"Yes, but what are your credentials, Mr Stross?"

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/07/yes-but-what-are-your-credenti.html

by pavel_lishin • 15 years ago

198 93 15 years ago

MaxGabriel2• 15 years ago

Ah, this isn't actually a student writing an essay, this is a high school policy debater. Their topic this year is space. If you aren't familiar with this activity, it has some pretty outrageous elements--300 wpm speed-reading, often surface-level analysis, and preference for gamesmanship over quality of argumentation. But if you put the right kind of work into it, you do learn alot.

The reason the student needs the source is that 'quals' are used to quickly legitimize a person's argument. In policy debate, unrefuted arguments are considered true. Thus, there's little time for intelligently evaluating what a person is saying, as long as they have 'quals' and you can get to the next piece of evidence ('cards'). The most outrageous argument from a PhD might be preferred in debate over a rational argument from an intelligent person, like Charlie Stross. edit: That's why he can't just say 'as Stross says...' like the commenters suggest. As an example, this past year my debate topic was mental health. I often cited Robert Whitaker, who is a finalist for the Pulitzer prize for psychiatric journalism, was the former director of publications at HMS, and has written two books on psychiatric medications. Yet, because he did not have an MD or PhD, debaters sneered at his qualifications, rather than evaluate his arguments.

I also find it highly likely that Stross's article is being used because of this paragraph "Historically, crossing oceans and setting up farmsteads on new lands conveniently stripped of indigenous inhabitants by disease has been a cost-effective proposition. But the scale factor involved in space travel is strongly counter-intuitive."

This is because debaters often don't respond to the other's policy proposition, but rather kritik their position by indicting the philosophical ideas behind it. For example, an affirmative debater might advocate colonizing a planet, and a negative debater could ignore this and talk about how the affirmative is really based on white-power dominance of other cultures, and thus they should lose.

My quals: debater in a different type of debate

Alex3917• 15 years ago

"I often cited Robert Whitaker, who is a finalist for the Pulitzer prize for psychiatric journalism, was the former director of publications at HMS, and has written two books on psychiatric medications. Yet, because he did not have an MD or PhD, debaters sneered at his qualifications, rather than evaluate his arguments."

Why didn't you just cite the research he is talking about? All of the authors of the actual studies have PhDs.

fleitz6• 15 years ago

The problem with debaters is what one becomes after achieving mastery of the art.

MaxGabriel2• 15 years ago

Another aspect of playing the game unfortunately. There is some give and take I have to accept with playing-to-win and playing-for-education. First, studies are very hesitant with their results (and justifiably so, because they are just one study). The unifying analysis of one author is thus much more persuasive. Much more importantly in my experience, its really hard for me to read excerpts from a study to someone because the material is far more technical and harder to understand for a listening audience.

edited for clarity.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

I'm glad I skipped any sort of debate team experience and instead spent my college years engaging in real debates on scientific usenet groups like sci.astro.tech, it seems to have been a vastly better use of my time.

tptacek• 15 years ago

It sounds almost as if you're saying high schools now teach forum trolling.

AngryParsley• 15 years ago

It sounds like high school policy debates teach the opposite of rational thought. Authority is a useful heuristic for finding truth, but a good argument (which can in principle come from anyone) overrides authority. Here's a good post explaining the concept: http://lesswrong.com/lw/lx/argument_screens_off_authority/

rfrey2• 15 years ago

It sounds like high school policy debates teach the opposite of rational thought

It's always been so. Socrates' greatest enemy wasn't Aristophanes. They were the Sophists - teachers who would teach debating skills with no regard for truth. This kind of "debate" and the worldview behind it is the most insidious kind of cynicism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism

nbashaw7• 15 years ago

I debated in High School and College. I don't think you're giving competitive policy debate a fair treatment here.

On the surface it seems stupid to think that an un-refuted argument should be considered true. But arguments are evaluated that way in policy debates for a very specific reason -- the purpose of debate is not to discover the truth, it is to win an argument. That's the whole point of the activity. If you don't like it, you don't have to play.

That's actually the reason I quit during my sophomore year, but it doesn't make debate a worthless activity. Nothing taught me to work harder or think faster.

Debate is like working out. It's not real, so certain considerations go out the window. Under your logic, running on a treadmill is a bad idea because you're not actually going anywhere. But the point of debate isn't to discover the truth, it's to sharpen your understanding and wit.

