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Generally, HN people are more educated and better trained in logical thinking (most being engineers of some sort or in other professions that require a bit more

by drclau 5y ago

Generally, HN people are more educated and better trained in logical thinking (most being engineers of some sort or in other professions that require a bit more thinking). Hence, the GP's expectation, I assume. However, this is just my impression from reading comments here for a few years. I may as well be wrong. Smart people do have their own blindspots, too. Edit: I noticed you were downvoted, and I disagree with that. Your question is reasonable.

watwut 5y ago
Whether logical thinking gets you to correct result strongly depends on assumptions you make and model you apply the logical thinking on. And my impression is that HN is not really good at those. It also starts to fail when the assumptions are only sorta kinda true, with many asterixis, because logical implications then treat them as true. Very very often, people start with very wild assumptions and then make wild implications on them, even the ones that are directly contradicted by article they comment on or simple search.
- drclau 5y ago
  That's how you get conversations, and eventually progress. To me, that's the attraction of public forums like HN: people (including myself) make assumptions, and conversation often (or sometimes?) leads to corrections. If we'd all be working with perfectly correct assumptions, we would not need forums anymore. We'd just be fed information, process it in exactly the same way and reach the exact same conclusions. In my experience, this is not really possible with humans.
  - watwut 5y ago
    What it primary does instead is to disseminate feel good assumptions. Because the people don't state them as assumptions, they claim them to be facts. The conversation does not lead to corrections often enough in programming and business unrelated topics. That is fairly normal, group of people talking about something they dont know much about is not supposed to randomly pivot to correct conclusions. But, HN is uniquely convinced HN is superior in this regard.
    - drclau 5y ago
      I take it you are also uniquely convinced that you are superior in this regard, then. :) But here's an honest question: why are you on HN, then? Sure, it's a decent source of tech&related news. But there's no reason for you to spend time reading and writing comments, if you truly believe it's as bad as you say.
      - watwut 5y ago
        It is light tech adjacent news with a taste of drama and arguing, but not too much drama. Because I wait for tests to run and want to idle kill time. Cause I am procastinating. I use it same way as reddit, basically. Except this don't sends notifications so it is less pushy.
user-the-name 5y ago
> Generally, HN people are more educated and better trained in logical thinking The main effect this has is that HN people have an overinflated sense of their own competence, and are more blind to their own ignorance.
- drclau 5y ago
  I do not disagree, and I hoped it was already visible from my initial comment. But, on average, you probably still get better results from HN crowd than from other crowds, in matters that require knowledge and logical thinking. Do you disagree?
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Absolutely disagree. I think HN is massively blind to its own biases, and makes the wrong calls very often as a result.
    - drclau 5y ago
      Ok, I can accept that as a possibility. But here's a curiosity: why are you here, then? What do you derive from reading all the comments from people that are by default wrong? Isn't it a massive waste of your time to read large number of comments, just to occasionally find one that you agree with as being correct?
      - Loughla 5y ago
        I am here to get thoughts on tech, tech news, and tech related things. I am outside of that world, and want to get an insider's perspective on my own views. When it comes to education (my field), HN is generally very, very similar to any other large online group such as facebook or reddit - the biases and areas of ignorance are the same. So, in other words, I come here to read and learn about the things this site should know about - technology and related fields. Whereas comment sections such as this one, I consume much the same as 'opinion articles'.
      - 5y ago

by drclau 5y ago

watwut 5y ago

Whether logical thinking gets you to correct result strongly depends on assumptions you make and model you apply the logical thinking on. And my impression is that HN is not really good at those. It also starts to fail when the assumptions are only sorta kinda true, with many asterixis, because logical implications then treat them as true. Very very often, people start with very wild assumptions and then make wild implications on them, even the ones that are directly contradicted by article they comment on or simple search.

drclau 5y ago
That's how you get conversations, and eventually progress. To me, that's the attraction of public forums like HN: people (including myself) make assumptions, and conversation often (or sometimes?) leads to corrections. If we'd all be working with perfectly correct assumptions, we would not need forums anymore. We'd just be fed information, process it in exactly the same way and reach the exact same conclusions. In my experience, this is not really possible with humans.
- watwut 5y ago
  What it primary does instead is to disseminate feel good assumptions. Because the people don't state them as assumptions, they claim them to be facts. The conversation does not lead to corrections often enough in programming and business unrelated topics. That is fairly normal, group of people talking about something they dont know much about is not supposed to randomly pivot to correct conclusions. But, HN is uniquely convinced HN is superior in this regard.
  - drclau 5y ago
    I take it you are also uniquely convinced that you are superior in this regard, then. :) But here's an honest question: why are you on HN, then? Sure, it's a decent source of tech&related news. But there's no reason for you to spend time reading and writing comments, if you truly believe it's as bad as you say.
    - watwut 5y ago
      It is light tech adjacent news with a taste of drama and arguing, but not too much drama. Because I wait for tests to run and want to idle kill time. Cause I am procastinating. I use it same way as reddit, basically. Except this don't sends notifications so it is less pushy.

user-the-name 5y ago

> Generally, HN people are more educated and better trained in logical thinking The main effect this has is that HN people have an overinflated sense of their own competence, and are more blind to their own ignorance.

drclau 5y ago
I do not disagree, and I hoped it was already visible from my initial comment. But, on average, you probably still get better results from HN crowd than from other crowds, in matters that require knowledge and logical thinking. Do you disagree?
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Absolutely disagree. I think HN is massively blind to its own biases, and makes the wrong calls very often as a result.
  - drclau 5y ago
    Ok, I can accept that as a possibility. But here's a curiosity: why are you here, then? What do you derive from reading all the comments from people that are by default wrong? Isn't it a massive waste of your time to read large number of comments, just to occasionally find one that you agree with as being correct?
    - Loughla 5y ago
      I am here to get thoughts on tech, tech news, and tech related things. I am outside of that world, and want to get an insider's perspective on my own views. When it comes to education (my field), HN is generally very, very similar to any other large online group such as facebook or reddit - the biases and areas of ignorance are the same. So, in other words, I come here to read and learn about the things this site should know about - technology and related fields. Whereas comment sections such as this one, I consume much the same as 'opinion articles'.
    - 5y ago