[fgf]

"Linking to PG's older posts to help you make a point." The notion that this is bad is baffling. Citation is central to all serious science it also has a place in other forms of (rigorous/serious) thinking. If a scientific article proves something you cite it. If I think you're wrong in a way described by someone else, I'll cite that. This isn't as neat. You prove very little. But you do show what you think about the matter. The aversion against doing this (wich is normal for those who spend a lot of time reading and thinking about for example policy) is strange. It's not an appeal to authority if you agree with it, if it can serve as a description of your position. The fact that pgs essays in particular get cited alot may just be that 1) a lot of people here have read them 2) they're densely argued (you don't expect a lefty to read hayek cause you say he should, a paragraph of a pg essay is more reasonable and 3) they are carefully argued, wich makes it more likely you'll agree with it than more bombastic works or works built on the assumptions and arguments of other people (wich isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does create additional points of failure)