The Protection of Awareness

For every mature, healthy human, there are many more skills that others have perfected than we have mastered ourselves. Guide2expertise can help us become aware of what others know that we do not.

Knowing the domains and phases of expertise of those we encounter can contribute to our own success and even survival. I once watched a master pool player humiliate a boastful, overconfident challenger by taking two turns without sinking a single ball. His opponent had sunk all his balls and was ready to win by sinking the 8-ball. But each pocket was covered by one of the master’s balls, so that there was no way to sink the 8-ball except to pocket one of the master’s balls first—a foul on the 8-ball and an immediate loss. The boastful challenger was apparently unaware that pool is so nearly a perfectible skill that to unseat a master requires much more than accuracy.

We limited ourselves to 36 domains for good reasons. With only 36 domains of 9 goals with 4 phases each, it would be difficult to master this site well enough to assess every encounter. So, we made sure that the domains we chose are varied enough to help our users guess at the expertise of those they encounter. Dividing the world into professions, trades, social, and personal learning was the first distinction. Dividing these according to the basic human needs for survival, well-being, and significance gave us a dozen patterns. Dividing those dozen by short-term, medium-term, and long-term impact made sure that we chose a wide diversity.

A master magician was once offered a job by a floating casino to gauge whether the private players invited aboard were cheating. He replied that he would not be able to discern whether they were cheating, only whether they were capable of it. Likewise, it is not possible to use guide2expertise to gauge whether we should trust another person, only whether they have the expertise to justify our trust.