Where debate goes wrong is when you stay in it too long. After a certain point the skills become harder and harder to transfer to other parts of your life. And a lot of the people in it, as you might be able to imagine, are pretty arrogant know-it-alls.

After I left debate, I had to re-socialize myself back into the world of normal people who don't argue with each other all day for fun. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but all my friends were debaters and all my time was spent researching, debating, or arguing with them about literally everything. That's just how debaters tend to spend their free time.

alnayyir4• 15 years ago

So your friends were master debaters?

enneff3• 15 years ago

> Under your logic, running on a treadmill is a bad idea because you're not actually going anywhere.

I find this style of debating tedious in the same way. Why run on a treadmill when you can run outside?

argv_empty• 15 years ago

the purpose of debate is not to discover the truth, it is to win an argument. … If you don't like it, you don't have to play.

This isn't a particularly good defense if the opposition to this sort of thing is that it teaches students to favor winning arguments over being right (meaning everyone who didn't participate still has to live in a culture built on that preference).

tokenadult4• 15 years ago

You described several of the strengths of policy debate (an activity I participated in during high school) but, alas, also all of the weaknesses. These defects of policy debate are why I'm glad my son participated in Lincoln-Douglas debate in high school.

dgabriel3• 15 years ago

I did parlimentary debate in high school, which involves absolutely no research beyond one's general knowledge, and a vast amount of creativity. In college, I tried my hand at policy debate, and found it wearisome. The research was enjoyable, but the motormouth spewing of undigested (and indigestible at that speed) facts seemed pointless. It was also less fun to watch others. So that lasted through two tournaments, then it was back to the computer lab...

vogon_poet• 15 years ago

Lincoln-Douglas is, in many places, mutating to be just like policy debate (kritiks, spreading, reliance on "cards" rather than actual argument).

To solve this problem, the NFL (National Forensic League) created a new form of debate, called Public Forum, that focuses on clear, persuasive rhetoric at the expense of detailed research. And now it is starting to mutate just like Lincoln-Douglas.

I think that fast-talking and reliance on out-of-context quotes is sort of the dominant strategy for any kind of debate. As long as there is a rule than an unrefuted argument stands as true, quantity will inevitably become more important than quality, and the credentials of a source will be more important than what it actually says.

This process doesn't occur when judges are allowed to make their decision based on persuasive speech and rhetoric as much as on logic, but debate judging is already so subjective that this presents a problem for many people.

pavel_lishin2• 15 years ago

Not all high school debate is speed-reading. I very specifically avoided that bullshit when I did CX.

nbashaw7• 15 years ago

Why is it bullshit?

alsocasey• 15 years ago

This whole argument could have been summed up to some high school debate club member expecting to find someone with qualifications re: the feasibility of space colonization... which, frankly, deserves derision.

What is he really looking for here? A PhD in astronomy? Someone with those credentials is more likely to have studied patterns electromagnetic spectra than the logistics of travelling to and colonizing another world...

What he's really asking is, has this person spent a meaningful amount of time reflecting on this issue (if his works discuss it, one would imagine he would have) and engaged in peer-reviewed exchange of ideas (in the Journal of Space Exploration?) - SciFi author is a better set of credentials than any other formal qualification I can think of.

mcmc• 15 years ago

I feel like there's a lot of room for another kritik at the point when the 'quals' of this card are called suspect: Opp questions 'quals' of famous blogger, thus marginalizing independent authors in favor of institutionalized analysis... which limits free speech... leading to tyranny and nuclear war.

bugsy• 15 years ago

Thanks a bunch for this comment. I saw policy debate represented in the cool movie Rocket Science, but only just now did I connect that style to the internet trolling style that was (perhaps) pioneered on slashdot and has made its way into many sites, as well as being common in the mass media. Ask where is the evidence for X and one's credentials in the field are questioned.

derleth2• 15 years ago

Out of curiosity, how many points would you get for a successful Gish Gallop?

(A 'Gish Gallop' is the practice, perfected by Creationist Duane Gish in his 'debates' with actual scientists, of asking so many questions the other side has no time to respond to all of them. Unanswered questions are deemed to have 'stumped' the scientist and regarded as a victory among the kinds of people who want Gish to have victories.)

