• There is person A who pretends to have X when he really doesn’t.
  • Person B, who does not have X, cannot identify whether A really has X or not

For example.

  • Some people don’t know much about cryptocurrencies but pretend they do.

  • Some people pretend to be rich when they don’t have money.

  • Some people pretend to be smart when they are not.

  • Some people pretend to be popular when they are not.

  • Socially harmful because when people who don’t understand X want to understand X, they are confused if they listen to “people who don’t understand X but pretend they do”

  • In some cases, you may not even realize that you don’t really have X.

    • Mr. A says something random, “X is YYYY,” and the serious Mr. B takes it seriously and believes it, saying, “I see, X is YYY, and Mr. A, who knows a lot about it, told me so, so he must be right.
  • I think we should adhere to the principle of “Knowledge must be validated by practice” when it comes to knowledge.


This page is auto-translated from /nishio/持っているふりをする人 using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.