We’re All Doomed

Expertise, while not quite a dead dodo, is definitely on life support at the moment.

A lot of people, far too many, are more likely to believe an eloquent, populist conspiracy theorist, who plays to their particular cultural bias, than an actual expert. This is happening even in areas of science, where the whole concept of vaccines is questioned by, at the very least, large minorities, simply because some errors were inevitably made, some misinformation spread, by experts working, on the hoof, during the Covid times.

But we call people “experts” not because they are always right, but because they have done an amount and type of training, that makes them reliable. You’re not going to put your life in the hands of a pilot who has read a few books about flying, or even one who has spent many hours on a flight simulator. You want a pilot who has had many, many hours of time flying a plane under different conditions, and doing so safely.

Still there are occasionally plane crashes. But the vast majority of the time, we get there.

And yet, in this era, all sorts of unqualified people are holding court in areas that they shouldn’t have been allowed to get anywhere near. Ever. And some of them are world leaders.

Does this mean We’re All Doomed? After all, there are a lot of very important threats the world is facing right now. Environmental, technological, political, religious, and potentially more of the biological ones. And yet, in many places, we are being led by nincompoops and/or very badly intentioned eejuts.

I’m an optimist, who is not seeing an awful lot of cause of optimism at the moment. But, still, I am. Because every empire ends at some point, usually collapsing in on itself.

I’m very grateful to have lived so far in a safe place at a safe time. If that changes, and we shouldn’t pretend it can’t, I believe we will find our way through once again.