[throwaway82652]

In this comment, it appears you took the word "expert" and defined it to mean "people who aren't actually experts" and then used that to dismiss them. I hope you can understand this isn't a useful way to approach the conversation.

If you're getting accused of being racist and bigoted towards gay people, Jews, and Muslims, it would help to make an honest and friendly effort to spend your time reaching out and helping those people, rather than getting distracted with what these "political hacks" are saying.

[native_samples]

It seems pretty useful. A big reason trust in experts is falling is because the label is so often wrongly applied to people who have no concrete demonstrable expertise but merely work for the right sort of institutions or have the right sort of politics. The word expert has become nearly as useless as the word racist or fascist.

Example: Imagine you're reading an article about the tech industry and you read the phrase, "according to experts". Do you think the people about to be quoted will be actual tech industry workers, or, academics? Almost always it's going to be the latter and you can repeat that for almost any field.

[ozzythecat]

> In this comment, it appears you took the word "expert" and defined it to mean "people who aren't actually experts" and then used that to dismiss them. I hope you can understand this isn't a useful way to approach the conversation.

Who exactly did I dismiss? Can you provide an example?

[letitbeirie]

It brings up a valid concern. If the media (acting as the experts' proxy to the public) continually fail to distinguish between actual experts and political hacks is it really reasonable to expect other non-experts to do better?