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Comment by citatus | Hacker News Reader

When lawyers go drinking together they laugh at stories of criminals who don't even understand the basics of evidence law.

When doctors have coffee breaks they share stories about how modern people don't even understand the difference between a virus and a bacteria and demand antibiotics for the common cold.

Latin professors share hilarious pictures of people who have tattooed themselves with incoherently mistranslated latin tags.

Every profession thinks that the general population is full of dunces who don't understand the basics of the highly important body of knowledge that they are experts in...

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This is likely true. However, using the Internet isn't a profession. It is a globally-scaled phenomenon that is essentially 'the future'. Anyone can learn how to use it and become an 'expert' for basically no cost and little time. People get made fun of not necessarily for being dunces, but for not choosing to embrace and learn about a technology that is already a huge part of their lives.

Using the human body isn't a profession either. But it's likely that you and I are significantly more ignorant than a doctor regarding its inner workings despite using our bodies every day.

Of course. But my point wasn't that 'things that aren't professions are easy to learn about', it was that 'using the Internet IS easy to learn, and requires few resources.' The fact that using the human body isn't a profession is completely irrelevant; doctors spend years studying how our bodies work, while all I do is some occasional research to learn more about it. Of course they know more than me, because they spent lots of time and money on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Déformation_professionnelle

And each of those things is an important thing that the general populace should know in order to navigate life. Aren't sure what that latin tag you're getting permanently tattooed on your body means? Don't get it tattooed on your body.

Each of the original examples was important enough that you delegate to your professional. The whole reason you have a lawyer is so they can handle evidence rules, and correct your misconceptions.

But I'm never going to go to a professional to log into facebook. Or more realistically, understand what XSS attacks are and how to protect myself (or similar). It happens too often to be a consult-an-expert event.

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