate with one another across domains. Forming a consensus needs to happen inside fields of expertise as well as anywhere those fields of expertise coalesce. In the case of mass media events like COVID, George Floyd video, election fraud, etc. too few people are expert at combining expert opinions into a cohesive and sensicle narrative. 

When experts disagree, how does the public make informed decisions? And if “the experts” have been wrong in the past, how do we avoid being misled again?

In the case of COVID-19, we saw multiple layers of expertise come into play. Public health experts focused on claiming they were controlling “the virus’” spread, while government officials made decisions about lockdowns, mandates, and economic support. Between both major political parties, across cities and states, and with the federal government, no consensus ever formed.

Journalists reported on both sides, with varying degrees of scrutiny, creating a media landscape rife with contradictions.

Everybody Follows Their Own Money, Not The Money

Joe Rogan went from “the Fear Factor guy” to “the Ivermectin guy” who battled CNN over “misinformation.” He brought people like Dave Smith and others along for the ride. The comedian-podcaster-political show category skyrocketed. Did these guys genuinely believe what they were saying?

That’s like asking if everything in their act is entirely biographical.

Anthony Fauci went from an unknown to a household name.

Jim Cramer literally formed a COVID index for investors.

Individual people got convinced by their CFO, fund manager, financial advisor, or relative to put their money into the stock market. Or in specific companies like Moderna, who were profiting from the government money printing operation. A lot of psychological impact on the market drove exponential increases in valuation of companies that benefited from policies like work from home. Zoom is a classic example of this. Mania convinced people that this was going to last forever. However, that drove the madness about COVID being a novel virus. People needed those expert opinions to be accurate. If you keep things locked down while pretending that the conditions warrant it, and there is no alternative, it’s impossible to refute. 

Anybody who fought against this kind of direction got ignored, censored, or destroyed.

My understanding of how it happened got me treated like a ghost.

But perhaps the most concerning aspect of this entire crisis was the willingness of many so-called experts to be complicit in pushing narratives that suited powerful interests – be it political, financial, or ideological. We witnessed this in the medical community, where some professionals promoted vaccines not purely out of scientific necessity, but because of financial incentives tied to pharmaceutical companies. Yet that reality never gets factored into the equation enough, even for people who have believed that we were lied to be experts. In other words, you could be as big of a skeptic as Joe Rogan and Dave Smith, but ultimately not come to the realization that COVID was not even a novel virus. They still believe it was a bioweapon from China.

To figure out what really happened, you’d need to forget what you think you know.

Just for a minute. See if you came to the same conclusions you have now, if you rethought it from the beginning. Forgetting what you saw coming, or experienced.

The Role of the Novice: Why We Need Beginner’s Minds

But here’s where things take an interesting turn. Just because the experts failed us in many instances doesn’t mean the concept of expertise itself is invalid. It simply means we need to redefine what it means to be an expert and how we trust those who claim expertise. Verification of an expert’s opinion should be found in their actions and results, not just their certification or co-signs. In fact, good science is verifiable.

The idea of a “novice” or “beginner’s mind” can offer you a fresh perspective. While expertise in a specialized field like epidemiology or law may take years to develop, the ability to think critically about what’s happening around you is something that we all possess. For example, if you are diagnosed with a medical condition, you may seek out expert advice. As you should. It is usually advised to get a second opinion as well because doctors can be wrong in their assessment. If you get arrested, you might hire an attorney. Whether you do exactly as they say or request them to take a different tact with your case, may depend on your expertise as a defendant. If you get arrested a lot, you might know how to handle yourself. But, you should probably trust those experts. If you live with an ailment, or frequently end up in court, you could become an expert of a certain sort. Somebody whose lived experience has value for others, but it does not make you an ultimate authority or an infallible person just because you are like the subject of debate. I may not be a medical expert, but I have studied the philosophy of science, and I know how consensus is supposed to form.

I am also an expert in understanding the cybernetic impact of policies that are directed from mass media. How questions and the motives behind media coverage are dealt with, and how to identify when the narrative is being manipulated. Most of the narratives we are forced to deal with are contrived these days. Very little genuine news makes its way to the mainstream. Car crashes, homicides and other criminal conduct, live events, and those kinds of things naturally happen all the time. Police officers behaving badly happens every day. Bodycam footage of those events happens frequently. Why George Floyd became a martyr sensation is a matter of production.

Media Manipulation Touches Everything

I’ve learned this lesson firsthand.

Over the past few years, I’ve been following, investigating, and analyzing media stories, social media reactions, and official statements to better understand how public perception is shaped. By approaching these issues with a beginner’s mind, I have been unencumbered by preconceived notions or biases. I’ve been able to cut through much of the noise and see things from a clearer, more objective standpoint.

Gain Expertise, Then Trust Yourself

So how do we move forward from here?

1. Recognize that expertise is not a monolith: Each field of study has varying degrees of expertise. Having expertise in certain fields of study offer differing clarity on predicting the future as well. Moreover, experts come from different fields and often disagree. That means rather than blindly trusting one group of experts, we need to learn how to evaluate the quality of their arguments and consider competing viewpoints. Before that, we can’t come to a consensus.

    

2. Understand the limits of expertise: Experts may have specialized knowledge, but they don’t have all the answers. In many cases, they are just as susceptible to biases, misinformation, and political agendas as the general public. Therefore, we must be cautious about who we trust and for what reasons. 

1. Embrace the value of a beginner’s mind: Sometimes, the answers to complex problems come not from experts, but from relooking at the basics. People who are willing to look at an issue with fresh eyes can often see them more clearly than those who are entrenched in business as usual. As we move forward, we must all take responsibility for our own understanding of the world, questioning the narratives we’re fed and seeking the truth in our own terms. Instead of blaming experts for being wrong, people need to look inward to understand how they failed to find out the truth themselves.

    

2. Rebuild consensus: In order to move past the chaos of misinformation, we need to develop systems that prioritize open dialogue and consensus-building. We need to create spaces where differing viewpoints can be discussed honestly, without fear of being labeled a “conspiracy theorist” or “misinformation spreader.” The true value of expertise lies not in one-sided opinions, but in the ability to engage in productive conversations that move society toward a greater understanding. Getting down to the bottom of what words mean outside of the common use in English is the kind of activity Philosophy 101 students and stoners indulge in. However, at a certain point, it becomes necessary. We are at a point where that is a necessity now.

The COVID-19 lie(s) and other global misinformation events show us just how fractured trust in expertise has become. But this fracture isn’t necessarily a death sentence for the concept of expertise. Instead, it’s a challenge – one that we must rise to meet by fostering critical thinking, transparency, and a willingness to question everything, even the experts themselves.

We need experts.

But we also need to be experts in understanding who the experts are, what they bring to the table, and when it’s time to step away from the expert consensus and start forging our own path forward. The future of knowledge, and the world, depends on it.