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DanArmak comments on Scholarship: how to tell good advice from bad advice? - Less Wrong
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When you receive advice, it must fall into one of these categories:
The advice is worthless or even outright bad.
The advice is valuable, but it's common knowledge, or at least can be obtained from public information in a straightforward way.
The advice is valuable, and it's not common knowledge, nor can it be obtained from public information in any straightforward way.
Now, if you believe you're receiving advice that is in category (3), you must ask yourself what makes you so special that you are privy to this information. This leads to the following heuristics:
If the advice is in category (2), it is likely to be good if the source is reputable. For example, a book or website about programming written by a reputable author is likely to give you good advice on how to program. (But note that while it certainly adds value in terms of a convenient and attractive presentation, such a source doesn't give any significant information that wouldn't be available from other public sources.)
If the advice purports to be in category (3), and yet the source of information is public (e.g. a book or website, even a non-free one), it's almost certainly bunk. The only exception is if the message is highly unpopular or counter-intuitive, and somehow you know that you have overcome biases that prevent most people from evaluating it correctly, which is very difficult and rare. For example, nearly any book that claims to bring special wisdom about investment, career, relationships, etc. is bunk.
If the advice comes from a person on a private occasion, then there are several steps that you need to do. First, does this person show clear indications of the relevant knowledge and competence? If not, it's likely bunk for obvious reasons. Second, is the advice in category (2) or (3)? If it's (2), it's probably good, though it still pays off to check against other sources of information. If it purports to be (3), then you need to do the third, and most difficult evaluation: does this person have the motivation for an extraordinary degree of altruism towards you? If not, it's likely bunk, or otherwise they wouldn't grant you this privilege. If yes, for example if you're getting advice from your parents, then it is probably highly valuable.
One common failure mode is when people believe they're giving you advice of type (3), but in reality, their motivation for altruism towards you is weaker than their motivation for saying things that have high signaling value (and omitting things that have negative such value). This is one danger of socializing with people who are higher-status and more accomplished than you -- you'll be tempted to take their advice seriously, but in reality, even if they are giving it with good intentions, it's likely to be heavily censored and distorted so as to maximize its signaling value.
(This is exacerbated by the fact that good no-nonsense advice on topics that involve any aspects of human social behavior, both personal and professional, tends to sound crass, disreputable, cynical, or worse.)
This is true, but a simplification. Specifically, it doesn't distinguish cases where good advice is mostly impersonal (e.g. how to invest money) from cases where the best advice will be highly personalized (e.g. diet).
In many complicated fields, like diet, good advice needs to be individual. Learning enough about the field to choose the right advice yourself may take years. And it's prohibitively expensive to find what works best for you by trying everything. At best, you'll stick with the first thing that works moderately well.
So I propose category (4): the advice is valuable, not because it relies on nonpublic information, but because matching the right advice to each person is complicated (though based on public info, such as medicine). People who study the field, master it, and then give personalized advice add real value. Most importantly, to trust the advice of such people, you don't need to assume an extraordinary degree of altruism on their part. Ordinary situations like paying an expert for counseling may be sufficiently trustworthy.
In that case, how could the expert possibly know enough about the field to choose the right advise for someone they only know through at-best several hour long appointments?
That's a good point I hadn't thought of. Many fields probably won't be like what I described: one would need to know a lot both about the field and about the person who needs advice, to give personalized advice.
Still, I think in most fields good personalized advice requires many years of studying and working in the field, while a few weeks of studying the person who needs advice would be sufficient. There is a disparity, partially (wholly?) arising from the fact the expert is already experienced in the field when they start working with the client, and has also studied how to analyze clients' requirements.
Of course, like you say, professionals that most people are able to hire can only give them a few hours of their time at most; often much less, like the 10-30 minutes of a typical doctor's visit.