Qualified experts of Lemmy, do people believe you when you answer questions in your field?

essell@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 148 points –

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?

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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.

Who the hell is space karen?

The African-American guy who won’t shut up and also killed Twitter.

African-American guy

Never thought about him this way, but true!

I read an article about a (white) guy born in - maybe - Zimbabwe but definitely Africa. He moved to the US and his school had a scholarship / fund for African-Americans. He was the only pupil that qualified so applied for a laugh. Can’t remember how it ended.

I'd like to think that “Spaceship Karen” doesn’t find the phrase funny - but being such a glorious champion of free speech he’ll just have to suck it up.

Ohhhhhh. I should've guessed that. Sorry can be a bit dense sometimes.

Tbh my brain immediately gave me a fifty-fifty. Say what you want about Bezos but, in my head, he’s more of a Cruella than a Karen. I then guessed the lady in the post was talking about the other space guy. I don’t blame you drawing a temporary blank, new names and all that.

The worse is that you didn't even had to be that well studied to know he was full of bullshit from the start, I remember even before he was Space Karen when he tried to be Train Karen, and their fanboys wouldn't understand that vacuum tubes Km long for transporting people were a BAD idea for several reasons.

::: spoiler spoiler sdfsaf :::

PSA: anytime the music kicks in, you're being emotionally manipulated.

::: spoiler spoiler sdfsaf :::

Because manipulation is a very sinister thing. You’re deliberately using music to influence and control how another person feels to get a response that benefits you.

That's really interesting! In the UK we have an excellent tradition of making both really excellent and really abhorrent documentaries, so clearly they're not all made equal.

Appreciate hearing an expert opinion on what this means in reality.

The most interesting documentary I've ever seen was about Sherman's March. I stumbled upon it on some random satellite channel in the 90's. Not only was it unbiased, I'm not even sure it had an objective. It was like 3 hours long, and the guy just followed the path Sherman took through the South and interviewed random people he met along the way. Half the time they weren't even talking about Sherman. Idk what made it so interesting. I don't even know why I'm telling you this since it doesn't really reinforce or dispute any of your points. Your response just made me think of it for the first time in ten years and I wanted to share.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: I found it!

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0091943/

Here's an example of some of the dialogue:

Ross McElwee: I filmed, um, Dee Dee washing her dog, and I filmed, um, Steve going to the music company where he used to work.

Ross's father: There, now. How is that going to be useful?

Ross McElwee: In this film?

Ross's father: Just in any film.

It’s actually a very famous work! He went through a divorce and basically didn’t make the movie he said he would when it got funded lol

Haha, that's kind of awesome. What he did make, ended up being really entertaining.

That whole production is kind of amazing when you get down to it. Basically the opening minute or so with that animation was the only thing he promised to make that he actually did lol

Well now I just want a recommendation on some documentaries to watch. Got any favorites you'd share?

Software engineers, supposed "experts", can't even agree among each other how to structure and build software, let alone agree with project managers, users and other laypeople.

Source: Am software engineer.

Structure and build? Look at the guy using Waterfall instead of Agile development.

Source: Am also software engineer.

I'd call it healthy debate but I've never met a software engineer who had a healthy anything

In my experience there are two types of software engineers. Those who are narcissistic and believe their own bullshit and those who suffer from crippling imposter syndrome. Few can agree on what is the best way to do things but most will agree to do things the wrong way for money.

Crazy thing is that doing it the wrong way is the best way to have job security. Fire me? Yea, well, you'll never find anyone else that knows this spaghetti as well as I do.

I was brought in to a place where the guy had pulled out all the comments and replaced all the variable names with random strings. Saved himself on his personal USB stick the real code.

That’s because whatever system you’ve got now feels old and tired, but that new system that just came out looks so new and useful. I mean, it can’t hurt to change the entire thing half way through development again, right?

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

I don't believe you. Why are you making up this kind of shit?

Seriously, though, sounds like you've had the average lemmygrad or hexbear encounter.

So after your first sentence, I was all ready to dig back through my comments to try to find it. It was absolutely baffling.

(Probably it would be sour grapes for me to dig up some old argument with somebody just so I can break it back out here, and say "THE MAN WAS WRONG, I TELL YOU, HE WAS WRONG, LOOK AT HIM AND HIS WRONG PLEASE EVERYBODY AGREE ABOUT IT")

Yeah, I've found that the best thing to do when you (accidentally or intentionally) kick the tankie-hive is to block the ones who don't realize that not everything needs to be debunked or even commented, and then move on and forget about it.

