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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Although I think accessibility does come into play, another reason I suspect people eat up elite opinion more than expert opinion is because of the perceived status level of the participants. (I think that usually, for someone to achieve elite they must make their views accessible; but I don't think accessibility is enough to get people to pay attention without the recognition of other elites).

We are status-seeking animals. If I understand and can quote a high-status individual, I'm associating myself with them, and raising my status. But since experts generally have lower social status than elites, I gain far less status benefits from understanding and associating with them.

So, for status purposes, the accuracy of what I know is far less important than whose opinion I echo. Add to this that the vast majority of people have no real reason to care about being accurate anyway - they're not going to be implementing anything related to 99% of subjects they read or watch about. So, for most people status is just more important than accuracy, and that means knowing what elites say is far more important than knowing what experts say.

I think we can see this in action when an expert transitions to elite status, such as Steven Pinker. He now has enough status that quoting his research can raise one's status (among appropriate peers at least). But I have not doubt there are experts as knowledgeable or more knowledgeable than he is on various subjects he opines on, but who are so little known that I would gain no status from quoting them.

In fact, I could potentially lose status if I don't know what Pinker says about something, or if I try to counter something he said with a quote from someone less known than him - even if the quality of the opposing opinion is higher.

As you've written in other places Robin, I think status-seeking can explain a very large swath of human behavior that otherwise seems unintelligible. All things being equal, humans will naturally (and subconsciously) seek the option that offers them a chance to raise their own status. Following what elites say and do does that, but following experts doesn't do that in all but the communities of the experts themselves (and maybe not even then).

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Asim Jalis's avatar

Which cateogory would this article fall into? Is this elite in elite mode or expert in expert mode?

Interestingly, it has done better than Scott Aronson’s post about aliens. Now perhaps that is not an equivalent comparison—since the topics are different. But still some kind of a data point.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28502188Once we can see them, it’s too late (scottaaronson.com)145 points by gadtfly 7 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 111 commentshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28502188Experts vs elites (overcomingbias.com)169 points by asimjalis 5 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 121 comments

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