[penguinduck]

It is a strawman. Your quotes don't say what the author wrote: "the less someone knows about a subject, the more they think they know". And again later: "In two of the four cases, there’s an obvious positive correlation between perceived skill and actual skill, which is the opposite of the pop-sci conception of Dunning-Kruger." He is specifically talking about an expectation of an inverted relationship - a negative correlation - and his whole argument is based on that.

By his definition, the "meme" would mean people believe that those who are among the worst in the world at something would estimate their ability the highest, and those who are among the best would estimate their ability the lowest (on average).

Do you really think people believe this? That olympic gold medalist swimmers would put themselves in the first percentile of fastest swimmers, while people who've never entered water would put themselves in the 99th (well, not necessarily 1st and 99th - maybe it's 3rd and 97th, but the medalists would choose the lowest number, and the non-swimmers the highest)? I don't think I know a single person who believes this.

I have huge respect for Dan Luu but he screwed up here and created a classic strawman.