but it's better than folks just deciding for themselves what's true.

Thank you! Your candid admissions portray you better than your discussions with Dissident or Dante.

You are perhaps inferring that I think I know what's true because I'm me? Not at all.

I am in favor of democracy, to set the stage. I am expressing a belief that experts tend to know a lot, most of the time. When an issue has to do with facts (as opposed to values), the question is which experts to trust, not whether to trust experts.