5 ms·

From personal experience, including reading a lot of HN, I think programmers as a species are especially biased towards putting forth opinions in the hopes of b

by _bxg1 6y ago

From personal experience, including reading a lot of HN, I think programmers as a species are especially biased towards putting forth opinions in the hopes of being validated for our experience or intelligence, even when we know we don't know much about the subject. The fact that IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) [but...] is a common enough statement in these circles to deserve its own acronym is telling. We often throw out unchecked opinions in hopes they may be right, because that would feel really good, and just let others tell us if they're wrong. When those opinions take the form of a blog post, rebuttal often doesn't exist in the same place as the content, making it seem more authoritative than it often deserves to be.

drewcoo 6y ago
It's not just programmers. It's social activity on the web today. And to stand out, you need to say something edgier or something contrary to popular opinion. We're also all driven to correct the things we see that aren't quite right. This comment has been a little of column A and a little of column B.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  The Letters to the Editor section of newspapers may be a useful example of aspects of this opinion-expressing behavior over time. At least in the US, we are taught that we have an obligation to participate in the public discourse.
exolymph 6y ago
To be fair, IANAL is common across the entire know-it-all internet, which is basically everyone who can read at a college level and plenty who can't.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  I've never seen it outside of HN personally
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    It has a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL
  - Fezzik 6y ago
    IAAL, who also frequents many Magic: The Gathering subreddits, and it is used all the time there. Same with the home-repair subs I lurk on. It is ubiquitous shorthand.
    - _bxg1 6y ago
      I would imagine there's some cultural overlap between HN, Usenet, and subreddits about Magic and technical subjects
  - dinglejungle 6y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com+ianal+-intitle:ianal https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com+ianal+-intit...
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    It's ancient. It was being used on Usenet in the 90s. It's a standard disclaimer because giving legal advice without being licensed to practice law is a crime in many jurisdictions.
aspenmayer 6y ago
Everyone was an expert online as far back as 20 years ago. Now look where we find ourselves. Time isn’t a flat circle; it’s a merry go round. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/03/technology/suddenly-everybody-s-an-expert.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/03/technology/suddenly-every... https://web.archive.org/web/20181018000000/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/03/technology/suddenly-everybody-s-an-expert.html https://web.archive.org/web/20181018000000/https://www.nytim...
- goalieca 6y ago
  When I first came across reddit (14 years ago?), it was almost a website for functional programming enthusiasts. Haskell was all the hype over there the way that rust seems to be all the hype over here. It felt more like a community of grad students with pseudo-academic blog posts hyping the latest ideas and research. At least that's how i remember it. There was also a strong politics subreddit full of group-think but that wasn't what most people went there for I'd say. It was one of three subreddits if i recall. The site definitely changed when users could create their own subreddits as that opened the board to just about every kind of person or group on the internet. I believe sites would do best to specialize even at the cost of growth. I'm happy when hackernews sticks mostly to tech and doesn't silo us into specialized and moderated subreddits.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I joined HN during one of the earlyish Eternal Septembers. I seem to remember reading that there was an active campaign to flood the front page with posts about Erlang to deter the influx of dilution. That's what actually got me interested beyond it just being attached to an investment company.
dgb23 6y ago
I’m not a psychologist but... No, in all seriousness I think this is one true factor. But I feel like this isn’t a bad thing on its own. The issue arises when authors don’t disclose their knowledge or competence. Saying stuff like: this is what I assume, this us what I don’t know etc. or just posing plain questions.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  Right, but nobody's going to say any of those in a blog post. If you're going to the trouble to write a blog post you're probably making a statement. Even if it's ill-informed. There's another dimension to this too, which is that writing blog posts and coming off as knowledgeable can directly translate into career opportunities. As long as you aren't too wrong, there's a material incentive to putting stuff out there.
  - dgb23 6y ago
    But wouldn’t you trust someone who writes more critically and honest more then? There is certainly value in that, also from a self-promotional perspective.
    - reidjs 6y ago
      I think there’s a huge population of people who prefer reading things that sound good rather than things that are true. So, if you have the ability to make a product sound good you might be able to provide more value to a company than a person who can write about the technical merits of the product. Engineers can see through the marketing BS but they’re not always the target customer. Also have you seen a job posting for an entry level software engineering position? You have to say you’re knowledgeable about everything on the application or you will get filtered out in the first round. Publishing blog posts is the easiest way to come across as knowledgeable about a new tech.
      - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        I dunno. I'm pretty technical, in a data sciencey kind of way, and a lot of my career success has been explaining things relatively simply and accurately. The combination of the two facets is much more useful than either alone.
elgfare 6y ago
I personally love discussions where I can throw out opinions, and get shot down without too much fuss when appropriate. I find that throwing opinions out helps discussion. This only works if people qualify their opinion, and there's an opportunity to actually shoot things down.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  It depends on the forum and the context. In some places, throwing out opinions to stimulate discussion is perfectly reasonable. In others, it's simply noise and misinformation.
chunky1994 6y ago
I don't think that's true of most people. People use IANAL defensively in an attempt to avoid embarrassment from being shown to be wrong in an ensuing discussion as opposed to a "free to present my opinion without scrutiny" statement. Most scientists have this too amongst a group of their peers (in conferences for example), they offer a lot of caveats in contributing to discussions that even though are primarily their realm of expertise, they may be out of their depth in the room. If seeking validation is the prime motivation to contribute to a discussion, at the very least I think HN is the least guilty of this amongst most forums.
stared 6y ago
I am not a sociologist, but I think it's not only programmers. A lot of my FB friends suddenly became COVID-19 experts, or experts on US police violence (or lack of thereof). In programming, at least the code needs to work. Maybe it is a bad pattern or anything - but the barrier of entry is non-trivial. For anything else (e.g. politics), a lot of people have opinions, with their strength being not much correlated with their knowledge of the subject.
- umvi 6y ago
  The main thing I learned with covid-19 is that you can put too much faith in science/experts. Or put another way, we should not forget to apply skepticism to science just because the situation seems "urgent". And people should not be browbeaten for expressing skepticism of hot-off-the-press science. Science will arrive at the truth, but it takes much more time and rigor than people generally acknowledge. Looking back, it seems Feburary/March/April covid-19 experts' expertise had the same (or worse) predictive power as random programmers on HN.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  > I am not a sociologist, but... Please tell me you did this on purpose.
  - diarrhea 6y ago
    IANAS!
skrebbel 6y ago
I don't know, talking about what is allowed and what isn't is pretty normal in most circles. I think IANAL is a popular term on HN because HN originated in a country with a terribly litigious culture, and because HN is primarily populated by people who can at least afford lawyers. If I'd "talk to a lawyer" as often as HN comments recommend people do then I'd have no money (or time) left to eat. The whole thing is about covering your ass.
CM30 6y ago
I thought the IANAL thing was because people didn't want to get dragged into a potential court case, or (wrongly)* thought giving any form of legal advice as a non lawyer was illegal. So less about being validated for our experience, more about trying to avoid being dragged into court/relied on for evidence in a future court case.
metrokoi 6y ago
Speaking from my experience, I write about my opinions not for validation, but because you must write about your opinions to be seen as a "real" programmer. People who quietly do their work and create things generally do not flourish. You must sell yourself and your ideas. I suppose that is validation in a way, but not to feed my ego.
twic 6y ago
I would say this is not unique to programmers, because i did it before i became a programmer. But then, i did eventually become a programmer, so maybe it is.

