Comment by jaffee
21 days ago
Yegge was an early employee at Amazon and has been writing influential blog posts and developing massive software projects since before this guy was born. But sure, in his retirement he's pivoted to pump and dump schemes.
Why is HN so susceptible to appeals to authority and constant mild-severe deification of other humans?
You’re confused about what an “appeal to authority” actually is.
An appeal to authority is saying “X is true because this person said so.” That’s not what’s happening here. What’s happening is people treating expert opinion as evidence, not a verdict.
You say you don’t want appeals to authority, then you immediately offer your own opinion and expect people to take it seriously. Why? On what basis? Because it’s your judgment?
That’s the funny part. The moment you state an opinion, you’re asking others to weigh your credibility against someone else’s. You don’t escape authority, you just replace it with yourself.
Yegge’s opinion has weight because of his track record. It can still be wrong. Mine can be wrong. Yours can be wrong. That’s why people compare opinions instead of pretending they live in a vacuum.
Ignoring expert opinion entirely isn’t “independent thinking.” It’s just choosing to be uninformed and calling it a virtue.
I would’ve taken this response more seriously if it weren’t written with LLM assistance.
Regardless, it’s a lot of words to again say “they are famous, so consider them more seriously” despite the obvious scam being perpetuated via crypto. The appeal to authority is you stating their credentials first, and none of the deductions you claim one should make from merit.
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I don't get it, either. There's an entire class of people on here who just run around looking for anyone to lead them.
I had a guy crash out after I told him that "so and so said Thing was good" was not sufficient to say whether Thing was good or not.
I told him he needed to develop enough skill to determine that for himself or he'd constantly fall for hype.
My dude pasted a ChatGPT list of engineers who had ever said anything about LLMs and was like ARE THEY ALL WRONG??
... did you listen to nothing I said? lol
You’re still not responding to what I actually said.
No one claimed “X said it’s good, therefore it’s good.” The point was that ignoring what experienced people say entirely is just as dumb as following them blindly.
You told me to “think for myself.” Great. Thinking for yourself doesn’t mean pretending expert opinion doesn’t exist. It means weighing it against your own understanding. That’s literally how learning works.
Calling it a “ChatGPT list” is just you dodging the question. If those people are wrong, explain why. If some are right for bad reasons, name them. Laughing and changing the subject isn’t an argument.
You’re shadowboxing a strawman and congratulating yourself for winning.
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Plenty of pump and dumpers are already wealthy what's your point? He's either doing it or not, his past employment isn't dictating it one way or another. His ability to "influence" through writing is salient to the discussion at hand, not some mitigating factor.