So I've spoken about nice guys as covert bitches.
I want to shed light on another type of bitch.
It's the arrogant dumb bitch. I feel the need
to call out this particular type of bitch because
these bitches are often put in positions to make
decisions that does real harm to the rest of
society. Who am I talking about here? It's honestly
a range of people, but essentially these are
the ones that claim to be experts. in an area
and speak on issues that they have no business
speaking on. The ones that either don't have
the self -awareness or don't care that they are
wrong. But they don't necessarily need to be
claiming to be experts. It's honestly just anyone
who can't acknowledge their mistakes, either
because they're too dumb to realize they're wrong,
or they just don't care because it benefits them
to double down on something false. What's hard
about this group of bitches is that they come
in so many flavors. Joe Rogan, for instance,
I think, is this type of bitch. He says a bunch
of dumb shit that is completely uninformed or
provides a platform for a bunch of dumbasses
saying dumb shit, which is annoying, but honestly,
they have the right to do so, right? You can
say whatever you want. It's a free country. I'm
not going to stop somebody from creating a podcast
and just going off. I mean, I go off whenever
I feel like on my own podcast. What I see, though,
is someone who isn't interested in actually getting
to the truth and just entertains any dumb fucking
idea as being on par with any properly informed
idea. It's not the mistakes that are being made
or the false beliefs so much as the reckless
disregard for any standard of critical thinking
that makes him a dumb bitch. If he was trying
to get at the truth and cared enough to be a
bit more careful about what he said or who he
brought into the platform, I'd probably have
no problem with them. People make mistakes. They
believe false things. They make errors in critical
thinking and judgment. It's all part of just
being a human, right? Just not having any standard
for truth is just dumb bitch shit. I know he
doesn't have any standard because of what he
says. Sorry, not because of what he says, but
by the way he responds to criticisms about his
podcast. He doesn't bother to listen to any of
it. In fact, I don't think like there's so many
times when he says some dumb shit where it's
like it could have just easily been fact checked
just with like a 10 second Google search. It
doesn't take much. Like, I'm not holding him
to some high standard of truth or critical thinking.
It's just like, just do your basic research,
right? Like, the most basic kind of research,
okay? The fact that you just genuinely dismiss
any of the critiques that come your way or don't
even bother to correct yourself, like, that's
what dumb bitches do. They double down on their
stupidity. But this isn't the only shape that
this particular type of bitch comes in, right?
Many very intelligent people, at least on paper,
with their degrees and awards, can also be this
type of dumb bitch. If any one of you have been
a part of academia, especially at a prestigious
research college, at the graduate level or higher
especially, you'll know exactly what I'm talking
about. There are people, again, I'm not going
to paint a broad brush and say this is everybody
in academia, but there is a significant, noticeable,
significant number of people in academia, but
also I've found in politics and management, who
got there with some skills and work. So they
put in the work, they have some skills. In the
least, they know how to talk to people well enough
to get those positions, but most likely they
also receive various degrees, certificates, awards,
whatever other accolades they took credit for
to help them get into these positions. So they
aren't complete idiots. I don't want to just
say that they're, you know, like Joe Rogan status,
dumb, right? They're not that. So then what makes
them a bitch? It's when they go off the deep
end and speak outside of their area of expertise.
Or become overly confident in their belief because
they have all these fancy degrees and awards
to show for it. It's when their head gets too
big for their body and they shift away from just
a dude who has some ideas to just being a complete
bitch. Why does this happen? I honestly don't
know, but I have some suspicions as to why people
don't just stick to their lane and just say like,
hey, I'm an expert in this. small subset in this
area this is all i know and what i know is what
i know and i don't know anything else with much
certainty i don't know why people just start
to like it's like their their idea that this
idea that they know something makes them feel
like they know more than they really do right
i don't know exactly why this happens but i have
some suspicions i'm gonna just lay out lay out
some of them i don't again i'm not an expert
Somebody go ahead and look into it and tell me
what the accurate picture is as to why this happens.
