Secondly, even when people are wrong here they don’t seem any more intransigent or arrogant on average. The point is I would assume they are acting in good faith, however I can’t be sure because you criticize people without specific citations. You use citations in your papers I assume?
Let me change course and try and make this as productive as possible by looking at your comments in the most positive light. You are eminent in the field and somehow found yourself reading terribly uninformed assertively stated comments.
What a lost opportunity to correct and inform. What you could say in only a matter of minutes, could seem invaluable to those passionately interested in the subject. I’m sure it would be appreciated, raise the quality of discourse, and may help spread a more informed and accurate lay perspective of the field.
What would Susskind do? If he were here reading comments on a black hole article (for a reason I can’t imagine)? I don’t know him personally but whenever I listen to him lecture I’m always impressed by how willing he seems to share his genius with people interested in learning.
HN readers aren't sheep. We're more than capable of skimming past light-on-fact comment to get to the good ones.
> Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories.
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20141025035056/http://www.thegre...
Let’s add cryptography and quantum complexity theory while we’re at it :)
I'm sure we can all do with a bit of education here.
Edit: This seems to be an unpopular comment already, so let me sidestep potential criticism with the following clarification: I work in cryptography, both professionally and academically, and I make every attempt to help improve understanding of that discipline here on HN. My comment here is directed at the current top comment in the thread. An open rant about some group’s poor understanding of a highly technical area to that group does not improve their understanding, and it will just isolate everyone who reads the comment who doesn’t have a firm grasp of the field (which by the nature of the rant will imply most people reading it).
The feeling of exasperation is valid, but share it with colleagues, or augment it with some attempt at guidance. Otherwise, what are you ranting about except to yell at something that isn’t going to change, while everyone must sit around and be witness to your condescension?
for example:
field: physics
specialty: quantum optics, spectroscopy
level: researcher, PhDBut there is -- though not always -- more of a culture of anonymity here.
Also, CS people are probably just as good talking about the CS aspect of quantum computing as quantum physicists are regarding the quantum aspect of it. no?
No, but that seems like an unfair comparison. Quantum physicists are by definition highly trained scientists; CS people range from teenagers hacking on word-press, to well-trained engineers without much science background, to highly-trained scientists.
Or put another way, that depends on what you mean by "CS People".
The name Turing ring a bell? Just opinion, I consider him one of the greatest minds of his century. He worked on a lot of things but some would say he fits pretty well in cs. And there are more like him who just didn’t happen to become famous to the general public. I could give a dozen more examples of people’s contributions, profound insights, fundamentally important basic research results, that might make you extend, at least the top of your range a bit.
More over, as a scientist, I don't think highly trained scientists are "higher" than highly trained engineers. They're different and not well-ordered. So your "maxes out at" verbage is not agreeable to me.
I apologize with no reservations. I try to read precisely before responding, but clearly did not take care to do so in this case.
Ironically after reading/thinking more, we may actually have similar perspectives on the subject. I’m curious what you mean by “not well-ordered”? However if you do you feel like replying, no problem, I would understand that.
In any case, take care. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Just that researchers aren't better/smarter/etc. than engineers and vice versa. They are different jobs, both essential in their own way, both difficult in their own way.
> Sorry for the misunderstanding.
No worries! :)