You’ve seen it everywhere.
The coworker who’s been here three months confidently correcting someone with ten years of experience. The Twitter account posting 40-tweet threads on geopolitics like they’re briefing the UN. That person who just discovered cryptocurrency yesterday explaining why they’re a financial genius.
How are they so confident when they’re so wrong?
Welcome to the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
What Is It?
In 1999, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger discovered something darkly hilarious: people who are incompetent at something vastly overestimate their ability, while experts underestimate theirs.
They tested people on grammar, logic, and humor. Those who scored in the bottom 12% thought they were in the top 62%. They weren’t just wrong, they were catastrophically wrong about how wrong they were.
The kicker? These people couldn’t recognize competence in others either. They lacked the skill to evaluate skill, including their own.
The less you know about something, the less equipped you are to recognise what you don’t know.
The Confidence Curve
Here’s what learning actually looks like:
Peak of Mount Stupid: You learn the basics and think you’ve mastered it. Everything seems simple. You’re posting hot takes. Maximum confidence.
Valley of Despair: You learn more and realize how much you don’t know. Confidence crashes. You feel like an idiot.
Slope of Enlightenment: You keep learning. Things click. You build real competence, calibrated with humility.
Plateau of Expertise: True mastery. Confident but humble. You say “I don’t know” more than beginners do.
Most confidently wrong people are chilling at Mount Stupid, thinking they’ve reached the summit when they’ve barely left base camp.
Why Ignorance Breeds Confidence
When you don’t know much, everything seems simple. You can’t see the complexity because you don’t have the framework to recognize it.
“Just fix the economy.” “Just eat healthy.” “Coding is easy, just tell the computer what to do.”
Beginners see the surface. Experts see the layers, edge cases, and interconnected systems underneath.
The less you know, the more confident you can afford to be, because you’re unaware of everything that could go wrong.
This is why people who’ve read two articles have the strongest opinions, and why that guy who watched three YouTube videos is arguing with researchers in the comments.
They’re not lying. They genuinely believe they understand. Their ignorance protects them from self-doubt.
The Dangerous Part
In a world that rewards confidence over competence, the Dunning-Kruger Effect becomes a strategy.
The person who speaks with absolute certainty (even when wrong) gets promoted over the expert who says “it depends.” The guru selling simple solutions gets more followers than the researcher explaining complexity.
We’re wired to trust confidence. Certainty feels safe. Nuance feels weak.
So incompetent people rise while experts drown in self-doubt.
The Twist: Why Smart People Feel Stupid
Here’s what’ll mess with your head: if you constantly doubt your abilities, you might actually be more competent than you think.
This is Imposter Syndrome. the Dunning-Kruger Effect in reverse.
Experts underestimate their abilities because they know how much they don’t know, they’re surrounded by other experts, they understand complexity, and they hold themselves to higher standards.
That voice saying “everyone else knows more than me”? It might be a sign you actually know your stuff.
The more competent you become, the more you realize how much you still have to learn, how many exceptions exist, how much luck played a role, and how easy it is to be wrong.
Meanwhile, the person who just discovered the topic is writing manifestos.
How To Spot It
Red flags:
- Speaks in absolutes (“always,” “never,” “just”)
- Dismisses complexity
- Can’t admit what they don’t know
- Confident about everything
Green flags (actual competence):
- Frequently says “I don’t know” or “it depends”
- Aware of exceptions to their own claims
- Feels overwhelmed by how much there is to learn
- Revises opinions as they learn more
What To Do About It
Get comfortable with “I don’t know.” It’s accuracy, not weakness.
Be suspicious of simple answers to complex problems.
Trust people who show their work and acknowledge limitations.
If you’re drowning in self-doubt about something you’ve studied for years, remember: that might mean you’re actually competent.
The Bottom Line
The Dunning-Kruger Effect reveals something uncomfortable: we’re all terrible at recognizing our own incompetence.
But you can control your willingness to learn, to question yourself, to sit with uncertainty.
The gap between what you know and what you think you know? That’s where growth happens.
The stupid people think they’re smart. The smart people think they’re stupid. And recognizing which one you are? That’s the first step to wisdom.
Which stage are you on right now?
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