Maybe it just varies, right? For each person,
it's a little bit different, okay? But here's
some suspicions that I want to kind of throw
out there. See what you think, okay? For one,
I imagine if you spent your life on some idea
and promoting it, you're so committed to it that
acknowledging you're wrong would be devastating
to your sense of self. OK, you've poured yourself
into some, let's say, research area. And I imagine
it's hard to acknowledge that all that research,
all that work was in vain. That sucks. That sucks.
So I can empathize with that. But unfortunately,
if you're going to be in denial about it instead
of dealing with the fact that maybe, you know,
your life's work might not have been as fruitful
as you want it to be or you hoped it to be. If
you can't acknowledge it, if you can't learn
to deal with reality, just face it head on, then
you're a bitch. I get that it's hard. Like, look,
not being a bitch is really hard. It's super
hard. It's easy to be a bitch. A bitch route
is the easy way to go. It's hard to be a man.
It's hard to be a real man. So I imagine this
might be one reason is, look, you might have
good reason to be committed to something that
you believe in. And there might be investments
of your time, energy, your heart that you put
into it. So it sucks. But again, reality is reality.
You need to learn to deal with it and to navigate
through that reality once you're faced with it.
So I don't know what it's going to take for you
to go ahead and acknowledge it. Maybe there's
an out for you. Maybe there's an alternative.
Some way you could turn all this investment that
you put in into something else. I don't know.
But what I do know is that the more you're in
denial of it, the more of a bitch you are. That's
all I know. Another reason that you might go
down this route to becoming a bitch. is that
you bought into some praise and accolades that
you received, whether it was accurate or not.
Maybe people gassed you up for whatever reason.
From spending 10 minutes on ChatGPT, I never
wanted to go on ChatGPT again because this is
kind of what it felt like to be on ChatGPT. It
felt like ChatGPT was gassing me up. It's not
just that they would just report information
that I was asking for. You know, if I was throwing
out some ideas, then Chad GPT would gas me up
and be like, oh, it's a great idea. That's very
insightful of you. Like that kind of shit, right?
So then, you know, if you hear a lot of this
from people, from Chad GPT, from wherever else,
okay, you hear it enough, you might start buying
into it. You might, your head might get big.
You might think that you're bigger and better
than you really are. If you don't surround yourself
with good friends who call you out on bullshit,
who will... check you when you get out of line,
then you have people gassing you up. You're going
to get an overinflated sense of self. That's
going to turn you into a bitch because you're
not going to see the mistakes you're making.
You're not going to have people pointing them
out to you. Like this happens, right? And I also
understand that this happens a lot as you gain
fame, wealth, things like this. People will come
around you. They might want something from you.
And one way to kind of get that done is by gassing
you up and then saying all these wonderful things
to you to try to butter you up. Always be suspicious
of those people because they're probably going
to slowly turn you into a little bitch, okay?
Again, what's keeping you from, you know, becoming
a real man instead of a bitch is not so much
that you make mistakes or not. Everybody makes
mistakes. It's that you have a hard time admitting
that you're wrong when you do make a mistake
and you don't revise your beliefs to match what's
actually more likely to be true. Part of this
is going to be that you don't have the checks
around you or you are addicted to this sort of
praise from other people. that you don't want
to hear the criticisms or the alternative viewpoints
or people who disagree with you. You might not
want to hear it. And the more you don't allow
yourself to stay exposed to that, the more you're
going to make yourself a bitch. Another suspicion
I have is that the very reason you sought out
recognition and degrees and whatever the accolades
are, Whatever drove you to try to be successful
in this respect, it probably already stems from
some sort of insecurity you have. You were probably
already an insecure bitch, and you thought that
accomplishing all these things would make you
look and feel less like a bitch. And I'm sorry
to bring it to you, but like I said before, the
fact that you aren't directly addressing your
insecurity and instead trying to mask your insecurities
with all these accolades means that... Well,
that's right. You're still a bitch. That's what
you are. If you're a bitch for these reasons,
then I'm guessing you're probably a bitch across
the board, not just in academic settings or in
work settings, right? Insecurities can't be contained
in that way. I'm not saying that you are, but
I would not be surprised if you were the type
to be resentful towards some younger graduate
students or people who work underneath you who
critique what it is that you do. You're probably
the type to use your power and influence to feed
your own insecurities so that you feel less like
a bitch when the truth is that it's your bitch
-ass ego that's leading you to belittle and control
and manipulate others. I mean, I don't know.
