Nobel Prize Disease

I often get asked for my opinions on a wide variety of subjects. But I'm not an expert on everything. Far from it.

In fact, I'm an expert only in a narrow band of human knowledge: software engineering. Even then, since the field is incredibly broad, I am by no means an expert in all of it. I'd like to think I'm pretty good with back-end and distributed systems. However, I'm not the person to consult for anything that has to do with front-end or embedded systems.

Nevertheless, I get asked constantly about things where my depth of knowledge is simply that I have an opinion.

"What's your take on A.I.?" "What's your take on spirituality and philosophy?" "What's your skincare routine?"

It's all very flattering, but I try my best not to let it get to my head.

There's a phenomenon out there called "Nobel Disease," the informal term for the embrace of strange or scientifically unsound ideas by some Nobel Prize winners, usually later in life. The idea is that once people reach a certain level of fa…