[tasuki]

> if I give someone inaccurate medical advice, that is not only false, it is false and harmful

I don't understand what's so special about legal and medical advice that it's so singled out in certain parts of the world. All kinds of advice people give can be harmful, such as eg cooking and dietary advice. Yet it's ok to tell people how to cook, but for whatever reason it's not ok to tell people to make sure they stay well-hydrated when they have a cold.

[Edit:] But gee does the rest of the article hit hard. The "missing mood" in particular.

[ChadNauseam]

I think it's hard to do significant harm with bad cooking advice. Unless the advice was absolutely terrible like "eat only raw potatoes". But that's pretty rare. On the other hand many people can think of someone who was harmed seriously by bad medical advice. Steve Jobs is a famous example. (I'm the author of the article)

[squigz]

Generally speaking, bad medical or legal advice has much higher potential to have far-reaching consequences - much more so than giving bad cooking advice.

[tasuki]

But also good medical advice has a high potential to have far-reaching positive consequences. Telling people not to forget to hydrate shouldn't be controversial. Shouldn't we be on the side of good advice rather than on the side of no legal or medical advice?

[squigz]

Sure - and a really good indicator for whether the advice is good is, "is this person educated and licensed to talk about this?"

To say nothing of whether that person has the necessary - often lengthy - context necessary to provide good advice.