Agreed, but there has to be some filter. You can't just say, "I don't see the value in crystal healing, I must not understand something here." Sometimes, you do understand enough.

Well, it depends on how you do it. My original reaction was, "duh, idiocy." But once I paid more attention, I learned a lot about the emotional motivations behind it, the placebo effect, and why western medicine is so unsatisfying to people.

That's helpful, in that you can convince anybody by saying: "Although I have no evidence, I'm sure that crystal healing is bullshit and I'm waaaay smarter than you." All they read from that is contempt and arrogance; that approach to skepticism is basically bullying.

I think a better approach is the one taken by my doctor. When people come in with concerns about vaccines, she first listens to their fears about kids and patiently explains why those particular fears might sound reasonable, but in this case are unwarranted. It's not really about the facts; it's about the hand-holding. For her, the interaction isn't about being right, but about persuading people.

So I agree, but for very high values of "understand enough". It's not enough for me to know that they're wrong; I want to understand why they're wrong sufficiently to have empathy for their situation.

So how do you know DHH doesn't meet that threshold? (I don't think it's clear either way, but still "most common young nerd mistakes" is pretty dismissive.)

He might, but he certainly hasn't demonstrated otherwise. In particular, he's not saying, "I see where the REST crowd is going, but their crucial mistake is X." That, combined with DHH's well-earned reputation for arrogance, makes me think he's just doing his usual.