I'm just saying. I wouldn't be surprised. I'm
not saying this is exactly what you do. I'm saying
I wouldn't be surprised because bitches be bitches
wherever they go. If you have these insecurities,
they're going to show in some form or fashion,
okay? But if you sought out this kind of recognition,
if you were trying to puff yourself up and then
make yourself feel big because you're feeling
insecure about something for whatever reason,
and instead of dealing with the insecurity, you
decide to try to use these accolades as a way
to make yourself feel less insecure, then you're
probably still the same bitch that you were before
you received all these accolades. Okay. Are you
getting the picture here? Look, like I said,
it's not just academia. I was using that as one
example. It's everywhere. It's any successful
bitch. Successful in the sense of like, you know,
I don't know, public accolades or something,
awards, degrees, things like that. Especially
motherfuckers who love the public eye. It's pretty
common out there, right? So actors, musicians,
politicians, these areas are just swarming with
this type of bitch. Even in the teaching profession,
I've seen a lot of bitches like this. These are
the teachers who make the teaching all about
themselves, and they feel a great sense of joy
in receiving a bunch of awards for their teaching,
or I don't know what, like going on TED Talk
and then having everybody talk about, gush over
how wonderful they were. I don't know what the
deal is, right? It's all over, and it makes sense.
If you're insecure and you need to fill that
insecurity by getting a bunch of recognition,
then clearly you're going to go to places. that
give you that sort of recognition. Maybe even
people or communities that are willing to exploit
you for your need for this sort of recognition.
I just use academia as an example because I think
people can already see much of the bitch -assetry
easily in these other fields. People often talk
about politicians being spineless bitches, and
I think they're mostly accurate about most of
these politicians probably. Like I said, I don't
know any of them individually, but if I were
to start digging around to their personal lives,
I wouldn't be surprised if I found a good chunk
of them to be this type of bitch. But maybe people
don't see it. So, you know, again, it's just
anywhere where people are looking for some sort
of recognition. I'm always suspicious that they
are trying to cover up some sort of insecurity.
So, yeah, generally just assume if you like the
spotlight, if you revel in it, if you seek it
out, you're probably a bitch. That's probably,
I think, a good assumption. And just because
you're intelligent or do things that help the
world, like you're given to charity all over
the place or you pass good policy, doesn't mean
you're not a bitch. You're just a bitch that
does good things because you want recognition
like a bitch. Okay? Oh, God, let me pause for
a second. I feel like I've been saying bitch
a whole lot over the last 10 minutes. Now I feel
like I'm going to become a bitch myself by speaking
it into existence. Ugh. Okay, short break. So...
See? It's trying to escape me. So, the point
holds. Just because you accomplished some stuff,
found success, are actually capable in some area,
none of this changes whether or not you're a
bitch. If you're doing it for the wrong reasons,
like to fill your own insecurities or if you're
moving with an overinflated sense of self, if
you make it about yourself and your own greatness,
you're a bitch. Period. End of story. Okay? I
can't leave this discussion without pointing
out a particular special subcategory of this
type of bitch. This is a place, this is a type
of bitch that has a special place in my heart.
namely that I hate them with a passion, and that's
the social media self -proclaimed expert influencer
bitch. I recently got into economics, finance,
tax law, that kind of stuff, just for my own
edification. I just started digging into it.
But I also see this with regards to the educational
sector as well, especially people giving advice
on how to get into competitive colleges and so
on. I was actually personally seeking out some
legit experts just because I was just curious
if there was some podcast or something I could
listen to that might be of interest to me and
was just curious about thoughts from experts
in this area, economists, attorneys, finance
types, and so on. But soon enough, my feed was
flooded with dumb bitches with no real expertise
in anything. trying to tell me that they had
this secret answer to success, which they'll
share with me if I just pay them some money.
Of course, they were trying to sell me something,
right? Okay, look, you dumb bitch. I'm not falling
for your scam. I don't know. Maybe you really
believe what you preach and that what you have
to offer is actually doing some good. I'm skeptical,
but... You know, I honestly believe that a lot
of bitches believe the crazy dumb shit that they
are preaching, even if it's completely wrong.
