YHK - yet another hacker news clone

People who know the most often sound the least certain

30 points virde 1 hour ago 12 comments

ranger_danger 52 minutes ago | parent

"As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding." -Sloman and Fernbach

Also, the Dunning-Kruger effect still applies to smart people. You don't stop when you are estimating your ability correctly; as you learn more, you gain more awareness of your ignorance and continue being conservative with your self-estimates.

acheron 40 minutes ago | parent

Reminder that the “Dunning-Kruger effect” is not real. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49160437

readthenotes1 28 minutes ago | parent

That reminds me of the old saying " who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

atoav 5 minutes ago | parent

[delayed]

gjtz 50 minutes ago | parent

Dude is using AI for a slop-post that complains that AI pundits are not persuasive enough and should take acting classes.

Really, the one thing missing in 2026 is more and better AI propaganda!

Grimeton 49 minutes ago | parent

>The people who know the most often sound the least certain

As was beautifully demonstrated in this article.

fasterik 30 minutes ago | parent

It's revealing that the author thinks that a podcast is the ideal venue to reason through complex technical issues.

The "like" phenomenon is less of a verbal fluency issue and more of a cultural one. You can listen to someone smart like Donald Knuth speak and he will definitely stammer and stutter a lot, but he doesn't use filler words. "Like" is more of a West Coast or California thing and I also find it annoying and distracting.

throwrioawfo 28 minutes ago | parent

Not sure I agree with this. It's often true in SF, but that is largely an affectation, people imitating people like Peter Thiel etc. But not as true elsewhere

majormajor 23 minutes ago | parent

In medicine you want the doctor who's willing to admit "we don't understand the exact mechanism here" + also who wants more details from you before making a decision, vs confidently brushing you off and writing a prescription as fast as possible.

Lawyers will usually give much less-certain answers to questions like "is it legal to do X" than lay people as well because they're aware of much more nuance in the law. (Not referring to the wishy-washy corporate-law answers given to avoid liability here, but in outside convo about issues.)

samstokes 20 minutes ago | parent

  The best lack all conviction, while the worst
  Are full of passionate intensity.
- W.B. Yeats

boris 9 minutes ago | parent

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Bertrand Russell

InfiniteAscent 6 minutes ago | parent

Just a little more effort and STEM people will discover the social sciences. Cute.