Leaving the EU is no small affair. It probably will have enormous effects on the UK, Europe, and much of the rest of the world. But just what these effects will be is unclear. To have even a rudimentary sense of the pros and cons of Brexit, a person would need to possess tremendous social scientific knowledge. One would need to know about the economics and sociology of trade and immigration, the politics of centralized regulation, and the history of nationalist movements. But there is no reason to think even a tenth of the UK’s population has a basic grasp of the social science needed to evaluate Brexit.

Jason Brennan, author of Against Democracy, writing in June. Brennan wants an epistocracy, rule by those who know rather than by the demos. The epistocrats all warned that the economic consequences of leaving the EU would be catastrophic, but they have now revised their predictions: there’s no downturn at all so far. So, some questions for Brennan:

1) How does one become a member of the epistocracy? Can you just vote yourself in?

2) How often must you be wrong before you get booted out of the epistocracy?

3) Granted that average people don’t know much, do epistocrats know significantly more? Enough more that they should be trusted with rule? If you think so, what’s your evidence?