History Main / KnownothingKnowItAll

* This is also known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect, a cognitive bias in which people of low competence consider themselves above average, while people of high competence consider themselves only average.

** Most members of the UU faculty also display a strong tendency towards this trope. Everyone, that is, save Ponder Stibbins, who occasionally fakes it, spouting his own ridiculous explainations because he knows the ''real'' facts will only kick off another off-topic argument among his colleagues.

* A lot of eurosceptics, especially in the United Kingdom. So many are opposed to the E.U. and items such as the Lisbon Treaty, but just ask them what's so bad about it and they'll just give you a blank look or parrot off "facts" from publications such as the Sun or the Daily Mail instead of, y'know, genuine criticism of the institution (of which there is plenty). Overlaps, a lot, with ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike (with the original journalists) or ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch (the public).
** Some actually avert this by saying that European constitution was too long, thay have no idea what's there and one don't sign paper one does not understend.

* In **some cases** so-called ecology activists and their opposition. For example - [[CriticalResearchFailure ozon hole and man made global warming are separate issues]].

* My dad. And Your dad. All fathers, basicly, are this trope.

* Lyndon [=LaRouche=], the self-proclaimed "greatest economist of our time". He claims to know just about everything about everything. Among his proclamations: The Queen of England runs a global conspiracy of world domination, along with a cabal of Delphic bankers (as in "from ancient Delphi"); global warming is caused by cosmic radiation from the Crab Nebula; AIDS will eventually become airborne so we should quarantine AIDS patients and shoot them with lasers; and the [[BarackObama Obama]] health care plan [[GodwinsLaw is exactly the same as the Nazi T4 Action]]. [=LaRouche=] is perhaps the greatest combination of overblown self-importance and bat shit insane beliefs since AdolfHitler. [[{{Lickspittle}} His followers]] aren't that much better...

* Some single-race fanatics claim that eugenics, whereby a group of people characterized by genetic factors are eliminated from the population, actually improves the gene pool, and that this is spelled out in Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. They are so confident in this belief that they are willing to ''kill huge swaths of people'' in the name of a stronger human race. This is clearly contradictory to Darwin's theories, which demonstrate that ''diversity'' is what enables a population to resist change, disease, and competition. This overlaps with CriticalResearchFailure.
** The people they were trying to eliminate were actually reproducing faster and, often times, moving up in society. The Aristocracy was needlessly inbred and politically faltering, making ''them'' the ones less suited to their environment. What they advocated was less like natural selection and more like artificially breeding nervous show poodles.

