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Knowing More Than Elon

I believe it was the wise and benevolent Gandhi who once said, “Talk shit, get hit.” This will be our topic today, but perhaps not the getting hit part, because although Gandhi did speak those famous words, I don’t want to misconstrue their meaning, nor quote him incorrectly.

There is a type of shit talk that oozes out of our mouths every day without us even realising it’s shit talk. We just consider it regular informed conversation. It could be arrogance, ignorance, stupidity, or it could just be that everyone else is doing it so we all subliminally agree to keep doing it together so long as no one calls anyone else out for it.

This shit talk is the ‘Knowing More Than Elon’ talk. Because we are constantly floodeddeliberate or otherwise - with random information, this gives us credibility to critique whoever we want, whatever we want, however we want. Here are some anecdotes (where I am wise and others are fools) to demonstrate this.

The Boomer Dinner

Our dinner conversation turned to electric cars.

“Times are changing,” all the boomers agreed. “All this technology and change, is it for the better?”

A supposed flaw of the electric car model then came up.

“I don’t think Elon thought that one through,” one said.

All the others at the dinner table decided to get their jabs in, “Yeah that Elon’s a moron, he has lost the plot”, and my favourite of the night, “Here is what that Elon should’ve done…”

Clearly these people, three wines deep on a Tuesday night sitting down to a pork dinner, have figured out where Elon Musk went wrong. I remember having a strong desire to call Elon and let him know, but I couldn’t reach him. God he is an idiot, I thought.

The Overqualified Taxi Guy “Scott Morison is dumb,” the chatty taxi driver said.

“Is he?” I asked.

“Yes, so stupid,” he said. Maybe you could say Scott Morisson is out of touch, but not dumb. Of all the things you could say about him, you must concede that he probably isn’t unintelligent.

“You should run for Prime Minister then,” I said.

He laughed, “No way,” he said.

Blanket statements like the ones displayed in our stories above are made all the time. The worse thing is that they are made glibly and with complete conviction by everyday Joes like you and I. Did we ever stop and consider that we might not know as much as the people or things we have such strong opinions about? Did we ever stop and consider how difficult it is to make statements like these without, at the very least, knowing more about it than that five-minute Facebook video we saw?

The problem is that we are probably quite stupid compared to the people we talk about. That we are even talking about them at all, and not vice versa, is already testament to the fact that they are more important and experienced than us. This is not about certain ideas and issues being way over our heads, or certain individuals being above reprimand, it’s about acknowledging your own inadequacies in relation to the complexities of these people or issues. If you find yourself bagging on a public figure or anyone of that sort, a good question to ask yourself is, if I were face to face in an argument with this person, how would I go? Even someone we believe to be absurd and a complete moron; I truly believe most of us would get walloped in an argument with Donald Trump.

What I want to know is whatever happened to the good old-fashioned, ‘I don’t have an opinion on that’, or ‘I don’t know enough about it’, or God forbid, ‘I’m really not that interested?’ When did these incredibly wise phrases all of a sudden become stupid?

Don’t fall prey to ‘Knowing More Than Elon’ talk. Don’t let yourself or your friends get away with outrageously vague, obnoxious claims. We are already stupid enough as we are. We don’t need people progressively getting stupider by continually buffing up opinions which aren’t really theirs and that they can’t really prove. Stupidity is actually a great and necessary thing; knowing where you’re stupid and where you’re not stupid is, in itself, not being stupid. Don’t be embarrassed, ever, about being stupid. No one should expect you to know the ins and outs of the government’s fiscal policy and no one should expect you to know how to solve climate change. If you really did know how to solve climate change, you’d probably be solving climate change rather than shouting things like ‘Force corporations to reduce emissions’.

Every time you’re about to say something outlandish, just imagine Gandhi winding up a big right hook.