Troll_Whisperer• 15 years ago

Sadly, many if not most people seem to confuse schooling with education and credentials with competence.

It's toxic in multiple ways. First is the assumption that those who have learned on their own as Charlie has are incompetent. Worse still, is the assumption that people with some certificate or degree automatically have whatever technical/language/business/artistic skill their paper says they do.

In some cases, especially the hard sciences, the connection is strong. In others, such as literature, it's hit and miss. In a few fields, such as business or film, a PHD is probably a negative indicator. Those headed for the top get lured away before going that far with formalized training.

fleitz6• 15 years ago

Well, universities are accredited so whatever they say must be true, so if an institution like Harvard says that Forrest T. Whittaker the 3rd of Upponton Connecticut has a degree in Computer Science it must mean that he's really good at turning database records into HTML / Javascript.

However, as a great (and I believe unaccredited) playright once said, a fool and his money are soon parted.

shadowfox• 15 years ago

> Those headed for the top get lured away before going that far with formalized training

I am by no means someone "heading for the top" and maybe this was just an oddity. But for me PhD was one of the most unstructured things I have ever done. There was little that could be called "formalized training".

For most part you was left to your own devices. There were long to medium term milestones that needed to be hit. But that was about it.

If you needed to learn something new for your work, you just did it on your own using whatever learning methods suited you. Sometimes there were classes that could help. But for the most part, by the time you are actually in to your research, there wouldn't be many classes that are suitable for you anyway. At least one of my lab mates lived the autodidact's dream ;) [Even me to some extent, now that I think about it]

"Formality" was required only when writing out research. (This was technical field; you need the precision)

Anyway just a note.

TomOfTTB• 15 years ago

It's sad that we don't seem to train young people to assess ideas themselves rather than trust in things like degrees (which can be meaningless depending on the quality of the institution that issued them)

But I think there's a big caveat here in that "numpty@gmail.com" doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed. That sounds harsh but it is important because stupid people tend to be more trusting in authority figures. For good reason.

Evolutionarily speaking someone who is lacking intelligence is less likely to survive and following someone who seems to excel in that area increases their chance of survival greatly. Less than intelligent people being in positions of authority seems like a relatively new development in human evolution since I'd assume it stems from the transfer of wealth between generations (which wasn't possible until technology gave us the ability to create and maintain assets of some significance). So for most of human history a stupid person was better off following an authority figure and I'm sure the instinct is still embedded in people like this.

Which in turn makes him trust in meaningless pieces of paper that convey authority rather than his own assessment of the ideas presented.

fleitz6• 15 years ago

Evolution doesn't say that at all, evolution predicts that the fittest for their environment will survive. Given that the number of children one has is inversely correlated with 'intelligence' it would seem that the stupid are more fit to survive by nature of their willingness to pass on their genes.

Social Darwinism is not the mode of operation for industrialized nations so it's debatable whether there are any significant evolutionary fitness functions in place in the first world.

mattgreenrocks• 15 years ago

Meta: It's always strange how few people question the dogma that evolution influences every last detail of human behavior.

But I wouldn't make that statement outright. It is heretical.

tokenadult4• 15 years ago

Given that the number of children one has is inversely correlated with 'intelligence'

This is very likely untrue, according to thorough statisticians and professional geneticists.

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Genes-Success-Professiona...

If you have a citation for professionally published research on the point I would be happy to look it up. More good information about the subject can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige...

for readers who would like to look up the facts.

thaumaturgy3• 15 years ago

> It's sad that we don't seem to train young people to assess ideas themselves rather than trust in things like degrees ...

It is impossible (for now) to develop enough expertise in every subject you may ever encounter to be able to assess the fundamentals of that subject on your own. Thus, expertise is used as a reasonable signal when sorting out "correct" ideas from "incorrect" ideas. (I would point out that the still-often-requested return of points displays on HN comments usually alludes to this: people asking for it say they want it because it helps them sort out what's "good" from what's not.)

> But I think there's a big caveat here in that "numpty@gmail.com" doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.

The most that we could conclude from the correspondence is that he is either intellectually lazy -- either temporarily, possibly as a result of a deadline, or more long term -- or that he is behaving as a result of his educational environment. There is no way to determine his intelligence from this tiny little exchange, which invalidates the rest of your comment.