That's more than a lack of respect for expertise, that's a lack of basic human respect.

I furiously dislike people explaining me to me.

Oh I love that. It happens a lot in political discussions when you don't 100% agree with someone's point.

"I don't think defunding the police will solve the issues we're facing" means getting called a boot licker and that every comment you've ever made that doesn't scream "I hate cops" is about to be linked to for proof that you're a Trump loving Nazi.

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.

It’s tough because they are all very nuanced issues, every decision has trade offs, makes things better in one way worse than another.

This is one of the major truths of adulthood that keeps on coming up over and over again. The other is how do you know that some really knows what they say they know without investing time, money, and mental power into meeting them and knowing the basics of the subject all while being humble enough to know you don't know shit about it.

I'd love to hear your top points of what actually needs to happen.

(Sorry for the length here… this is actually my shortened version)

89% of climate change is because we took carbon that was permanently sequestered underground in the form of oil, gas, and coal and burned it for cheap energy. We need to stop that entirely but you can’t “just stop oil”, you need to remove the demand not try to disrupt the supply.

There are 4 broad strokes to making that happen:

  1. We need a metric fuck ton more carbon-free electricity generation asap. Not just enough to replace all existing fossil fuel-based electricity generation, but enough to supply double to triple the current generation capacity. Only about a quarter of the energy we get from fossil fuels is used to generate electricity, so as we switch things over to electricity, demand will increase exponentially.

Renewables are great and we need to build as much as we possibly can, but what people don’t get is the sheer quantity needed. No matter how much money is thrown at new renewables projects we simply can’t build enough of them fast enough due to bottlenecks in supply chains, raw material mining, grid interconnection times, and other limits.

New nuclear is the only other major option to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels. People resist it because of safety or waste concerns (neither are backed by data, nuclear is tied with solar for the safest tech, and it generates less radioactive waste than coal). Or they think nuclear has a big carbon footprint when you include the manufacturing and disposal (also not what the data says, nuclear is tied with wind for the lowest full lifecycle carbon emissions and is about half as much as solar). Or they argue renewables are cheaper which is at least mostly true, but it isn’t as clear cut either when you factor in the costs of connecting that many renewable power projects to the grid. Connecting one nuclear power plant to the grid is significantly cheaper than connecting the 100+ wind and solar farms needed for the same quantity of electricity. Not to mention the cost of storage.

We want to be building renewables, but we can’t wait around for renewables to save us that’s just not going to happen fast enough, our best option is building as many renewables as possible and a bunch of new nuclear and anything else carbon free at the same time.

  1. We need to electrify everything that runs on fossil fuels. Cars, furnaces, industrial uses, everything needs to switch from burning oil, gas, and coal, to being electrically powered.

But deciding what to electrify, when and in what order is complicated too…. adding to electricity demand before we’ve removed fossil fuel power generation from the grid, results in the scale-up of the fossil fuel generation to meet the increased demand. Until fossil fuels are gone from the electric grid, we should only electrify something if its efficiency is sufficient to still reduce emissions when we assume it’s powered by the most polluting form of electricity generation on the grid. 

Battery electric vehicles have reached that point including factoring in the high-carbon footprint of lithium-ion manufacturing. Even if charged exclusively with coal power a BEV has lower lifetime emissions than an ICE car. Even discarding ICE cars before their end of life to replace with a BEV will generally be a net win.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the other hand (pretty much anything hydrogen-powered for that matter) aren’t even close. Using Hydrogen to power vehicles is not a tech we should be investing in right now.

Even if you’ve built a dedicated solar or wind farm to power something you want to electrify that hasn’t reached that efficiency threshold, you need to ask if it’s better to use that solar farm to displace current coal or natural gas-based electricity generation than to power your newly electrified whatever. This is why even so-called “green hydrogen” is a counter-productive tech to be investing in right now.

It’s also why some DAC and CCS techs shouldn’t be built yet. Even if you plan to build a dedicated solar or wind farm to power it. It’s often more impactful to just connect that solar/wind farm to the grid instead to reduce fossil fuel-based generation than to use it to power CCS. DAC and CCS is a rapidly developing space, we’re all hoping for some new breakthrough techs here that changes this story… so don’t criticize research in this area as a dead end… we don’t know that. 

