alt Hacker News> that's a whole different level of ignorance, that's much more dangerous.
Why? Is it more dangerous to not know how to fry an egg in a teflon pan, or on a stone over a wood fire? Is it acceptable to know the former but not the latter? Do I need to understand materials science so I can understand how to make something nonstick so I’m not dependant on teflon vendors?
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You do need to be able to understand nonstick coating is unhealthy and not magic. You do need to understand your options for pan frying for not sticking are a film of water or an ice cube if you don't want to add an oil into the mix. Then it really depends what you are cooking on how sticky it will be and what the end product will look like. That's why there are people that can't fry an egg, people that cook, chefs, and Michelin chefs. Because nuance matters, it's just that the domain where each person wants to apply it is different. I dont care about nuance in hockey picks but probably some people do. But some domains should concern everyone.
It's relative, not absolute. It's definitely more dangerous to not know how to make your own food than to know something about it - you _need_ food, so lacking that skill is more dangerous than having it.
That was my point, really - that you probably don't need to know "materials science" to declare yourself competent enough in cooking so that you can make your own food. Even if you only cooked eggs in teflon pans, you will likely be able to improvise if need arises. But once you become so ignorant that you don't even know what food is unless you see it on a plate in a restaurant, already prepared - then you're in a lot poorer position to survive, should your access to restaurants be suddenly restricted. But perhaps more importantly - you lose the ability to evaluate food by anything other than aspect & taste, and have to completely rely on others to understand what food might be good or bad for you(*).
(*) even now, you can't really "do your own research", that's not how the world works. We stand on shoulders of giants - the reason we have so much is because we trust/take for granted a lot of knowledge that ancestors built up for us. But it's one thing to know /prove everything in detail up until the basic axioms/atoms/etc; nobody does that. And it's a completely different different thing to have your "thoughts" and "conclusions" already delivered to you in final form by something (be it Fox News, ChatGPT, New York Times or anything really) and just take them for granted, without having a framework that allows to do some minimal "understanding" and "critical thinking" of your own.