One of the worst things that a "smart" person can do is look for evidence of stupidity in the people around them.

econgeeker2• 15 years ago

You're presuming that you need to develop expertise in a particular area in order to sort out "correct" ideas. This presumption is falling into the trap that is being pointed out.

Put me in a room with an expert in a topical area and a professionally trained liar. If I know nothing about the area, and these two people are having a debate, I will be able to tell which one is the expert, not by knowing his qualifications -- he may not have any-- but by being able to evaluate the quality of the arguments.

Even if the liar is equally qualified to the expert but is lying, you can tell.

It is not that they are lying that gives them away, it is that they must, inevitably, make poorer arguments.

The very idea of "Expertise" is a renunciation of intellectual thought.

I have spent most of my adult life believing that most people were as smart as me, and that they might just not be as well informed as me.

I cannot say whether it is stupidity that is the problem, and I certainly never went looking for the evidence of it, but I have been, at long last, forced to conclude that most people are trained not to think and spend much of their lives avoiding it. This reliance on credentials is a crutch and an excuse for not thinking. Credentials are useful to know the basis for debate, or someone's background, not for determining whether they are correct or not.

I believe people are being taught not to think, and this is one of the methods.

kenjackson• 15 years ago

So for most of human history a stupid person was better off following an authority figure and I'm sure the instinct is still embedded in people like this.

I'll ignore the evolutionary argument, but I still think your central thesis is incorrect. Everyone is better off following an authority figure sometimes, because it is rare that you always know enough to make a solid decision purely on the facts.

For example, many people rely on PG as a guide for companies to invest in and/or follow. Oddly though this is one area where due diligence can probably reasonably be done. But there are areas where it is more difficult.

These fall into a few buckets:

1. Knowledge based. How many people here believe Wiles proved FLT? How many actually understand the proof? How many have taken his word and the word of other mathematicians? Honestly, I haven't even looked at the proof. Frankly, I'm not sure if it would make a difference if I did. It would probably take more five years of actual math training for me to understand it -- and I'm probably in the top 1% in math for the general population. I defer to authority because I frankly don't have the ability to effectively assess it today with my current skillset.

2. Resources. I trust the food I buy at Safeway or Whole Foods is relatively safe. I don't have the resources to test food for various bacteria and such. I rely on authorities who have resources that I don't.

3. Choice. Almost all books I read are recommended by someone I consider an authority. Whether it is a molecular biology book, a book on measure theory, or even which JS book to read -- I read the ones recommended by people who I view as authorities. Sure I could review every book available and then choose one, but it doesn't seem like a good use of time, and furthermore, since I don't know much about molecular biology, I don't really know if the text is even factually accurate.

When I buy appliances/electronics I almost always consult the web to find authoritative review sites that strongly guide my purchasing -- especially in areas I know little about, like dishwashing machines.

4. Turtles. At what point must you finally concede to an authority? As I noted I'm reading a book on molecular biology, written by prominent molecular biologists, recommended by a prominent molecular biologist. Do I trust what I'm reading in the book, or do I have a microscope by my side at all time verifying each and every statement I read? "It says that DNA looks like this for every animal, but have they looked at my dog's DNA? Grover!" At some point, for some things, you have to say that it's authorities all the way down

TeMPOraL• 15 years ago

You're very right and I tend to do the same things as you described. I guess the only effective solution is to trust the knowledge one learns from authorities and stay vigilant to spot when things stop making sense or start breaking down. It is then, when it's possible to find who in this ladder of authorities was wrong, and know how to correct the error.

mechanical_fish• 15 years ago

What is the difference between a fiction writer and a troll?

One of them spins fictional tales which, while based on enough facts to help the reader suspend disbelief, are ultimately driven by the desire to create a specific emotional effect. Every word is calculated, every character (including the narrator) is designed with an eye toward eliciting a specific response from the reader. A successful work invites the reader to collaborate in the construction of a mental universe which is vivid enough that the reader truly and deeply experiences the emotional state that the author is trying to evoke. Of course, once the reader escapes the spell and gets a good night's sleep, he or she usually recognizes that any similarity between the fictional world and the actual world is likely to be purely coincidental... although some works of fiction are so powerful that the reader's personality is forever altered, only sometimes for the better.

Whereas the other one gets paid by a publisher.

