• Atemu@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    Problem is that the average person cannot discern between an actual expert and a charlatan.

    • psud@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Skilled programmers can see that Linus is an expert. It works in tech. It probably works in any professional environment - anywhere where skilled people are picking someone highly skilled.

      For the average person, we have clearly seen average people suck at picking expert leaders, though it works fine in small groups

      • Drewfro66@lemmygrad.ml
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        11 months ago

        There’s a word for this, the promotion of leaders based on merit instead of popularity - Technocracy. And it’s not a distinct ideology but a syncretic one that has been adopted by many groups with differing politics. The most prominent example would be the Technocratic faction of the People’s Republic of China, which was opposed to the Maoists back in the 50s and 60s; they argued for society to be led by experts instead of Democratically with a strong emphasis on Peasant participation (the standpoint of the Maoists). China today follows a moderate path taking from both factions.

        In the West, however, Technocracy is mostly associated with Liberals; however, I would argue that the modern Liberal view of Technocracy is fundamentally flawed, since it relies on Capitalism distributing wealth meritocratically (which Socialists understand is not the case).

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      And yet Linux works fine. Not everyone needs to be a dev, devs can tell the difference between an expert and a charlatan.

      • Atemu@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        I meant that as a reply to the second paragraph which generalised anarchism; including the non-Linux world.
        I also disagree that this isn’t an issue in the broader Linux community however. See for example the loud minority with an irrational hate against quite obviously good software projects like systemd who got those ideas from charlatans or “experts”.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          I know, I used Linux as an example. Just like not everyone needs to be a weatherman to trust weatherman that can recognize experts among themselves, so too can engineers recognize experts among themselves, and so forth.

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      Yep. This is why the voice of the people should generally speaking be ignored. This is also why 90% of people should be ignored when deciding economic policies.