It's pretty incredible just how low actually talking to people ranks on your hierarchy of priorities.
That's the whole damn problem with using electronic communication exclusively. It IS impossible to trust.
Interestingly, in Celtic culture, the recording of knowledge in writing was actually banned. Word of mouth was the only acceptable method.
Here's the thing: There is a limit to how much you can know firmly, and yet there is no limit to how much there is to be known. While you open yourself to threat of being wrong when you extend yourself beyond the firm knowledge limit, you can still take advantage of knowing things which you are not firmly certain of. So can other people with whom you may compete. This is complicated further when you consider that absolute certainty is impossible, and so where you draw that line is ambiguous.
Wrong person, but I do agree with you here.