The Expert Trap
The Question Was Simple. The Answer Was Simple. The Explanation Got Smarter and Smarter Until It Got Worse.
I asked a simple question.
How do you wrap a leftover slice of pizza in aluminum foil?
Not a calzone. Not a space shuttle. Just... a slice of pizza.
What followed was fascinating.
The answer became more detailed. Then more optimized. Then more technical. Then contradictory.
By the end, I had diagrams, revised strategies, and enough folding theory to qualify for a graduate seminar in foil engineering. The pizza still wasn't wrapped very well.
Hours later, after we'd gone in circles, the answer turned out to be almost embarrassingly simple.
Fold the foil over the point. Fold the left side over. Fold the right side over. Roll it toward the crust.
Done.
Those were the only instructions (or "destructions," as Mrs. Compound Interest likes to call them) that I needed.
Somewhere along the way, the original question disappeared.
That's the Expert Trap.
Experts often know so much that they stop seeing the beginner's question. Instead of answering the question that was asked, they answer the question they wish had been asked.
I've done it. You've probably done it. Artificial intelligence certainly does it.
Knowledge isn't the problem. Ego is.
Humility is what keeps expertise useful.
Sometimes the smartest answer isn't the best answer. Sometimes the best answer is simply the one that lets someone wrap a slice of pizza and get on with dinner.
I've started noticing this everywhere.
In technology. In finance. In cooking. In home repair. In politics.
We mistake sophistication for usefulness.
Knowledge is valuable.
But wisdom knows when to stop talking.
~~
Compound Interest
Slow thinking for people tired of rushing the wrong things.
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