When to Trust an Expert

The evidence free conclusion of an expert should be trusted only when:

1. No available, well-reasoned argument contradicts the conclusion.
2. The expert has relevant expertise on the issue. 
3. No more competent expert contradicts the expert.

Multiculturalists frequently argue that sex ed teachers should teach their social views without interference from parents. This is the fallacy of faulty expertise. Sex ed teachers have a tiny bit of expertise in health, anatomy, and physiology. Sexual ethics is not their field of expertise, and well-reasoned arguments against sexual degeneracy abound. Most parents care more about their childrens' well-being than teachers for kin selection reasons.

Climate scientists are experts on whether climate changes exist. They are not experts on policy responses to climate change.

English teachers, experts at prose aesthetics, rank among the most gifted humans at manipulation. They are not experts on logic and ethics, no matter how many vapid, fallacious critical thinking lessons they teach. An event happening in fiction is not evidence to believe a real world conclusion. 

Most social scientists are not competent experts in their own fields of study, in part because the overwhelming majority of social science is junk science. Most philosophers are incompetent at logic and ethics, no matter how much expertise they have at ontology and other issues. 

Virologists and epidemiologists are seldom competent experts about lab leaks.

Politicians, unfortunately, are not legitimate policy experts. Business people are not ethical experts, no matter how successful their careers are.

Circumstantial ad hominem investigations of experts offering weakly supported conclusions are often relevant exceptions to the personal attack fallacy, especially experts from fields riddled with greed, careerism, and groupthink (cough, cough: finance).

When every competent electrician agrees about a wiring connection issue, we have good reason to believe their conclusion, an exception to the fallacious appeal to popularity.

But "trust the science," when more competent experts disagree, is little more than a faith-based slogan.

Negative Externality Taxes to Counter Chinese and Russian Aggression

Ricardo Hausmann makes a decent argument that large negative externality import taxes would do more to reduce Russian oil and methane profits than Western bans on their importation. But it's doubtful anyone in the establishments noticed. No one in the establishments is an actual policy wonk.

Large Pigouvian taxes would also be a decent choice against Chinese aggression, though supply and demand elasticities vary greatly among Chinese products.

The ruling classes must not demand that we sacrifice millions of our lives, if not hundreds of millions, to save Taiwan from Chinese rule, along with millions of additional casualties left suffering for generations. Taiwan spends a mere two percent of GDP on defense. It is a currency manipulator. It produces much larger per capita current account balances than China. It is a Western ally in name only. 

Why should we make astronomical sacrifices to defend Taiwan's borders when our totalitarian ruling classes won't even defend our own from invaders, who will prove even worse for us in the long run than the Chinese will for Taiwan?

Large wars almost always go much worse than their promoters envision. That's not even counting the huge opportunity costs that politicians almost always ignore. 

The fact that ordinary Taiwanese are the kindest Asians should not manipulate us into sacrificing almost everything, especially when Taiwanese refuse to make sufficient sacrifices themselves.

It's one thing for elites to pretend we will defend Taiwan, utterly rotten if they really think it's a good idea.

Tit-for-tat Conflicts

An important point about tit-for-tat conflicts: most sides regard themselves as the victims, no matter which sides objectively behave worse. This victimization mentality adds to outrage on other sides.

Many individuals act as if they would rather be killed in a tit-for-tat conflict, than stop the tit-for-tat downward spiral. 

Tit-for-tat conflicts are highly probable in and among multicultural white societies where a) pan-Europeanism is considered verboten, b) mass media are extremely one-sided, with narrow, poorly reasoned Overton windows, c) leaders habitually blame shift and eye poke on domestic issues, then extend those habits to foreign policy issues, d) ethically truthful dissenters are slurred and banished as extremists, e) massive power imbalances exist among  grandstanding, dark triad ruling groups and the peoples they rule over, f) ruling groups despise the people they rule over.

The more dark triad elites interact, the more conflicts increase. Remember to include interactions with diversity plus proximity equals war. 

Bait-and-switch, divide-and-screw is the habit of the militaristic, multicultural, oligarchal beast.