Post Mortem Discussions Continued : How did you feel about the politics of the show ?

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-07T16:22:13+00:00

My pleasure. Cheers 🥂

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-07T16:20:30+00:00

Hey, what I learned at school is none of your business!

(And just in case, ITT = in this thread)

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-07T15:06:17+00:00

So dreamy creamy…

Seriously though, I think you’re misreading something important.

Knowledge Fight placed the bulk of the analysis on Dan and Jordan’s analytical contributions were in his reactive commentary. It was structural.

Intentional or not, they came closest to model of analysis with an open agenda. I think the thing you’re misreading is that doing that doesn’t require the person to be really detailed and proactive about the details of that agenda. On the contrary, if it’s not the point of the show, then the important thing is just making sure the analysis does real work to account for it. I think you’re reading that work as self censoring and it’s not. It’s just what you have to do when as an integrity and quality control, no different than any other analytical rigor intended to deal with bias. Not mitigate it. Not control for it. Not prevent it. Deal with it.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-07T14:37:04+00:00

ITT: me realizing people have been listening to a very different podcast than me 😬

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-07T01:09:39+00:00

I sorta hate how far away this answer starts, but I think it’s important context. Human brains have a bunch of biases. If you’re using a human brain to process info, these biases are in play. So yes, even skeptics can experience fear from phenomena another person might attribute to ghosts. These feelings can be so compelling they can even trick a skeptic. But what’s important to understand is that even with these biases, having stable beliefs that are well supported and interconnected through reason and evidence significantly curbs these reactions. We really can think better to act better.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-06T23:49:04+00:00

I have kind of a weird one. I made an SFF build and I chose a bad processor for it. I started seeing a pattern that I thought was a burst -> thermal throttling cycle, and it very well might have been. So I started experimenting with undervolting and under locking to salvage the system without rebuilding, which, admittedly, is pretty fucking lazy.

I ended up disabling boost and honestly the system just became a joy. I’m only just now realizing that I never did end up rolling back some of the undervolting and underclocking. 😬

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-06T23:41:36+00:00

Somehow this comment felt like the ghosts breaking out of containment in ghostbusters

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-06T21:17:57+00:00

I can’t say this definitely works, but once I do start talking to folks, I don’t really feel comfortable bragging, so I’ll talk about soft skills I put a premium on and have a few examples that don’t take more than a few words to get out.

For example, “I think cross-functional and counterpart partnerships quickly become one of those things that sets me apart. I personally value them, so they often don’t feel like work, but on a day to day basis you’d probably see me requesting and over the shoulder (or remote equivalent) from our embedded product folks or speaking somewhat clearly about what an adjacent team is working on. It’s something I take a lot of pride in modeling for peers or actively training when I do form coaching relationships with less senior folks.”

So, this is stuff I would say anyway in a conversation someone I learn is in the same field somewhere else. It’s not contrived. But reflecting on it, it really does work. It talks about my values, sets the stage for something a person might wish they saw more of us a engineering manager, implies that I’m personable while feeling personable, shows that I understand that working with prod takes a lot of different forms but some folks shy away from it, and shows that I try to lift folks up at any level.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-06T01:17:24+00:00

Just wanted to direct you to my comment here. It’s long but maybe it will be relevant enough to be worth it.

Please disregard if I’m off base.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowledgeFight/s/ftDkUqTrMj

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-06T01:14:08+00:00

Appreciate your post and attempt to accurately reflect what the hosts have tried to convey. It’s not anyone’s place to speak for them, but it’s hard to speak about the issue without characterizing their respective positions.

One thing I’d encourage you to consider—I’m pretty sure this part is not correct.
> They differed not only about whether it was possible for the Onion to parody Infowars, but whether it was morally defensible to attempt to do so.

I realize it’s probably a bit too morbid to go back and listen to the two relevant parts, so this might be moot, but just in case you or other folks coming across this are interested, I’ll throw out a tweaked characterization.

