Part 306: The Death of Expertise

Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.  This week, I share my frustrating experience trying to sort out my Halifax mortgage.  I also discuss the Death of Expertise, and some more examples of poor customer service.    

Weekly Update

I swear that these weeks are passing by ever more quickly.  It seems as though I publish one post, blink, and then it’s time to write another one.  We are now well on the way to Autumn and, thankfully, we’ve had a few days of rain.  In Sheffield and the surrounding areas, the water levels in reservoirs have reduced to dangerous levels.  I saw a couple of articles in the local papers suggesting that we could have rolling cuts to the water supply if things didn’t change.  But, as I say, we’ve had a few days of rain and a couple of thunderstorms, which should have helped ease the water shortage.

As an island nation, we should start looking at large-scale water desalination.  It’s a very energy-intensive process, but the technology is improving all the time.  Although our planet is covered mostly by water, such a tiny fraction of that water is safe to drink.  Estimates vary, but it’s thought that less than 1% of the water on Earth is safe to drink.

On the subject of water, two questions have rattled around inside my head for several years.  The first question relates to rainfall and rivers.  If all global rainfall ceased, how long would it take for all rivers to dry up completely?  I’ve just checked with ChatGPT, and it seems as though some rivers could last for decades due to melting glaciers and groundwater.  

The second question is how much drinking water is lost to water bottles that are discarded and sealed shut.  For example, you have a bottle of water which you drink, and then you twist the cap back on and throw the bottle away.  There will still be a small amount of water in the bottle, even if just a few drops.  If we think about the bigger picture with billions upon billions of bottles being discarded each year, that must amount to a sizable amount of water being trapped and lost.  Once again, I turned to ChatGPT, and it suggested that it could amount to hundreds of millions of litres each year.

Back to the week…

Anyway, back to the week just gone.  I had some routine blood tests for the various ailments I have, and the results are mostly normal.  It looks like there are a few borderline results, but nothing to worry about. 

We’ve started taking more walks around the area during the day and at night.  We’ve started to meet more of the neighbourhood cats, and we’ve even learned some of their names from talking to their owners.  Across the street, we have an orange cat and his younger friend, who is a sort of blueish grey.  They’re very friendly and we always stop and talk to them, and pet them.  

Further into the development, we have another orange cat who is always lounging on his cat tree in front of the window.  We found out he’s only young and was brought here from Dubai.  Then there’s a cat who I call “an absolute unit”.  We gave him another nickname: Chief of Kelham.  Again, he’s affectionate and always comes to say hello to us.

I could talk about these cats for hours as they’re all sweet, playful, and affectionate.  I don’t get people who don’t like animals.  What is there not to like?

On Saturday, we went to Art in the Garden, which is an annual event where artists display their works throughout the Botanical Garden.  There are sculptures out in the open, and lots of tents under which the paintings and drawings are displayed.  

After we finished looking at the art, we went to find the squirrels as we had brought them some nuts and seeds.  We were overwhelmed by wave after wave of squirrels and pigeons.  The squirrels were climbing up our bodies, and at one point, a pigeon tried to land on my shoulder, and a short time later, landed on top of my backpack, which I was still wearing.  

It’s impossible not to smile when a squirrel takes a nut out of your hand and then stands in front of you eating it.  

After feeding time for the animals, it was our feeding time, and we went for food at Urban Pitta.  They do great salads that are made fresh and are very filling.  We sat in the park whilst eating them, and a few dogs that were out for walks came over to say hello.  One in particular made us laugh as he came bounding over with an absolutely massive stick in his mouth.  He was so excited and happy with his tail wagging.  After we praised him for catching such a large stick, he ran off to show it to other people in the park.  

All in all, it was a nice day out.  

Awful Customer Service – Octopus

Our electricity provider, Octopus, is shit.  We’ve been with them for a few years and, although they’ve been poor, apathy has stopped us from switching.  A couple of years ago, our smart meter stopped sending data, and we were unable to view any usage in the app.  Also, because of the distance from the meter room to our apartment, we can’t have an in-house display.  For a few months, we couldn’t view anything, and after many calls to Octopus, it suddenly started working again, but they couldn’t explain it.

Well, the same thing is happening now, and we’ve been trying to sort it out since May.  Every time I call or email them, they say that the matter has been passed to the meter team to complete checks.  However, no one can tell me what these checks are.  Recently, they said that they couldn’t send another request to the meter team for 20 days, but they couldn’t confirm when that 20-day period started.  Why 20 days? I don’t know.  

