They very much are. You are prone to mishandle a blunt blade to try and get it to cut.

You have to put a lot more force into a blunt blade. When it finally gets through (or jumps from) what you're hacking at, it's going somewhere, fast.

The blade will do much more damage to your skin, tearing it instead of slicing, takes longer to heal from a blunt blade, infection more likely.

It's much safer to have a sharp knife that you can handle with finesse. Not a dull one you have to hack with.

I wouldn't really call this gatekeeping either, it's pretty much knife safety 101. Right up there with curling your fingers and pushing not pulling the blade.

It's hard to see something as not gatekeeping when you think that it's the right thing to do. That's my whole point. It's going to be difficult to give examples of positive gatekeeping that people aren't going to dismiss as "That's not gatekeeping thats".... "just good advice", "just the right way to do it", "knife safety 101". Encouraging someone to do something the right way is pretty close to discouraging them to do it the wrong way. Gatekeeping is a spectrum and the gates move. Everything on one side feels like it's the correct way and on the other the wrong way. Imagine you posted a cooking video to a cooking community. You did everything right but you had a blunt knife and were slipping with the knife and crushing the vegetables some times. You would feel like it's a gatekeeping unfriendly community if the majority of the replies you got were "OMG YOURE GONNA STAB YOURSELF" and "you should stop using that knife till you buy a sharper one" and "go and get yourself a knife sharpener and a honing steel and throw that glass chopping board in the bin and buy a proper wooden one". And yet this is common. It may be "knife safety 101" but I learnt about it working in a kitchen. My parents didn't tell me how to use a knife. They didn't sharpen knives. I know people who use glass chopping boards. People are likely to have grown up all their lives using a knife without ever thinking about looking up on YouTube "how to use a knife properly and safely". I.e. unknown unknowns.

I believe that it's important to do things safely and "properly" to get the most flavour/value. Turns out many activities are like that unless you're going to discover everything yourself from first principles. Gatekeeping is seen as something bad because the internet has made communities really discoverable and people entering new communities are finding that there are some mistakes that don't need to be made, they need to learn first, and the people of those communities tell them that. Some of those people are arseholes, and give advise in a very rude way. Since negativity has such a big effect, "Gatekeeping" comes up as a big negative term.

This. You don't need 600 dollar hand forged, single bevel damast knifes so to have a sharp tool. Butchers are definitely not usong those, despite having a daily, professionally in the sense of earning their living, need for sharp knifes.

And even the 600 dollar knife gets blunt ultimately.

Sharp knife = good advice

Expensive luxury tool = gate keeping

It depends. I used the cheap knives for a long time before I was more successful in my career. It was a chore to keep them sharp as they tended to dull very quickly.

Once I had more money to spend, I bought a knife with more desirable steel properties which came at a much higher price. The upside is that I have to spend far less time keeping the knife sharp and safe.

As for all tools, for most use cases, some decent middle ground tools do the trick. Pro grade tools have some properties that benefit pros (and can be hard to get by non-pros). Above that tools are an object of d!sire. Ehich os totally fine, if you want that 12k pro grade telephoto lense, by all means, go and get it. Shoot great photos with it and enjoy it everytime you use it. Or everytime you use that fancy knife to prepare a meal. Just don't make it a prerequisite for what you do, because you don't have to justufy the purchase. The simple joy you get of using it ia reason enough, and someone doing the same thing with less expensive gear is by no means diminishing the value you get from your expensive purchase.

Agreed, it's not gatekeeping to recommend someone buy a $5 sharpening stone so they don't get injured

Complete nonsense, blasting something out of proportion to fulfill some elitism.

If you have handled blunt knives for years, you are accustomed to handling them and have muscle memory. You know how to use them, and the blades of most blunt knives develop a saw-like edge that helps in cutting.

Might not be as cool or impressive as a $200 damascene hand-forged pseudo-japanese knife, but they just work. What's dangerous is going from blunt to sharp or the other way round.

Sad to read that the same gatekeeping attitude from the article seeps in here as well.

Uhm no? If you want to saw something use a saw, don't misuse a tool.

-edit-

You specifically said a blade would get so dull it would become a saw.

You weren't talking about serrated knives as you said "and the blades of most blunt knives develop a saw-like edge"

Using serration on a knife to saw is not misuse, using a dull blade to saw is misuse and dangerous.

Basic knife safety is not gatekeeping. Sharpen your blade, or at least use the knife alone so you only hurt yourself if you're that insistent on using knives improperly.

More gatekeeping, huh?

Why don't you tell this to the producers of serrated knives? I guess they would want to know that they are doing this completely wrong.

Serrated knives are for sawing, not slicing. They don't really need to be particularly sharp. Chopping knives are similar; a dull chopping knife will waste your time, but isn't particularly dangerous. But a dull paring knife, or a dull wood carving chisel? Beware.

Anyway, per the rest of this discussion, definition of 'gatekeeping' is clearly contextual. Paraphrasing the exchange above: "What about safety?", "Sure, but that's not what we usually mean by gatekeeping."

Telling somebody they shouldn't weld without goggles isn't gatekeeping, it's safety advice. Telling somebody they aren't a real welder because they're using a cheap but functional brand of welder is gatekeeping, because there's no good reason to malign a welder for having an unfashionable brand of equipment.

Gatekeeping is only 'true' gatekeeping if there isn't a good reason for keeping that gate; safety advice in particular is generally exempted. Since gatekeeping is only true gatekeeping in contexts where there isn't a good reason for it, claiming that something is gatekeeping without explaining why is basically worthless. Such accusations are assertions without supporting arguments. It often boils down to circular reasoning: You're gatekeeping which is bad, and it's bad because it's gatekeeping.

You equivocated from “sharp” to “expensive” which means you’re the one that’s introducing gatekeeping not who you’re responding to.

Inexpensive knives can be sharp. America’s Test Kitchen recommends a $35 knife as their best chef’s knife.

> You have to put a lot more force into a blunt blade. When it finally gets through (or jumps from) what you're hacking at, it's going somewhere, fast.

Exactly right. I've wound up in the emergency room twice because of exactly this effect.

Blunt knives are for spreading, or maybe sawing. Using blunt knives for slicing is just plain stupid. And let me tell you, learning this the hard way hurts a lot more than somebody 'gatekeeping' you with a warning, no matter how rudely phrased.

The parent means blunt in the sense of "sharp enough to cut things, but not sharp enough to cut things easily". This can lead to slips and need for excessive force, increasing the likelihood of injury.