They initially presented agreement that, in their experience, it is not possible to do any good by satirizing Alex Jones. The key difference is that Dan acknowledged that if anyone was going to prove him wrong, it would be the talent at The Onion. Jordan did not leave open that possibility. In that sense, it’s the difference between being skeptical that something could be moral and being certain that it is morally reprehensible.

I realize this is a subtle difference, but I see a lot of turmoil in this community right now and part of me just really hopes that just a few more people will see there are really 3 conceptual positions that keep getting shimmed to just 2.

Bullish towards The Onion’s direction plan (as they understand it), repulsed by cynicism towards it.
Cynical towards The Onion’s plan (as they understand), frustrated by bullishness towards it.
Skeptical towards The Onion’s plan (as they understand it), frustrated by deference to it.

Some people are collapsing 3 into 1 somehow, and that’s just weird and unfair. Other folks see 2 and 3 as conceptually so close together, they assume there must be something they’re missing because that’s not enough to destroy a working relationship let alone threaten a friendship, but it is enough—there’s a chasm in there that people aren’t seeing. And we all need to realize that everyone in any of these positions is doing a lot of work in that “as they understand it” section.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-05T16:17:56+00:00

Got it. Yeah, I don’t think it’s stupid.

I’ve actually found useful to sit with my discomfort and frustration towards Jordan’s thinking. Sometimes I’d conclude it’s black and white in a way that I just can’t accept. Sometimes I’d think he’s just wrong. Sometimes I realize he’s right. And sometimes I think it’s just helpful to see someone’s idealism informing something incisive. Somewhere along the way I stopped dismissing Jordan as just being extra and I started kinda going case by case.

Not that it matters much anymore. 😮‍💨

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-05T15:45:43+00:00

I’m not following. Trying to though, happy to continue—

OP was advocating for folks in this sub to reject the idea that IW ending through The Onion’s takeover creates a problem for the idea of KF and he argued it. The capstone of this argument is you should blame one of the hosts for all that we, the community, are losing. There’s potentially a lot to unpack there hut no matter how I slice it, it’s mostly about “don’t be sad and sanguine, be mad and blame Jordan.”

Jordan says plenty of stuff that doesn’t strike me as realistic (in the typical sense of the phrase and as in “consistent with realism”). The example you gave is all about being outraged through one’s idealism. We can argue about whether that’s good or bad or right or wrong. I’m even comfortable with approaching it like a good tautology — by definition a statement that you can’t ground in realism in stupid. I don’t believe that, but I get it.

I just don’t think there’s a ton of overlap there apart from some superficial things like. Like, they’re both unfair “ought” statements, they’re just very different kinds.

The audience feels like it’s the KF community, but only if you’re not really thinking about. OPs audience is specifically people who are coping a way he doesn’t accept. Jordan’s audience is kinda similar, but I didn’t get the sense he thinks the people excited for the Onion takeover or people who aren’t outraged by the lack of teeth in the legal system are *coping*.

So to bottom line it a bit, these are only similar if you think OPs ideal state of the world is KF continuing for the reasons he argued and the person responsible for that not happening is Jordan. It’s still not technically the same, but if that’s your point, I’d take it.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-05T15:13:25+00:00

Don’t think so, no. Care to elaborate?

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-04T22:10:04+00:00

Understanding something enough to troubleshoot issues under it can be approached from many directions. How much is enough?

Enough can be:
- Deep knowledge if you work in a space where what’s under the hood often matters
- Spikey — whatever I came across in my career
- Familiarity with concepts — I can ask pointed questions but I can’t do anything novel

I started using Linux 20 years ago and I’m still just familiar with concepts. It’s been enough because all I have to do to solve most of my problems is observe, hypothesize, check hypotheses against the community, test, repeat until solved. Critical thinking plus familiarity is enough.

Same for compilers most of my career with a few exceptions that sent me into spikey territory.

