[pcloadletter_]

I've been thinking about this recently with internet comments on here, reddit, etc. There are very few topics on which I'd consider myself an expert, but whenever one comes up, the "top" comment (often something contrarian/snarky) is always significantly incorrect.

[sweeter]

100%. It's extra disastrous when the topic is polarizing or charged. The topic of US politics for example will very often work off of some false dichotomy or fundamentally flawed premise and twist into some horribly deformed conversation.

Try telling someone that "the process of voting doesn't work that way" or try to clear up some common misconception about the economy or crime and it just doesn't go anywhere. People have a lot of false assurance to back up their mode of thinking and it is nearly impossible to break that. In fact, there is an entire economy in vindicating people's beliefs which makes people even more assured.

I'm convinced the only proper stance on complex ideas, concepts and topics is that we shouldn't have the hubris to think that we completely understand something or even have a solid grasp.

[randomdata]

Keep in mind that people don't talk about that which they believe they completely understand. When someone reaches a satisfiable conclusion in understanding, they lose interest in the subject and move on to something else.

The political discourse around polarizing topics isn't disastrous. It takes place exactly because people realize that they are complex issues not fully understood, and are talking about it in hopes that more information will come to light to help them reach a greater understanding. This is why the more complex the issue, the more it will keep coming up over and over.

[human_person]

This is one of the most optimistic but realistic perspectives I’ve heard about online discussions in a long time. Thank you.

[Anotheroneagain]

Let me offer a dark one:

human beings are bad at gathering information, inferring the right things from it, and responsibly passing it on to others. It is incredible what we’ve achieved in spite of this

All was achieved when it was widely not so, and by people not affected by this.

[walledstance]

Thank you. This is a refreshing take on much of human interaction.

As a teacher in middle school I see this demonstrated throughout my classes. I have even started collecting data points on how many times a week a topic or topic adjacent to another topic crops up as discussions in my class. There are almost always heated discussions, but in the end we typically come to an understanding about facts or how we can’t truly know fully situations. There are of course some holds outs, but for the majority we find understanding or compromise.

[throwaway7ahgb]

This is a good point and I'm certainly subject to this.

I read the most about topics that have no clear objective truth. Mostly around Sociology, Psychology and Politics.

Engineering principles I have a deep knowledge of do not attract my attention other than to clear up someone's misconceptions.

[shostack]

With regards to politics, wasn't that found to be a Russian active measures tactic where they'd get low quality or inaccurate comments up voted to the top, down vote actual informative comments, and flood their up voted comments with low quality replies and threads to push the informative stuff so low that users likely will give up scrolling before they see it?

[bdowling]

No need for foreign operatives, we do it ourselves.

We treat thumbs up/down as agree/disagree, whether we're supposed to or not.

[piva00]

They just enhance it, the division and polarisation already exist, what Russia has learned is that if they press those buttons hard enough they make our democracies ungovernable.

They aren't causing it, just furthering our issues for their own goals, and unfortunately it's working pretty well.

[rconti]

I think this is a significant contribution to imposter syndrome. It took me a long time in life to realize that the confidence some people have in their opinions rarely comes from true expertise; rather, it comes from their personality.

[throwaway7ahgb]

Don't let the opposite add too much weight.

Meaning, don't believe that all confident people are bullshiting their way. The best are people that have both expertise and confidence.

This is one reason I like to stay at a company for many years, the expertise boosts my confidence more than linearly (if that makes sense).

[roenxi]

Are you claiming expertise in computing or non-computing topics? HN tends to be - as we might expect - quite good at computers and bad/average [0] at everything else.

I'd assume it is the same logic as comparative advantages in economics; it doesn't make sense for communities to become experts in everything. The only caveat is that people in the chattering communities (eg, journalists, influencers, celebrities) are some of the last to look to for informed opinions on reality since their speciality is attracting attention and telling stories rather than anything linked to success in the physical or academic worlds. They're often clever, just not involved in complex topics.

[0] average = bad. Goes to show how catastrophic dictatorships are that a democracy can consistently outperform one.

[jfengel]

Democracies function on the notion that most people have no idea what they're talking about, and vote randomly. The few who do know what they're talking about will all vote the same way, so most of the time the right answer will prevail.

There are a lot of problems with that assumption. Thus far it seems to work out better than the alternatives, but we'll have to see if that continues to hold.

[bee_rider]

I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty sure the hope is that people are reasonably well informed. And anyway, we’re voting on representatives, not specific issues, for the most part. (I mean clearly referenda exist, but they aren’t the main thing). Or we’re voting on matters of preference, in which case the populace is essentially correct whatever their decision.

[caseyohara]

> Democracies function on the notion that most people have no idea what they're talking about, and vote randomly.

Can you expand on this? I have no idea what you mean. In what way do most people vote randomly?

[dartos]

The theory is:

In aggregate, the result of uninformed people voting would be more or less the same as voting randomly.

Not that people vote without thinking.

[em-bee]

but that doesn't take into account the influence false reporting in the media has on them. badly or falsely informed is much worse than uninformed.

[corimaith]

Yes, but false reporting isn't coming from just one side is it, it's something all sides can participate in. The way the education system is right now along with societal expectations, people are going to be misinformed rather than admitting to be uninformed.

[dartos]

It does. All sides engage in propaganda, that’s the game.

If someone is not knowledgeable they will likely buy into some propaganda.

At an extremely high and oversimplified level, that’s more or less random.

It’s a thought framework, not a rigorous explanation

[roenxi]

In the absolute sense yes, but this thread was framed in comparison to undemocratic systems. The media aren't biased in the direction of making their host country worse off, so their biases aren't negative in that sense. We'd get better outcomes if people in the public discourse held themselves to higher standards; but their low standards don't stop the tendency of marginal voters to bias on rational decision making.

[jfengel]

That is indeed one of the problems I mentioned in the last paragraph. We are stressing the limits of how much misinformation democracy can handle. We might well be over it.

[lapcat]

> HN tends to be - as we might expect - quite good at computers and bad/average [0] at everything else.

Who's we? I don't expect that at all. "computers" is such a broad subject, with countless areas of specialty, and in my experience HN commenters are often, all too often, quite ignorant of my particular areas of specialty, though that doesn't stop them from overconfidentally asserting falsehoods about those subjects.

[ThunderSizzle]

Ignorant and arrogant. Hard to dialog with someone who embodies both, and I'd agree most of my readings on here include ignorance and arrogance.

[slim]

I like the fact this applies to the comment you are commenting on since it is now the top comment :)