Toxic experts (2017)

33a

Weirdly anti-intellectual. I'm not sure what the subtle nitpick the expert brought up, but from reading the comments I gathered that they correctly pointed out that appending to a vector is merely amortized O(1), not truly worst case constant time. This is actually kind of a big deal and is an important distinction to make. As a corollary, it means you can't just use a vector as a constant time sequence data structure in a real time application unless you preallocate it.

werla

This is from 2017 and didn't really age well. Posts like these prepared the ground for the takeover of CPython by non-experts, narcissistic bureaucrats and corporations, all of whom pretend to represent the unwashed masses. As many politicians from Pol Pot to Mussolini have done. That is always what happens when you get rid of the experts. Ruthless mediocrity takes over!

_dain_

>An anonymous coward named “pyon” said I should be ashamed. They pointed out a detail of algorithmic analysis that I had not mentioned. It’s a detail that I had never encountered before. I think it’s an interesting detail, but not one that needed to be included. on the one hand it's a nasty thing to say he should be "ashamed" for not mentioning it. on the other, it is a little strange he hadn't come across the "amortized O(whatever)" concept before. esp if doing a talk about it.. neither of them come across well here.

0x20cowboy

This describes just about everyone who works at a FANNG company or in the valley. The system rewards acting like this so it’s better to not get bent out of shape about it just focus on actually intelligent people.

tpoacher

If anything, this sounds like a toxic person trying to project or provoke. It reads like a character assassination piece superficially presented as nuanced philosophy, and we don't even have the actual exchange, only this person's account of it, which we are meant to trust in terms of both wording and demonstrated intent. "If you have nothing kind to say" as the quote goes ...

eviks

> Points of correctness are useless without points of connection. There are two points in a connection, and one way to sever it is to follow author's advice to "ignore them". Or you could try to learn and maybe even engage. (also, the "non-coward" way would be to actually link to the comment so that we could try to understand how toxic / irrelevant expert peons are)

rvz

> They pointed out a detail of algorithmic analysis that I had not mentioned. It’s a detail that I had never encountered before. I think it’s an interesting detail, but not one that needed to be included. Who cares? We have a clear term for this and it is called "point scoring". Just give the rest of the group further reading material if they want to study it in their own time and to not talk over minute details. So just dismiss them with a "Great point" remark and tell everyone else to read the reading list later. Job done.

rpkla

Dan Luu, the submitter, has not been kind to Ed Zitron lately. I suppose the allowed dose of "toxicity" is proportional to one's popularity in the tech world.

llm_nerd

An important life lesson: Some people are assholes all of the time; All people are assholes some of the time. Is it really such a big deal? Maybe someone was having a bad day. Maybe this is an argument they had with a peer and it triggered a peeve. Whatever. Tangential, but if I had to rank toxicity, someone going overboard at being a pedant in the easily censored comments under a blog post ranks far below overreacting and clutching pearls to try to pillorize and rile a torch mob, hoping to put them on blast and make them pay for their transgression. The latter is significantly more toxic, and it is what absolutely destroys communities.

ivansmf

Whatever you think of the original discussion, I want to share two lessons I learned, in the hopes they'll help someone: (1) never wrestle a pig. You both end up covered in mud and the pig likes it; and (2) if you're trying to teach or share, argue for the audience. If you try to level with the antagonistic person, people watching from outside will have a hard time differentiating you from them. If the response is not about helping others, well, my sarcastic side will advise you to argue as much as possible with strangers on the Internet. That's what life is for.

rglover

Always consider the source. When someone rags on me or my work in a way I interpret as aggressive or dismissive, I make a point to go look at what they're up to. More often than not: nothing, or, something that screams "oh, your problem with me is despite you knowing things I don't, I also know things that you don't." I agree with the general sentiment here, but it helps to mentally filter the passive aggression and condescension from the point they're making. More often than not they're correct, you just have to cut through the weeds to get to it. I'd say that's an occupational hazard as a programmer. Good? No. But a reality (on the personality level) you have to deal with in this business. It sucks, but it is what it is.

austin-cheney

Maybe... maybe Pyron from the article is a toxic expert. Its hard to say because the article is entirely one sided. A problem that is encountered frequently among people with exceptionally low social intelligence is the inability to separate agreeability from social intelligence. Those concepts are completely unrelated. Agreeability is the need to please others and to a lesser extent seek reciprocity for kindness. Kindness lives here. This is completely and utterly unrelated to social intelligence and when signals are confused acts in opposition to social intelligence. Social intelligence is a perceptual skill. It is the ability to both introspect and perceive the motivations of others. You can have exceptionally high social intelligence and still be a cold asshole. For people with exceptionally low social intelligence they lack the perceptual skills required to both introspect and discern the emotional communication of others. So... they may confuse that with something else, like kindness, where they strive to fill an unfillable gap. It is fun talking about this with my wife. I am a software developer and software is staffed with males with low social intelligence at a much higher rate than the population at large. My wife works in education and its the same thing there for females.

lo_zamoyski

Plain old vanity (specifically, intellectual pride), pedantry, a lack of neighborly love, a wish to dominate others ( libido dominandi ), pettiness, pusillanimity, and insecurity. Magnanimous people do not feel the need to flaunt, certainly not in the faces of beginners. They are generous, patient, and gentle with those who know less. They desire the good of the other in sharing what they know. I am reminded of the most common reading at wedding masses, 1 Cor 13 [0]. [0] https://www.bible.com/bible/59/1CO.13.ESV

ghusto

I like this term because it describes this type of person so well that it's immediately obvious why you'd want to stay away from them. Toxic experts are not interested in getting things done, or actually making any real world difference. In fact they'd _rather_ nothing happens at all. They were the kids who were bullied in the playground, and this is their little bit of power.

aksjhg

Ned Batchelder is a highly toxic person who supported the ban of Tim Peters. And implicitly supported people like Gregory P. Smith who proudly stated that any person who was banned deserved to have difficulties finding a job (because of course the Steering Council, which is unable to summarize a simple conversation and just lies, is always right).

hexasquid

%s/toxic expert/hn commenter/

antics

I guess unpopular opinion but (1) I doubt this person is actually an expert and (2) I think the actual problem is that being anonymous is a coddling blanket that absolves you of the social cost of anti-social behaviors ( i.e. , acting like a dick) or holding an unpopular view. Obviously anonymity has uses, too, but that is now how it is actually used on the Internet most of the time. The only reason I bring this up is because I think it is counterproductive to view these people as experts when they are likely not.

rdtsc

> But pyon can’t see the forest for the trees. Experts have spent a lot of time and energy learning what they know. They love their knowledge. Discernment and seeing the forest for the trees is part of being an expert, too. ~~Just out of curiosity what did pyon really say? I couldn't find the comment any longer (assuming they'd be attached to https://nedbatchelder.com/text/slowsgrows ). If we're gonna throw stones at anonymous cowards, as it were, let us evaluate what they said perhaps. Did Ned feel embarrassed and scrubbed the comment section?~~ EDIT: Ned fixed the comments. Thank you, Ned!

baddash

also known as Douchebags

ConradKilroy

For decades, as a career mentor, I've strongly advised (younger) folks to quickly learn how to 'avoid experts who have forgotten what its like to be a beginner.' I will now adopt 'Toxic Experts' in to my teaching mantras.