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- there are experts with little authority and authorities with little expertise
- neither expertise or authority can be reduced to a quantitative evaluation though in both cases this attempt is made by both (#votes, years of study, quantity of research, ...)
- parents and teachers are our first authority with vague expertise based on some combination and degree of command, control, influence, shame, praise, duty (wrapped in the comforting blanket of love) for the greater good of the social group
- the state bases and enforces its authority in much the same way as parents and teachers, plus cadres of subject matter experts sufficiently educated, experienced, and marketable for the mega groups betterment
- these experts are accepted as authority when the mandates of the managers need reinforcing; especially since state and church and corporate and institutional managers are mostly only experts in rhetoric, organizationalism, gladhanding, and other pandering and kowtowing exercises
- earliest civilization was manufactured out of the acceptance of the authority of the godhead and its cryptic managers whose expertise was charismatic abstraction, poetic mumbojumbo, and enforced ignorance - the fear factor was prominent
- latestage civilization exists (slowly dying) from the acceptance of the authority of the sciencehead and its cryptic managers whose expertise is charismatic abstraction, poetic mumbojumbo, and enforced ignorance - the fear factor is prominent
- current civilization's escalating and more frequent crises - actual or invented - allow authorities to pretend they are experts in both the source and resolution by using and abusing subject matter experts as they see fit
- these experts vie for the limited, coveted positions of ever greater authority by insinuating themselves in the good graces of the managerial authorities that be or want to be
- the rest of us are required to trust [you pick which ones] blindly or by some act of enlightened discernment
- can you discern what these self-congratulating geniuses are themselves incapable of: the correct path, the right choice, the proper response, the best timing?
- "just listen to science" says the favored pop-science guy of the moment when asked about how to "do our part"; pronounced only moments after doing the opposite of what "science" says to do (hugging rather than "social distancing")
- but don't do as i do, do as i say - genuflect and dip your cup into the big bucket of science and quench your terrible thirst for truth and right action
- don't worry if its tasteless or even putrid – just suck it up
- science has the perfect fool-proof fallback position: what was true yesterday isn't false tomorrow (to mask or not to mask), knowledge is evolving, progressing, yes its getting better its getting better all the time
- because science (or god) cannot be wrong – except it seems to each other

- the expert is the authority whenever authority needs an expert