Belly-Button Rights

Saying that you have a right to your own opinion is like saying that you have a right to your own belly-button. Of course you do. But so what? The real question is whether or not you have a right to be taken seriously. If you lack the requisite training, knowledge, or experience, then the answer is NO. We’d be wise to ignore your opinion. The right to free speech doesn’t come with a concomitant right to be taken seriously. You can exercise your right to free speech and we’ll exercise our right to ignore you. When people say they’re entitled to their own opinion, what they really mean is that we have an obligation to listen to them and take them seriously. We have no such obligation.

I’m a fairly smart, well educated guy, and yet on thousands and thousands of subjects, I’m not even qualified to step into the ring. I don’t even know enough to competently articulate a position on these issues—and as our knowledge of the world expands, this list gets longer and longer. If we’re going to navigate this brave new world of ours intelligently, we’re going to have to cultivate a whole lot of epistemic humility. Alas, I see no humility among those who automatically assume, based on a few weeks of internet research, that they know better than experts who’ve immersed themselves in subjects for decades. The arrogance of these people is astounding.

The fact that experts in a particular field are sometimes wrong doesn’t mean they’re always wrong. Nor does it mean that they’re no better than non-experts. A shitty archer will hit the bull’s eye more often than a blind one. What’s more, shitty archers can learn from their mistakes, correct for them in the future, and get better with time. A blind archer never ceases to suck.