Twitter's Secret Shadowbans are Why the Public Has Turned Against "Experts"

It's a synecdoche, anyway.

   Our "experts" and institutions have been ideologically captured by the left. The contemporary progressive left is a mix of bad philosophy and crazy politics. And this particular brand of bullshit leans strong in the direction of totalitarianism--hence its capture of the institutions. 

   Our "experts" and institutions are now so biased toward the progressive left that we always know, in general, what they're going to say about any given controversial political/cultural disagreement. Has the left become psychotically enamored of transgenderism? Then it's only a matter of time before revisions to the DSM and pro-"trans" proclamations from medical associations.The pattern is boring, if infuriating, by now. 

   This is (prope-)Lysenkoism: the subordination of science, scholarship and expertise to politics.

   The progressive left does not even accept objectivity and institutional neutrality in principle anymore. If it did, it might at least be "shamed" by its inconsistency. Instead it's more common for "elites" to laugh at concerns about objectivity the same way they laugh at concerns about truth: only the hoi polloi believe in such antiquated Western superstitions anymore...

   Actually, there's a two-aspect strategy in play. When the preponderance of scientific evidence is on their side, they piously proclaim that they are The Science--skeptics are "Deniers." (See: Holocaust denial...) When the preponderance of scientific evidence is not on their side, objectivity, rationality, truth and dispassionate inquiry are merely whitemale "narratives" used to silence the....etc. etc. Appeal, say, to crime and policing data that refuse the thesis that racist cops are mass-murdering American blacks and you will be met with a wall of gibberish about "lived experience." "Storytelling" is what it's called in CRT. Note: that's not supposed to be a negative term. CRT explicitly aims to replace inconvenient empirical evidence with "storytelling."

   The obvious prejudices, lies and obscurantist bullshit that reign among our experts and institutions force any reasonably objective and intelligent person to be skeptical of them. When obvious hacks issue dogmatic, condescending, supercilious decrees, informing us that we must accept the patentest bullshit or else...well...that shit gets old fast. 

   Then there's the expansion of the notion of expertise to include obvious nonsense. We now have "equity experts" and suchlike, who are really just poorly-educated humanists with no actual reasoning skills who just know how to talk the formulaic talk. Their job is to inject leftism into every aspect of their institutions. They are not experts in anything. They are political activists. Proclaim such hacks "experts," then, again, it is only rational for we plebes to say: Well, if those are experts, expertise cannot be trusted.

   Of course we can say--as is true: Those are not experts. How do those conversations go? You can trace this out yourself--I don't have to tell you.

   One bumper-sticker take: our experts can't even be trusted to determine who's an expert anymore.

   Of course one oughtn't to throw out babies with bathwater. But it's inevitable under the prevailing conditions. The remaining actual experts, competent scientists, non-activist scholars who don't want their own conclusions ignored alongside the bullshit their colleagues are putting out need to clearly reject Lysenkoism and proclaim themselves separate and opposed to it. Many of those who do so will be punished by the leftist powers that be. I'm sorry you have to make that choice. But that's the world we now live in...

   At any rate. 

   The point:

   Skepticism about expertise is perfectly rational at this point in our history.