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The silent majority of experts (2012)

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Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#181

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

planarhobbit wrote: post #2

> Yes, there are many people who blog and otherwise publicly discuss development methodologies and what they're working on, but there are even more people who don't. Blogging takes time, for example, and not everyone enjoys it. Other people are working on commercial products and can't divulge the inner workings of their code. There’s a subset of this silent majority who tried to contribute to discussion platforms but…

I do it for myself[0]. It helps me to think about my methodologies, when I articulate them.

Much of my work is basically "muscle memory." I do a great deal of stuff without a thought.

This discussion reminds me of this posting, from three years ago[1].

[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19877916

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#182

Post by gradschoolfail »

I think the best counterexample of this, much more so than HN, is MathOverflow. Recognized experts, like Terence Tao and of the respective subfields, aren’t silent at all. They speak seriously, and more importantly, sincerely and humbly. This is less true for the other science & (trad) engineering stackexchanges, but still quite true.

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#183

Post by zionic »

d23 wrote: post #35
maxk42 wrote: post #25

I think about this constantly while reading Hacker News. So many articles and comments by people whose level of enthusiasm doesn't match their experience. Try to voice a comment that goes against the flow of that enthusiasm and you'll be downvoted to oblivion, even if you speak with more experience and context than the masses. I'm horrified by some of the stuff I see here and feel like it's often useless to speak out…

I've become a lot more willing to burn my karma on here as of late. Not because I want to, per se, but what's the point of getting it if you can't spend it occasionally when you really have something you need to say?

>but what's the point of getting it if you can't spend it occasionally when you really have something you need to say?

Because if you do it enough you’ll find yourself with a 3 comment per hour rate limit or shadowban. The moderation here actively discourages meaningful discussion in favor of sterile communication. It’s boring.

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#184

Post by simonebrunozzi »

insightcheck wrote: post #6

Yep. On a related note, when I was younger, I searched for advice from experts for how to develop expertise in studying and productivity on Reddit. It led to lots of highly-upvoted advice (including stuff like supplements, largely with few real benefits besides placebo), popular blogs by influencers (like Scott Young), and popular self-help books. However, the actual experts I knew in high school who later went on to…

I came back to this thread the day after reading it, specifically to upvote your comment. It seems quite obvious, but it's brilliant nonetheless.

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#185

Post by zionic »

RealityVoid wrote: post #107
d23 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've become a lot more willing to burn my karma on here as of late. Not because I want to, per se, but what's the point of getting it if you can't spend it occasionally when you really have something you need to say?

That, and, well, there isn't _really_ a cost to burning Karma, it's all the same anyway. I find it much better and more interesting to speak truthfully (while not being an asshole!) than just to go with the hive mind.

>I find it much better and more interesting to speak truthfully (while not being an asshole!)

But that’s just it, the truth will always be offensive to someone. You’ll always be the asshole to “someone”. If we structure discourse around never being perceived as an asshole by anyone we effectively yield the zeitgeist to whoever is the biggest crybaby.

It’s not just this site, this line of thinking has infected most western dialog.

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#186

Post by gradschoolfail »

fleddr wrote: post #106
maxk42 wrote: post #25

I think about this constantly while reading Hacker News. So many articles and comments by people whose level of enthusiasm doesn't match their experience. Try to voice a comment that goes against the flow of that enthusiasm and you'll be downvoted to oblivion, even if you speak with more experience and context than the masses. I'm horrified by some of the stuff I see here and feel like it's often useless to speak out…

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 writi…

Related: I’m by no means the worlds recognized expert in anything, but having known some technical experts and seen the communities they live in, it seems that experts tend not to disagree wildly with one another. Well, when they do, you can be quite sure you are witnessing a new field of technics being born!

FWIw, contrarianism has kind of become, in technical forums, a proxy for correctness and value.

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#187

Post by acover »

zionic wrote: post #185
RealityVoid wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and, well, there isn't _really_ a cost to burning Karma, it's all the same anyway. I find it much better and more interesting to speak truthfully (while not being an asshole!) than just to go with the hive mind.

>I find it much better and more interesting to speak truthfully (while not being an asshole!) But that’s just it, the truth will always be offensive to someone. You’ll always be the asshole to “someone”. If we structure discourse around never being perceived as an asshole by anyone we effectively yield the zeitgeist to whoever is the biggest crybaby. It’s not just this site, this line of thinking has infected most we…

I don't think that's what he means. Clearly sometimes you just upset people, however you can be careful to minimize it.

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#188

Post by jollybean »

borroka wrote: post #157
jollybean wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you mean, but let's not confuse 'productive' with 'lucrative'. Even a lot of people with seemingly 'good jobs', I would argue, are not necessarily providing a ton of material value. For example, I'm coming to the point where I believe the vast majority of 'Data Science' is 'Business Academia' and a giant pile of over-optimization and busy work. The surpluses are concentrated in groups that have power, but…

Data Science is a poor term (unfortunately, the right one, statistics or statistical modeling, was deemed to be "unsexy"), but the expertise is certainly very relevant in today's data-driven businesses. Think predictions, forecasting, clustering, A/B experiments, recommender systems. Yes, some parts of what's commonly called Data Science can also be called Machine Learning, then maybe Deep Learning can be called AI,…

'Over optimization' means that a lot recommendation systems, A/B tests, forecasts in business are nearly irrelevant, or rubbish i.e. a lot of cost for very marginal value add. Such a small margin that it's within variance of what might even be considered a positive outcome.

There are few business that have the kind scale in which a lot of that will be hugely useful (at high degrees of sophistication), let alone, afford the teams of researchers. Most of the optimizations are low hanging fruit which can be achieved via some kind of basic algorithm.

I believe you could nuke Snowflake and all their giant lakes of historical data and the world would not skip a beat.

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#189

Post by [deleted] »

jollybean wrote: post #132
insightcheck wrote: post #6

Yep. On a related note, when I was younger, I searched for advice from experts for how to develop expertise in studying and productivity on Reddit. It led to lots of highly-upvoted advice (including stuff like supplements, largely with few real benefits besides placebo), popular blogs by influencers (like Scott Young), and popular self-help books. However, the actual experts I knew in high school who later went on to…

" Less in one's control, their parents were financially successful or were in competitive positions" Yeah that's 50% right there and 'learning strategies' is only a part of it. The other 'strategy' is 'being rich' or 'connected' or knowing a few arcane insights that do not amount to 'competitive strategies' so much as 'inside knowledge'. "Long story short: there is absolutely a culture of improvement that is primaril…

[deleted]

Re: The silent majority of experts (2012)

#190

Post by duxup »

insightcheck wrote: post #6

Yep. On a related note, when I was younger, I searched for advice from experts for how to develop expertise in studying and productivity on Reddit. It led to lots of highly-upvoted advice (including stuff like supplements, largely with few real benefits besides placebo), popular blogs by influencers (like Scott Young), and popular self-help books. However, the actual experts I knew in high school who later went on to…

The internet expert phenomenon is brutal.

I'll ask a question online and get a superficial answer. It gets all the upvotes or whatever because everyone else has heard some of the stuff in the reply. It's ... not always wrong, but also very generic / not REALLY an answer.

I really want to say "Yeah I watch the Discovery Channel too bro... I saw that episode, but that really doesn't answer my question, those circumstances don't necessarily cause that result." (Discovery Channel is probably outdated but it is often what I want to say).

I often come to HN because you can ask such a question and generally folks think it through a few steps before answering. Elsewhere it is internet expert hell...

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