# Experience does not mean expertise We often mistake two separate classes of experience for expertise. Both experience and badges certainly *correlate* with expertise but are not causal and the correlation is weaker than our brains assume. Of course, all of this is predicated on the question “what do we mean by an expert?” [[There are secretly three kinds of experts]]. Generally when we’re looking for experts, we’re implicitly referring to experts with proficiency. [[Experts should have proficiency even if their primary function is to exercise power or speak to a platform]]. However, proficiency is often illegible to people outside of the discipline. [[Disciplines where it is clear to an outsider whether you are proficient]]. Duration is a direct proxy for proficiency. Duration is perhaps not the right word but it’s the thought pattern that goes “you’ve done thing X a lot or at least talk about it often, so you must be proficient.” Expertise-based power and platforms are more discernible via proxies. These proxies include badges and popularity. Badges mean that someone has gone through some kind of gatekeeping process eg. publishing a book or holding a position) Popularity implies that many *other* people think they’re an expert. Duration is a poor proxy because there are *many* disciplines where you can get by without improving or developing a keen intuition for the affordances of a domain. People can run every day for years and not become faster or do a job for decades and not necessarily be more proficient than a journeyman or highly-competent novice. Badges and popularities have always been shaky proxies but arguably their ability to reflect underlying proficiency has eroded because of several later 20th and early 21st century trends. The number of badges has exploded, while the gatekeeping quality of the institutions giving them out has declined. [[Most institutions have become cancerous]]. Similarly, the internet has allowed (and encouraged) popularity predicated on, but entirely divorced from proficiency. ### Related * [[How can you tell if an expert has a minimum level of proficiency to wield power or speak to a platform?]] * [[People create proxy games for long term or hard-to-measure games]] * [[Optimizing for fair gatekeeping games is often disjoint for optimizing for the real game]]