Bunch of muppets with advanced expertise in what amounts to convex optimisation theory. What exactly qualifies them to weigh in on how the internet should be run?
This is a very alienating position. If I were ever to find myself part of a group, talked about as you did, it would be very tempting to just write off the entire “other group” and their opinion, based purely on that statement.
If you have a good argument to make, why resort to an ad hominem?
For better or for worse, this is a democracy and their point of view matters. Let’s try winning them over to ours.
On one hand, I agree with what you're saying. On the other, I don't think I'm going to apologise for venting my frustrations.
Take a look at the range of topics this 'panel of experts' are polled on [1]:
Health insurance
Standardised testing
Sports stadiums
Robots and artificial intelligence
California's Drought
These people are not experts on these topics. They're basically mathematicians. Most of them likely made their name proving facts about their mathematical models.
Remember that these are models that have a lousy track record describing the real world. And yet it sounds incredibly persuasive to run a headline stating "Economistis united on proposition X".
Here's a suggestion. Let's have a panel of experts, but we'll include one economist. We'll also include a social scientist, an engineer, a banker, a lawyer, a government policy wonk, and a social worker. The media can poll them, and might actually get a plurality of views.
If you have a good argument to make, why resort to an ad hominem?
For better or for worse, this is a democracy and their point of view matters. Let’s try winning them over to ours.