Hopefully, you’re starting to understand why so many of these discussions are more nuanced than people on Reddit/Lemmy claim…. a lot of new electrification technologies are just on the borderline here for not causing more emissions, and it often depends on where you live and what will be scaled up to meet the added electric demand.   

All of this points back to why we need massive quantities of carbon-free electricity. Without clean electricity, these other techs aren’t a net win. Many things will cause a net increase in emissions if they’re electrified before carbon-free electricity is abundant. We need more new carbon-free electricity generation built in the next two decades than all the fossil fuel generation we’ve built in the last century put together. Even with ridiculously optimistic exponential growth projections of renewables, it is just not going to be enough. Until we’ve sequestered so much carbon that we’re back to pre-industrial levels, there will always be new techs that are “unlocked” by any additional carbon-free electricity generation.

  1. We need society to transition to lower consumption of everything in general. Every product or service you buy has a carbon footprint of some kind. There’s a LOT to be done around making smarter choices about what you buy, yes an EV is better than an ICE car, but public transit, electric scooters, bicycles, and ton of other things are better than any car, and not buying things at all if you if you don’t need them is better still.

Capitilizim’s tendency to push towards ever more consumption is the largest driver of the problem here. We can’t have circular economies if the only metric we’re looking at is the bottom line. Our modern mentalities of disposable products, planned obsolescence, fast fashion, and other things we’ve come to associate with a “high quality of life” in wealthy nations need to be re-evaluated.

  1. We need better data to make better decisions. Corporations aren’t required to measure and report their emissions. We’re still largely making educated guesses at the carbon footprint of things because the only data available for most things are broad estimates and industry averages. Our supply chains are so interconnected, that trying to calculate how much of an impact a particular product has requires data from potentially thousands of companies that they’re not even collecting, let alone publishing.

The EU is starting to mandate carbon reporting, but the US and Canada are lagging in this area. The US SEC proposed last year making reporting mandatory for publicly traded companies but caved to a bunch of pushback from corporations. They did pass a mandatory reporting rule a couple of months ago, but with significant retractions on what needs to be reported and how soon. They dropped a provision that would have required companies to report on emissions they’re causing to occur in their supply chains (known as “Scope 3” emissions), which would have put significant pressure on smaller and non-publicly traded companies to also report on emissions.

Until the vast majority of corporations are tracking emissions, even the corporations that are trying to reduce emissions are limited in effectiveness because they are basing decisions only on how it impacts them directly and not what impact it might have elsewhere.

Anyhow… that’s the “big things”….

There are a lot of interesting little things that could be happening but aren’t, usually because they clash with a particular political ideology. For example, the government could pay contractors to go from house to house and upgrade the insulation, and it would have one of the best emission reductions for the dollar than almost anything we’ve quantified. But politically there’s a “It’s not fair to take money from my pocket to pay for someone else’s insulation” mentality that some people have that prevent many low-hanging fruit things..

And on the flip side, some of the things that we’re doing that generally aren’t working include:

Most carbon offsets on the market are bullshit, including a lot of nature-based offsets. The mentality of “don’t reduce just offset” emissions doesn’t work. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for offsets, there is, but the carbon offset market in general is full of bad actors. It’s trivially easy to misrepresent creative accounting as a carbon offset, even if it’s not intentional. And since there’s no tangible product delivered, some companies will sell the same carbon offset to multiple buyers. If you don’t believe me, I have a bridge carbon offsets to sell you.

Another thing that isn’t working is most (if not all) RECs, GOs and similar market-based instruments for purchasing “green electricity” from the grid. You’re not changing the net emissions, you are literally just paying for the privilege of claiming your electricity consumption isn’t generating emissions. You’re not making more renewable get built, renewables are already cost-effective, they don’t need someone voluntarily paying extra for them for them to happen. If you pay extra for them, you’re just increasing someone’s profits.

Note that RECs and GOs are not the same things as private PPAs, like when Amazon or Microsoft pay to build new nuclear to power their data centres.  Again lots of nuances here, but PPAs are causing additional carbon-free electricity to be built. RECs and GOs where you’re selling renewables that have already been built aren’t changing anything, just upping profit margins.

