Comment by knighthack
5 years ago
> You will see some well grounded, expert opinions here down-voted into oblivion simply because they clash with the mental picture of a number of HN users.
I don't agree. I read HN constantly.
As far as I see, the areas where downvotes tend to occur are where they skew to opinion, or have some tidings to politics. In other areas, HN comments are generally high quality, and have a high signal-to-noise ratio.
I wouldn't also correlate expert opinions being downvoted as just because it would "clash with the mental picture of a number of HN users". That's a false correlation.
Well, if I were to talk about addiction and the "opioid crisis", I would most likely be down-voted (happened before) even though what I would say would be supported by tons of evidence. When I bother, I just recommend a credible book instead that talks about it and supports it with lots of evidence.
Actually, I am going to suggest it here just now because it is a great book and I would like more people to have a more accurate view on addiction: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/addiction-and-choice... (Addiction and Choice: Rethinking the relationship by Nick Heather and Gabriel Segal). It is from 2016, but most people's views on addiction is more than a few decades old, and all things considered, it is still fairly recent and all recent studies support these views. Please, if you are interested in addiction, have a read. :) It will get you up to date with it, and dispel lots of misconceptions that are still in the head of laymen.
Sociology, demographic and history are all pretty bad when they appear here.
ANnything that requires empathy for different demographics too. (Like old people.)