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> I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to see how confidently wrong most p

> I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to see how confidently wrong most poasters are. Some topics (and some areas where one could be an expert in) are much more prone to this phenomenon than others. Just to give a specific example that suddenly comes to my mind: Grothendieck-style Algebraic Geometry is rather not prone to people confidently posting wrong stuff about on HN. Generally (to abstract from this example [pun intended]): I guess topics that - take an enormous amount of time to learn, - where "confidently bullshitting" will not work because you have to learn some "language" of the topic very deeply - where even a person with some intermediate knowledge of the topic can immediately detect whether you use the "'grammar' of the 'technical language'" very wrongly are much more rarely prone to this phenomenon. It is no coincidence that in the last two points I make comparisons to (natural) languages: it is not easy to bullshit in a live interview that you know some natural language well if the counterpart has at least some basic knowledge of this natural language.

joules77 1y ago
I think its more the site's architecture that promotes this behavior. In the offline world there is a big social cost to this kind of behavior. Platforms haven't been able to replicate it. Instead they seem to promote and validate it. It feeds the self esteem of these people.
Karrot_Kream 1y ago
It's hard to have an informed opinion on Algebraic Geometry (requires expertise) and not many people are going to upvote and engage with you about it either. It's a lot easier to have an opinion on tech execs, current events, and tech gossip. Moreover you're much more likely to get replies, upvotes, and other engagement for posting about it. There's a reason politics and tech gossip are where most HN comments go these days. This is a pretty mainstream site.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  > There's a reason politics and tech gossip are where most HN comments go these days. This is a pretty mainstream site. HN is the digital water cooler. Rumors are a kind of social currency, in the capital sense, in that it can be leveraged and has a time horizon for value of exchange, and in the timeliness/recency biased sense, as hot gossip is a form of information that wants to be free, which in this context means it has more value when shared, and that value is tapped into by doing so.

joules77 1y ago

I think its more the site's architecture that promotes this behavior. In the offline world there is a big social cost to this kind of behavior. Platforms haven't been able to replicate it. Instead they seem to promote and validate it. It feeds the self esteem of these people.

Karrot_Kream 1y ago

It's hard to have an informed opinion on Algebraic Geometry (requires expertise) and not many people are going to upvote and engage with you about it either. It's a lot easier to have an opinion on tech execs, current events, and tech gossip. Moreover you're much more likely to get replies, upvotes, and other engagement for posting about it. There's a reason politics and tech gossip are where most HN comments go these days. This is a pretty mainstream site.

aspenmayer 1y ago
> There's a reason politics and tech gossip are where most HN comments go these days. This is a pretty mainstream site. HN is the digital water cooler. Rumors are a kind of social currency, in the capital sense, in that it can be leveraged and has a time horizon for value of exchange, and in the timeliness/recency biased sense, as hot gossip is a form of information that wants to be free, which in this context means it has more value when shared, and that value is tapped into by doing so.