zlacker

>>jger15+(OP)
This is different than the question "Are you presuming most people are more stupid than you?"

It makes my skin crawl to say this*, but the answer for most people on HN is probably "yes, they are."

* both because people in tech are prone to Paul Graham style 'nerd martyr' arrogance, and because I often read views that disappoint me here and I do not like to admit that an intelligent person can hold them

>>thomas+uc
>"Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it." -Descartes

>>nickff+Xc
The phrase "common sense" actually is a pet peeve of mine.

In politics, it's a red flag because it is often used to defend bad policies that only appear good when one doesn't have the fortitude to understand the better policy.

>>thomas+we
And the rejection of common sense is often used to defend ideas so bad that one has to put serious intellectual effort to create arguments for them.

A lot more "intellectuals" defended Pol Pot and Milosevic compared to ordinary chums. The denial of the Cambodian genocide was known as the "Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia".

>>userna+zl
There's some truth to that, but I'm not sure it's an argument for the phrase 'common sense'.

I can't think of a position on anything that someone couldn't twist into an appeal to 'common sense'

There are different cheap rhetorical devices that some intellectuals use. I don't like that either.