You can construct an argument that we never landed on the moon if you cherry pick your data carefully.
That’s the point being made here: not that his examples are wrong, that they are cherry picked to support his views.
It may be superficially thought provoking, but it is not compelling as a logical argument.
There are tangible downsides to ignoring expert advice; you are not a god. You cannot be an expert at everything.
It is not possible to be an expert at everything.
Therefore, yes, asking questions to understand a topic is good, but no, ignoring the advice of an expert is not good.
The examples given only show examples where the result of ignoring the expert, or third party advice was positive; it can’t possibly be true that this can be the case in all circumstances, except by sheer good luck.
I whole heartedly agree that asking questions is more important than looking smart… but:
> Overall, I view the upsides of being willing to look stupid as much larger than the downsides. When it comes to things that aren't socially judged, like winning a game, understanding something, or being able to build things due to having a good understanding, it's all upside.
You don’t have to look stupid to be able to do all those things, you just have to be humble and work hard.
If the person actually is an expert, yes. But actual experts, at least outside hard science domains where we can run controlled experiments to nail down theoretical models to the point where the actually do have high predictive accuracy, are much rarer than most people suppose.
For example, the author says he ignored his doctor's advice; but that only counts as ignoring the advice of an expert if his doctor actually was an expert. Most doctors aren't--in fact, one could argue that no doctors are, since nobody has a really good predictive model for medicine. Many doctors know more than at least a fair number of their patients do, but that's a much lower bar to clear than "actual expert". And given the current state of medicine and the availability of information online, it's pretty easy for a reasonably intelligent person to know more than any of their doctors do about their own particular condition--since they both are more interested in accurate information, and have more time to devote to finding it out.
> You can construct an argument that we never landed on the moon if you cherry pick your data carefully.
This is a really nice, concise way to make the point you are making. Doesn't it seem like this is the central problem with politics today? Everyone has their own data and everyone is logical. You can't have a functional discussion under such scenario. People don't see any problem with their own logic because there isn't any. People can't definitively show a problem with the other's logic because there isn't any.
That’s the point being made here: not that his examples are wrong, that they are cherry picked to support his views.
It may be superficially thought provoking, but it is not compelling as a logical argument.
There are tangible downsides to ignoring expert advice; you are not a god. You cannot be an expert at everything.
It is not possible to be an expert at everything.
Therefore, yes, asking questions to understand a topic is good, but no, ignoring the advice of an expert is not good.
The examples given only show examples where the result of ignoring the expert, or third party advice was positive; it can’t possibly be true that this can be the case in all circumstances, except by sheer good luck.
I whole heartedly agree that asking questions is more important than looking smart… but:
> Overall, I view the upsides of being willing to look stupid as much larger than the downsides. When it comes to things that aren't socially judged, like winning a game, understanding something, or being able to build things due to having a good understanding, it's all upside.
You don’t have to look stupid to be able to do all those things, you just have to be humble and work hard.