M.G. Siegler, writing on his site Spyglass, has found a new word that perfectly describes the here and now.

Warning: I may have found my new favorite word to use in relation to various tech topics. At least my favorite since “anagnorisis”.¹ “Ultracrepidarian”, beyond being an awesome word, is defined as follows: someone who has no special knowledge of a subject but who expresses an opinion about it. I mean, how is this not the main word for the entire internet? Certainly social media. And actually, in the age of AI, I think we can even bend the idea of “someone” to include machines.

I believe that social media, while still fun in ways, has gotten worse over time when it comes to sharing actual information. Some of this is intentional product and policy decisions, but some of it is also just the fact that charlatans have gotten more emboldened with time to spew nonsense to their followings. And this has bred more charlatans as a result. Because there’s no downside to spouting bullshit. The only thing that matters is the volume.

Right or wrong, say it loud. Time has revealed the ultimate truth: no one remembers when you’re wrong and you’ll remind everyone when you’re right. That mixed with the fact that news cycles move at lightspeed these days just exacerbates it all. People want bold stances that rise above the noise, no matter how ludicrous. In fact, the more ludicrous the better.

And that, in turn, has fueled the rise of ultracrepidarians. If someone is known to be knowledgeable (or at the very least sounds knowledgeable) talking about a topic, people will tend to listen to that person on other topics. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest they should be trusted for anything beyond their area of expertise, but it doesn’t matter. The press has long played to this notion by giving us various celebrity opinions on the big issues of the day. And politics has always dabbled in this idea. But now it has seemingly become the M.O. of the current administration.

Look, nominating obviously unqualified people to important positions is not going to end well. I just hope it doesn’t mean the end of everything.