Comment by moefh

Comment by moefh a day ago

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> There's an issue this highlights [...] there's clearly a lot of knowledge held in silos.

I think the real issue this highlights -- which is something everyone knows and still everyone does -- is that people love to spread and discuss sensational stories, and no one likes to hear naysayers ruining the fun.

Look the discussion of the original story here in HN[1]. There's a comment by A_D_E_P_T way down in the discussion explaining why the paper is nonsense and pointing to one of the replies objecting to it mentioned in the article from this post. That comment was downvoted by HN readers. I know because it was greyed out when I upvoted it days ago.

So there's no knowledge silo -- us simple folk just want to discuss the newest breakthrough without looking too hard, because that spoils the fun.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43961226

gnramires a day ago

I also think this kind of idea can be fun speculation, but I think there are better things to have fun that aren't promoting wrong ideas (like literal Science Fiction speculation!). When we can build fun on top, the physics of our reality doesn't need to be (academically) fun by itself :)

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gus_massa a day ago

It's a good comment, but too technical. It's difficult to know if it makes sense. I think it's good, but I'm used to read weird stuff in papers. Anyway, my level of general relativity is too low to understand all the details.

I skip that whole thread because I was expecting an overhyped result and I have to sleep from time to time https://xkcd.com/386/ . I'd have upvoted that comment, especially if it was gray.

The comment is like ELI35[1], but for HN it's better to write a ELI25[2] version. Or perhaps a ELI25 introduction and a second ELI35 part with even more technical details. (I never liked ELI5[3].)

[1] I just finished my postdoc in General Relativity.

[2] I just finished my major in Geology. I know atoms and calculus, but I have no idea what covariant is. Moreover, whatever gauge means is not the type of gauges I know.

[3] I just want a lollipop.

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ryandrake a day ago

I don't think there's a lack of skepticism on HN of all places. Every article that gets posted that discusses even a mild scientific result brings at least one HN commenter out of the woodwork to dunk on it. You can bank on it--there is always That Guy who has to argue against it, whether he's right or not.

Also, the comment you reference was probably downvoted because of the tone, not because of some HN bias against naysayers. Starting out your comment with "It's nonsense." is about as conducive to a productive conversation as starting it out with "You're wrong."

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  • twothreeone 17 hours ago

    I'd agree if it was just another arxiv draft. But, honestly I appreciate the clarity and brevity of the comment in this case. And I think that tone is warranted given the paper was published in a well known journal, lending it quite some credibility as clearly demonstrated by the high-stakes PR it received. Especially, since any retraction of that paper will likely not be followed up by the same articles.

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  • andrewflnr 20 hours ago

    The point of a statement like "it's nonsense" is to prevent a conservation that should not happen, because it will be dumb. It's the right thing to say iff it's correct.

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