You can buy into your own bullshit, right? You
realize this, right? Like, you can buy into your
own bullshit. Just because you believe in yourself
doesn't make you right. And your overconfidence
in your own shit makes me think that you're a
dumb bitch. Because honestly, I don't know where
your overconfidence is coming from. Look, I know
experts, real experts in their fields, right?
They're level -headed and they acknowledge just
how much they don't know, right? They're not
even that confident, right? I think the people
that I've met that I believe are genuine experts
that are very knowledgeable in their area, because
they're so knowledgeable, they also are aware
that there's a lot of information that they don't
have. A lot of predictions that they know will
probably be wrong because it's not an easy thing
to do, right? You know why they're not confident?
It's because they know just how much they don't
know. So overconfident motherfuckers tend to
be the dumb bitches that don't know that they're
dumb. They're blind to their dumbness. So don't
look to them for any sort of guidance. They're
probably wrong. I'm thinking like Andrew Tate.
I'm thinking all these financial advisors on
social media who only have real expertise in
some narrow subset of finance. like in real estate
or something, but then they give general like
finance advice or investing advice. She's like,
you dumb bitch. You don't know any of this stuff,
right? And especially the dumb fucks who graduated
from competitive colleges like Stanford or Harvard
and are now making money trying to sell you some
program claiming that they have some deep insight
into college applications or how to study effectively
or some other dumb shit that they don't really
know anything about. You dumb bitches. Like,
look. Were you ever on the admissions committee
or even made decisions on, like, even a scholarship
committee or any of these places where you were
on the other side of it where you had to look
through a bunch of different student applications
and then make decisions about who gets, you know,
these opportunities and who doesn't? Do you even
know anything about learning science? Did you,
like, actually pour through the range of empirical
research in this area, study it thoroughly like
the real experts actually do? I doubt it because
you're saying some dumb shit that doesn't align
with the research. you dumb bitch. Okay. And
it's the same thing in the finance sector, right?
Like a lot of the people like, look, I figured
this out that for most people, finance is fairly
simple, right? Like don't spend more than what
you have work on, you know, getting a better
income, like higher income, you know, investing,
like you probably don't know better than the
experts. So don't try to beat out the experts.
Like, It's fairly straightforward. If you stay
in your lane and not go and think that you know
more than you do, then you're usually fine. But
a lot of times people are trying to give you
some secret sauce that is supposed to lead to
wealth. Honestly, it sounds more like a scam
to me. Look, either you're a scam artist and
you know it, which makes you a selfish bitch,
or you believe your hype, your own hype, which
makes you a dumb bitch. Whichever way you cut
it, You're a bitch, okay? And what's worse is
that you're doing real harm. That's my concern,
right? My concern is that it's not just your
bitchness contained within you and you deal with
your own bitchness. This is part of the problem
with bitch assetry, right? It's like an infection
on a wound that just like spreads and it just
infects all the things around it, right? That's
my concern is that it's not going to be contained
within you. It's going to negatively impact people
who don't know any better. And maybe can't know
any better because no one called you out on your
bitch ass. And so they just go along with your
bitch assetry. Oh, shit, I'm getting worked up.
So many dumb bitches. Look, remember in the previous
episode when I said, you know, we need to distinguish.
This is like several episodes ago. But like I
said, we need to distinguish real value from
perceived value. Isn't most of marketing just
trying to pump up perceived value? That's what
these social media influencer types and the game
that they play feels like. It feels like you're
trying to pump up your own perceived value without
actually doing the work to increase your real
value. Now, there are some who do put in the
work. I appreciate them, right? But they are
far and few between. They're probably much more
often from what I've seen in my feeds, more often
than not, it's just a bunch of dumb bitches.
that don't have any real value, that hasn't put
in the work to doing their homework, doing the
research, you know, doing the hard work to really
develop some sort of skill set. All y 'all is
just bitches. That's what you are, okay? Now,
I'm guessing this is part of the reason that
so many people are not keen on experts because
everybody like this claims to be an expert and
they just are really scam artists. Now, look,
I value expertise. I don't want people to just
shit on experts across the board. I'll be clear
with you, at least for me, I'm not an expert
on most things in life. And I need to rely on
the expertise of others to make it through life.
