I came across this meme today: "The problem with this world is that wise people are full of doubt and dumbasses are full of confidence." It made me think of an older quote, going back to Bertrand Russell. He wrote "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." Love that word: cocksure. LOL.

I will admit, I am guilty of this myself. When I started my computer business, I thought I knew everything about computers. Boy was I wrong. I knew just enough to get started building machines and writing software. Back then there was no internet, no YouTube, no Google. I learned by hunting for a book or messing with the machine until I figured it out. I covered my ass well, but I made mistakes.

Later I did on-site training, teaching Word, Excel, and Access. Then I started doing classroom training, sometimes with as many as twenty to thirty people. Eventually I reached the Q&A part and I got questions I did not know the answers to. Sometimes I just made up something that sounded plausible. I got away with that a lot back in 1996-97 because not everyone had Google in their pocket. (1)

These days everyone carries the internet with them. There is no excuse not to know things, just make sure you look up answers from reputable sources, not BobsConspiracyWebsite.org. This is why I cannot stand all the anti-science stuff I see online today. But that is a different Captain's Log.

So the meme and the quote point to the same truth. Wise people are full of doubt. Experts and scientists always question data and want to see verification. They say "The results are 98.2% positive" and still say "we are not 100% sure yet." Dumbasses instead say "I saw it on TikTok so it must be true." You see this in tech. You see it in fitness, with influencers spouting bad nutrition advice on TikTok. You see it in politics spreading misinformation.

Looking back on myself thirty years ago, I was full of confidence though not experience. I had charisma. I acted like I knew what I was talking about. I was cocksure. I was, in truth, an idiot. But I was enthusiastic. Now at 52, I actually do know what I am talking about, most of the time. And I am the first to admit when I don't know something, or I'm not sure of something. Like you have heard me say in my videos, I stop and look it up right then. I can't stand not knowing something. If the wife and I are watching TV and something comes up, I have to pause and look it up. She hates that.

The moral here is that confidence is not a substitute for knowledge. Wise people embrace humility and doubt because that is what drives learning and prevents arrogance, as Bertrand Russell pointed out.

LLAP
RR

(1) I actually remember when I got my first phone that was really good at browsing the web, which was the Sidekick sometime around 2002 or 2003. So I always became the guy after the softball games at the bar that people would be arguing, "no... this quarterback threw for that many yards! Hey Rick, look up the answer!" LOL. Loved that phone.