That is true. But you also have to acknowledge that this community isn't in any sense, "normal" (representative, average, etc)
Most days I appreciate its uniqueness, but I find myself rolling my eyes at least once/week at some of the comments here.
Here are some of what I'd call the "HN tropes":
"Oh that hard thing? It's not that hard. I have never worked on that problem before, but can surely replicate that entire system in a week, because everyone working on it is an idiot and doesn't know what they're doing."
"That traditional human behavior (e.g. marriage, buying a house, going to college)? I can squeeze 5% more efficiency out of life by completely ignoring the reality of human behavior, because my superhuman, almost robotic levels of conscientiousness and diligence that make it a horrible idea for 99% of the population, somehow don't apply to me. I beat the averages in everything I do." (I see that a bit in this thread. See also: playing games with credit card balance transfers, renting vs. buying "because I'll save the difference", trading options and thinking you won't fall into well-known behavioral traps)
"Hard problem from another discipline (finance, accounting, medical science)? I can reinvent a clever algorithm ten times smarter than that, despite my complete lack of domain knowledge. No problem."
"Incumbents are stupid. Anyone can beat them if they're clever."
"I don't need to read history. Humans are irrelevant, if we just apply the right combination of game theory, economics, and some clever code, we can fix any problem. Politics and governance are stupid, avoidable problems if we just used the right system." (I see this a lot in Bitcoin discussions)
I see these with alarming frequency here. You can certainly say I'm painting with too broad a brush but I've been here since 2009 and it comes up over and over. More than anything, I just laugh at it these days (not get mad).
For a site that attracts millions of visits and tens of thousands of comments a month, just once/week seems pretty good!
Seriously: do you routinely see eye-rolling comments that don’t get downvoted or rebutted? I don’t. That’s what I like/appreciate about this place; yes you’ll get the tropes you mention, but you’ll invariably get an articulate response that points out the weakness or conceit.
