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Comment by jl2718 | Hacker News Reader

So in summary, all of the few “experts” on the drug are getting paid to say it’s harmless, so we should believe them, and the generalist neuroscientists that study intelligence, as well as the subjective experiences of most people, are wrong, but not in any specific way; just everything is wrong - stop thinking and smoke. Okay thanks journalists.

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Self-peasantization is a vice, not a virtue.

I, for one, even when I disagree with an article, cannot make myself scare quote experts and whine about journalists.

It tortures me that, at the end of the day, I'm either:

A) I'm just making excuses for disagreeing by pretending groups of people are monolith and there's no such thing as subject matter expertise

B) I'm just generally upset and going on an off-topic rant.

I wish for a 3rd and better option, lashing out has a nice opiate effect, but I really can't stand looking mendacious.

I don’t disagree with the article. There’s almost no content to disagree with. The journalist picked bad experts and provided nothing but character assassination persiflage under the appeal to authority fallacy. This is a top-level publication, so it’s not unreasonable to suggest commonality with the profession.

Why say this? Because I’ve learned that the mendacity of paid experts and journalists goes unchecked when ordinary people say nothing, and quite often the crowd opinion of people with nothing to gain is more trustworthy.

There's a ton of things to disagree with -- ex. as you said, they're being paid to tell lies.

I don't think it's respectful to you to pretend there's no content in the article.

I don't think you're foolish, and simultaneously believe A) nothing was said B) nothing disagreeable was said C) they were paid to say lies.

That'd be an incoherent rant, and you're perfectly legible.

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