@kepano I'm not sure if I understood this article correctly, but no one can be an expert in every aspect of his life. For example, you can try to read about diseases and treatments, but that cannot replace the expertise of doctors. Heck, even a doctor has to consult another doctor when it's outside of their expertise.
@kepano I wish I had infinite time and patience to study every problem I don't understand that I'm trusting someone else to handle for me. Human civilization was built on trusting each other (within reasonable limits) after all.
This is not to say that one shouldn't try to reduce their dependency on others when it's possible and reasonably safe.
@curiousmind @kepano I call this the solution vs verification problem (to be analogous to the P vs NP problem). We must understand the problem well enough to verify a solution is correct. We can outsource the solution itself.
Eg: you can outsource mining gold. You cannot outsource understanding how to assay gold, or outsource understanding how assayers marks are certified, or how to detect fraud.
@kepano @curiousmind It depends. If you have mild diabetes, healthy habits may be all you need, but if it’s severe, you may need to keep taking insulin on a recurring basis.
@EpiphanicSynchronicity @curiousmind diabetes is a tricky example because so much modern diabetes has environmental causes due to the problem I was describing
regardless of whether it is environmental or genetic, you should still understand why it's necessary to treat it that way
@curiousmind @kepano I think you’re both right. It has to be genuine understanding, not reading and watching crackpots on the internet and calling it “doing your own research.”
You can’t be an expert in every field, but you need to learn enough to make wise judgements about who to trust.
@curiousmind @kepano A crucial part of genuine understanding is understanding the limits of your own understanding, and of what you know and can know.
@curiousmind if you're paying a recurring sum to treat a problem you don't understand,
you probably have a parasite
you can avoid entering the loop by learning the fundamentals yourself, and developing healthy habits