Incompetence

We’ve all known somebody who we could tell was talking out their ass about a topic. They were not knowledgeable about a topic, yet spoke as though they were. I am certain all of us (myself included) have done this whether or not we knew it. I wanted to explore why this behavior occurs and possibly provide a solution to reduce it.

Why do we talk out of our ass? 2 big reasons out of the many I see are an unnecessary desire to impress and we don’t know we are talking out of our ass. The desire to impress is a defect caused by our ego. Our egos seek validation and the satisfaction of being superior to others. True we can be superior in form and knowledge to others, this is of only relative importance. At the end of the day we all have equal consciousness. Without getting any more confusing, I’ll delay this discussion to a future post.

The 2^nd reason we talk out of our ass is that we don’t know we’re doing it. I refer to the Dunning-Kruger effect. In short “You are a novice on a topic. You think you are an expert in it. This is because you are a novice and have little knowledge on the topic and therefore are unable to gauge where you fall on the expertise scale” This happens regardless of the intention of the ass-talker. This makes me think about the popularly held belief that it takes 10,000 hours of activity to become an expert at it so how many of us are incorrectly calling ourselves experts at something after reading a couple internet articles. I even get the sense that even I am talking out my ass a little bit about talking out the ass. To caveat, I am no expert in incompetence even though I may have reached that 10,000 hour mark long ago.

What’s my solution? We can all sense when we begin to talk out of our ass a bit. If you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable about the info you’re giving then be sure to caveat it. Call out ass-talkers, so those who believe them may be better informed. However, do so gently and understanding regardless of the reason why they are doing it. If it’s clear that everyone can see they are full of it, then wait until they are alone, pull them aside and inform them. The goal is to increase knowledge and awareness which can not be done if people just end up annoyed and shouting at one another…until next time.