>> Dunning-Kruger effect Sadly, far too often appropriate, IMO.
> Citation requested. =)

My opinion.

Informed by a few things: some 40-odd years living on this planet (and possibly others), much of it involved directly or indirectly with technology and complexity. A general observation that much of the H/N crowd is younger (20s), often with the heightened sense of self-confidence which comes from youth, (often) a privileged upbringing, and a lack of exposure to hard knocks, as well as an overdeveloped faith in technological solutions.

A recent exploration of complexity specifically (see Joseph Tainter) and its dynamics. People don't choose complexity where it's not necessary, where they do, it's because it solves problems, but in doing so it imposes a tax -- higher resource (and especially energy) requirements, as well as decreased resilience and increased brittleness.

You do nothing by replying with a statement of the logical fallacy.

I disagree. You point out to others that the writer is relying on invalid arguments and/or facts. This may be out of laziness, out of a warped worldview, or out of deliberate manipulation of data and/or opinion (something I've been noticing increasingly on H/N). I'm content to observe the fallacy and move on. Sometimes the author (or someone else) will respond, occasionally copping to the error (in which case: success, a conversation ensues and the conversation moves forward), fairly frequently not and digging themselves in deeper (success: you've uncovered someone who's generally not worth arguing with, at this point I may simply drop the thread, or reply noting that they're repeating their earlier error).

I've actually made some interesting progress in understanding a few areas I'd previously had challenges with, in particular Libertarianism and the whole von Mises school, largely by discovering through conversations (and ensuing research) that the whole concept is based on a rejection of empiricism or real-world relevance. That and a healthy dose of corporate / plutocratic psychopathy courtesy the Koch brothers and others. Which explains much. And I rarely enter into discussions with those types other than to point out their irrationality.

this "you deserve to be called on it" attitude is that of a passive aggressive vigilantly.

Again, I disagree, and on this particular point, rather strongly.

Mind, yes, people will be wrong on teh Intarnets: http://xkcd.com/386/

But: we, humans, as a species, are facing some immense challenges. Global warming, peak oil, population, food, other resource exhaustion ("peak everything"), and a whole host of others.

And our institutions are exceptionally unfit to the challenge. Politics, economics, religion, technology, philosophy, the press, educational systems, liberal democratic principles (civil and human rights, etc.), even our own physiology and psychology (risk management, dopamine response, short-term/long-term focus), and a host of other factors are utterly maladaptive to what we're going to face over the next years, decades, assuming we survive that long, few centuries.

I'm not even pretending to have a clear view of what we need to do, or even all of what we face, but calling it "tremendously disruptive" is a mass understatement -- what else would you call a 7 to 14-fold (and possibly more) reduction in human population over a few decades at best? If HBS survives, you can bet they'll be teaching this one in 500 years.

So, yeah, I kinda take this shit a little bit seriously. And calling people on bullshit is part of that.

Even if the future of civilization isn't at stake, I've seen tremendous harm and pain come from sloppy and wishful thinking. But odds are quite good the stakes are slightly higher than that.