upvote
I think there's an important distinction of smug better-knowing instances.

"I have unique insight as a non-expert that all experts miss and the entire field is blind to" -> usually nonsense

"I think in this specific instance academically qualified people are missing something that's obvious to me" -> often true.

reply
There’s also the possibility that some of us actually, you know…have subject-matter expertise.
reply
Doubtful, in your case, no?

"Nanomolar" is a dissolved-species concentration unit. It doesn't apply to spectroscopic particle counting.

reply
Uh, yeah. I know what the word means. See my response to the other comment where you say the same thing.
reply
Spiritual equivalent of a life sciences forum discovering memory safety, one person who wrote code for a bit saying they wrote a memory bug in C once, then someone clutching pearls about why all programmers irresponsibly write memory unsafe code given it has a global impact.

Been here 16 years, it's always an adventure seeing whether stuff like this falls into:

A) Polite interest that doesn't turn into self-keyword-association

B) Science journalism bad

C) Can you believe no one else knows what they're doing.

(A) almost never happens, has to avoid being top 10 on front page and/or be early morning/late night for North America and Europe. (i.e. most of the audience)

(B) is reserved for physics and math.

(C) is default leftover.

Weekends are horrible because you'll get a "harshin' the vibe" penalty if you push back at all. People will pick at your link but not the main one and treat you like you're argumentative. (i.e. 'you're taking things too seriously' but a thoughtful person's version)

reply
> Spiritual equivalent of a life sciences forum discovering memory safety, one person who wrote code for a bit saying they wrote a memory bug in C once, then someone clutching pearls about why programmers irresponsibly write memory unsafe code given it has a global impact.

I used to be a code monkey, I wrote systems software at megacorps, and still can't understand why so many programmers irresponsibly write memory unsafe code given it has a global impact.

So Poe's law applies here.

reply
That's the analogy working as intended: the answer to "why do programmers still write memory-unsafe code" is the same shape as "why do microplastics researchers still wear gloves." The real answer is boring and full of tradeoffs. The HN thread version skips to indignation: "they never thought of contamination so ipso facto all the research is suspect"

(to go a bit further, in case it's confusing: both you and I agree on "why do people opt-in to memunsafe code in 2026? There’s no reason to" - yet, we also understand why Linux/Android/Windows/macOS/ffmpeg/ls aren't 100% $INSERT_MEM_SAFE_LANGUAGE yet, and in fact, most new written for them is memunsafe)

reply
You’re ignoring the article to grind your axe.
reply
What do you mean? (Genuinely seems you replied to wrong comment to me. What axe? What’s in the article that’s been ignored?)
reply
You joke, but given that SWE/AI researchers literally invented AI that does everything else for them and is often super-human at intelligence across most things, I would unironically prefer the opinion of the creator of such a system over most others for most things.
reply
I cooked a steak yesterday therefore I am an expert in biology.

Creating a user interface for the world’s knowledge doesn’t make the developer an expert on the knowledge that the interface holds in its database. Regardless of how sophisticated that interface might be.

reply
'I disagree, therefore I am an expert in skepticism.' The sword cuts both ways.
reply
No it doesn’t. What you’re describing is an oxymoron.
reply