The silent majority of experts (2012)

>If I want to learn Rust, I don't go to a Rust forum, I look up the Rust documentation. If I want to know how to do something Rust, I search for the specific information. Oftentimes, my issue is a faulty assumption about how something works or not knowing the exact name of the method I want to call. Once again, that's not something I need personal interaction for. The very last thing I do, is ask people on the internet. Not out of any misguided misanthropy, but just because it's hardly ever needed.

How about scenerios like: you have 3 solutions to one problem, but you want opinion about which one is the best?

For example endless discussions about OOP / DDD / Microservices / SOLID / FP, etc.

>Then treated your opinion as a fact that would be crazy to be argued against.

That wasn't intended

My opinion is still just my opinion. I've spent years on various reddits/discords/hns/forums and I do really believe that you can get a lot out of those discussions

Internet here is just medium, it may be similar to talk with your colleagues, attending debate, etc.

>> As I grow older, I see a huge divide between those who have/had parental support vs those who don't/didn't.

This really gets lost in the traditional nuclear family argument. From personal experience, having both biological parents in the same house doesn't mean a healthy family environment, and no amount of moralizing is going to wish it into being.

Also overlooked is the impact one can have through simple acts of support and empowerment.

Had a High School teacher that let me into a photojournalism class that was already full (the school admins denied my schedule transfer after we had moved to the 'correct' side of the street (literally) and into an upper middle class school district). This teacher simply allowed me to be socially-weird-awkward-me and set a basic structure to thrive in (eventually winning state and national awards with the school newspaper). By giving me (and others) a chance to show we belonged and could compete helped build my self-esteem after it had been consistently torn down at home.

Didn't know it then, and doubt that teacher has any idea, but it changed the course of my life. I think I'm more a practical realist or even a cynic about life and society than I am optimistic - still, that experience reminds me to try and build others up and pay that empowerment forward

Horrified is a bit strong, but you have a point. There's a few themes that are strongly popular or unpopular by some type of community consensus. In those cases, it doesn't seem to matter what you have to say as minds are already made up.

Another interesting effect I experienced is regarding expert credibility.

When I found this place, I was impressed. I figured the world's top engineers are posting. I see them writing about very advanced topics I know little about. Comments are well written, and combined this creates trust.

But there's been incidents. I'm the type of person that has an extremely deep level of knowledge in about 2 or 3 very niche topics that frankly normally nobody cares about. I know that sounds pretentious, but for the sake of argument, let's accept it for now.

By chance, very infrequently, an article and discussion may be about those extremely niche topics. And now things are falling apart. As before, seemingly insightful professional-level comments are written. The problem is, 70% of them are wrong. I'm not talking "different opinion", I mean factually wrong, that's not how this works, and you seem to have no idea what you're talking about.

I imagine to the outsider not in the niche reading along: interesting expert discussion. Just as I was reading about all those topics I know little about.

This raises the obvious question: when I read impressive comments regarding topics I know little about, how many are actually trustworthy and accurate expertise versus how many are just well written made up nonsense?

This question hits me hard because it kind of forces you to become skeptical and cynical by default, which I don't want to be.

You are reading an online discussion about how online discussions lack value.

I have a colleague similar to that.

Although it's not a popular term, he truly is a super architect and 10 x coder. You can throw any problem at him and he'll solve it, fast and with quality. As part of this, he explores new technologies and seems to master them in hours or days at most, and it all looks so effortless. Even more rare for such a powerhouse of tech skill, he's no nerd. An excellent communicator with deep business insight.

I often wonder about him, if you can do all that...if you can manage such absurd scope and complexity in your mind whilst it seems you're not even breaking a sweat...doesn't that mean you can do anything? Anything at all?

Anyway, his online exposure: he has an email address, but don't expect a response. He has a smartphone but I never see him use it. He has no social media.

If he would post online, he'd inevitably be recognized as a guru. But he won't, he goes home to his family. Not just smart, also wise.