I'd love to hear your top points of what actually needs to happen.

And I'd love to say they're stupid and wrong!

/s

Well, that’s just your rigorous analysis of multiple data sources and field expertise, man.

We are fucked. We are so incredibly fucked.

Very interested in hearing your best-case and worst-case outcomes for humanity over the next 30 or so years. Worst-case being, of course, the “business as usual” path that we have not deviated from at all.

I don’t know, but it’s bad.

At this point even our best case scenarios are still pretty bad; barring some massive breakthrough in carbon sequestration tech.

And the “business as usual” scenarios are down right scary, millions of deaths annually. Never mind the economic consequences.

In my other comment I talked about what needs to happen on the macro level.

But the micro level is another story.

I’m worried because the paths to mitigating the worst of it depend mostly on countries, people, corporations etc… making major changes to drive reductions.

I seen the strategies the big companies have… they’re not coming close to making the difference needed. And the small companies aren’t even trying to measure their emissions let alone reducing them. It’s that lack of data that’s a part the problem. The data needed for decisions at the micro level isn’t available. It’s difficult to even identify what changes to make because you don’t know what impact a change might have outside of your control.

So far it means we haven’t even got emissions to start going down. At best, they’ve just slowed the rate at which they’re going up.

Governments should be pushing harder to mandate emissions reporting, but it’s politically unpopular so we’re still largely guessing about what decisions to make and that’s what leads to us all pulling in different directions making little progress.

I recall hearing about this one informal conference between climate scientists, ethnographers, and collapse-aware economists. About two dozen ppl in total, IIRC.

Their exceedingly conservative estimate of the BAU path had humanity experience a 40-60% collapse (3.2B to 4.8B dead) by some point in the 2050s. And you don’t see that without a whole hell of a lot of secondary civilizational/technological collapse and loss of knowledge.

And they concluded that humanity existing past 2150 or 2200 was vanishingly unlikely due to polar restriction due to lethal wet bulb temperatures making the rest of the planet uninhabitable for year-round occupation, and the sheer lack of arable land in the polar region.

The problem is that we have been accelerating past 1.5℃ of warming in terms of CO2 production. We haven’t even begun to slow down, much less reverse to net zero. And since climate change has an inertia to it that is thousands of times stronger with our current change than in prior changes, there is now a non-zero possibility that - even if we go extinct - the planet itself could end up in a Venus scenario. Things are moving just far too fast for any ecosystem - much less the entire planetary ecosystem - to adapt and migrate in order to remain maximally productive in natural CO2 sequestration.

I was once accused on Reddit of being a bot after spending half an hour crafting a reply to a question with detail and examples. It’s a great way to discourage people from trying to be helpful 🫠

My guess is interactions like that are probably going to get more frequent as LLM use and possible backlash against them increases, since people who aren’t particularly good at spotting LLM text just think long = bot.

That story sounds fake, probably written by a bot.

(/s)

As a large language learning model, I resent the implication. 😂

Maybe the only bots are the replies claiming that other people are bots? 🤔

::: spoiler spoiler sdfsaf :::

Yeah, already jumped ship when they started the api and mod nonsense. This was a bit before all that.

Do you think those people represent the community view, or at least a significant portion of it? Or is it more like one unpleasant person who loves to argue the toss?

I’m replying with a sample size of N=1 so don’t take too much from it, but I suspect it’s not the typical response (at least, not yet anyway).

People do often seem to complain about bot accounts but I don’t know how much of those are in the space of stirring up hot topics to generate content, vs informational (or dis-informational) bot accounts posting on requests for help or explanations.

I guess if people are seeking answers for something, having a bot feed responses to suit some kind of agenda is entirely a possibility, so I wouldn’t write it off as something that could happen. To that end, being wary of posts that look like they might be generated due to the tone/content is probably fair enough.

“This is AI-generated content” seems to be the new slur seeking to shame people into silence. Better than “Incel”, I suppose, but certainly more insidious and less dismissively hyperbolic.

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.

Was chatting with my manager about this last week. A fabricator of mine gave me a bit of back talk about how I wanted them to build something. He asked me why I don't just put my foot down. Told him that I never want to be in the position where someone knows that I am wrong but is afraid to say something to me. He agreed.

Being approachable is not win-win. You deal with people undermining you but hopefully one of them has a bright idea that makes it worth it.

