Its good to remind myself this . Not once I thought I know something after watching a summary video. When I tried to explain the topic to somebody else I struggled. If you can’t explain you know nothing. Simple as that.
Strongly agree. And I'll raise you: if you can't explain in simple, plain language that a 12-year-old could understand, then you are not enlightened.
I concede that some subjects are intrinsically complex; e.g. the cosmological history of the Universe. But a large part of the reason that topic is complex is because it's not settled; we haven't got to the bottom of it, so there are loads of unanswered questions. How can you explain cosmological inflation in language a 12-year-old could understand? Well, I can't explain it to myself, so I sure as hell can't explain it to a 12-year-old.
This is still a pretty good bar, but if I just repeat what the video said, it seems like I'm explaining it, and then I can give the impression I do know something. I shouldn't get credibility for just repeating a video.
The US has devolved into somewhat of a reputation-driven expertise market, and there are plenty of ways to gain reputation without the expertise. There's still plenty of real experts, but I don't blame them if they want to focus on their work instead of fighting the endless tide of easily produced misinformation.