The Experts Were Never Trying to Be Right
And That’s Why They Always Fail
The Experts Were Never Trying to Be Right
And That’s Why They Always Fail
By Jim Reynolds
www.reynolds.com
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I. The Age of the Horse Laugh
We live in the age of failed experts. Not quiet misses or honest errors. Loud, public, institutional-grade failures—declared with confidence, amplified by media, and almost always wrong. If credibility were currency, our expert class would be bankrupt.
But they keep showing up. On panels. On podcasts. In white papers. Always certain. Never sorry.
My late brother Jerry had the best name for it: The Horse Laugh. He said the only proper reaction to these people was the sound of a horse breaking into uncontrollable laughter. Think Mr. Ed watching a TED Talk.
“You never heard of a laughing horse? Well listen to this—WHINNIE-WHINNIE-HAR-HAR-HAR!”
That’s how we should greet today’s experts. Because their problem isn’t just that they fail. It’s that they fail predictably, and they were never trying to succeed in the first place.
II. The Track Record of Wrong
A quick gallop through the graveyard of expert predictions:
- Finance. Over 85% of active fund managers underperform the S&P 500 over a 10-year stretch. These are the best-paid experts in the country—and most of them get beat by a blindfolded ape with a dartboard.
- Epidemiology. During COVID, expert models predicted hospitals overwhelmed, millions dead, and flattening curves in “just two weeks.” Wrong on all fronts. Lockdowns were sold as necessary. School closures as non-negotiable. Masks were first useless, then essential, then useless again.
- Political Science. In 2016, elite pollsters and data scientists gave Trump a 2% chance to win. Ivy League professors mocked the idea. Media echoed the mockery. Then Election Night hit like a meteor. The experts gasped—and blamed the voters.
- Climate. In 1989, the UN said rising seas would wipe entire nations off the map by 2000. Same with Al Gore’s 2006 warning that we had "ten years" to act. Those deadlines came and went. The Maldives are still open for tourism. The glaciers didn’t vanish. The polar bears didn’t die.
- Population Studies. Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb (1968) warned of mass starvation and global chaos. The Club of Rome forecast resource collapse. A widely cited academic paper from the 1980s declared Africa would “collapse within a few years.” That was four decades ago. Africa didn’t collapse—the paper did.
And through it all, not one horse laugh from the press. Just applause. Grants. Promotions. Another round of panic with a new label.
III. Why They’re Always Wrong
Here’s the key: they’re not trying to see the future—they’re trying to control you in the present.
Real prediction starts with observation: What’s happening? What’s the evidence? But that’s not what modern experts do. They start with a desired outcome, then backfill a narrative to justify it.
They’re not forecasters. They’re lobbyists in lab coats. Their tools aren’t charts and data—they’re shame, jargon, and prestige.
The expert says, “Here’s what will happen.” But what he means is, “Here’s what I want you to fear, so you’ll do what I want.”
That’s not a method. It’s a manipulation. And it fails—because the world doesn’t respond to your intentions. It responds to reality.
IV. The Theater of Authority
Philip Tetlock’s landmark study tracked 284 experts making 28,000 predictions over 20 years. The result? Most were no better than chance. Many were worse. And the most confident experts—especially the ones with media gigs—were the least accurate of all.
That’s not surprising. In modern institutions, you don’t rise by being right—you rise by sounding right.
You get rewarded for style, not spine. For consensus, not courage. For prestige, not proof.
The expert class doesn’t run on truth. It runs on credentialed groupthink. They talk to each other, flatter each other, and gaslight the rest of us.
They don’t fear failure. They fear ridicule. That’s why they hate laughter more than dissent.
V. Cue the Horse
This is where Jerry’s horse laugh belongs. Every time you hear an expert declare the next crisis, the next war, the next apocalypse—imagine Mr. Ed squinting at the headline and saying:
“The Maldives will be gone by 2000? WHINNIE-HAR-HAR-HAR!”
“Trump can’t win a single state? HAR-HAR-HAR!”
“We’ll be out of oil by 1995? HAAAAAHAHAHAHA!”
It’s funny because it’s true. But it’s also tragic—because real people believed these lies. Policies were passed. Lives were disrupted. Kids were masked. Businesses closed. And no one got fired.
The Horse Laugh doesn’t just mock their bad ideas. It mocks their immunity to consequences.
VI. Setting the Stage
This is the first act of a trilogy. A setup. Because if you want the masterclass in expert failure, look no further than Donald J. Trump.
He broke their models. Exposed their methods. And drove their institutions into a frothing rage.
But their failure wasn’t about Trump. It was about them—their arrogance, their insularity, their contempt for anyone outside the club.
And they’re still doing it. Still predicting. Still posturing. Still wrong.
So remember the laugh. When the next expert tells you what's coming—what you must do—what can’t possibly happen...
Just pause. Tilt your head. And listen.
“You never heard of a laughing horse? Well listen to this—WHINNIE-WHINNIE-HAR-HAR-HAR!”
COMING NEXT: The Experts vs. Trump — a complete shame-on-you rant about the political, media, and academic class who missed it all, and still can’t admit it.
Postscript Grook: The Credentialed Class
They spoke with charts,
they spoke with flair—
but never with the burden
of being there.
They forecast storms
with polished ease,
while real men stood
in muddy knees.
So now we laugh—
not out of spite—
but for the joy
of being right.