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Experts have their place and can be extremely valuable in those places, this no doubt being one reason for the old expression, “Experts should be on tap, not on top.” For broader social decision-making, however, experts are no substitute for systemic processes which engage innumerable factors on which no given individual can possibly be expert, and engage the 99 percent of consequential knowledge scattered in fragments among the population at large and coordinated systemically during the process of their mutual accommodations to one another’s demand and supply.

Intellectuals and Society

Thomas Sowell

When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.

The 48 Laws of Power

Robert Greene

In contrast to the vision of the anointed, systemic causation says that there are often underlying and quite rational reasons for decisions, even if the expression of those reasons are neither obvious nor well articulated. In short, there is an underlying reality reflected through systemic processes, however imperfectly. It is not simply a matter of subjective dispositions. This reasoning can be taken a step further: A fundamental reality is not vitiated by the fact that different human beings see it differently, even if some respond irrationally.

The Vision of the Anointed

Thomas Sowell

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