Post #1149531

If you consume any form of media - be it the written word, video, pantomime, interpretive dance - and said media includes the phrase "Such and such expert does not wish you to know this" then they are lying to you and likely have never had a conversation with any expert in *any* field, let alone the one in which they claim to hold ineffable secrets. If this person had ever met an expert in their field they would know that you can literally not get that person to stop talking about every, single, minute aspect of their field. That is not a ding, that is love. I love that experts are so passionate about their field of choice that they will unload an absolute PhD-level lecture on the most niche bit of apocrypha that that field has to offer and may the Gods of every pantheon in existence have pity on you if you show interest and/or ask a pointed question because you will grow old in your chair listening to that person talk. Time itself will cease to have meaning. The heat death of the universe will come and go and you will still be sitting in that chair, speaking with an expert in their field. Experts don't have secrets about their field. They have secrets about obscure rituals that ensure the apparatus of their craft continue to function. They keep hidden within them the knowledge that they are creatures of logic and yet will run no tests on the third Tuesday of the month because they know that the mass spectrometer gave wonky results one time in 1987 on a third Tuesday and every person silently swore, "never again." Every expert in their field is *desperate* for you to know things. Every snake oil purveyor is hoping you don't so they can sell you things you don't need.