Kind of a trick question. Because if you are a human being, there are. I have some extremely deep gripes here about a lot of people on exactly this subject. By my own standard, which I attempt to live by, this means I have to be really exacting here, on myself.
It is even far more worse then that, and deeper then I can easily explain.
As the years have gone on, in no small part because the immense pain and trouble I have gone through because of assuming knowledge where I did not have knowledge, I have come to end up with so very much more I know I do not know today then I ever was even remotely close to when I was younger.
The main way I have been able to learn these lessons and detect these problems have been from people who are very smart and so very manipulative working around my resistances to persuade me where I was lacking in knowledge I had mistakenly thought I had.
But, here is an excellent example which just happened to me tonight:
So, I play World of Warcraft, and have been playing it for over ten years, “since Vanilla” as they say. Some times I have played “casual”, sometimes I have routinely spent forty hours a week on it. Some times I have left the game for months, once even for a year or two.
It is an intellectual game requiring exacting information. You need to have highly accurate information to excel at it. Now, I might point out here, I have a specific, provable talent both in human intelligence and in finding vulnerabilities and figuring out how things work. Human intelligence, as in “how smart I am”, I won’t bother trying to prove here and now. Finding vulnerabilities is what I have been doing for a living for almost twenty years now. I have a top tier resume in that, accepted by my industry peers, and have found significant vulnerabilities I could trivially prove if I wanted to do so to anyone.
Point being, I am good at being able to figure out hidden tricks to heighten my advantage, or as the saying goes, to find vulnerabilities and exploit them. No, I do not mean cheating. I could do that, but then, it would not be a game anymore. I mean simply finding out accurate information that may be arcane but certainly legal by the rules of the game.
So, I had an obscure question. I had three choices of talents to use in an aspect of the game where you play against other players called “PVP”. Well, I had already gone and checked all the top PVP players and their setups. Invariably, they all used, let us call it Talent B.
Now, as I just mentioned in another post, today there exists because of the internet, some ways of proving one’s expertise in some areas which can be proven strongly. So, for example, resumes on linkedin, can prove someone’s expertise to someone else quite trivially in many instances. Because of recommendations and company listings, the fact that it is online, and the like. (Yes, I work in vulnerability research, so, yes, I am aware that there are ways to game that. Irrelevant, as there are ways around protecting against that gaming except in the most exceptional of cases. )
So, how I could find out with a high degree of accuracy, of assurance, that this is correct, is exactly because of such a system. In this case, the top players data comes from online data directly from the game, and the site that does this has extremely low chance for falsehood, as well as the game.
Problem is, could be the players change their talents, and so that information I get is inaccurate. So, there is a chance that Talent B actually is not the right choice.
Normally, what I do here is “the math”. Reason it out. Reasoning is very, very important to me, but the problem is that some problems are just extremely complex. This is one such problem, as PVP is extremely dynamic, and there are many different forms. So the math changes depending on a variety of contexts.
(This reality is, sadly, a very common error I see even with those who state that accuracy of information is very important to them.)
Anyway, so I read one post that touts Talent A as the better solution, and it is very convincing. I start to try it out. This is critical for doing the math here. Problem is, I can end up wasting enormous amounts of time and fun by making the wrong decision, even if doing exploratory research.
Then, tonight, I come across a post while continuing to research how to use this Talent A in PVP which really seals the deal for me. The guy is very confident, very detailed in explaining his methodology, and well explains his reasons. A very persuasive person and post.
So, I am thrilled. And starting to center down on really believing him. Being convicted. Being persuaded.
Only thing is, who is he? What is his main character name so I can just complete that last piece of paperwork and truly seal the deal? Nothing. He is a poster who happens not to link to his real character name. And because of this I can not verify his expertise in PVP. As on his character sheet I can look up his rating.
So – and I do do this as part of a job – I go, “wait a second then, I better do more due dilligence here”. So, I do. I scroll down.
BOOM. On comes on this very not well mannered man slamming this guy left and right around like he is a rag doll.
The poster comes back though, arguing this skeptic maybe does not know PVP or playing this game very well.
Coffin in the nail with the skeptic’s response: He explains “why” this Talent A does not work. He reiterates no one uses it, which was already my research conclusion. And while I did not fully understand the entire dynamics of what he was saying, he did add sufficient details for me to be persuaded he is absolutely correct.
But, what sealed it for me was certainly not his argumentation, nor even some other poster coming in and pointing this guy knows his stuff. It was not his slam bluntness that said the guy should not take such an arrogant viewpoint as his technique has X, Y, and Z flaws (all of which he explained in terms I could immediately verify the math of). No, it was that he also bothered to attach his character name to his signature of his posts.
So, I could simply go and double check that his expertise was for real. It was.
Time and fun saved for me.
End of story.
© 2026 – SoulSequel
