The Simple Reason General Knowledge Pisses Off Many People

From time to time I head criticisms about my person because I express opinions from politics and economics to science and technology. I don't have what most people would call "formal education" in these subjects (whatever than means). For a period of about 10-13 years, I simply found reading addictive much like someone finds exercising or fishing addictive. I have read tons of books and articles and I believe, I could understand them (at least for the greater part) without the guidance of a teacher or a professor. I don't expect anyone to tell me if I succeeded or not. Time and world events have so far sufficed in this regard.

When I take part in conversations eventually someone will express an opinion that I disagree. Why? Well, simply put, most people parrot the bullshit they happen to glimpse on popular media and then decide that "this is how things are now". I will usually expand on the subject and explain how their reasoning is flawed and that they should reconsider. This tactic makes some people uncomfortable since their ignorance on the subject shows. They can't really back their argument comprehensively beyond what they have just read. The greater the number of people watching, the more embarrassing this becomes. Instead of admitting ignorance or error (which I have done a lot in the past while I was learning the basics) most people choose to dismiss people like me or prefer not to be around. And mind you, it is quite easy to do so because most people perceive their peers based on emotion and traditional evaluation of knowledge (academic credentials).

No matter what the argument is, if one has a degree on a subject and the other, well, does not, the partaker of the conversation will put their money on the guy that has a "state approve seal" for that particular piece of knowledge. It doesn't matter that the degree was bought. It doesn't matter if the degree came from a dodgy university. It doesn't even matter if their knowledge has long been expired - considering how fast-changing our world has become. All that it matters is that one has a degree and one does not. Ask anyone who graduated and got a degree how much of that knowledge is useful in their daily life. One shortly finds out how pointless academic knowledge is (beyond dick measuring within academia that is).

What gets people even more pissed is someone who is well versed in multiple subjects and can combine different facets of knowledge. The reason is quite simple. The average person would say that they dedicated their whole life polishing their knowledge about a specific subject. It is rather normal to have ignorance on pretty much everything else. This is how "experts" came to dominate our world. This is how most people live and die on this planet. Knowing ONE thing. And we all know how experts do when they are asked to put their academic knowledge to work. They realize that a standalone knowledge about something leaves them pretty much blind because the science is as much part of religion as much as it is a part of technology and biology.

Major companies have noted this discrepancy in the force. Academics and "experts" in specific subjects are not valued as much as in the past. Most companies will hire someone who has a proven portfolio of applied knowledge and they don't care if they acquired this knowledge from an accredited institution or the street. The only ones that care about fancy hats and state approved credentials are the ones not living in the real world but in the safe space of academia or the government.

Someone who expresses street smarts and is able to succeed with a general knowledge from multiple subjects, will always have an edge on someone that has been trained to live a life of being a gear in the machine. The first, will most likely create his own machine, based on his own rules and won't need resumes, references or seek employment. They will make their own world and find their own rules. And ironically, these are the people who survive economic catastrophes. These are the people who don't buy the generic bullshit of every scientific article as if it is an ordinance from the Pope. These are the people who can decipher basic relationships and escape the bullshitters. These are the ones who prevail while the rest are playing the blame game.

And that pisses a lot of people.