[saagarjha]

As the other commenters have mentioned, your "technical analysis" is very wrong here. I don't want to rehash the details that the others have mentioned about why you're wrong, but I do want to take a moment to say that what you've posted is pretty much perfectly embodies why many people hate "the orange site". It's these kind of faux-objective breakdowns that really hurt the site as a whole.

I'm willing to believe that you meant well with your comment, but I think you need to realize that even when you attempt to be objective bias creeps up readily. It starts with which stories you even decide to call out. You might feel that this person is fake or lacks the position that she says she has, but fact checking this inherently involves a selection process. Remember when Hacker News decided to "check" whether Katie Bouman had "actually worked on the black hole image"? This is where problems arise, because it's obvious this doesn't happen for everyone–just people that are thought to be "fakes", which is something that is selected by decidedly subjective criteria.

The second problem is that as you go through your analysis you bake in assumptions–in this case many that are wrong–and use it to arrive at an "objective" answer. Trying to reason from your armchair and present it under a guise of factualness is the biggest problem with any kind of "rationalist" analysis on the internet, including the kind that Hacker News is unfortunately known for. Here you literally have no idea of how Apple works internally, and at one point you openly claim that her personal Twitter doesn't demonstrate "a computer 'mindset'" (how can you possibly evaluate this objectively, even putting aside questions of why her Twitter is the right way to judge this?). Trying to submit it as "technical analysis" is just wrong, period.

It's good to be skeptical, and apply your own reasoning to things you read online. But try to be mindful of which things you're choosing to apply it to, as well as any flaws of your own you may be injecting when doing your own evaluation. Hacker News should be a place of healthy curiosity and discussion, but to do that we can't possibly accept this kind of content.

[szc]

I appreciate your response and agree with what you have said.

I cannot undo what I've said - it is clearly very incorrect. I would like to retract it.

Do you have any recommendations for getting better at critical thinking? How can it be practiced in a way that doesn't get you banned when making mistakes?

I really would like to avoid making these sorts of mistakes in the future.

[saagarjha]

The first, and possibly the most important part, of critical thinking is to recognize that you can't be right all the time, and embrace the instances where you're wrong as learning opportunities. I am glad to see that you seem to be pretty good at that already :)

Aside from that, I don't actually have anything concrete for you, unfortunately. What's worked for me is reflecting on my own biases and confidence in the information I am bringing to the conversation. In your case here it's clear that you started your comment with "I think this person is fake" and constructed a (tenuous) chain forwards to arrive there using assumptions rather than concrete information. We all do this to some extent, but specifically taking time to look for this kind of thing can help reduce the chances of it happening. Another skill you can learn (generally, by interacting with people you disagree with) is the ability to run your own devil's advocate on your comments. It sounds a bit strange to say it, but a lot of what I write gets much stronger pushback from myself before I even send it than it does once it's out for others to respond to.

As for practice, you can do this anytime you interact with anyone. As long as you are interacting in good faith, an open mind, and with genuine curiosity, people are unlikely to ban you. What you might want to keep in mind, however, is the context surrounding the conversation: getting something wrong about Java is regrettable, sure, but ultimately not a big deal. But outright calling someone a fraud is a pretty serious accusation, especially considering that certain groups of people are often more affected by this problem. When talking about real-life people, you should be very careful about the conclusions you draw and what their consequences may be.