Someone was wrong on the internet
I spent a lot of time yesterday arguing with someone on LinkedIn. Normally, I would call that a waste of time. But I don't think it was in this case.
Not because I convinced the original poster they were wrong. No, they had wrapped themselves in the rhetorical cloak of the outsider iconoclast, and any criticism from a place of authority was actually proof of how right they were.
LinkedIn is fetid swamp of self-declared thought leaders, and unfortunately one of my esoteric specialist subjects (Systems Thinking) gets more than it's fair share of misguided takes.
These usually fall in two categories:
- The enthusiastic newcomer, having recently discovered an interesting edge of the field, mistakes it for the whole and declares it a universal tonic to all business problems.
- The cynical, lazy grifter, who uses the language and concepts of the field to wrap the usual hustle culture influencer BS in an attempt to capture eyeballs.
But occasionally you get a true believer. Someone who engaged with the ideas not to understand them, but to support a pre-existing epiphany. Concepts are cherry-picked to support their worldview, and used to armour their arguments from external criticism.
It was the third category that I encountered yesterday. My first reaction was both dismissive and derisive. My gut told me to ignore, as I would just engage emotionally and not help anyone, especially myself. But, with some reflection, I realised that there was a way to perhaps find some value. There was little hope of changing the poster's mind, but perhaps there was a way to surface the flaw in their thinking for inspection in a way that would help others evaluate their claims better.
This meant:
- Authentically engaging with empathy for the original poster. Why had they come to this flawed conclusion?
- Not ceding my expertise, while not appealing to authority to "win" the argument.
This forced me to do something interesting. I had to engage with the core ideas of my field in the context of the post. This was fascinating. I knew the poster was wrong, but actually understanding why they were wrong reinforced my own understanding and gave me a chance to reflect on those ideas with a beginner's mindset. I could more clearly see the seductive but flawed chain of reasoning that led to their conclusion.
And with empathetic, thoughtful replies grounded in the core ideas of my field, I gave other readers the context to see the flaws themselves.
LLMs have made long-form posts trivial to write, with all the superficial signals of quality - language, structure and tone. Critically responding to fake expertise might just be a new signal of competence.