I am in no position, for instance, to question
all these climate scientists on climate change
because I don't know enough about the topic.
And I've read up on quite a bit of it, but I'm
definitely not an expert in that area. Same for
when I'm deciding on like a medical treatment,
right? Like, look, I go to a doctor or a string
of doctors, get multiple opinions to try to get
as many expert opinions on this as possible.
I don't trust my own judgment on it because I
don't, you know, I don't know enough about this
stuff, right? I didn't go to med school. I don't
know. I don't know enough about science or medical
science to know what the right course of treatment
is, right? So at the end of the day, my decision
will probably be some product of, you know, some
amalgamation of these expert opinions, not my
own intuitions. Even something as simple as fixing
a car, I'd probably be, you know, like wouldn't
know what to do. I would need a mechanic to tell
me exactly what needs to get fixed, right? I
respect experts who put in the time and mental
energy to improve their craft. Yet I think many
are skeptical of experts, and I think for good
reason. My students are often skeptical of students.
I teach critical thinking, and we talk a lot
about when and how we can trust experts. And
many have this intuitive feeling that all these
experts are not as intelligent or insightful
as they make themselves out to be. I could see
why, like when you have so many people claiming
to be experts that are really not experts, it
gets confusing. You can't differentiate one from
the other. And so you don't know who to trust.
And so your default then becomes, I'm not going
to trust any of them, right? It's because of
all these things I've talked about, all these
dumb bitches that are out there parading around
calling themselves experts when they're just
a bunch of scam artists. So I don't blame people
for being skeptical of experts. If people are
down on experts who don't want to give experts
their due credit, I could understand why that
is. So it doesn't help to just go ahead and say,
look, don't trust experts. It doesn't help because,
look, I still need to rely on experts, at least
for me. And it doesn't help to just try to believe
anybody who claims to be an expert. Neither of
these extremes seem to be a smart way to go.
So then what can we do about these dumb bitches?
Well, I think it's important not to lump everyone
together. We need to have some tools to differentiate
between who we can really trust and who we can't.
Some people are doing really important work,
good work, right? In fact, I think even on my
website, I promote some of these individuals
that I think are doing real work, that have done
the work, that are real experts in their area.
I don't necessarily agree with everything they
say if there's some shared areas of expertise,
Even there, I have a good amount of respect for
them, and I believe that even when I believe
they're wrong, they're wrong with good reason.
They have done the work. They're knowledgeable
in the area. Experts can disagree on stuff. That's
pretty normal. Experts don't all agree on everything,
right? Okay, so what we're looking for are real
men that put in real hours to improve their craft,
to provide something of real value, not just
perceived value. And so I'm going to try to give
you some general principles to follow in making
the distinction, and I hope that it serves you
well. These are kind of like rules of thumb that
I follow. It's not perfect, but it at least kind
of gives you some idea of certain red flags to
kind of look out for. Moments when you're like,
okay, I think I might need to do a deeper dive
on this person before I could believe any of
the things that they say, or if I could trust
their advice, right? Here are some guiding principles
that I think you can try to follow, okay? First
off, real experts, they are not overly defensive,
okay? If you get triggered by someone questioning
whether or not you're right, you're probably
a bitch, right? And real experts that aren't
bitches wouldn't honestly be offended by your
questioning them. If anything, they'd probably
geek out and try to explain it to you in a way
that then makes sense. Why is that? Because real
experts understand that this stuff is complicated,
there's a lot of nuance, and that there are elements
of whatever it is that they believe that are
open for debate, that it's not set in stone,
right? Real experts talk to other experts, and
then so, like, you know. they understand that
this is part of, you know, defending your position
is that you need to explain it. You don't get
defensive and you don't, you know, start going
off on how you should trust me. I'm the expert.
You don't know any better. I'm the one who knows
better. You should just believe whatever it is
I say. Like, like real experts are not like that.
At least the real experts that aren't bitches.
What they'll more likely do is they'll try to
give an explanation to help things make sense,
right? Okay, so that's the first thing I look
out for. I look out for somebody who's like,
look, can they handle a critique or an objection,
or do they just get all worked up and then huff
and puff about how they should be trusted because
they're the expert, okay? All right, second thing.