What you’re describing feels like the Dunning–Kruger effect. When you don’t know you know very little, you have more confidence than you’re likely to have after spending decades on a subject.

When you start asking questions in response you’re likely to pull someone further into realizing what they actually don’t know, killing their confidence. Of course this doesn’t work when they’re being zealots (or otherwise protecting their own sanity)..

Heh, yeah. Spotting DK tendencies is also an important skill, especially when you get to the point where you’re screening candidates for your team. A surprising amount of people think they can just bull through an interview without going into real detail. I have caught more than a few people blatantly misrepresenting their resumes.

Don’t get me wrong - by all means, use a bit of spin to get shit past the HR idiots. When I, as a knowledgeable and experienced engineer, ask you a pointed question about something in particular, I won’t particularly mind if you straight up tell me that you spun that on the res a bit and point out the areas of the domain you’re stronger or weaker. Depending on the context, it might actually work in your favor, because I genuinely appreciate when someone tells me the limits of their knowledge. But if you try to bullshit me, and I catch you, that’s a black mark on your candidacy. And if you keep lying, or try that more than once, I’m going to quickly end the call and remove you from consideration.

I can cite an example for each of the above situations.

I work in IT and security, where everyone is an expert. Couple that with my inability to tell half-thruths about complex subjects I have incomplete info about, and I come out as incompetent. Yay.

Are you one of the people I depend on who write useful information on the internet sharing their expertise?

I strive to be. Not enough time for everything.

That's my experience too. There's always a "bigger expert".

They tell you you're expertise is irrelevant. They're the real expert.

What a joke

Yes. Because if they don't believe me the internet breaks.

Source: I am a network engineer

There was a time when I wanted to do that.

Given that I know enough to run my home network feel free to ask me anything about your job. 🤔😈

internet breaks anyway, debugging why its not working is nothing but painful

Lulz

"Here's a complete analysis of your situation and how to resolve it."

"I don't agree with these issues you've pointed out."

"Ok, here's the proof that you're wrong but thanks for pointing these things out as you helped me find more issues, so cost just went up, wanna do that again?"

😐

Nice, sounds like you have a lot of clarity in an analytical mind!

I do so love proof in a professional environment.

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 know it's a massive cliché talking about the hive mind on Reddit, but it was a cliché for a reason!

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.

I hope one day when countries start passing laws banning children from the internet or smartphones, it includes the people like this

"Article 7 : (...) are therefore prohibited to surf the web : children, man-children, and people who are generally a huge pain in the ass"

Those are always funny to read after the fact. The whole post and replies of him digging himself deeper into the shit, while people try to help at first, but then bury his ass for being so difficult and stubborn.

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.

If anyone is curious, it’s an American thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiated_rulemaking

Most bills are vague and give regulatory agencies leeway on how to interpret them. It’s like Congress passes a law that says, “No cookies after 8pm.” and a regulatory agency has to decide what is a cookie and which time zone and how to enforce it. A lot of actual policy happens during the rule making progress (called “reg neg”).

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.

If everyone got what their work was worth then the company couldn't make profit as each individual's contribution and pay would scale proportinally.

And since there are people who are overpaid (eg I) there will always be more underpaid people in total.

Just as body weight depends on calories in/out (work/pay) at the end, but what's inside the diet (compensation package) is still important. (even though you could lose weight while only eating junk food, you shouldn't)

I might just be the idiot here, but this is how it makes sense to me.

If everyone got what their work was worth then the company couldn't make profit as each individual's contribution and pay would scale proportinally.

How much do you think C-suites are truly worth? If everyone's salary should scale up, does that mean they're currently underpaid?

Also, why do you think you're overpaid?

I can't give an exact figure for c-suits nor how you could arrive at one. But their contribution is not worth orders of magnitudes more, I'm certain of that. Even the smartest and most hardworking person can't do 1000x what an average worker does.

As for why I think I'm overpaid? I can currently save ~90% of my earnings, working just 6 hr a week. That's not typical. Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad to have this and I wish others could too.

I have never experienced that world, and never heard what it's like from that side. Really appreciate your insight just because it's so different to all the "expert advice" that floats around on social media

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?

I've read a lot of Greek mythology but never met hypoxia. Was she one of the nymphs?

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.