* Bill O'Reilly. Whether you agree with his views or not, his grasp of facts is, to put it kindly, supremely frequently in question.
** This O'Reilly fan can agree with the above statement to a point. O'Reilly, though he has his factual hiccups, is a lot better informed than most of the other FNC pundits * cough* Hannity* cough* and other Right-Wing commentators * cough* Limbaugh* cough* . In this troper's opinion, the best-informed pundit is Glenn Beck, who does extensive research on whatever topic he speaks on. His problem, though, is that he draws these immense conspiracy theories from said information and then says that they are GOING to happen no matter what... O'Reilly's admitted, himself, that he's not a smart man. He's simply a man doing his best to observe the situations around him and draw his own conclusions.
** To add some left wing examples, pretty much every Democrat in power (and the media pundits that support them) know next to nothing about firearms or how they work, including labelling semi-automatic AK-47's as "machine guns" that spray bullets everywhere, thinking that .50BMG rounds are death projectiles that can down an aircraft in one hit, to barely knowing what half the things on the Assault Weapons Ban actually did (Note that not all Democrats buy all these myths, but the ones that usually have influence seem to do). And yet, these Democrats still seem to think they know everything about firearms and use that "knowledge" to justify their call for [[AmericanGunPolitics gun control]].
*** And then we have Keith Olbermann, who is apparently able to know how the Tea Party movement is like despite not attending any of their rallies and then labelling the movement as a 100% white racist movement (which this troper can testify is BS). Plus, he (and indeed other commentators on pretty much every channel except Fox News) also labels Guantanamo Bay as a torture asylum, even though people who have actually been there will testify otherwise. In fact, a study done by the Pentagon showed that Guantanamo Bay obeys the Geneva Convention.
**** Isn't GTMO a joint operation of the department of defense and the department of homeland security e.g.: Isn't the Pentagon at least partially responsible for the goings on in the facilty? If so, having the Pentagon stating that 'nothing violating the Geneva convention' is going on after investigigating its own facility kind of... you know... biased? I'd rather have an independant (inter)national watchdog (Redcross? Amnesty Internation?) check the base out.
**** 1. The Pentagon is currently a liberal-run building. So I'd probably take their assessment seriously. 2. Conservative comedian Steven Crowder actually went to Gitmo and took and in-depth investigation into both the Detention Facility and the actual city of Guantanamo. What he found is that Cubans attempt to flock in droves to Guantanamo in whatever they can find(which directly contradicts Michael Moore's statement that Americans from Gitmo actively flock to Cuba for their "excellent healthcare" * sidenote: In Cuba, their healthcare system has about one doctor taking care of roughly four hundred patients* ), and that Guantanamo is one of the best-run cities in U.S. territory due to the Military actually running the city DIRECTLY as opposed to the government. Meanwhile, most terrorist detainees in Gitmo's Detention Facility are allowed a good three square meals a day, the daily cost of which is about 50 bucks, several hours of recreation time a day, time on a beautiful Cuban beach, and additional television and video game time a day. Hell, they get their own goddamn SOCCER court to play in.
***** I think the above post fails to acknowledge the fact that Gitmo is a hotbed of controversey in America's "intelligence gathering," and one should be suspect of the Pentagon's study as, liberal or no, no one's going to own up to being a complete fuck regarding Geneva, and it's not like they've allowed much of any access by any human rights or non-US investigation groups. And a city being run well since it's done so by the military, rather than the government? Being a good thing? YouFailHistoryForever, YouFailCurrentEventsForever, YouFailPoliticsForever, good day sir.
***** The only reason Gitmo's such a hotbed is because of the over exaggeration courtesy of Liberal Moron-in-Chief Keith Olbermann and his idiotic posse of monkeys consisting of Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and other Liberal Talking Heads going on and on and on and on and ON AND ON AND ON AND ON about Gitmo and how it's the "Anti-Statue of Liberty." Also, mind telling me what kind of history you were citing in saying the military running Guantanamo is a bad thing? You think our military is run like Nationalist Japan or something? Or that our men are WackyNazis? Way to compare our armed forces to the perpetrators of Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust, respectively. Also, WAY TO IGNORE THE ENTIRE SECOND POINT OF MY ARGUMENT.
**** The fact is that a lot of people with influence act like a KnowNothingKnowItAll. It's an unfortunate side-effect of having said influence.

** [[OrSoIHeard Supposedly, the Bush Administration knew a terrorist attack could happen but did nothing.]] A corrupt administration allowing a terrorist attack by delusional religious fanatics using only hijacked planes to happen just so they could exploit it actually makes for a believable theory, but instead, [[TooDumbToLive they ignore that an entire]] [[strike:city's]] [[TooDumbToLive country's worth of people saw this happen and make up silly, overcomplicated bullshit.]]
* I'm sorry; but the evidence is a much more than only an entire country watching it happen. Large part of THE ENTIRE WORLD did! Millions, if not billions, of people many seeing the footage live or only hours after it happened.

** Played straight and averted by 4chan. This is a product of the fact that users of some boards completely loathe all the other boards. Interest based boards commonly avert this, and are filled with level-headed individuals who are generally intelligent and well informed in regards to the boards topics (/co/, /tv/, /sci/, /lit/, and even /a/ on a good day). The rest of the site tends to play this straight though, particularly the more easily trolled boards. /new/ is quite possibly the worst offender, as at least 50% of its userbase are superbly ignorant Neo-Nazis who spam The Bell Curve, with the other 50% composed of trolls posing as strawman liberals or conservatives.

