Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Why we should believe the dreamers – and not the experts (washingtonpost.com)
16 points by ghosh on Aug 1, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments


This is the usual journalist bunch of bolocks. Even the example they use is bad. Bell was an expert on what he did, Wester Union on the other hand in a company that delivers message. Even if a company can be considered an "expert", try are experts in delivering messages, not it the technology that composes a telephone.


This is a terrible article. It's cherry-picking some bad calls. Note that it's not giving examples like the experts who said "if we smash these atoms, there'll be a big kaboom" or similar. Experts giving correct or near-correct advice is the norm.

One clear example of where 'dreamers' fail and 'experts' succeed is ponzi schemes. They're very appealing to dreamers, but experts are aware of the fundamental problems with those kind of schemes.


"History is littered with the failed predictions of experts."

Which are vastly outnumbered by the failed predictions of dreamers. It's just that no-one expects the dreamers to be right, so all their failures are conveniently ignored.


Who is he? An expert?


Well said - that me lolsnort.

(No, I know it will never catch on. But I like it. lolsnort.)


tl;dr -- people are generally bad at predicting the future, but some get lucky.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: