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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

When it's not clear whether you should trust someone, you should:

* Get the necessary background education to understand the subject

* Read what they are saying

* Determine the reasons for whether or not it is wholly, partially, or not at all logically and factually consistent

What you probably shouldn't do is shrug your shoulders, and cite a platitude like "Well, experts have been wrong before! I have no idea who we can trust!"

For heavily technical topics, unfortunately, this does require getting tens of thousands of hours of practice in the relevant field, so I can see why it may be less appealing than the lazy alternative.

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There are alternatives. I usually use a mix of: (a) what might be the motivation of the person / group to say something. (b) what are the risks of lying, and the consequences. (c) are there other voices and the possible motivation of those etc. (d) can someone verify this at least partially.

I emphatically agree.

Bookmarking this answer. This will be my automated response to the usual disrespectful comments by conspiracists on conclusions achieved by strong specialists.

Your answer is in fact the lazy one. The topics that are often beset with controversy and conspiracy are heavily technical.

"You should do your own research" is fine when we're talking about the fall of Rome or aliens in space. It is dismissive and arrogant to say it when it comes to things like COVID or airline safety - areas where we must trust experts.

Shrugging your shoulders at experts who lie about those sorts of topics is a reasonable thing to do because those experts often use their position to further their own agenda, like government officials did during the pandemic or in this case like the Egyptians likely did in the 804 case.

If you are truly intelligent then your job is to hold other experts accountable to a high ethical standard in order to earn people's trust – not to look down your nose at people.

Regarding your point, I mostly agree but I think you can add your own research - not necessarily primary source research - as an input.

> "You should do your own research" is fine when we're talking about the fall of Rome or aliens in space. It is dismissive and arrogant to say it when it comes to things like COVID or airline safety - areas where we must trust experts.

On a tangent ... why are the fall of Rome or intelligent extraterrestrial life less in need of expert input than plane crashes or Covid?

The former are interesting topics to be sure, but have very little to do with with active engagement in modern society.

Thanks for clarifying.

IMHO history and the fall of Rome in particular seem among the most valuable topics today!

You could be right!

If you don’t have the background to understand the topic, then you are not an expert and have no obligation to do anything. The fact that the topics are hard to understand does not mean you can skip understanding and go straight to arguing about it.

> The fact that the topics are hard to understand does not mean you can skip understanding and go straight to arguing about it.

Depends on the topic. If its about, say, policy, then yes, you absolutely can and should. Certainly being informed is important, and expertise lends some additional credibility to your POV, but 'trust the experts' is no panacea.

If we're talking about load bearing structures in the construction of a bridge, you're right! If we're talking about spending tax dollars on the construction of said bridge, you don't need to be an urban planner or a structural engineer to have a legitimate and worthy opinion.

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