Qualified experts of Lemmy, do people believe you when you answer questions in your field?
Qualified experts of Lemmy, do people believe you when you answer questions in your field?
The internet has made a lot of people armchair experts happy to offer their perspective with a degree of certainty, without doing the work to identify gaps in their knowledge. Often the mark of genuine expertise is knowing the limitations of your knowledge.
This isn't a social media thing exclusively of course, I've met it in the real world too.
When I worked as a repair technician, members of the public would ask me for my diagnosis of faults and then debate them with me.
I've dedicated the second half of my life to understanding people and how they work, in this field it's even worse because everyone has opinions on that topic!
And yet my friend who has a physics PhD doesn't endure people explaining why his theories about battery tech are incorrect because of an article they read or an anecdote from someone's past.
So I'm curious, do some fields experience this more than others?
If you have a field of expertise do you find people love to debate you without taking into account the gulf of awareness, skills and knowledge?
lmao. I worked at FDA for about a decade, was one of the main programmers for their system that tracks approval of biologics, as well as the system that tracks and handles approvals of individual biological lots. And then the MAGAts started making up bullshit conspiracy stuff about how biologics are developed and approved ... :/
Yes. I work in the aerospace industry. I’m a woman. When Space Karen first appeared on the scene, he immediately had millions of young, impressionable fanboys. Fanboys who would passionately disagree with you when you explained how something Space Karen spouted into the ether one day didn’t will it into existence. And Space Karen said a lot of dumb shit.
Nevertheless, he said it, you disagree, you are wrong because you disagree with something he said, and your education, skills, experience, and qualifications over many years are meaningless.
That went on for years before he finally showed himself to be the narcissistic manchild many of us saw in the beginning. It’s a double-edged sword…on one hand you feel vindicated, but on the other you wish it didn’t have to come to this to make it happen.
Dude I've had people on Lemmy tell me that I am wrong about the contents of my own mind.
I tell them, this is what I believe and why (and my arguments citations whatever)
And they say, no, obviously you're lying and you believe this other thing instead. And then they start digging through my history and constructing arguments and debating me on it.
Some instances I don't go on that much anymore
LMAO. No. You can't convince an overconfident idiot with facts and experience.
LOL, I work in climate science.
Specifically in consequential carbon accounting analysis. Which is the branch that specializes in quantifying how much impact decisions and policies will have on greenhouse gas levels.
We are fucked. We are so incredibly fucked.
I comment regularly on social media about what actually needs to happen if we’re to limit the damage from WW3 to just seriously fucked. You can imagine how that goes.
People advocate for things on Reddit or Lemmy about what we should be doing to avoid the disaster. Most of the time these things will have little benefit, and often will make things worse. I try to educate people but everybody has their pet issues usually based on whatever article they read last and they don’t actually want to seek the truth, just defend their opinion.
It’s tough because they are all very nuanced issues, every decision has trade offs, makes things better in one way worse than another. People aren’t wrong about the small part they’re looking at, just its impact on the bigger picture.
Everyone is pulling in different directions on this issue because the waters have been so incredibly muddied by the people who stand to lose from real climate action.
Well, the thing is, sometimes I don’t even believe me, despite the better part of two decades of experience.
Impostor syndrome kinda sucks.
But at the same time, I’ve come to be suspicious of any engineer who doesn’t have at least a dash of impostor syndrome. It’s always a good reflex to check your assumptions, imo.
I kinda feel like a fraud with all the experts here, but I work in CGI and am quite active on some forums to help out people with their technical issues. The vast majority of people are good willed and are either happy to use a solution I -or someone else- provided, or respectfully dissatisfied with the efficiency of said solution. Which is fine because sometimes there aren't solutions, only workarounds.
But once in a while... there's gonna be a guy... and it's always a dude, of course- there's gonna be a guy who just demands a solution to a problem he doesn't even care to explain fully. And he weaves into his question a bunch of unfounded attacks towards the developers of the software in question, which he didn't pay for, because it's free and opensource. And more often than not, he will not try the proposed solutions, instead questioning 1.your legitimacy and proficiency 2.your understanding of his issue 3.your very presence on these forums, etc It's crazy. When it starts to look like one of these, I don't bother going in anymore.
One of the things that irated me most from Reddit was the fact that if someone's response came quickly enough, upvotes will ensure everyone believe it and downvoting it was like peeing on a wildfire.
I like that kbin shows both upvotes and downvotes which tells me when something is controversial enough to give it some thought rather than believe it blindly.
I worked in politics and have a degree in international affairs so people definitely argue about that. But I got good enough at coding and Linux that it became my career and people tend to trust me on that stuff.
There’s certain fields where everyone thinks they’d be good at it and they’re wrong. Voice acting is probably one. Seems easy but it’s really fucking not. And most people who think they understand politics don’t know basics about how legislative committees work, much less negotiated rulemaking.
Regarding my field of expertise, not usually. I have a very technical expertise (frontend software engineering, backend Node.js, JavaScript in general), so most people I talk to about it are asking me for help or are similarly experienced.
But regarding my experience working in big tech, yes. I get pushback for the strangest things. Like, I’ll be explaining the architecture of some system I worked on at Facebook or something, and someone will tell me that’s not how it works, because they read an article that described it differently. Like, ok sure buddy, I only worked on it for a year. I’ve always found that kind of exchange pretty funny.
50/50.
When I talk about how combat really is some people can't let go of what Hollywood has taught them in movies. Or they have some preconceived notion to do with a political position. Usually that happens when a police officer panic shoots someone and I point out the problems with the officer's story.
