What is the sad admission here? That not everyone establishes 100% of their belief system from first principles, and instead adopts some of it empirically based on other reasoners' beliefs? I don't consider that a bug.
If I don't know anything about X, and the Alan Kay of X comes and tells me something about X, it's pretty likely to be true. If equally-ignorant-as-me-person tells me something about X, it's not as likely to be true. That's the meaning of knowledge and ignorance.
None of this precludes thinking for yourself about anything. It's just the thing you do in addition to thinking for yourself about it, if you want to have true beliefs.
If I don't know anything about X, and the Alan Kay of X comes and tells me something about X, it's pretty likely to be true. If equally-ignorant-as-me-person tells me something about X, it's not as likely to be true. That's the meaning of knowledge and ignorance.
None of this precludes thinking for yourself about anything. It's just the thing you do in addition to thinking for yourself about it, if you want to have true beliefs.