Honestly, I'm a little envious. being able to see those stories and make an informed clear judgement would be really valuable for me

Acorns are real threats.

It's not the acorn you need to watch out for, it's the squirrel with the chainsaw trying to drop the branch on your head. ;)

It's apparently the black man in the back of your suv that needs to be dealt with.

My boss doesn't even believe me when I say "we did that already"

You don't get to be the boss by listening to people, in most places sadly.

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.

That's totally fair, I agree.

The version that upsets me most is when I offer a perspective from my expertise, well founded and reasonable, and rather than ask questions to understand or offer a competing idea, people so often just say that I must be an idiot and know nothing about the topic.

I can hardly reply with "no, you're the stupid one!" coz that just really doesn't help.

There are serious limits to this. We can’t discount title/degree because you can’t possibly be able to accurately assess the credibility of every argument.

If a doctor shows me a picture and says “you have cancer, here’s the tumor,” I’m going to probably take that at face value. Because I can’t assess the imaging like they/their technician can, which I am basing off their credentials.

Any doctor worth their salt is going to be able to answer the question "how do you know that?" way better than "I just do" or "I have a medical degree" and that's the point; I've yet to find a problem space where that isn't the case. I don't try to win arguments by waiving my credentials around and I don't expect people to take my for "my word" just because of my credentials.

There are plenty of people with titles and fancy degrees that are not worth listening to, like the Ohio doctor (that somehow recently got her medical license back) that claimed the COVID vaccine was making people magnetic, Dr. Oz, etc.

Put another way, do you trust the alleged internet licensed electrician that says a ground wire makes you safer but can't explain why, the alleged internet licensed electrician that says a ground wire is worthless, or the person that says "fuck who I am, ground wires are important because they allow tying things like a metal mixer's body to an incomplete circuit, so that if the metal becomes electrified the circuit is instantly completed and the breaker trips. Alternatively, the circuit becomes completed when you touch the metal and you might die before the breaker trips. If you don't have a ground you can protect humans with a GFCI which detects current loss at the outlet and cuts the power locally. However, a GFCI may not detect some situations that a ground wire would resolve, like an arc that makes use of a grounded portion of the appliance and may generate enough heat to start a fire. AFCIs have been created to help detect this situation. However, both GFCI and AFCI can fail and thus a ground wire is still a useful backup option that also has value for some sensitive electronics."?

Most professionals aren't going to volunteer all of that, but many will volunteer more and more if challenged/questioned.

For reference, my background is in Software Engineering but my father is an electrician at a factory, and a good friend of mine is a forensic electrical engineer. I have no formal credentials in electrical engineering ... but I do know a fair bit about the what and why ... because I have been inquisitive, I've questioned the experts that I've come across to understand their field and learned from them.

I didn’t say they go “just trust me” and we both know plenty of people can’t assess even a good explanation.

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

Yes. Because none of my coworkers want to openly admit that they're just as geeky and autistic about the company IP schema and the routing tables as I.

"Is that NTP server we installed on that ship in Galveston last year available via VPN?".

"Yup, 172.20.72.21 and its backup is on 172.20.72.22"

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

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.

I do specialty work in electrical engineering systems, and I am meticulous and careful about what I say, because it appears that at a certain level in this field no one will question anything you say, because no one understands what you’re talking about.

Imagine what working in aerospace feels like with the Boeing shit.

That would very much depend on whether you work for Boeing or not, I guess.

I do not work for them, but I've been making Boeing parts off and on for almost 19 years.

Promise not to hold you responsible for all the recent stuff

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.

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.

That's a very reasoned and reasonable view of the question. Totally fair I'd say. Feeling a little emotionally frustrated by it today none the less.

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.

You can always checkout their point, information or perspective via other sources. Doesn't have to be about the person posting. Personally, I'd rather it wasn't.

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 struggle to make my mum take my advice about subjects of my field of expertise for which I had spent 5 cruel years at Uni. So I am at peace now not being able to make my point across the internet.

Oh that's a classic with people you're close to

Complain about issue X that you know how to solve

Hear you tell them how to solve it

Doubt

Don't listen to you but ask someone you know for their opinion which is the same as yours

Never say they're sorry for doubting you

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.

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.

Only people I deal with daily at work, everyone else no. I am constantly getting second-guessed, made to make changes, and not listened to by the middlemen between me and the actual users.

