The article acknowledges this somewhat, but it’s an example of another confidence fallacy: The idea that nobody knows what they’re talking about.
It’s a comforting fiction to tell ourselves when we find ourselves less educated on a topic than we might want to be. The disappointment of not knowing melts away when you can convince yourself that even the people who think they know what they’re talking about are just as uninformed as ourselves.
But it’s a trap. It’s the same line of reasoning that leads people to believing their own random guesses about the climate have equal footing to those of career climate scientists. Or that all political candidates are equally dumb and therefore we might as well pick the one with a personality we like the most. It’s a similar to the “death of expertise” phenomenon.
The truth is, many people do know what they’re talking about and aren’t idiots, but you won’t find them embarrassing themselves on a funny Jimmy Kimmel segment or a Trevor Noah show designed to make us laugh. For that, we need to zero in on the people who don’t know what they’re talking about and then pretend that everyone is just like them. It’s more comforting that way.