I'm a CFI. on the subjects of aerodynamics, navigation, instrumentation, aircraft systems, aviation law, my word is usually accepted. I'm apparently the least knowledgeable person in the world on the subjects of aviation physiology and aeromedical factors. What could a pilot possibly know about hypoxia?
HR is a funny one; if you know what you're talking about about and can speak to different audiences at their level it's not generally push back from a professional knowledge point--pushback for HR is usually "yeah but that is hard/not what I want" which is very different and totally fine.
Except fucking compensation. Glassdoor is the WebMD bane of comp conversations with employees. It's a selection-bias informed group of people who provide salaries when they think they're underpaid and need validation. While, for the most part we're all underpaid, just like WebMD, the dangerous oversimplification of very nuanced and complex data is nothing but a PITA to people trying to to fix or work in good systems.
"I saw my job is being hired for $xx,xxx I should be getting that". Location, industry, industry segment, education, KSA, org size, high variance in titles from one company to the next(manager here is VP there), every other pay/bonus/benefit/time off difference, internal pay equity considerations that are often statutory by state/feds--none is captured and people aren't taught that those are part of comp. Just this title is $xx,xxx. The worst part is that managers run to HR with often this info directly supplied by candidates or their own employees all worked up HR is fucking them by underpaying. I'm the first person to tell a manager their comp is fucked against a market if it is, which helps build trust but it's exhausting.
This plays out in every job offer, promotion, annual merit increase and any time you remind people they're not coming to work for free.
Again, almost never see this in other areas if you know what the hell you're doing in HR, but I guess the incentive and stakes are high enough in comp to make people just go off the deep end.
It varies, I think the most important part for any kind of online discussion is to establish credibility based on the argument not credibility based on title or degree.
It's also important to recognize a challenge on its own merits. I don't care if you flip burgers at Wendy's, if you can argue a point on the merits I'll hear you out (and try to politely explain why you're wrong -- in understandable language -- if needed).
I hate the "trust me bro I'm a X, it's an elite field, it would take years to explain this to you and you wouldn't even understand anyways" attitude some professionals take. The real experts that I've met and I respect can simplify the subject matter they're an expert of (to be digestible and reasonable to most people) and I aspire to be that insightful.
It really depends on the subject.
If it's programming/hardware in general then there's not much debate.
But when it comes to discussing "buzz words" or other hot topic items (cryptocurrency or AI/ML Models) then there will be a lot more debates.
in mental health, yes actually, a surprisingly large amt of people look to me to be the expert. it's often just as challenging to help someone see that they're the expert on themselves.
you'd expect a lot of tiktok diagnoses and bizarro pseudo science attitudes, and while those do come up, they aren't that prevalent. and it's usually a symptom of something, i.e. someone with paranoid/grandiose delusions preaching med noncompliance.
I dont encounter anyone who thinks my work is just a joke, but plenty who believe I cant help them and they're better off on their own
I'm a cloud engineer that works for a large software company that does R&D for 3D modeling companies, aero space, a couple alphabet agencies. They fucking hate me in /c/selfhosted
In your case, I'm guessing lots of people have heard the horror stories of shitty, scammy repair techs in various fields (automobiles being one prominent example). The good ones have to deal with the occupational reputation driven by the worst of them.
For me, I don't consider myself a real expert in any specific subject, but I'm adjacent to a number of financial areas. I try not to delve into the weeds of those internet discussions too often (like I said, not an ironclad expert), and even when I do, it's only to address the most egregious errors. Money can be an emotional topic, and many of those opinions are based on the way people want the world to be rather than the way it is, so show up with facts and references and they tend to understand.
Not an expert on shit, but... My rule of thumb is to not believe anything, from anyone, in a social media context. Anyone can say they're whatever; I can't verify if that is the truth though. And I also cannot verify if those who verify others are trustworthy. The only way you can prove you are who you say you are is to doxx yourself.
Ha. The VIP that I work for doesn't have time for me to tell them how to solve their technical issues. So, no, not currently. But in the past it was different.
Im no expert but after 15 years in mail and parcel logistics I know shit. Ive been told Im "too close to the issue" to be objective. I even posted links to business services for a major international carrier to back up what I said and apparently any evidence I provide is "Biased"
So the only people you can turn to for factual answers are people with no fucking idea apparently.
Yes, all the time online. I stopped engaging with them several years ago. They're so sure of their expertise, while missing decades of knowledge. It's not worth my time.
I have a MSc in Computational Media. I've had to read a lot of research on the dangers of social media, how harmful ideas spread online, and how people form unhealthy relationships with platforms. LW is still federated with LML, and I think my instance is still federated with Hexbear. So no, people don't give a quarter of a fuck what I have to say.
I know a thing or two about my field, no one should believe anyone who claims to be an expert in it. No such thing exists.
I've worked in a bunch of environments and the most common thing I encounter are people stuck in the old way of doing things. Such as using WINS because they firmly believe if nothing bad has happened since they set it up, nothing could happen.
Common workers, mostly yes. Common managers, lol no.
Yes, about everything except tipping.
I've been a lot of things and done a lot of jobs, but I've been waiting tables full-time for over a decade now. And it seems like that's a valid place to come from to talk about manners in public, pink collar work, working-class economics, the training gap, gender roles in the workplace, and addictive personality types.
But for some reason, people just don't wanna hear it when I explain why and how tipping is a better system for all involved than a set wage would be.