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Your argument is so compelling. Now I see how wrong I've been. I'll just accept everything the ivory tower says from now on, on any topic, unconditionally. B

• Luyt 16y ago
  Reminds me of something I read on http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4217 http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4217 : Appeal to Lack of Authority Authority has a reputation for being corrupt and inflexible, and this stereotype has been leveraged by some who assert that their own lack of authority somehow makes them a better authority. Starling might say of the 9/11 attacks: "Every reputable structural engineer understands how fire caused the Twin Towers to collapse." Bombo can reply: "I'm not an expert in engineering or anything, I'm just a regular guy asking questions." Starling: "We should listen to what the people who know what they're talking about have to say." Bombo: "Someone needs to stand up to these experts." The idea that not knowing what you're talking about somehow makes you heroic or more reliable is incorrect. More likely, your lack of expertise simply makes you wrong.
  • strlen 16y ago
    > The idea that not knowing what you're talking about somehow makes you heroic or more reliable is incorrect That's a really good definition of anti-intellectualism. It's easy to sneer at academic languages (and easy to hate them, just observe a college frosh/soph struggling through Scheme or Haskell), but things we now take for granted e.g., garbage collection, virtual machines, IDEs, object orientation, templates/generics were all (even recently) considered academic.
    • bhiggins 16y ago
      the only struggle with scheme is with falling asleep
  • bhiggins 16y ago
    maybe next year, if you keep up the good work, you'll be reading about Appeal to Some Website.