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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

It depends on your social status and general situation a lot - some people get punished hard when they disregard others and are in no position to do it. Others can get away with that mostly. A lot depends on whether at least portion of people is willing to give you benefit of the doubt or whether someone criticizing you as always taken at a face value.

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Most people is going to be criticized if they step out of the beaten path. Powerful people in any field is not keen to radical change that could make them superfluous rather fast. Then there all those who want to be seen as worthy by the powerful that will parrot their opinions.

I don't think I would dare to introduce radically new stuf (I'm no scientist so it's easy for me to make this statement), at least in the area that puts food on the table, and this is what most people do. It's natural.

You need to be antisocial or obsessed or have no need to public suport due to a special situation(rich, political suport, personal inconditional suport from the boss, being an outsider).

Most of them will be wrong just the same and considered cranks, made fun off and forgotten.

We still need this kind of people even if we wont be like them.

I agree with things you are talking about, but there is still more to that.

The exactly same suggestion from "our friend" is treated differently then suggestion from "that suspicious dude/girl". It may be difference between mild criticism and "it is ultimate proof he is dumbo". It makes big difference in practical results. It may be difference between "jesus, did you had to say that" and "you are not gonna get responsible position ever again or at least you are not gonna go to that meeting again".

When someone like Stephen Hawking says automation will, given current trends, lead to more inequality, that rightfully doesn't get disputed. When I ask questions on HN that would lead to similar conclusions, I don't even get answers. In person it's the opposite, me being slightly attractive (and actually liking people more than you'd know from my posts) means I can basically say just about anything to anyone. It may not get accepted, but I get away with it. But I often think, if an ugly person stuttered the same statement, they'd get an entirely different reaction. Then I think further of how my impressions of people might distort my interpretation of their words, and I'm completely blind to that by definition. In short, it's all kind of unfair and sucky. I don't think I even added anything to your comment, you put it better. But it's something that's on my mind a lot. We pay too much attention to our impressions of messengers.

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