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They show up here every so often: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5317157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5317157 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item

by seiji 13y ago

They show up here every so often: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5317157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5317157 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231238 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231238 There's even a wikipedia page with a horrible URL that made me think wikipedia suddenly had hierarchical categories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism Gotta keep speaking truth to crazy.

mikeash 13y ago
Some people have a strong contrarian streak which naturally leads them toward the minority position on many controversial subjects. It's often the exact same people saying that AIDS isn't caused by HIV, that global warming is a fraud, that oil reserves are infinite, that evolution is impossible, etc. etc. I've witnessed this firsthand. I can't explain why they are this way, but it looks like a general attitude of "the popular opinion is more likely to be wrong than right".
- altero 13y ago
  There are also some paranoid people who use encryption because secret services could be spying on them. We have no idea how aids causes hiv, cannot even predict weather for next week, but we are 110% sure some theories are right. No wonder, it is waste of money to get phd today
  - alanh 13y ago
    In case you wonder why you are being downvoted, it’s because you are, yourself, denying recent (and less recent) news regarding federal monitoring; engaging in HIV/AIDS denialism; reversing HIV and AIDS; conflating weather prediction with scientific understanding; and ending with a non-sequitur.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Thus providing a wonderful illustration of my point.
    - DominikR 13y ago
      I think his point is that people who believed that government was constantly monitoring everyone a few weeks ago were also seen as paranoid crazy persons who believed in conspiracy theories, and he is sarcastic about that.
      - parasubvert 13y ago
        I don't think people using SSL before a few weeks ago due to spying and/or hacking would be considered paranoid or crazy. We've known about domestic spying since 2006, some people just were not paying attention. Now people on HN can't seem to get enough paranoia for breakfast.
- frogpelt 13y ago
  You can lump all of your anti-favorite topics together and pretend they are similar. Just know that there are also people lumping you into their groups of crazy people based on one or two things that you believe and they don't. Humans (scientists, doctors, politicians, internet commenters) like to pretend that we know so much about the universe and we just need to fill in a few details to fully grasp everything. This kind of thinking is dangerous at best. It seems to me every time mankind fixes one problem they create a new one that they have to figure out how to solve.

by seiji 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago

Some people have a strong contrarian streak which naturally leads them toward the minority position on many controversial subjects. It's often the exact same people saying that AIDS isn't caused by HIV, that global warming is a fraud, that oil reserves are infinite, that evolution is impossible, etc. etc. I've witnessed this firsthand. I can't explain why they are this way, but it looks like a general attitude of "the popular opinion is more likely to be wrong than right".

altero 13y ago
There are also some paranoid people who use encryption because secret services could be spying on them. We have no idea how aids causes hiv, cannot even predict weather for next week, but we are 110% sure some theories are right. No wonder, it is waste of money to get phd today
- alanh 13y ago
  In case you wonder why you are being downvoted, it’s because you are, yourself, denying recent (and less recent) news regarding federal monitoring; engaging in HIV/AIDS denialism; reversing HIV and AIDS; conflating weather prediction with scientific understanding; and ending with a non-sequitur.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Thus providing a wonderful illustration of my point.
  - DominikR 13y ago
    I think his point is that people who believed that government was constantly monitoring everyone a few weeks ago were also seen as paranoid crazy persons who believed in conspiracy theories, and he is sarcastic about that.
    - parasubvert 13y ago
      I don't think people using SSL before a few weeks ago due to spying and/or hacking would be considered paranoid or crazy. We've known about domestic spying since 2006, some people just were not paying attention. Now people on HN can't seem to get enough paranoia for breakfast.
frogpelt 13y ago
You can lump all of your anti-favorite topics together and pretend they are similar. Just know that there are also people lumping you into their groups of crazy people based on one or two things that you believe and they don't. Humans (scientists, doctors, politicians, internet commenters) like to pretend that we know so much about the universe and we just need to fill in a few details to fully grasp everything. This kind of thinking is dangerous at best. It seems to me every time mankind fixes one problem they create a new one that they have to figure out how to solve.