[knighthack]

> You will see some well grounded, expert opinions here down-voted into oblivion simply because they clash with the mental picture of a number of HN users.

I don't agree. I read HN constantly.

As far as I see, the areas where downvotes tend to occur are where they skew to opinion, or have some tidings to politics. In other areas, HN comments are generally high quality, and have a high signal-to-noise ratio.

I wouldn't also correlate expert opinions being downvoted as just because it would "clash with the mental picture of a number of HN users". That's a false correlation.

[johnisgood]

Well, if I were to talk about addiction and the "opioid crisis", I would most likely be down-voted (happened before) even though what I would say would be supported by tons of evidence. When I bother, I just recommend a credible book instead that talks about it and supports it with lots of evidence.

Actually, I am going to suggest it here just now because it is a great book and I would like more people to have a more accurate view on addiction: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/addiction-and-choice... (Addiction and Choice: Rethinking the relationship by Nick Heather and Gabriel Segal). It is from 2016, but most people's views on addiction is more than a few decades old, and all things considered, it is still fairly recent and all recent studies support these views. Please, if you are interested in addiction, have a read. :) It will get you up to date with it, and dispel lots of misconceptions that are still in the head of laymen.

[watwut]

Sociology, demographic and history are all pretty bad when they appear here.

ANnything that requires empathy for different demographics too. (Like old people.)