by _bxg1 6y ago

drewcoo 6y ago

It's not just programmers. It's social activity on the web today. And to stand out, you need to say something edgier or something contrary to popular opinion. We're also all driven to correct the things we see that aren't quite right. This comment has been a little of column A and a little of column B.

nitrogen 6y ago
The Letters to the Editor section of newspapers may be a useful example of aspects of this opinion-expressing behavior over time. At least in the US, we are taught that we have an obligation to participate in the public discourse.

exolymph 6y ago

To be fair, IANAL is common across the entire know-it-all internet, which is basically everyone who can read at a college level and plenty who can't.

_bxg1 6y ago
I've never seen it outside of HN personally
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It has a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL
- Fezzik 6y ago
  IAAL, who also frequents many Magic: The Gathering subreddits, and it is used all the time there. Same with the home-repair subs I lurk on. It is ubiquitous shorthand.
  - _bxg1 6y ago
    I would imagine there's some cultural overlap between HN, Usenet, and subreddits about Magic and technical subjects
- dinglejungle 6y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com+ianal+-intitle:ianal https://www.google.com/search?q=site:reddit.com+ianal+-intit...
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  It's ancient. It was being used on Usenet in the 90s. It's a standard disclaimer because giving legal advice without being licensed to practice law is a crime in many jurisdictions.

aspenmayer 6y ago

Everyone was an expert online as far back as 20 years ago. Now look where we find ourselves. Time isn’t a flat circle; it’s a merry go round. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/03/technology/suddenly-everybody-s-an-expert.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/03/technology/suddenly-every... https://web.archive.org/web/20181018000000/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/03/technology/suddenly-everybody-s-an-expert.html https://web.archive.org/web/20181018000000/https://www.nytim...

goalieca 6y ago
When I first came across reddit (14 years ago?), it was almost a website for functional programming enthusiasts. Haskell was all the hype over there the way that rust seems to be all the hype over here. It felt more like a community of grad students with pseudo-academic blog posts hyping the latest ideas and research. At least that's how i remember it. There was also a strong politics subreddit full of group-think but that wasn't what most people went there for I'd say. It was one of three subreddits if i recall. The site definitely changed when users could create their own subreddits as that opened the board to just about every kind of person or group on the internet. I believe sites would do best to specialize even at the cost of growth. I'm happy when hackernews sticks mostly to tech and doesn't silo us into specialized and moderated subreddits.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  I joined HN during one of the earlyish Eternal Septembers. I seem to remember reading that there was an active campaign to flood the front page with posts about Erlang to deter the influx of dilution. That's what actually got me interested beyond it just being attached to an investment company.

