4 ms·
Appeal to authority?
by ekianjo 4y ago
Appeal to authority?
- dtornabene 4y agomultiple people, myself included, logged in to comment precisely because the idea that MR is mostly aptly described as "Azure CTO" is a bit much. Glad the op commented the way they did, it also obviated this exact argument by simply establishing who exactly he is and not exhaustive foot stomping recitation of all his work.
- philosopher1234 4y agoAppeals to authority are useful and good. They’re shorthands for doing PhD theses on every topic you encounter. They aren’t bulletproof, though.
- woodruffw 4y agoWe do indeed listen to what authorities on subjects have to say, yes. Mark Russinovich is an authority on systems programming, and his thoughts carry weight because of his track record.
- snickerbockers 4y agoyeah, but he's not an authority on everything written in C/C++. He's entitled to his own opinions, but this scope exceeds whatever experience he has doing sysinternals or whatever it was (idk, i'm a unix guy not a windows guy). He definitely can be criticized and disagreed with. Where does it end? If he says mint chocolate chip is the worst ice cream flavor, am I obliged to agree with him because he made sysinternals?
- Shorel 4y agoNeither thing. It means he has a very informed opinion. That doesn't mean we are forced to agree (I do not), but that we must answer with another informed opinion ourselves.
- woodruffw 4y agoIt should be extremely obvious that you should not jump off of a bridge because he (or anyone else) tells you to. He’s an expert in the subject at hand, and that fact is more relevant than the fact that he’s the Azure CTO. What more do you want? (And yes, of course you can disagree with him. That has never been doubted.)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- croes 4y agoHow about experience?
- fsloth 4y agoThis. Experts respect experts not due to political status but experience and demonstrated capability. Status and authority within a technical community are then products of actual results. Nobody is claiming infallibility, but generally when a person voices opinions in a subject within a domain they have previously demonstrated excellence generally people listen.
- baq 4y agowhat's the alternative? invent and validate everything yourself?
- lbriner 4y agoAppeal to authority is when you claim something is true just because an "authority" said so. MR is clearly expressing an opinion and reasons for it and it is up to you to decide whether his experience qualifies him to make such bold claims, whether there are edge cases for exceptions and whether or not you agree or care.
- felipellrocha 4y agoIt’s only a falacy if the authority is not an expert in the field they’re speaking about. Example, a religious leader speaking about science matters, or an accountant speaking about engineering matters. Otherwise, the argument is 100% valid.