So let me issue the usual warning: The reason we don't feed trolls is not just to discourage them. Feeding trolls is unhealthy for you. They drag you away from reality and (see xkcd/386) interfere with your sleep. We must be cautious about trying to conclude anything about the nature of education, credentials, society, or even the troll itself from the words of a troll, or while under the immediate influence of the words of a troll. All we can conclude is that we have buttons and those buttons can be pressed.

zeteo• 15 years ago

After reading the article referenced, the author does sound kind of trollish. E.g.

> in the hypothetical case of a planet-trashing catastrophe, we (who currently inhabit the surface of the Earth) are dead anyway. The future extinction of the human species cannot affect you if you are already dead: strictly speaking, it should be of no personal concern.

cstross• 15 years ago

I'd like to just note here that numpty@gmail.com isn't my correspondent's real email address. (I wasn't expecting a blog entry to go viral, and didn't check whether numpty@... is taken; it may be banned -- it's a mild insult -- but please don't go sending any mail that way on my account.)

mietek• 15 years ago

Why not use numpty@example.com instead?

CamperBob• 15 years ago

For the same reason why nothing kills suspension of disbelief in a movie like someone dialing a number that contains "555."

tokenadult4• 15 years ago

The Address Munging FAQ is an oldie but a goodie.

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq/munging-address/

It's important not to harm innocent bystanders when altering an email address for posting on the Web.

icebraining• 15 years ago

http://www.rheena.com/showthread.php/21248-Ninja-Gaiden-Hurr...

KevinMS4• 15 years ago

Although there are some standout exceptions the hacker community is obsessed with credentials.

Most of the job listings I see, on a daily basis call for a computer science degree, and its almost never qualified with (or equivalent experience).

This is a recent phenomenon and I have a feeling it has to do with the glut of comp-sci graduates that got stuffed in the pipeline since the first dot com bubble. Now they are mostly just hiring their own kind to perpetuate an artificial scarcity and keep their value up.

I miss the days when I could work, and learn, alongside a motley crew of developers from all kinds of backgrounds, and the cream, not the credentialed, would rise to the top.

alnayyir4• 15 years ago

That is corporate jobs, not the hacker community. I don't have so much as a single college credit to my name and the harvard educated CTO of my company didn't even mention it when I got hired. Stop reading monster.com job posts thinking it has anything to do with "hackers".

Hackers care about code, full stop.

KevinMS4• 15 years ago

Maybe SF is different, but I'm talking the Boston/Cambridge area, those are not "corporate" companies. Just an amazing coincidence those companies are mostly in college towns? I really wish you were right, but I'm not seeing it.

kabdib• 15 years ago

Most of the job postings use stuff like "MS in CS" as a filter.

Since I don't have a degree, I've learned that you need to bypass this nonsense with personal contact. The only time I ever had a problem was in an interview with a guy who had /two/ PhDs, who handed me his biz card (with two degrees on it) and who said that he had two degrees several times while introducing himself, and who the company jettisoned a few months later (because he was obnoxious and impossible to work with).

Build your network and don't sweat the paperwork.

econgeeker2• 15 years ago

I've noticed this form of anti-intellectualism is becoming more prominent in recent years. It is almost as if people are being taught it.

When presented with an argument that they cannot debate, people will demand a "citation" or "credentials". In both cases, they are pretending like you have made a logical fallacy.

Saying "I've got a degree in auto-body repair from West Alameda Tech, therefore, java is a terrible language" is obviously pointless. You can see how the degree has no bearing on computer science.

But if the degree were in computer science, the argument would still be argument from authority. But the debators then switch to debating whose degree is better.

You find this a lot in political debates whereby somehow, politicians (who often do not have very useful degrees, as they tend to be lawyers rather than engineers or scientists) somewow are magically transmorgrified into "authorities" on whatever subject they have an opinion about.

And you-- as an engineer, or scientist or economist, are expected to somehow cite credentials that are superior to theirs.... as a politician? Any credential would be superior to what amounts to being a paid liar, but of course this is letting your debate opponent set the terms anyway, and thus your PhD in computer science with Donald Knuth as your thesis advisor means nothing compared to the authority of some ex-TV comedian who managed to parlay that fame into a senate position.

Another variation of this is the demand for a "citation", invariably from opponents whose citations, if you can drag one out of them, are to blog posts, which are themselves essentially another variation of the argument from authority.

