And there he was, knowing nothing, which was to say knowing everything, for ignorance, when properly seasoned with confidence, becomes indistinguishable from wisdom, and he had seasoned himself liberally.

Everyone was wrong. This he knew.

He knew it before breakfast, before coffee, before the newspaper had even been opened. He had read the headline, therefore he understood the article. He had watched a nine-minute video, therefore he understood the subject. He had once spoken to a man who worked in a hospital, therefore he understood medicine. He had driven across a suspension bridge, therefore he understood engineering.

“Gravity isn’t even really proven,” he announced.

“Then why do things fall?”

“Density.”

“Density doesn’t cause things to fall.”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

Who they were was unclear, but this was hardly a problem. The less clearly defined the enemy, the more powerful the argument.

He questioned everything.

Except himself.

If evidence agreed with him, it was proof. If evidence disagreed, it was propaganda. If every expert disagreed, the experts were corrupt. If nobody could find evidence either way, then clearly the evidence had been suppressed.

“Do your own research,” he said, having conducted none.

Research, in his understanding, meant finding the first webpage containing the words he already believed and sending it to someone else.

He had opinions on physics, economics, history, medicine, military strategy, constitutional law, nutrition, climate science, and quantum mechanics, despite possessing no demonstrable knowledge of any of them. His qualifications were extensive: he had been alive, he had owned a television, and once he had successfully changed a tire.

Thus he was an expert.

He distrusted scientists because they admitted uncertainty, doctors because they disagreed with him, professors because they used large words, and books because books contained “agendas.”

He preferred videos made by men sitting in parked trucks.

They looked authentic.

One such man had explained that history was written by the winners.

He had accepted this immediately, though he could not remember who had won Waterloo.

Facts, he explained, were subjective.

He then became furious when someone disagreed with his facts.

This was not hypocrisy.

It was nuance.

He had learned the word online.

He used it incorrectly.

Naturally, this did not diminish its importance.

And so he continued, erecting magnificent towers of certainty upon foundations of absolutely nothing, each conclusion supporting the next like drunken men leaning against one another in a doorway, until finally he arrived at the only conclusion that could survive every possible objection:

“I’ve done my research.”

He had not.

But he had searched.

And in the modern age, apparently, that was close enough.

He demanded an explanation, received one, and upon discovering that explanations contained information, declared it too long.