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Comment by skybrian | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about campuses, but in online forums we have a constant problem of people claiming expertise in things they just read about in the news and know hardly anything else about.

I'm actually somewhat encouraged by people showing up and giving their credentials. Claiming group membership is a form of that, so I don't see it as being a bad thing in itself. The problem, if anything, is not showing similar respect for other people's credentials.

Also, competence in one subject doesn't excuse arrogance when repeating "conventional wisdom" in other subjects. Since we're ignorant about most things, being humble about what you know should be the default.

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> but in online forums we have a constant problem of people claiming expertise in things they just read about in the news and know hardly anything else about.

> I'm actually somewhat encouraged by people showing up and giving their credentials. Claiming group membership is a form of that, so I don't see it as being a bad thing in itself. The problem, if anything, is not showing similar respect for other people's credentials.

Do you think we should rely on people's "group membership" and/or credentials over the actual substance of their reasoning? There are many cons that go along with anonymous-ish online forums. In my view, one of its pros is that it forces people to face the actual argument without falling back on appeal to authority.

I am unimpressed by most armchair reasoning (including my own) and would rather read people's stories about what happened to them. Recommended reading is useful too. Logic hardly matters, give me the data it's based on.

A problem with anonymous forums is you don't know whether to trust the stories. At best we end up with something like Wikipedia where all facts are copied from other sources.

> would rather read people's stories about what happened to them. Recommended reading is useful too. Logic hardly matters, give me the data it's based on.

At which point, you're drawing a conclusion. I like to hear people's stories and firsthand experiences, too. They help us get into the shoes of someone else and get a new perspective. However, I take them for what they are: anecdotes. If we want to draw some conclusion or insight from the data, then we must apply reasoning.

Yes, but since I trust my own reasoning over a random Internet commenter, there's little value in reading someone else's conclusions.

To put it another way, a well-written argument often calls on evidence that can be interesting and useful even if you disagree with the conclusion. But the conclusion of an anonymous commenter can't be trusted without the supporting evidence.

And yet, many people think that if they state their conclusions louder, or turn them into a clever slogan, others will be compelled to listen to them. This happens especially when these conclusions become "conventional wisdom" in some community.

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