> Funny you use the word "disrupt" in your ending paragraph, given the HN community is so full of aspirational start up founders and engineers who prided themse

> Funny you use the word "disrupt" in your ending paragraph, given the HN community is so full of aspirational start up founders and engineers who prided themselves on being "disrupters" at least that was the rallying call for a decade. I don't think it's coincidence. What was a tool has become a religious practice for which the original purpose has been forgotten, and which powerful people have twisted to their own desires - more power and wealth for them by shifting it away from democratic government, the public, by making themselves arbiters of truth who judge, in their monumental, blinding genius, all of the world's scholars - all they need to do is say something disparaging. Now they disrupt everything, including democracy, truth, and freedom. > a lot of people are scoring points online calling academic research bunk because a lot of it is bunk, published for professional gain instead of pushing human knowledge further Isn't that just repeating Thiel's and Andressen's claims (as you describe them)? You say it like it's assumed, but other than everyone repeating it, I don't see much evidence of it. Of course it's flawed, like every human endeavor is flawed, including Thiel's and Andressen's.