Experts and Elites Play Fundamentally Different Games | Hacker News Reader

Experts and Elites Play Fundamentally Different Games

robkhenderson.com

27 pointsBostonian6 comments

>When elites don’t care about a topic, experts are in charge. They set the norms, make the decisions, and everyone defers to their judgment. But the moment elites start paying attention—once they form a consensus—they take over.

>You saw this during the Covid pandemic. Early on, many physicians and health experts were skeptical about lockdowns, travel bans, and masks. Then global elites started talking—governments, media, institutional heads—and settled on a different line. Almost overnight, the official expert view flipped to match the elite view. The messaging changed, and everyone followed.

>Pandemic experts had access to decades, even centuries, of historical precedent and protocol. But as soon as elites aligned on what they wanted, the experts fell in line. It was instant. The kind of abrupt reversal that feels like something out of 1984. One day it’s “We never said that.” The next, it’s “We’ve always said that.”

Something everyone should always keep in mind when told to, "trust the experts".

Pretty sure the "experts" only became "skeptical" of face masks when the government told them there was a shortage and they had to parrot the US Surgeon General's claim that "masks don't work and if you hoard masks then medical professionals won't have access to the stuff that doesn't work"

Also, this entire article is full of sweeping generalisations, making it more like elite talk rather than expert talk.

>Pretty sure the "experts" only became "skeptical" of face masks when the government told them there was a shortage and they had to parrot the US Surgeon General's claim that "masks don't work and if you hoard masks then medical professionals won't have access to the stuff that doesn't work".

This boils down to, "the experts had a rationale behind their lies". It certainly isn't an argument for trust.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

The elite described here lines up with Rao's Sociopath - someone who understands that, 9 times out of 10, social cohesion is more important than the truth, and is polished enough to represent and enforce it.

> someone who understands that, 9 times out of 10, social cohesion is more important than the truth

10 times out of 10, social cohesion and truth are almost orthogonal. That is, social cohesion is based on agreement, which is based on propaganda. In fact, social cohesion is easier with the truth because the fringe who follow the truth would also support the propaganda instead of opposing it.

9 times out of 10, the so called humanities try to undermine the truth in every way imaginable.

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