Experts are generally fairly nuanced in their
position, and I think they rarely speak with
much certainty or overconfidence. And this is
partly because the more you learn about a topic,
the more you understand the limitations of what
you know. This is kind of what I've gained from
going into a PhD program and doing research in
an area and trying to read everything there is
on a particular topic. I realized, look, I can't
actually, I don't know everything. There's just
too much to read and too many ideas that have
been floated around by people before me, people
who are well -regarded. that I'm just not going
to know everything. There's a lot that I'm not
going to know, right? And I don't realize how
much I'm not going to know until I actually decide
I'm going to try to know as much as I can about
this particular topic. That's when I realize,
oh, shoot, I feel overwhelmed. There's a lot
here. I don't get all of it, right? You just
realize, like, look, there are limitations, right?
And then you also, because you know so much about
the different perspectives on the same topic,
You could also see, you know, all these different
perspectives and why there might be some areas
of potential disagreement. You become less certain,
right? You become less certain because you're
like, oh, I'm excited for the possibilities of
what could be, but there are a bunch of objections
that are well, you know, good points that are
being made, which should dampen my strength of
confidence in whatever it is that I think there's
a real possibility of being true. OK, people
on the cutting edge of research tend to get excited
about the possibilities, but they also acknowledge
that there's still more to learn. Right. It's
really the salespeople that are gassing up what's
possible. Like, you know, Elon Musk is kind of
like this. He always over promises and under
delivers. Such a bitch. Right. Like, don't believe
anything Elon says because he's been wrong so
many times. That should be like proof. Right.
not to believe anything he says. His timelines
are always off by a lot, like years, or some
promises he's just never delivered on. There's
a reason for it. Salespeople are good at gassing
you up on what could be true or what's possible.
Real experts are a lot more cautious because
they realize, ooh, it's actually a lot harder.
These problems are much harder to solve than
the general public gives credit for. Right. So
experts generally fairly nuanced will not speak
with much certainty. They'll always try to couch
what they say with highly possible, likely. Right.
They're not going to give 100 percent certainty.
They're not going to sound that confident in
whatever it is that they're saying. OK, so that's
the second thing to look out for. Third thing,
experts only speak to a narrow range. of expertise,
not outside of it, okay? Look, experts are experts
at a particular thing. They're not an expert
in everything. They're experts at very specific
things, okay? I would not ask ethics questions
to Neil deGrasse Tyson because he's not an expert
in ethics. He might have an opinion on it, but
it's a pretty uninformed opinion. I mean, even
if he's the... did study some of this stuff.
He's not an expert in ethics. He's just a guy
who maybe has thought about some stuff and then
has some opinions on it. He does have expertise.
I think his expertise is in astrophysics, but
that's a very narrow field. That's not even all
of physics, right? So like, look, we need to
be very careful here. Experts usually will, should
anyways, a good expert anyways, will probably
couch their expertise in terms of This is my
area of expertise. I could speak as an expert
on this area. I do have opinions on a bunch of
other stuff, but that's my opinion as a fellow
human being. It's not as an expert, okay? Look,
everything I talk about here about what it means
to be a bitch and all this, like defining it
and drawing these lines, I'm not speaking as
an expert. I don't have expertise in what it
means to be a man or a bitch. I've said that
from the very beginning. This is just my opinion
on stuff, right? If you try to slap me with,
oh, you're trying to speak as an expert on this
stuff, it's like, no, it's just a guy with an
opinion, right? I thought about this stuff a
lot, but I'm by no means an expert. And you shouldn't
treat anything I say as the views of an expert
and then tout it around with any sort of authority.
You shouldn't do that at all. Form your own damn
opinions, right? We can have a conversation about
it. We can help each other, you know, think about
these things more deeply. I didn't study what
it means to be a bitch. I didn't do some deep
dive into this. I just have a bunch of opinions
from my own experience on stuff. And this is
part of the reason that you'll see me say, look,
I'm not an expert in this area. Go talk to a
sociologist about this. Go talk to a cultural
anthropologist about that. Go talk to a psychologist
about this. Look, I'm not an expert in all these
fields. I will leave it up to the experts to
go ahead and say something about it. At least
the areas that I just don't know enough about.
