<story><title>Burned House Horizon</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Ansil849</author><text>&amp;gt; Tangential to this article, but can I just say that this is HN at its best. Random, curious, snippets of learning on topics that I can’t imagine hearing about anywhere else.&lt;p&gt;The submission, I agree is the best of HN; the comments, however, are the worst.&lt;p&gt;Tons of &amp;#x27;bikeshedding&amp;#x27; comments offering flippant uninformed analyses that belittle established and well-researched theories. By offering &amp;#x27;back of a cocktail napkin&amp;#x27; comments like &amp;#x27;I think such and such theory doesn&amp;#x27;t get enough attention because of my random opinion&amp;#x27;, or &amp;#x27;I think such and such likely happened, based on me just ruminating about this for a few minutes, versus doing years of research on&amp;#x27;; the comments are tacitly disrespecting the work researchers whose specialty this is put into formulating theories.&lt;p&gt;We HN users need to learn to just say &amp;#x27;we don&amp;#x27;t know&amp;#x27;, instead of playing internet experts in every single discipline a given submission is about.</text></item><item><author>Townley</author><text>Tangential to this article, but can I just say that this is HN at its best. Random, curious, snippets of learning on topics that I can’t imagine hearing about anywhere else. It’s a pure love of knowledge that leads thousands of people to spend Friday night reading a largely useless Wikipedia entry on house burning just because it’s mystery</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scribu</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t see any &amp;quot;belittling&amp;quot; comments here, except perhaps yours.&lt;p&gt;People enjoy talking about the stuff they read. Discussion is part of how one learns.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t find value in reading non-expert commentary, then don&amp;#x27;t read it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Burned House Horizon</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_house_horizon</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Ansil849</author><text>&amp;gt; Tangential to this article, but can I just say that this is HN at its best. Random, curious, snippets of learning on topics that I can’t imagine hearing about anywhere else.&lt;p&gt;The submission, I agree is the best of HN; the comments, however, are the worst.&lt;p&gt;Tons of &amp;#x27;bikeshedding&amp;#x27; comments offering flippant uninformed analyses that belittle established and well-researched theories. By offering &amp;#x27;back of a cocktail napkin&amp;#x27; comments like &amp;#x27;I think such and such theory doesn&amp;#x27;t get enough attention because of my random opinion&amp;#x27;, or &amp;#x27;I think such and such likely happened, based on me just ruminating about this for a few minutes, versus doing years of research on&amp;#x27;; the comments are tacitly disrespecting the work researchers whose specialty this is put into formulating theories.&lt;p&gt;We HN users need to learn to just say &amp;#x27;we don&amp;#x27;t know&amp;#x27;, instead of playing internet experts in every single discipline a given submission is about.</text></item><item><author>Townley</author><text>Tangential to this article, but can I just say that this is HN at its best. Random, curious, snippets of learning on topics that I can’t imagine hearing about anywhere else. It’s a pure love of knowledge that leads thousands of people to spend Friday night reading a largely useless Wikipedia entry on house burning just because it’s mystery</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chucky</author><text>This seems like a more general problem with the Internet or even of people (and in particular men of a more technical and nerdy persuasion, in my own experience).&lt;p&gt;The majority have nothing of value to say, so will post nothing. The only ones who can realistically offer comments on this article are experts and those who will offer &amp;quot;back of a cocktail napkin&amp;quot; comments (as you put it), and the latter group is so much larger than the former.</text></comment>