It’s really interesting seeing how HN can be so uninformed when the topic changes to their area of expertise, this thread is insightful and I’ll use the search button to get an understanding of how many morons are on this forum, this is great for me as I’m not a coder and thought this crowd was ‘smart’.

Eh, in general it's a common fallacy that just because somebody is especially good at one thing, they're good at everything. This is a hard pill for many to swallow, especially if they excel in their field. You'd take basketball advice from LeBron James, but probably should be skeptical about anything else he says. Best to learn that lesson sooner rather than later.

I don't know why Hacker News has a reputation for particularly high intelligence or technical expertise relative to other forums with similar interests. It's not as if anyone had to submit their CV and reverse a linked list on a whiteboard to join.

Unless you can independently verify someone's credentials and area of expertise, it's safe to assume they don't know what they're talking about. I've seen it happen too often that someone will make a claim in absolute confidence only to be corrected by an actual expert in the field, usually the person who invented the technology/language/algorithm being discussed. If that happens with technical discussion, imagine how wrong HN can be about everything else.

Sturgeon's Law always applies. The people most worth reading and talking to here also tend to who post the least, the more confident someone is, the more likely it is they simply can't fathom the depths of their own ignorance.

What would motivate someone to go on a forum and tell everyone they're "morons"? You wish to express your feelings anonymously? Is this some indicator of mental state in the moment you wrote that?

You are pretty limited if you don’t think that a short squeeze occurred when an activist investor brute forced his way onto a board by buying shares. Not to mention tens of thousands of teenagers taking the opposite end of the trade whether they knew it or not. The percent of shares sold short is verifiable. If you know know how the basic arithmetic necessary to realize how the short squeeze conditions were there then... who is unintelligent again?

Also who makes a throwaway to call HN stupid?

HN is not a smart crowd, but there are smart people on it.

Can you define “smart crowd”? It seems like all large gatherings are by definition “dumb” due to group dynamics that add friction to challenge existing norms. The “smartest crowd” may be the America due to the freedoms to create as many crowds—within reason—as one wants. A crowd of crowds as it were.

No. I think making decisions only on the basis of other players has driven gamestop. That is what a squeeze is. That play style, action only ever taken in relation to other players, is how cryptocurrency markets work.

Actions taken based on the actions of other players in the market without (much) regard to the underlying companies has been a factor in the wider markets for decades, if not centuries. See the entire field of technical analysis for example. It's hard to argue that the wider stock market is "not designed" for such speculation. GME had a bit of a wobble, but the wider stock market is absolutely fine. (Actually, GME itself is also still fine. The stock trades just fine and the company is still around)