Ever taken bad advice from someone you think should know better? Who's fault is it?

One thing I notice that happens often (especially these days) is that we have the tendency to listen to people who have earned our attention in one area when they speak about something in a completely different area. We see this commonly with celebrities who become authorities on everything from environmental issues to politics and banking even though they have essentially zero credibility in the field. A well-known face is better than any expertise.

The thing I have found is that the barrier to becoming 'an authority' is continually decreasing as the ability to become well-known increases. This is compounded by the deluge of information that comes into our periphery and draws our attention energy this way and that across many fields. This means that many of us are trusting lower and lower skilled people with a lower ability to recognise it.

This in turn is further compounded as the more attention one person get, the more confident they become to keep expanding their reach and spread. The support we give them encourages them to predict and comment further and further afield until they are advising in areas where it is potentially very harmful to do so.

We listen though because we find it hard to limit someone we like or respect's knowledge boundaries. Because they make us feel good when they speak, we listen to them eve when the information they provide is poor, and they may know it yet, present with confidence. Even if they put in caveats to protect themselves if wrong, we rarely listen as we want them to be right.

This is especially true when we agree with their stance on something or what they are saying fulfils our future desires. The problem of course comes when they fail, their predictions or advice is discovered to be BS or highly unlikely at best. We then condemn them for overreaching and shun them.

At this point, some new hindsight expert steps in and says 'See? I knew this would happen.' and we start to follow and support them until they overreach into areas they know nothing about and fail too.

At what point do we take responsibility for ourselves and actually step back from what makes us feel good and perform our own analysis instead?

In my ten months at Steemit, I have seen quite a few people rise and fall as authorities on topics they know very little about. They quickly garner a pool of support only to later be discovered as frauds or at least, not completely what they appear. Is this a surprise? Not really as this is the internet and no one considers you may be a dog.

It is all about creating a personal brand that attracts eyes, attention and support so as to get a return from the support base. And because it is the internet and sitting behind a screen develops a keyboard warrior mentality, it is very easy to forget that those one is advising are real people with real life issues. Feeding them shit that makes them feel good but is potentially very harmful, is not the kind of behaviour that should be encouraged but is because people that don't present confidently enough, don't get a lot of attention.

The problem with this is that often, the people that may actually know a lot about something and have valuable information to provide, are boring, poorly presented and unwilling to commit to their stance as they know nothing is certain.

What I have found at Steemit is that there area a lot of people making claims and because there are even more people with a low understanding across many areas, they get support regardless of their skills. It nearly always ends with a fall from grace as they are rarely what they seem.

I don't often give advice but in this case I will, take everything anyone says with a pinch of salt, no matter who they are, how much you like them and especially, how many followers they have or how much traction they get. Popular rarely translates into beneficial, except for the popular person.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]