HN is a strongly self-selected group of people, with rules against bad-faith arguments. But you can find groups like that in real life too.
The special thing about online is that when an obscure topic comes up, someone from the 0.0001% of people with deep knowledge of that subject can chime in. That dynamic basically never happens IRL, because you need a million eyeballs.
The special thing about online is that when an obscure topic comes up, someone from the 0.0001% of people with deep knowledge of that subject can chime in. That dynamic basically never happens IRL, because you need a million eyeballs.
Like, outside of NASA, where would you encounter such a cluster of people with specific knowledge as in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31136285 ?