If there was an issue with the meter and Octopus could give clear, consistent information without me having to chase them, that would be fine.  Frustrating, but fine because these things happen.  The annoyance isn’t the fault; it’s the response to the fault.  

Awful Customer Service – Plumbers

We’ve got a few little jobs that need doing, like a tap and flush that need replacing.  We also want a new sink in our kitchen.  We tried a few months back to get someone to do the job, but plumbers seem to have this need to say they will come and take a look, and then they just vanish off the face of the planet.  

I called one guy who came recommended by a family member.  He seemed ok on the phone, and we arranged for him to come a week on Friday, by which I mean September 5th.  I explained that we’d need a rough time of arrival to arrange parking for him in our building.  He said he’d let us know.  Days pass, and we don’t hear anything.  Oana called him on Wednesday, and he was a bit of an asshole, saying he’d turn up at 7am on Friday, and then saying it could be any time, and then saying he’d call on the day.  All in all, not very helpful.

Fool me once…

Another guy reached out after he saw our request for recommendations on social media.  He said he could come have a look “tomorrow”.  I said that was fine, so long as it was between 12pm and 2pm, as I had a meeting at 2:30.  He asked if 2pm was ok, and I said it was as long as he was gone before 2:30pm.  Remember, this was just to look at the job, not to actually do the work.  He never replied.

On the day, he messaged me at 13:53 saying he’d be with us in fifteen minutes.  At 14:15, with him still not here, I messaged saying we’d have to leave it because, even if we buzzed him in, by the time he got to our place and we explained what needed to be done, it would already be too late for my meeting.  

I thought his name seemed familiar, and sure enough, he had let us down before with the same sort of scenario.  

I don’t know what it is with tradespeople, but this sort of shit happens all the time.  

We didn’t need him to come that day.  He said he could do that day at a certain time, but then never confirmed it.  Also, maybe I’m expecting too much here, but if someone says they will be here in fifteen minutes, I’m expecting fifteen minutes, there or thereabouts.  

Last time this guy let us down, he said he’d be here at 10am, but he didn’t show up or reply to messages until 1pm that day.  

Time is one thing you can’t get back, and people who waste other people’s time are rude AF.  

Awful Customer Service – Halifax

The last few times I’ve needed to sort my mortgage out with Halifax, there have been problems.  I don’t understand why.  I know what the process is, having done that job for well over a decade, and still being in contact with several people I used to work with there.  However, each time, something goes wrong.  

On August 20th, I had an appointment with an advisor, and it went on for a few hours, and we didn’t get everything finished because of a range of IT errors at their side.  I spoke with the advisor again two days later, and it was still not sorted, and at this point, the advisor was on holiday for a week.  I waited until the holiday was done, and then got back in touch.  It seems that nothing has been done to resolve the IT issue.  The latest word is that they don’t know what the problem is, but it’s not letting them put together the new mortgage set-up.  

Normally, I’d just go elsewhere, but we have a bit of an issue with this.  Our apartment block was one of those which had a fire safety assessment that was then found to be, let’s say, questionable.  As such, lenders aren’t lending against properties in our complex, and some solicitors are not taking on cases involving properties like ours.  

There’s not really anything wrong with the building, and the fire safety concerns are almost certainly minimal.  The ‘i’s need dotting, though, so we have to wait for this to all be sorted out.

Diabetes UK Step Challenge – Update

If you want to stay up to date with my progress or donate to the cause, please check out my JustGiving page:

https://step.diabetes.org.uk/fundraising/davids-fundraising-page1055

I am now well over the million-step threshold and in a good position as I get ready for the final month of the challenge.  

What I’m Doing

Listening: The Future of Geography by Tim Marshall.

Watching: Better Call Saul (Netflix).

Reading: Mickey 7

I will finish Mickey 7, eventually.  The problem is, every time I go to bed I’m just too tired to read.  I must have been working on this book for almost two months now.  

We finished Breaking Bad and El Camino, and have now started Better Call Saul.  I’m not sure why we never started it before, but we’ve finished the first season and are halfway through the second.  We’re enjoying it but I don’t agree with those who argue it’s better than Breaking Bad.  Maybe I’ll feel differently when we are further in, but Breaking Bad was something special.

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Financial Update

Assets

Premium Bonds: £21,000.00.

Stocks and Shares ISA: £119,222.89.

Fuck It Fund: £0.00.

Pensions: £101,753.35.

Residential Property Value: £239,368.00. 

Total Assets: £481,344.24.

Debts

Residential Mortgage: £177,351.78. 

