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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 9560979" data-attributes="member: 2013">The problem with web 2.0 as I see it is that it is afflicted with a heavy dose of Dunning-Kruger. Almost never do I see someone say, “you know, I am not sufficiently educated on this topic to have an informed opinion.” Instead there is the attitude of, “well, I have a twitter (now X) account and Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a twitter account, therefore my opinions about astronomy are as valid as his.” (Substitute any other name and field of study as you wish). We no longer identify “qualifications” that mean we ought to consider giving one opinion more weight than another, whether in the name of “balanced coverage” or simply wanting to be in an echo chamber. What makes an expert opinion better than mine, anyway? (Obvious answer: expertise, usually derived from relevant study and/or experience). Instead we do the lazy thing and either say all opinions no matter how informed or uninformed are equal, or we simply say “the wisdom of the majority is probably right.” (Or we just select the opinion that agrees with our presupposition as “expert.”) in such an environment, no wonder the bots (which amount to an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters) can drown out useful information… we have lost (or perhaps abdicated) our ability to discern expertise.</blockquote>