The Cult Of Expertise And Neo-Feudalism

We are told to trust the experts. They know what is right. They know  what is best. We would all be better off if we would all just outsource  our decision making and follow their advice, suggestions, and commands.  Those who don’t obey the experts are the ones who are making things  difficult for the rest of us. If only we could get rid of those pesky  fools who won’t listen to the experts then all of our problems would be  solved. After all, the experts know how to solve all our problems. They  told us they do. Not only that: they’re experts! Surely we don’t want to  go against the experts. They’re much smarter than we are. Wouldn’t it  be so much simpler if we all just went along with the program? 

Here at The Amateur Society we have no overarching gripe against  experts generally as a category of people. When I needed reconstructive  foot surgery as a child I went to an expert. The medical field provides  us with any number of areas where expertise is fundamentally necessary.  More broadly speaking, we are always reliant upon others who have more  developed skills than we do in various areas. If you can guarantee that  you are 100% self-reliant in all current and potential future scenarios,  then drop me a line. I’d be thrilled to learn from your experience and  abilities! 

What I vigorously object to is what I call the cult of expertise.  

In order to be a true expert in any given field you must dedicate  your entire life to it. Not only do you have to learn the entire history  of the field, but you must accumulate skills in any number of other  related disciplines. This takes resources, time, and ability. If you  aspire to be at the cutting edge of any field, then you must specialize  in ways that are difficult to grasp. A true expert needs to know  everything that there is to know about a particular topic. Because the  amount of information that is required for such an achievement is  astronomical and continuously increasing, a narrowing of focus is  mandatory. 

An expert scientist cannot know everything there is to know about all  aspects of science. Only a momentary reflection is necessary for us to  grasp this truism. There is simply too much information for one person  to comprehend comprehensively. In the time you spend reading this  article new scientific research is being performed and papers are being  written that are not even finalized or universally accessible. The  logistical hurdle alone is too much for anyone to overcome. One person  could, conceivably, become a true expert in the narrowest of narrow  sub-specialties in a field, but it would take constant effort to  maintain such a status. 

We are tragically cavalier with our use of the term expert. Anyone  who has spent some time studying a subject, has a piece of paper with  some letters on it, or has some  experience seems to be automatically  classified as an expert if they qualify with the ones who assign the  label. Those who agree with a preferred ideology are deemed experts, and  those who disagree – regardless of ability or experience – are deemed  fools. This linguistic technique of influencing public opinion and  perception should have died off long ago if only because it is boring  and predictable. However, it is still employed because arbitrary  labeling still proves to be monumentally effective. 

I have three warnings about the cult of expertise: 

Be wary of an expert stepping outside their field of expertise 

Stephen Hawking is by all accounts the premier theoretical physicist  of his generation. A few of his predictions have turned out to be wildly  incorrect, but honestly that doesn’t bother me because science should  be an investigative enterprise of hypotheses that are gradually and  continuously tested and refined. Being wrong can actually be a positive  step because it narrows down the range of valid alternatives. We’ll save  the absolutely horrific current conception of what science is and what  it does for another time. 

In his book The Grand Design Hawking on the first page  writes that “philosophy is dead” and then proceeds to talk about  philosophy for most of the remainder of the text. He then makes an  outrageously self-contradictory claim: “because there is a law such as  gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.” This is a  laughably tragic bit of philosophy from a scientist who just proclaimed  that philosophy is dead. I’ll spare you the details of the fallacies in  this statement. If you’re interested in the breakdown I’d recommend  watching John Lennox address the subject. 

My point is that even though Stephen Hawking is a world-renown expert  in his field he is profound out of sorts when it comes to philosophy.  At the very least that is what his published work suggests. Experts are  no longer experts when they step out of their area of expertise. The  term expert is not some blanket title that applies to someone when they  speak on any topic. If it doesn’t apply in such a way to Stephen  Hawking, then it certainly doesn’t apply to anyone with a postgraduate  degree. 

Be wary of anyone claiming to be an economic expert 

Economics includes the sum total of all human actions. This means  that to be an expert on economics you must be an expert on history,  government, politics, human behavior, decision theory, probability,  mathematics, statistics, randomness, choice, finance, complex  institutions, language, quantum physics, culture, war, mechanics,  currency, debt, derivatives, banking, mining, technology, weather,  computer science, literature, astronomy, psychology, sociology, and any  of the other literal millions of things that can go into the decisions  that humans make. 

The best an economist can do is look at history and find patterns.  The worst they can do is make assumptions about what works based on  computer models that don’t reflect reality and then screw everything up  royally. See William Easterly’s The Tyranny of Experts  for an accounting of how developmental economists cause poverty rather  than alleviate it. Personally, I give anyone whose writings get them  booted from the World Bank for being too contrarian a touch of extra  initial credibility when I begin to assess their work. 

So called expert economists also have a remarkable tendency to get  things wrong and then ignore that they did. The stimulus didn’t work? We  didn’t do enough of it! More debt isn’t leading to more growth like my  model said? One of the assumptions must be off because as an expert my  ideology must be correct! 

I comment on the economy, have an undergraduate degree in economics,  and have spent time at a bulge bracket bank and on an equities trading  desk. I am not an expert. I have some experience and do the best I can  with what God gives me despite me not deserving it. Watch out for anyone  who pretends to understand how all of these things work. There are too  many charlatans and ideologues to count, and they typically call  themselves experts. 

Be extremely wary of any individual or group of experts who promise to deliver utopia if you give them the keys 

This is a snare that dates back through centuries of history and is  now being prepared for global rollout. It goes by many names including  transhumanism, futurism, directed evolution, social engineering, and  globalism. I think the best general term to describe it is technocracy.  See Patrick Wood’s book Technocracy Rising for a marvelously detailed exposition of the history and current status of the latest iteration of the false promise of utopia. 

A utopia of experts is code for Neo-Feudalism. The oligarchy is  already set up, and their desire is to create a divided society of the  rulers and the ruled. This process has been advanced radically over  several centuries and particularly in recent decades. It has always  occupied a hushed undercurrent among elites, but now it is out in the  open. The verbal promise of utopia is currently on the table from those  who call themselves experts. It sounds amazing and most will be  captivated by it: no more problems, no more pain, no more disease, no  more death! It’s the oldest lie in the book. The reality of the  technocratic utopia is the exact opposite. Whether the design is more  akin to Brave New World or 1984 remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: 

There is no room for freedom in the utopia of experts. 

Stand up to the cult of expertise. There is no shame in distrusting  experts when they step outside their highly specialized fields, claim to  be able to predict the sum total of human behavior, or promise you  heaven on earth if you will surrender everything to them. This  understanding and attitude are becoming more important than ever at this  very moment. 

I am proud to be an amateur. Are you?