At some point, "I don't know" became an unacceptable answer.
Which is strange.
Because it's probably the most accurate answer most of us could give most of the time.
Instead, everyone knows everything now.
Your barber understands monetary policy.
Your accountant has solved the Middle East.
Some guy named TacticalDad1776 knows exactly why your rifle groups like shit.
Nobody needs evidence anymore.
They have confidence.
And confidence is considerably cheaper.
The internet was supposed to fix this.
For basically all of human history, information was difficult to obtain.
Now almost the entire accumulated knowledge of our species is sitting in your pocket.
That's fucking incredible.
We responded by watching thirty-second videos of strangers explaining things they learned fifteen minutes ago.
Somehow unlimited access to information didn't make us more comfortable saying:
I don't know.
It made us more comfortable pretending we do.
Pick almost any subject you actually understand.
Not something you've read about.
Something you've spent years doing.
Something you've fucked up repeatedly.
Something where you've lost money, broken things, changed your mind and learned enough to understand how much you still don't know.
Now go read the comments about it.
It's incredible.
Absolute certainty.
People who have never done the thing explaining the thing to people who do the thing.
The less experience required to form an opinion, the stronger the opinion seems to become.
Real expertise tends to do the opposite.
The more you understand something, the more conditions start appearing.
"It depends."
"Usually."
"Under these circumstances."
"I'd need more information."
Those aren't weak answers.
They're what happens when somebody understands that reality is complicated.
But complexity doesn't perform very well online.
Certainty does.
"I don't know" doesn't get shared.
"This changes EVERYTHING" does.
Nuance doesn't build followers.
Outrage does.
So we created a system that rewards people for being absolutely certain as quickly as possible.
The correct answer might require three years of experience and a controlled experiment.
The incorrect answer requires Wi-Fi.
Guess which one gets there first.
Shooting culture is especially good at this.
Ask what caliber you should buy.
Ask whether you need to clean your barrel.
Ask how often you should anneal brass.
Ask what barrel break-in procedure you should use.
Ask whether some tiny variation in your ammunition matters.
You'll get forty answers.
Thirty-eight will be presented as settled science.
Twenty-three will contradict one another.
Sixteen will begin with:
"My buddy who's a sniper..."
And somewhere buried underneath all of it will be one person saying:
Test it.
That person is boring.
Listen to that person.
The problem isn't being wrong.
Being wrong is useful.
Being wrong is how you find out you're wrong.
The problem is becoming emotionally invested in being right.
Once your opinion becomes part of your identity, evidence becomes an attack.
Now you're not investigating something.
You're defending territory.
And human beings are extraordinarily talented at finding evidence for things they already believe.
We even gave it a name.
Confirmation bias.
Knowing about confirmation bias, unfortunately, has done almost nothing to stop everyone from doing it constantly.
Including me.
Including you.
Especially the guy you're currently thinking this article is about.
There's a much more interesting way to move through the world.
Assume you might be wrong.
Not performatively.
Actually.
Try to kill your own ideas.
Look for the evidence you don't want to find.
Ask people who disagree with you why.
Test shit.
Measure shit.
Change your mind when reality gives you a good enough reason.
And occasionally say:
I don't know.
Those three words don't make you stupid.
They're the starting point of almost everything worth knowing.
Certainty feels good.
Truth doesn't give a shit how you feel.
Question everything.
Including this.