Total Debts: £177,351.78.

Total Wealth: £303,992.46.

A steady week with my figures, as I’m in the middle of the pay cycle, where not much happens.  It’s going to be great when Oana gets her first wage in this new job, so we can start putting more money into our FI funds. 

The Death of Expertise: When All Opinions Are Treated as Equal

We live in an age where everyone has a platform. Social media has democratised communication in ways that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Anyone with a phone and an internet connection can broadcast their thoughts to the world in real time. On the surface, this seems like progress: people have the right to an opinion, and those voices can now be heard.

But there’s a problem. Increasingly, people confuse having the right to an opinion with all opinions being equally valid. They aren’t.

Take medicine. If I needed heart surgery, I wouldn’t seek advice from someone who has watched a couple of YouTube videos. I’d want a cardiologist with years of study and experience. The YouTube viewer has the right to their opinion, but that doesn’t mean it carries the same weight as the professional who has spent decades honing their skills. Yet online, both voices often appear side by side, each presented as if they deserve equal attention.

Why the Confusion?

There are a few reasons why this flattening of expertise has taken hold.

Firstly, social media has removed traditional hierarchies of knowledge. A climate scientist and a conspiracy theorist both get the same 280 characters. The format doesn’t distinguish between evidence-based research and off-the-cuff speculation.  I forget where I read this, but someone made the point that news channels are guilty of presenting different opinions as being equal.  When talking about climate change they might have one climate expert and on the other side, a climate change denier.  By presenting each view equally, they ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is real.  

Secondly, there’s a growing suspicion of institutions and authority. “Elites” are viewed with mistrust, often painted as self-serving or corrupt. In this climate, expertise can be dismissed not because it’s wrong, but because it comes from an expert.  There’s this increasing belief that there is an underlying conspiracy to, well, everything.

Finally, echo chambers play their part. People naturally gravitate towards communities that confirm what they already believe. Once inside that bubble, a poorly informed opinion can be amplified, reinforced, and repeated until it feels like the truth.  If you associate with climate change deniers and only read, listen, and watch content from that community, you may start to believe that you are in the majority.  

You can have your own opinions, but you can’t have your own facts.

The Consequences

The “death of expertise” has serious implications.

Misinformation spreads faster than correction. Public debates become polarised, with people shouting past one another instead of engaging meaningfully. And in professional fields, whether medicine, finance, or engineering, the danger is that bad advice, given with misplaced confidence, can do real harm.

In my own world of mortgages, it’s not unusual for someone to take professional advice and then go away to consult friends or family members who aren’t mortgage experts. Often, they’ll come back full of doubts, not because the advice was wrong, but because someone close to them confidently said, “That’s not how it works.” These conversations usually come from a good place; friends and family want to help, but good intentions don’t equal good information. The end result is confusion, hesitation, and sometimes missed opportunities.

The Value of Expertise

Of course, experts aren’t infallible. They can and do make mistakes. But the key difference is that expertise is built on evidence, training, and accountability. When a doctor, lawyer, or financial adviser offers guidance, it’s not plucked from thin air. It comes from years of study, practice, and the responsibility to be held to account if they get it wrong.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question authority. Healthy scepticism is vital in any society. But questioning should be grounded in humility; an awareness that some people genuinely do know more than we do in certain areas.  I’m something of an amateur enthusiast when it comes to astronomy and astrophysics, but I wouldn’t try to teach an actual astrophysicist how to do their job.

A Call for Informed Opinions

Everyone has the right to an opinion. That’s not in dispute. But we need to stop pretending that every opinion carries the same weight. Some are grounded in knowledge and experience; others aren’t. The challenge in our modern world is learning to tell the difference. We need to be more confident in, politely, calling out bullshit opinions.  Antivax opinions should not carry the same weight as those who have a working brain.  Flat Earth believers should not have the same significance placed on their opinion as someone who understands that we’ve known the Earth is, roughly, spherical.

What should not be ignored is that it’s possible to have uninformed, batshit opinions about one thing, say homoeopathy, but to also be an expert in another area, such as tax law.  Just because someone is an expert in one field, it does not mean they are an expert in all fields.  

In short, we don’t need fewer opinions. What we need are more informed ones.  We need to understand that all opinions are not equally valid, and being an expert in one field does not automatically add validity to all your opinions.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, nor should they be considered advice.

If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional.  If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:

StepChange

MoneyHelper

Biolink 

You can now find all my social media pages by checking out my Biolink:

bio.link/davidscothern.