I routinely tell my mentees, “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer

You’re also going to want to keep some version of “and I don’t trust that your explanation will be unbiased” in your back pocket.

We need to vote in elected representatives who are willing to admit this.

To paraphrase Paul Krugman, politicians are often more easily swayed by well-dressed lobbyists than nerdy economists.

George W. Bush was infamous for this. He believed he was smart about everything, but then was swayed by particularly emphatic advisors. And soon he was surrounded by emphatic lobbyists.

Today we’re watching as Dunning–Kruger effect takes hold, since Trump believes he’s the smartest man in the room, and is remarkably easy to manipulate by foreign assets. In fact, it’s such an issue it should be regarded as a national security crisis.

I guess this all to say, don’t be like Bush or Trump.

People will still say that isn’t enough and that you need to have a strong stance regardless of your knowledge

also “this is my opinion, but I really don’t know much about the matter”

any number of people way smarter then I

It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves. - Franz Kafka

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell

the older I get i realise the less I know, which is the wisdom age should bring

It was Nate Hagens (The Great simplification podcast) who said this when he worked at Lehman Brothers about confidence. Don’t worry, he learned quickly that he was the bad guy and changed his ways completely.

Anyway, when all the new recruits came in they gave them a pop quiz. It starts off simply “What is a derivative?” “How to bonds work?”, and with everyone being young an confident they all answer enthusiastically. Eventually they drop in a question that is really difficult and oddball that nobody would know, naturally everyone starts trying to formulate and answer only to have the teacher stop them. Teacher just says, “Don’t try to fake it, that helps no one. What you say is. I don’t know, I will find out, and I will get back to you.”

You don’t have to have an answer to everything.

What is this? A nuanced take? Why I oughta….

Listen here! This is lemmy! I’m now going to complain to the mods that your post and comments be removed because I either don’t like or don’t understand them!

Problem is the people who need to follow this advise the most won’t listen. They don’t even use the word opinion anymore but instead call it their “own truth” to give their hunches and gut feelings some sort of untouchable authority they don’t deserve.

People literally say this about an ongoing genocide.

General problem. The same thing in science, negative results (tried this, didn’t work) are extremely valuable but not publishable in general, relegated to lab lore. So people constantly re-invent the wheel. Sucks.

“I don’t know enough to have an opinion… so I’m just not going to vote”

And you wonder how we ended up with Trump in 24. I’m sorry, but that phrase works for a lot of things except politics where it’s your civic duty to educate yourself.

Yes

me every day! it gets easier to say and accept the more you do it, kinda like working out.

there’s no shame in being ignorant. I think that’s the issue a lot of people have when trying to apply this mentality

“I am not not educated enough on this subject to supply an answer.”

As someone else said a lot of people get upset with it. I can understand the frustration from the perspective of someone requesting advice or information from a professional but surely you’d rather have a professional who can admit they don’t have an answer and take the time to seek out the proper answer, rather than one who will just give you a wrong answer or a guess.