[_delirium]

Here's a long discussion thread from mid-2012 sort of on that subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747

Paul Graham also mentioned somewhere that he's been collecting examples of "middlebrow dismissal" as a common kind of default response, in an attempt to understand/combat the phenomenon.

[mnicole]

Like a commenter upthread mentioned, I think it's a combination of that and people upvoting names they recognize or that the community knows as/sees as "voices of" the community. They just take their word for it given past posts, rather than having it occur to them that maybe this topic isn't actually their forte. Additionally, someone taking the time to write out rebuttals just to be downvoted and "told off" with pointless and degrading one-sentence rebuttals is pretty pathetic.