Then of course it becomes a disaster that I have to fix.

I just get ignored at work. Then something gets called out by a customer and it's a fucking issue.

Sounds like your doing development work in a “agile/scrum” team, correct?

Sometimes people do but it mostly happens when it is a topic that they've tethered to their identity.

That's totally fair.

I taught a seminar in the nature of identity last month. Great fun.

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.

As someone actually trained to perform genetic therapy, it was incredible how many people wanted to correct me about my safety concerns regarding the covid shot.

I'm impressed by your bravery in telling people that one, given the variety and origins of the "facts" on that topic! 😲

I've just learned not to give a shit if people want to whip themselves into a frenzy so they can feel the rush of being on the "winning" team by parroting whatever their go-to social conditioning coordinator told them in today's podcast.

A layman looking up the research isn't even that bad. Nah. Religious podcast guy is the best source.

Well surely now by May 2024 your concerns have proven not to be that big of a deal? It’s been years with billions of shots administered. Concern initially is fine IMO but by now you know the shots are fine, right?

There is absolutely still strong reason for concern. Even without looking into any of the documentation regarding negative effects that we've got now, it's simply not possible to claim that we know everything we need to know about it already. Not by a long shot. Simply the ordinary testing regimes that these sorts of products are supposed to undergo are extremely long themselves.

I think your concern for what genetic impact it will have on us is misplaced as evidenced by plenty of research and the billions of shots over 5 years but I’m also not going to go to the mat over this.

That's a very wise choice not to go to the mat on this, because it's simply the truth that this novel genetic treatment has never passed the ordinary testing regimes for such products, which very few products ever pass because we simply do not know the lion's share of what there is to know about how genetics impact our body's function.

If you want to ignore the potential risks that's fine. At the very least, whether you're safe or not, we'll get some valuable scientific data from you.

Wow this got pretty patronizing pretty quick. Later dude. I would ask if you’re vaccinated but I guess I know the answer.

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.

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.

Can you explain that argument here?

Sure. How it's better for the waitress: We make more money than we ever would under a flat wage, obviously. We also get rewarded proportionate to the work we do; busy, stressful weekend shifts pay more than calm weekday lunches, allowing us to tailor our work-life balance to suit our needs.

How it's better for employers: Lower labor costs are a benefit of themselves, of course, but they also allow greater flexibility in scheduling, something essential in an industry where the amount of business varies so significantly from day to day and month to month. And since the number one factor affecting tips is the subtotal of the check, servers are incentivized to sell more, driving up revenue.

How it's better for patons: The tipping system encourages attentiveness and better service; not so much in individual interactions (studies show that people tip what they're gonna tip, regardless of service) but rather by keeping restaurants with attentive, professional servers busy and keeping those servers in the industry. We all saw the dip in quality post-lockdown when the most talented and experienced cadre of servers left for other industries, right?

Unlike a wage system, tipping also puts more power in the hands of the consumer. As a "pay what you think is fair" system, it gives immediate recourse to patrons who feel like they didn't get their money's worth.

Why it's better for society: It allows the worker to sell her labor directly to the consumer without the capital class acting as a middleman and taking a cut. We all know that if prices were raised 20% across the board servers wouldn't see even half of that as a wage increase. The tipping system sidesteps around corporate greed by creating a direct financial transaction between consumer and producer of labor.

In short, we have this one industry that's figured out how to pay a living wage. It's not a system that was designed, it evolved over time, and it's very efficient; because if it wasn't, it would collapse on its own. Obviously as a waitress myself I'm personally invested in this system, but I also think that it's wrongheaded to take the system that, again, organically pays a living wage and tear it down because it doesn't conform to a preconceived notion of what an employment relationship should look like.

Tipping rewards certain looks/demographics/personalities/hours of work. It’s also completely dependent on who walks through the door. Those have always been huge sticking points for me.

All sales positions reward charisma and effort; and depend on who walks through the door. Why is this a problem with tipped positions specifically?

I'm not sure earning tips makes you an expert in socioeconomic dynamics of wage labor

Nor does reading Marx.

Definitely doesn't. Part of developing expertise is having your ideas challenged by another expert, working with them to flesh out your own thinking, and facing sone gatekeeping on the label "expert".

None of these things happen solely from waiting tables or reading a book!