> the more I realize most people who comment on HN don't really know what they're talking about and mostly make things up.

I don't think they're typically making things up. It's what I prefer to call Reddit knowledge. They saw someone else claim it somewhere, they believed it, and so they're repeating it so they can be part of the conversation (people like to belong, like to be part of, like to join). It's an extremely common process on Reddit and most forums, and HN isn't immune to it. Most people don't read much and don't acquire most of their knowledge from high quality sources, their (thought to be correct) wider knowledge - on diverse topics they have no specialization on - is frequently acquired from what other people say and that they believe. So they flip around on Reddit or Twitter for a bit, digest a few nuggets of questionable 'knowledge' and then regurgitate it at some later point, in a process of wanting to participate and belong socially. It's how political talking points function for example, passed down to mimic distributors that spread the gospel to other mimic followers (usually without questioning). It's how religion functions. And it's how most teachers / teaching functions, the teachers are distribution mimics (mimics with a bullhorn, granted authority by other mimics to keep the system going, to clone).

It's because some very high percentage of all of humans are mimics. It's not something Reddit caused of course, it's biology, it's a behavior that has always been part of humanity. It's an increased odds of success method of optimizing for survival of the species, successful outcomes, meets the Internet age. It's why most people are inherent followers, and can never be (nor desire to be) leaders. It's why few people create anything original or even attempt to across a lifetime. It's why such a small fraction of the population are very artistic, particularly drawn to that level of creative expression. If you're a mimic biologically it's very difficult to be the opposite. This seems to be viewed by most people as an insult (understandably, as mimics are the vast majority of the population and control the vote), however it's not, it's simply how most living things function, system wise, by mimicry (or even more direct forms of copying). Humans aren't that special, we're not entirely distinct from all the other systems of animal behavior.

That saying, safety in numbers? That's what that is all about. Mimicry. Don't stand out.

The reason most Wall Street money managers can't beat the S&P 500? It's because they're particularly aggressive mimics, they intentionally copy eachother toward safe, very prosperous, gentle mediocrity. They play a game of follow, with popular trends (each decade or era on Wall Street has popular trends/fads). Don't drift too far below the other mimics and it's a golden ticket.

Nobody got fired for buying IBM? Same thing. Mimic what has worked well for many others is biologically typically a high success outcome pattern (although amusingly not always, it can also in rare occasions lead off a cliff).

The Taliban? The Soviet Union? Nazism? Genocide? Multi generational patterns of mistake repetition passed down from parental units? That's how you get that. People mimic (perhaps especially parental units; biology very much in action), even in cases where it's an unsuccessful/negative pattern. All bad (and good) ideologies have mimic distributors and mimic followers, the followers do what they're told and implement as they're told. And usually there are only a very small number of originators, which is where the mimic distributors get their material.

The concept of positive role models? It's about mimicry toward successful outcomes.