You know, you are right in a way. It was just a knee jerk reaction, and the author has an extremely important message. How to present factual information so tha

You know, you are right in a way. It was just a knee jerk reaction, and the author has an extremely important message. How to present factual information so that most people will accept it as fact is an issue that is raging in our lives right now. Facts have died in the minds of many, with FB, the US president, and the media constantly just completely making shit up. That is why I have such a strong reaction to the word expert. And I fall victim to this myself, being, gulp, an "expert" at something that at times really needs people to listen to my advice and findings without spending 3 hours convincing them. But in the media, on Facebook... anywhere, people say they are an expert at some random bullshit or non-bullshit thing, state some stuff, and if it fits within someone's world view it is then accepted as fact. If it doesn't fit within their world view it is rejected for any number of reasons. To reach the people who will be the hardest convince, the people who run to the doctor and ask for antibiotics every time their head gets stuffy linking to studies is pointless. Saying you are an expert is pointless. Using any sort of logical reasoning is pointless. Because those people KNOW they feel better when they take antibiotics. You literally have to market your value to them and probably lie or cast things in an extreme way to be heard these days. Yet on HN and among the technologists, though we are susceptible to the same things, as a broad group, we are one of the few that still respects facts and experts. If Richard Feynmann tells me this is how magnets work, I believe the guy. My default approach is that someone claiming to be an expert is just a big giant red flag these days. It is a real problem of how to figure out who we can trust. I am just trigger happy and jumpy about people who claim to be experts because in modern media that usually means the opposite. Anyhow, I don't know what the right answer is, but I should definitely overlook writing style a little more and focus on what facts, if any, an author is providing.