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You're exactly right about the seed of ignorance.

I wish there was a good term for it like we have "fundamental attribution error" for that other pernicious cognitive fallacy.

The core mistake is that believing that all we know about something is equivalent to all there is to know about something. So if you don't know anything about welding, you assume it must be brain-dead simple because your knowledge of it is so tiny. If you don't know anything about engineering, you assume it's just pushing buttons.

It's not just about people's jobs, either. It shows up everywhere once you start looking for it.



Dunning-Kruger Effect might be a good term to use.


That's close but a little diffferent. D-K is about assuming your own competence at something you're ignorant in. I think it's caused by the effect I'm talking about, but the root effect is a little broader in that it applies also to how much you assume there is to be known at all by anyone for some field that you're ignorant in.


I'm with ya, yeah, it's almost there. Hmm. I'm not versed enough in cognitive psychology to even guess at what word parts we might throw together to make a new term.




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