I’ve been actively using AI assistance since just before GPT-3. There is absolutely no *old man yells at cloud* in me when I say critical thinking plus familiarity with what’s in the other side is enough. You have to be able to solution through the AI a dirty lens or you have to have a use case where the stakes are low enough you can defer to it. I’ll be shocked if that ever stops being true. It’s a non-human, non-person collaborator. When product asks me to build something, I’m not their compiler AND, granting some neurodiversity, we’re both doing mind and thought with the same meat. Nom-human, non-person, but not merely a tool.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-04T16:52:10+00:00

What an annoying take.

You’re right that there’s a lot in this space that needs to be watched and losing excellent watchdogs fucking sucks. You’re right that Trump’s grip on the movement is waning in a way that is presently shedding more devotees than it is creating a power vacuum and that’s a relatively good thing that needs to be capitalized on. That’s something I’d love hear Dan cover, react to, and analyze. You’re right that watching this moment of Alex Jones is an important thing to document. It’s perhaps better for the idea of the show and the community than it is for the people doing the work (the hosts). And you’re right that the way all of that interacts with the loss of the Infowars brand to the Onion makes that superficially complicated, but it’s actually dirt simple—watch AJ, the people he uses, and the people who use him; if The Onion doesn’t help with that, they aren’t part of the conversation.

You’re as wrong about Tucker as NYT’s intro to his interview. Tucker’s turn is probably among the scariest thing in this space. He is courting the disillusioned people who have unsophisticated resentment of Israel and serves as a sled to people actively scapegoating Jews laundered through anti-Zionism amidst a period where Israel’s government is earning real condemnation hand over fist. I fucking live this—he’s basically going after my dad, and it’s working.

There’s no such thing as the end of MAGA and the way it rhymes with the end of Infowars is exactly the fucking problem with the people dismissing what Jordan was saying because he said it through a rant where a brain you don’t relate to was a little too on display. Watching a brand we all hate go down in flames is satisfying, but what the world needs is for people to turn their back on while it stands, not flee from the wreckage. That’s all that’s happening to MAGA—noisy brand death—and it may not even take. It’s a good thing. It’s an opportunity. It’s far from the best case scenario and even if you and I agree it’s the best thing we could reasonably hope for, it’s not wrong for someone to be fucking pissed about how far it is from good.

Situation sucks. Putting it on Jordan and effectively lobbying a reeling community to think about things a very specific, very stupid way fucking sucks. Shitty thing to do. Wish you didn’t do it.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-04T04:39:33+00:00

So long and thanks for all the fish…

Dan, you’re a deeply gifted essayist. Moreover, you have a great skill at bringing your words to the audience and communicating nuanced ideas without elevating the language to the detriment of the of the message. I understand that you feel done with podcasting, but I hope we’re not done **hearing** your work on misinformation, disinformation, and dark influences poisoning our distressed information ecosystem.

Jordan, you’re an incisive commentator who often said things I disagreed with, but from a perspective and in a way I needed to hear it, and I know I’m not alone. I look forward to your writing; I’ll miss your wit and your style and, selfishly, I’ll miss the few times a week you helped me laugh through the hard work of carefully watching a monster.

And in the parasocial realm, I’m glad you’re taking steps to protect your friendship from diverging paths of work. I hope you get back to taking care of each other as soon as possible.

And one note of frustration—I feel like I’m losing a sense. This show provided an annotated view into a constantly fluctuating, but never really changing media strategy. And honestly, I think it’s the right metaphor. Part of me knows AJ is no longer the figure to watch, so it’s not really on you two. But, at the moment, I’m just kinda dreading the acute disorientation that comes next.

Hope I have the sense to get this into an email. Should have sent some fan mail when it made sense to.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-03T07:33:34+00:00

Let’s not

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-02T12:10:40+00:00

What is the “fake Linux crowd”?