Okay, so that's the third thing. Okay, fourth
thing. Experts usually have the backing of other
experts, right? If you're not an expert in a
field of study or an industry, you honestly wouldn't
know who is better or worse because you don't
know what you should be measuring, right? You
need to rely on actual experts to give you insight
on who is respected in the field. So it's kind
of hard because, like, look, then which experts
should I trust, right? Like, maybe they're all
on the same campus. It happens. There's biases
that happens among experts. You know, they might
be all trained in the same school, and so they
might have the same sort of approach, and that
approach might just be wrong, okay? But generally,
you yourself, like, this is, again, this is,
like, the key part of this is you need to start
acknowledging your limitations, right? You're
not an expert, and if you're not an expert, you're
going to have a hard time identifying who the
experts are. Degrees and so on could help if
they're from accredited institutions and so on,
but again, there's a lot of dumb bitches with
degrees. You need to rely on some sort of consensus
among experts about which expert opinions are
more or less reliable collectively. When I am
looking at research, when I'm trying to help
students be better about learning, and I'm reading
up on the research in this area of learning science,
it's like a very interdisciplinary field. I don't
ever rely on just one study or a string of studies
from one particular researcher. And the reason
for it is that there's a potential, even with
experts, for bias. What I rely instead on is
collectively where the direction of research
is going, as in what the results are generally
pointing to, the general direction that all these
research projects have been pointing to as the
stuff that actually works for learning. If you
rely on one study, you're going to be sorely
putting yourself in a bad spot. Why? Because...
there's always going to be outliers. And the
same thing with experts. There's always going
to be outliers. There's going to be one or two
experts that say some batshit crazy stuff that
all the other experts are like, look, yo, you
got the math wrong. You got the research wrong.
You're biased and paid for. You're going to get
called out, right? For whatever it is. Usually,
if you have the minority opinion, I mean, it
could still be correct, but... Even if it's correct,
it's probably for the wrong reason, or at least
there's a good chance of it. I usually rely on
collective decision -making, and that requires
us to look at the entirety of a field, not just
at one or two experts. Which is why even when
I'm looking at the social media influencers and
trying to screen them for people that I think
are reliable, I won't trust any one of them.
I'll probably look at a collection of them, right,
that are not just parroting each other's views,
that are independent of one another, and try
to make a decision based off of collectively
where the areas of agreement and disagreement
are, right? That's usually a fairly, again, no
guarantee, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb
to kind of follow, I think. Now, these four things
that I pointed out, these are not guarantees,
but the combination of these should help steer
you in the right direction. In the least, I think
we can expose those that need to get exposed.
Unfortunately, we need to do this regularly,
like all the time. Like I said from the first
episode, there's too many people that have a
hard time seeing bitches for who they are. So
explaining who the real bitches are and why they're
bitches, it helps. us to at least know what to
look for um but the guidelines i gave you these
are still not guarantees and on top of that because
there's so many self -proclaimed experts you're
going to probably have to you know utilize these
principles pretty regularly right it takes it
takes a lot of time and energy to do it um but
that should also mean that you will probably
be more wary of believing whatever you see online
which is a Honestly, for me, that would be a
win. That would be a good thing. Because honestly,
I would say, I don't know what the exact percentage
would be, but I'd probably say 80 % to 90 % of
the stuff online is just trash. You want to pick
out the nuggets of good material, solid information,
reliable information that you can. All right.
Now, I need to confess something. Some of you
who know me personally or have listened to most
of my podcasts probably are sensing some hypocrisy
coming from me because I often speak like I'm
certain. I often sound like super arrogant and
confident about my views. I've actually often
been accused of being arrogant in this way, of
being an elitist, of beating people over the
head with ideas without supporting my views.
I talk mad shit. Let's just be honest. I'll just
put it out there. I talk mad shit. I should probably
get some of that under control. Much of it is
my tendency to not speak with a nuance that reflects
my actual belief. If you press me on anything
I have ever said, if you want to hear my real
views, you'll hear me be a lot more nuanced.
