[ufmace]

I'd counter that only on Hacker News would you find somebody who insists that a single person must be right about everything about a complex subject because he has some fancy titles. In other words, appeal to authority.

Yeah no. All of the no. Reality is king. If somebody with some fancy titles and a few podcasts tells you that they sky is green when anybody can walk out the door and see it, are you going to believe him? Authority figures and those with supposedly prestigious titles are sometimes completely wrong, and nobody should be believed blindly.

But those figures are usually at least trying. I think rather less of the person whose knowledge consists of listening to a half dozen podcasts from one guy and believes that qualifies him to go around the internet lecturing people about how ignorant they supposedly are because they don't bow down to the one self-proclaimed expert that they somehow stumbled upon.