Two technologies which are bad for you
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What if you, as the author are just a freshman in College, what reason should I have to actually listen to what you have to say?
I used to think that credentials were useless, and still agree that you should never agree with someone because of their creds (proof by intimidation), but lets face it, it should get you in the door. If you've never done anything worth while, I'm not going to waste my time reading/listening/entertaining your rants.
But authority doesn't count in the realm of ideas -- the ideas must stand on their own.
> If I posted some long rant abasing something brilliant, you should have absolutely no reason to believe me should I not provide you with a reason.
Wait -- which is it? Authority, or reason? Those aren't the same thing.
> What if you, as the author are just a freshman in College, what reason should I have to actually listen to what you have to say?
That depends. Does he defend his ideas with reason, or authority?
> I used to think that credentials were useless, and still agree that you should never agree with someone because of their creds (proof by intimidation), but lets face it, it should get you in the door.
Not in science, not in the age of reason. Einstein wasn't published in 1905 because of his authority -- he had none. His ideas spoke for themselves.
In science, authority is explicitly rejected -- it's even recognized as a logical error:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
"Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion." — Richard Feynman