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Brendan Ross

Domain expertise is a big part of nerd-dom, as you point out. So is respect for other nerds, and I think the two go hand in hand.

People who get by on looks and charisma without having deep knowledge of a particular area tend not to understand just how hard it is to develop deep domain expertise, and they fall prey to the deadly misconception of "I don't understand it, so it must be easy." This leads them to think that they will quickly and easily become good at new, complicated things.

In my field of wealth management, the delusion that investing is easy - a delusion encouraged by everyone with a financial product to sell - is usually very expensive and painful.

As former Harvard President Derek Bok said: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

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