If you can’t do either of these things, then you have little hope of choosing correct contrarian beliefs.
Notably, even if you can’t do either of these things, sometimes you can rationally reject the mainstream position if you can conclude that the incentive structure for the “typical experts” makes them hopelessly biased in a particular direction.
This shouldn’t lead to rejection of the mainstream position, exactly, but rejection of the evidential value of mainstream belief, and reversion to your prior belief / agnosticism about the object-level question.
Notably, even if you can’t do either of these things, sometimes you can rationally reject the mainstream position if you can conclude that the incentive structure for the “typical experts” makes them hopelessly biased in a particular direction.
This shouldn’t lead to rejection of the mainstream position, exactly, but rejection of the evidential value of mainstream belief, and reversion to your prior belief / agnosticism about the object-level question.