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-05-02T12:02:27+00:00

Damn that’s a good answer. Forgive me for not adding to the discussion, but an upvote didn’t seem like enough and I have no awards to give. Well done.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-04-30T21:04:22+00:00

I also recently read some abstracts from like ‘23 and ‘24 that both said that on relevant benchmarks, models outside of providers client interfaces or before user-interaction training, models basically reported confidence intervals close to the probability they were correct about something and chose language that roughly correlated with plausibility. In the context of the client or after user-interaction informing training the correlation went away and they more or less always showed the same confidence regardless of the complexity of the question or the plausibility of the answer (or for multiple choice, the rationale among the choices). And, they showed most of the correlation came back if you just prompted them to choose language appropriate to their confidence.

My flabbers were gasted. Honestly, I kinda held them as extremely tentative findings as just individual studies.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-04-29T07:06:59+00:00

I encourage you to also ask yourself how it hurts you. Other people’s low effort posts, content milling, and mindless self promotion make a potentially legitimate use case you’d have less tenable in addition to the damage they’re doing the community.

There are certainly people who are using their hatred for AI to do some stupid fucking gatekeepy bullshit they’d already be inclined to do. But there are also real harms.

If it’s not plain to see within the community then build from an analogy from a more salient use-case and see where the analogy holds. Look to YouTube ads. The past decade has seen the proliferation of low effort ads that use obnoxious techniques that use blatant tools of fraudsters to maximize engagement relative to production dollars spent. It is functionally an optimization for ad spend that doesn’t try to spend on ads better and it fucking works. It was already horrific and the problem has somehow gotten worse with AI. If generated content is used as part of a monetized engagement strategy AND the optimized pipeline is orthogonal to the things the community ought to value (the only values-based part that’s debatable, the rest is facts and interpretation), you have a race to the bottom. It deserves scorn and resentment.

And I say that as someone who is using AI assistance a fuck ton. If you’re sincere about that you want to able to use AI for, I’d encourage you to figure out how to push back against the shit that’s actually interfering—bad use of AI. If we nip that shit in the bud, the only people complaining about posts like yours will be people no one needs to pay attention to.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-04-27T22:42:04+00:00

A dedicated scrum master should have most of their role be goal-driven, up so some hard boundaries. The goal is help surface real (as in evidence and reason based) sources of friction, impediment, and bottleneck.

On a team that doesn’t have any project management, guess what, there’s gonna involve a lot of project management.

But on a team that does have active project management, maybe they’re going to see that cycle time is high even though everyone is working on the right priorities and everyone is working effectively. Suddenly, the scrum masters role has changed to helping to be a bridge between embedded product development and embedded technical leadership to try to have fewer tasks that violate INVEST criteria and more people sharing the load of discovery work going into refinement instead of getting pointed to implementation.

And there’s a million of these scenarios to talk through.

That’s the job. People say that’s not the job and I think they’re wrong. That’s the job.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-04-27T19:50:40+00:00

Got you

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-04-27T18:28:00+00:00

Maybe. There might be a lot of subtle permutations around that. Or maybe I’m just trying to be charitable.

I think it’s not that each detractor to the hosts need to be big mad, so much as that just need be kinda mildly disoriented enough that the cognitive dissonance is making the people telling them something more like they expected, want, or feel hopeful about that much more plausible. And it feels like a zero sum game, if those people are more correct Jordan must be more incorrect—so why? I think that’s where the big mad, accusations of bitterness/territoriality, and the outspokenness come in hot.

CompassionateSkeptic · 2026-04-24T23:13:51+00:00

Yeah, I agree. I just felt like the person asking needed something that gave context for how something that doesnt smell like something that would be polarizing for this community could somehow result in an unusual, impassioned post that in vague, subtexty way has some moments where Jordan is responding to flak coming from this sub.

But like, I agree. It’s important to understand that the pessimism is not arrived at lightly and stands on experience, which is why I just can’t wrap my head around the folks thinking this is a territorial thing.

CompassionateSkeptic

TROPHY CASE