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Comment by lordgrenville | Hacker News Reader

So many anonymous writers on Substack who seem to take pride in giving zero biographical information. Then they write geopolitical analysis or whatever with enormous confidence, frequently calling out the experts in the field as idiots.

I guess they'd argue that the author's identity shouldn't matter and that one should just judge the writing on its own merit. The problem is that we're drowning in information. AI makes its trivial to generate authoritative-looking nonsense. Evaluation is costly. So I prefer to read something which the author has associated with their own identity (which means there's a cost to lying), or has provided some credentials to prove why their opinion matters. Of course there are exceptions (Gwern comes to mind), but I'll only trust them if they're recommended by other writers I trust.

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>Then they write geopolitical analysis or whatever with enormous confidence, frequently calling out the experts in the field as idiots.

Slightly OT, and of course only half anonymous but for example G.S. Bhogal really fits that bill. His posts come up here occasionally and I get a kick out of them but the real gold is in his twitter (1) Don't listen to the haters and make sure to follow for quality life advice (like don't listen to politicians and journalists because they're all corrupt liars, or that "below average IQ" people should reproduce as to not spread their genes, and the really smart people don't need friends or go outside, what they need a "circle" of other highly intelligent people like themselves on X

(1) https://x.com/G_S_Bhogal

I can accept some level of anonymity. Heavens know I would not want to have my current employer read some of the thoughts I post here, but one would think that when one poses as some sort of an expert or at least someone, who can offer a perspective, you would be able to get at least some sense that they might know what they are talking about.

Too often at this point, I saw/heard/read things explained very confidently and yet missing the mark quite a bit.

What you mean is “show me your credentials” or “show me the source of authority”

I think is one of the first things I try to determine when somebody talks to me, when I see a blog, a video, or a comment in HN.

Agree a piece of informative media - in theory - should be taken on it's own merits alone. But to live in that world we would need to forgo the ability to make informed assumptions about how well thought out the media itself is. That's why research papers are intended to be read as though you don't know the author - it's purely data based & logical, any calls to background knowledge requires an explicit reference.

That's just not practical in the real world.

Pseudonyms are to opinions like incorporation is to businesses. It lets you take a risk without coming back to bite you personally. If you're right (or people like your opinions), you can gain a following with it. If you're wrong, you can always abandon your pseudonym.

I don't necessarily think that's bad. I do it myself, by posting with usernames that are not directly attached to my own. But there is a certain amount of respect that I give to people that do things with their name attached. They take a risk that many in our society no longer do: they put their name and identity on the line with their opinions. Even public figures who are absolutely reprehensible in about every way possible get a tiny bit of respect from me for having their name attached to their shitty opinions.

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