* Bill O'Reilly. Whether you agree with his views or not, his grasp of facts is, to put it kindly, supremely frequently in question.
** This O'Reilly fan can agree with the above statement to a point. O'Reilly, though he has his factual hiccups, is a lot better informed than most of the other FNC pundits * cough* Hannity* cough* and other Right-Wing commentators * cough* Limbaugh* cough* . In this troper's opinion, the best-informed pundit is Glenn Beck, who does extensive research on whatever topic he speaks on. His problem, though, is that he draws these immense conspiracy theories from said information and then says that they are GOING to happen no matter what... O'Reilly's admitted, himself, that he's not a smart man. He's simply a man doing his best to observe the situations around him and draw his own conclusions.
** To add some left wing examples, pretty much every Democrat in power (and the media pundits that support them) know next to nothing about firearms or how they work, including labelling semi-automatic AK-47's as "machine guns" that spray bullets everywhere, thinking that .50BMG rounds are death projectiles that can down an aircraft in one hit, to barely knowing what half the things on the Assault Weapons Ban actually did (Note that not all Democrats buy all these myths, but the ones that usually have influence seem to do). And yet, these Democrats still seem to think they know everything about firearms and use that "knowledge" to justify their call for [[AmericanGunPolitics gun control]].
*** And then we have Keith Olbermann, who is apparently able to know how the Tea Party movement is like despite not attending any of their rallies and then labelling the movement as a 100% white racist movement (which this troper can testify is BS). Plus, he (and indeed other commentators on pretty much every channel except Fox News) also labels Guantanamo Bay as a torture asylum, even though people who have actually been there will testify otherwise. In fact, a study done by the Pentagon showed that Guantanamo Bay obeys the Geneva Convention.
**** Isn't GTMO a joint operation of the department of defense and the department of homeland security e.g.: Isn't the Pentagon at least partially responsible for the goings on in the facilty? If so, having the Pentagon stating that 'nothing violating the Geneva convention' is going on after investigigating its own facility kind of... you know... biased? I'd rather have an independant (inter)national watchdog (Redcross? Amnesty Internation?) check the base out.
**** 1. The Pentagon is currently a liberal-run building. So I'd probably take their assessment seriously. 2. Conservative comedian Steven Crowder actually went to Gitmo and took and in-depth investigation into both the Detention Facility and the actual city of Guantanamo. What he found is that Cubans attempt to flock in droves to Guantanamo in whatever they can find(which directly contradicts Michael Moore's statement that Americans from Gitmo actively flock to Cuba for their "excellent healthcare" * sidenote: In Cuba, their healthcare system has about one doctor taking care of roughly four hundred patients* ), and that Guantanamo is one of the best-run cities in U.S. territory due to the Military actually running the city DIRECTLY as opposed to the government. Meanwhile, most terrorist detainees in Gitmo's Detention Facility are allowed a good three square meals a day, the daily cost of which is about 50 bucks(compared to prisoners in LA's prison, whose grand total of daily meals accounts to $2.45...in one of the most liberal cities in the nation), several hours of recreation time a day, time on a beautiful Cuban beach, and additional television and video game time a day. Hell, they get their own goddamn SOCCER court to play in.
**** The fact is that a lot of people with influence act like a KnowNothingKnowItAll. It's an unfortunate side-effect of having said influence.

* Peggy Hill of ''KingOfTheHill'', who is convinced she's perfectly fluent in Spanish, when she can't even speak as well as some of the students she teaches as a substitute teacher. She thinks she is incredibly witty and deep. She also feels a need to be the winner, or at least right all the time. This makes her extremely annoying.

**** 1. The Pentagon is currently a liberal-run building. So I'd probably take their assessment seriously. 2. Conservative comedian Steven Crowder actually went to Gitmo and took and in-depth investigation into both the Detention Facility and the actual city of Guantanamo. What he found is that Cubans attempt to flock in droves to Guantanamo in whatever they can find(which directly contradicts Michael Moore's statement that Americans from Gitmo actively flock to Cuba for their "excellent healthcare" * sidenote: In Cuba, their healthcare system has about one doctor taking care of roughly one-hundred fifty patients* ), and that Guantanamo is one of the best-run cities in U.S. territory due to the Military actually running the city DIRECTLY as opposed to the government. Meanwhile, most terrorist detainees in Gitmo's Detention Facility are allowed a good three square meals a day, the daily cost of which is about 50 bucks(compared to prisoners in LA's prison, whose grand total of daily meals accounts to $2.45...in one of the most liberal cities in the nation), several hours of recreation time a day, time on a beautiful Cuban beach, and additional television and video game time a day. Hell, they get their own goddamn SOCCER court to play in.

** Can we just all agree that 99% of the talking heads on TV, regardless of political affiliation, fit this trope?