<story><title>Hacker News Disease</title><url>http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattmaroon</author><text>Why ask a legal question to a bunch of non-lawyers? What good could come of that? There are only two possible responses:&lt;p&gt;1. You mistakenly come out thinking you were more informed than you were before you asked (dangerous).&lt;p&gt;2. You ignore it, in which case it&apos;s a bunch of wasted time.</text></item><item><author>icey</author><text>I think it&apos;s safe to say that people posting here have the assumption that they&apos;re talking to a bunch hackers giving their opinion, and not getting legal council.&lt;p&gt;The enforcement of pseudo political correctness by having to post IANAL at the front of every opinion that may have even remotely looked like legal advice is part of what degraded the quality of Slashdot&apos;s comments way back when, if you ask me. Of course you&apos;re not a lawyer, this is not a legal community.</text></item><item><author>mattmaroon</author><text>Well, I didn&apos;t mean it was literally a mental disease, that part was more tongue in cheek. But that&apos;s pretty funny. I am, at best, a very amateur psychologist.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;re right about credentials though for sure, but how do you judge an intricate argument on its merits when you just don&apos;t know much about the topic? For instance, read some of the articles for and against anthropogenic global warming written by scientists. I can find very convincing arguments on either side, full of lots of facts I probably can&apos;t easily verify and lots of conclusions drawn from them that I can&apos;t easily validate are sound logic, because I know so little about climate science.&lt;p&gt;Without me spending years rapidly converting my intelligence into domain specific knowledge, as the people making those arguments have done, how do I know which side to believe when I step into the voting booth? It&apos;s an epistemology problem, and a tough one.</text></item><item><author>pg</author><text>The curious thing is, this post is an instance of what it complains about.  Matt is not so far as I know a formally trained psychologist.  So to the extent he&apos;s right, he disproves his own argument.&lt;p&gt;The truth is, while intelligence isn&apos;t knowledge, it can be rapidly converted into it.  In fact that would do fairly well as a definition of intelligence.&lt;p&gt;And in any case, credentials aren&apos;t knowledge either.  Ultimately you have to judge any argument by what it says, not who said it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iamelgringo</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Why ask a legal question to a bunch of non-lawyers? What good could come of that? There are only two possible responses&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because chances are, some people here might have actually paid $200 an hour and talked to a lawyer about this subject.  I can&apos;t afford that on a regular basis for one off questions.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve read a number of posts asking for legal advice here, and a number of those posts contain the answer, &quot;Here&apos;s my opinion, but you _really_ need a lawyer, dude.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Case in point, I actually really enjoyed your legalesque advice on sweepstakes vs gambling in different states a while back.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://searchyc.com/sweepstakes+gambling+mattmaroon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://searchyc.com/sweepstakes+gambling+mattmaroon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m sure with your background in the gambling world, you&apos;ve had some exposure to those laws.  I took what you said at face value and with a big pinch of salt.  Should my site ever create a sweepstakes, I&apos;ll certainly be more cautious as a result of what you said, and I probably will pony up the Benjamins and talk to a lawyer about it.&lt;p&gt;You also have a good point in that anyone who makes legal decisions about things pertaining to their business because of what they read in an online forum has problems.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hacker News Disease</title><url>http://mattmaroon.com/2009/05/01/hacker-news-disease/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattmaroon</author><text>Why ask a legal question to a bunch of non-lawyers? What good could come of that? There are only two possible responses:&lt;p&gt;1. You mistakenly come out thinking you were more informed than you were before you asked (dangerous).&lt;p&gt;2. You ignore it, in which case it&apos;s a bunch of wasted time.</text></item><item><author>icey</author><text>I think it&apos;s safe to say that people posting here have the assumption that they&apos;re talking to a bunch hackers giving their opinion, and not getting legal council.&lt;p&gt;The enforcement of pseudo political correctness by having to post IANAL at the front of every opinion that may have even remotely looked like legal advice is part of what degraded the quality of Slashdot&apos;s comments way back when, if you ask me. Of course you&apos;re not a lawyer, this is not a legal community.</text></item><item><author>mattmaroon</author><text>Well, I didn&apos;t mean it was literally a mental disease, that part was more tongue in cheek. But that&apos;s pretty funny. I am, at best, a very amateur psychologist.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;re right about credentials though for sure, but how do you judge an intricate argument on its merits when you just don&apos;t know much about the topic? For instance, read some of the articles for and against anthropogenic global warming written by scientists. I can find very convincing arguments on either side, full of lots of facts I probably can&apos;t easily verify and lots of conclusions drawn from them that I can&apos;t easily validate are sound logic, because I know so little about climate science.&lt;p&gt;Without me spending years rapidly converting my intelligence into domain specific knowledge, as the people making those arguments have done, how do I know which side to believe when I step into the voting booth? It&apos;s an epistemology problem, and a tough one.</text></item><item><author>pg</author><text>The curious thing is, this post is an instance of what it complains about.  Matt is not so far as I know a formally trained psychologist.  So to the extent he&apos;s right, he disproves his own argument.&lt;p&gt;The truth is, while intelligence isn&apos;t knowledge, it can be rapidly converted into it.  In fact that would do fairly well as a definition of intelligence.&lt;p&gt;And in any case, credentials aren&apos;t knowledge either.  Ultimately you have to judge any argument by what it says, not who said it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pchristensen</author><text>3.  You have an idea of the ballpark you&apos;re playing in instead of being entirely clueless.  You have somewhat of a clue to talk about the next time you see your lawyer.</text></comment>