It's like, actually, it's a bit more complicated
than that. I'm fairly certain, but it's actually
possible that I'm wrong. I say this all after
the fact, so sometimes people get annoyed with
me. They're like, why do you sound so certain
in the beginning and then backtrack? It's like,
well... I'm not meaning to, but speaking with
nuance sometimes is kind of hard and exhausting.
For me, anyway, I tend to go off on tangents
if I focus on all the nuances. And then people
get annoyed for a different reason because it
feels like I'm going off on tangents. I want
to be clear about something. I'm generally not
certain about anything. I personally usually
play a percentage game. How confident am I in
my belief? And most of my beliefs fall under
like 80 % confidence, most. There's a lot of
other areas, like specifically in economics,
politics. There's certain areas where my confidence
level is even lower because I'm like, I know
I don't know enough. And it's just hard to predict
with regards to some of these things that have
a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables.
I just know I'm probably going to be wrong in
any prediction. So, you know, if I were to be
completely honest with you, I'm fairly uncertain
about most things. People who know me fairly
well know this. I've, you know, I've spoken about
this, I think, in other places. But, you know,
one of the first classes in philosophy that got
me going, that got me excited was a course on
Descartes, where we're discussing like radical
skepticism. the ideas from those discussions
really stuck with me like i'm fairly unconfident
in most of my beliefs like we're talking even
like will the sun rise tomorrow or will it be
a sunny day tomorrow and i live in california
it's like of course it's gonna be a sunny day
tomorrow like but even that i'm like 90 certain
80 i mean depends on the time of the year right
um but i do talk often talk in a way that might
express more certainty than i hold That's my
fault, something for me to work on. I'm sorry
if I gave you that impression, although I'm not
going to lie. Sometimes I do it just to be funny
as part of my sense of humor. But I want to be
clear about something. I think it's also besides
the point, right? The point I've been trying
to make is not that people can't be mistaken
or faulty or overly confident from time to time.
I said, like, look. everybody makes mistakes.
Everybody is confident about something they believe
to be true and then turns out they're wrong,
right? It happens. It happens all the time. I'm
not as concerned about that. It's about that
deeper thing in you. As I've said, we all have
a little bitch in us. But the question is whether
or not you left this bitch inside you, you left
it unchecked and let it run rampant, okay? You
will be wrong. You will be overconfident in something
you have no business being overconfident in.
You'll be arrogant at times. I am this way sometimes.
I make this mistake fairly regularly, I think.
The question is, can you acknowledge it when
you're called out for it? Can you see that you
are being a bitch and make a genuine effort to
be better? I know... This isn't saying much,
but I'll be real. I was worse than I am now.
I mean, if you think I talk shit now, it was
worse before and far more hurtful to others,
right? Yes, it could get worse than the way I
am already. So that just tells you the long road
that I had to travel to being less of a bitch.
All this to say, look, I'm working on being better.
If you're one of these bitches that I'm describing,
look, it's possible for you to not be such a
bitch. You could work on it. You could be better
about it. But what you need to do is you need
to acknowledge your bitch assetry in order to
take the steps to recovery, right? I've acknowledged
long ago that I have a problem and that I was
truly being a bitch in a lot of ways, okay? It's
your turn to take those steps as well. I am going
to be okay with you making mistakes. I'm going
to be okay with your being overconfident and
arrogant at times. That's fine as long as you're
taking steps to be better about it. That's all
that I ask, right? And if you're willing to take
that journey, if you're willing to take steps
to be better, I will walk through life with you
and we'll get through it together. We'll be less
of a bitch together. We'll call each other out
for shit. And we will point out each other's
flaws and mistakes and help each other be better
about it. And I promise it gets better. It gets
better, but it only gets better if you actually
take the steps to be better. So make all the
mistakes, be wrong, be arrogant at times, but
learn from it. Acknowledge when you've stepped
out of line. Listen to other people when they
point out that you're being an arrogant bitch.
And learn to acknowledge, to admit when you're
wrong. It's okay. Admitting that you're wrong
doesn't make you a bitch. Not admitting it is
what makes you a bitch. And that's the one thing
I want, is for you to stop being a bitch.