The real problem here is, these are tactics whose effect, of not their purpose, is to eliminate reasoning and thought from debate.

They are excuses to ignore the quality of an argument and thus ignore the need to address that argument, or make a counter argument. Instead, they jump to the position of arguing from a logical fallacy, which precludes from possibility the idea that their opponent might be making a good, logical, rational argument.

If you find yourself asking people for citations or for their credentials, check to see if you've narrowed your objection to a particular fact, or if you can argue against the logic they are using.

Otherwise, they should rightly consider you to have conceded by trying to move the debate onto a false basis, where, at best your position rests on a logical fallacy.

ddemchuk4• 15 years ago

Regardless of whether or not credential requirements are founded, those are some pretty dickhead email responses. Why cuss at someone asking a genuine question?

Internet tough guys are so cool.

mestudent• 15 years ago

To be honest the emails he got could have easily annoyed him and seem to have come from someone who believes he is not interrupting into someones time (especially after the first response which is reasonable for someone without "citable" credentials).

I'd like to think he gets a large amount of emails a day and the fact that this person wanted credentials but decided to email rather than research further could have hit a nerve.

Just look so far as the final response shown:

> I think that you shouldn't write articles under the mindset that you know what you're talking about...

ddemchuk4• 15 years ago

sure, I admit the emailer went on to judge, but his initial email was:

> Hello, I'm citing your work for a debate article I'm using > about space colonization and how it is improbable. I do > need credentials however, and I've yet to find them online. > If you could reply with your credentials that'd be great.

No harm in that email, very simple.

But then the blogger went on to whip out his e-peen and tell the kid to go to his wikipedia rather than just write "I'm a self taught novelist who thoroughly researches his topics he writes about but doesn't have credentials in the traditional sense".

EDIT: I apparently have no idea how to do quotes on HN despite my valiant attempt to do so. I apologize.

burgerbrain• 15 years ago

Because life is to short to waste on being artificially nice to dumbasses you'll never know. Sometimes it's just far more enjoyable to tell the truth and speak your mind. We should celebrate such occasions.

Furthermore, perhaps this is culturally dependent, but nothing about those questions strikes me as genuine.

ddemchuk4• 15 years ago

There's a difference between being honest and being a self-absorbed jackass though. The original email sent by the student was harmless and sincere and the response from the blogger was pretentious and whiney.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't have posted this email exchange on my own blog if it was me because I feel it would portray me in a negative light. To each his own I suppose.

beambot• 15 years ago

This is sad. I like Charles' writing (esp. Accelerando). But I think his curt, snarky replies were rather rude -- and spouting expletives to a highschool student is just over the top. I lost a little respect for him today. I will not be emailing him (ever). Hopefully I can overlook this offense enough to still read Rule34.

EDIT: The student was also in the wrong; he was being presumptuous. The best way to deal with these people is just move on.

makmanalp• 15 years ago

This sort of reminds me of situations where people here comment on, say, legal issues related to tech. Someone always comes up with the argument that the poster doesn't know jack about the law, and they should shut up. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a rational argument about it.

Eliezer• 15 years ago

I have generally replied to the question "What are your credentials?" with a simple, confident, "None."

jodrellblank• 15 years ago

I find these personal attacks in the form "you don't know what you're talking about" all over the Internet, and highly annoying.

I'm not sure if that's a flaw with me, or with everyone else.

It seems entirely reasonable to engage with things one doesnt know about, and writing being one valid way of doing so.

Mentally tag everything ever written as if the author had said "IMO" at the end. Even people who do know what they are talking about can be wrong or interpreted wrongly. This is almost a variant on the theme of proof by appeal to authority.

Periodic• 15 years ago

Almost everything on the internet should be prefixed by "IMO". That said, a well-reasoned argument's correctness does not vary with author.

WokenWanderer• 15 years ago

What I see: The student is either a troll or a detail-oriented, quick-to-anger idiot. The student's first email is fairly polite and could result just from a lack of internet search skills. But in the student's second email, the tone completely changes--the student is deliberately attacking Stross and trying to provoke him. Starting with the student's second email, I believe that the student is not looking for a calm, thoughtful response from Stross anymore; the student just wants Stross to admit that he is in the wrong.

"Yes, but what are your credentials, Mr Stross?"

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