dgb23 6y ago

I’m not a psychologist but... No, in all seriousness I think this is one true factor. But I feel like this isn’t a bad thing on its own. The issue arises when authors don’t disclose their knowledge or competence. Saying stuff like: this is what I assume, this us what I don’t know etc. or just posing plain questions.

_bxg1 6y ago
Right, but nobody's going to say any of those in a blog post. If you're going to the trouble to write a blog post you're probably making a statement. Even if it's ill-informed. There's another dimension to this too, which is that writing blog posts and coming off as knowledgeable can directly translate into career opportunities. As long as you aren't too wrong, there's a material incentive to putting stuff out there.
- dgb23 6y ago
  But wouldn’t you trust someone who writes more critically and honest more then? There is certainly value in that, also from a self-promotional perspective.
  - reidjs 6y ago
    I think there’s a huge population of people who prefer reading things that sound good rather than things that are true. So, if you have the ability to make a product sound good you might be able to provide more value to a company than a person who can write about the technical merits of the product. Engineers can see through the marketing BS but they’re not always the target customer. Also have you seen a job posting for an entry level software engineering position? You have to say you’re knowledgeable about everything on the application or you will get filtered out in the first round. Publishing blog posts is the easiest way to come across as knowledgeable about a new tech.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      I dunno. I'm pretty technical, in a data sciencey kind of way, and a lot of my career success has been explaining things relatively simply and accurately. The combination of the two facets is much more useful than either alone.

elgfare 6y ago

I personally love discussions where I can throw out opinions, and get shot down without too much fuss when appropriate. I find that throwing opinions out helps discussion. This only works if people qualify their opinion, and there's an opportunity to actually shoot things down.

reaperducer 6y ago
It depends on the forum and the context. In some places, throwing out opinions to stimulate discussion is perfectly reasonable. In others, it's simply noise and misinformation.

chunky1994 6y ago

I don't think that's true of most people. People use IANAL defensively in an attempt to avoid embarrassment from being shown to be wrong in an ensuing discussion as opposed to a "free to present my opinion without scrutiny" statement. Most scientists have this too amongst a group of their peers (in conferences for example), they offer a lot of caveats in contributing to discussions that even though are primarily their realm of expertise, they may be out of their depth in the room. If seeking validation is the prime motivation to contribute to a discussion, at the very least I think HN is the least guilty of this amongst most forums.

stared 6y ago

I am not a sociologist, but I think it's not only programmers. A lot of my FB friends suddenly became COVID-19 experts, or experts on US police violence (or lack of thereof). In programming, at least the code needs to work. Maybe it is a bad pattern or anything - but the barrier of entry is non-trivial. For anything else (e.g. politics), a lot of people have opinions, with their strength being not much correlated with their knowledge of the subject.

umvi 6y ago
The main thing I learned with covid-19 is that you can put too much faith in science/experts. Or put another way, we should not forget to apply skepticism to science just because the situation seems "urgent". And people should not be browbeaten for expressing skepticism of hot-off-the-press science. Science will arrive at the truth, but it takes much more time and rigor than people generally acknowledge. Looking back, it seems Feburary/March/April covid-19 experts' expertise had the same (or worse) predictive power as random programmers on HN.
andrewflnr 6y ago
> I am not a sociologist, but... Please tell me you did this on purpose.
- diarrhea 6y ago
  IANAS!

skrebbel 6y ago

I don't know, talking about what is allowed and what isn't is pretty normal in most circles. I think IANAL is a popular term on HN because HN originated in a country with a terribly litigious culture, and because HN is primarily populated by people who can at least afford lawyers. If I'd "talk to a lawyer" as often as HN comments recommend people do then I'd have no money (or time) left to eat. The whole thing is about covering your ass.

CM30 6y ago

I thought the IANAL thing was because people didn't want to get dragged into a potential court case, or (wrongly)* thought giving any form of legal advice as a non lawyer was illegal. So less about being validated for our experience, more about trying to avoid being dragged into court/relied on for evidence in a future court case.

metrokoi 6y ago

Speaking from my experience, I write about my opinions not for validation, but because you must write about your opinions to be seen as a "real" programmer. People who quietly do their work and create things generally do not flourish. You must sell yourself and your ideas. I suppose that is validation in a way, but not to feed my ego.

twic 6y ago

I would say this is not unique to programmers, because i did it before i became a programmer. But then, i did eventually become a programmer, so maybe it is.