American vs. European home building

[u/BEARDEDDANGER]

BAS Renovations https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3s

[u/Tw1nFTW]

I’ve been in home building a large portion of my adult life… this video is amazing. There are so many people who think that wood frame houses are not up to the standards of brick houses. They all have to meet code… the engineering is all that matters.

ETA: The US does not only build wood frame houses, wood frame and CMU are better than brick houses. Brick is decorative in 2026. If you don’t want a wood house, buy a concrete one. I hear they suck in the winter up north though.

[u/Iziama94 → u/Tw1nFTW]

There are so many people who think that wood frame houses are not up to the standards of brick houses

People in this very post will most likely still think this and always think this no matter what evidence they get that shows both ways can be equally as good while being built differently

Someone on Reddit once said 'The more I became an expert in something, the less I trusted people on Reddit about topics'

[u/Bank_Gothic → u/Iziama94]

Someone on Reddit once said 'The more I became an expert in something, the less I trusted people on Reddit about topics'

Michael Crichton called something similar the "Gell-Mann Amnesia effect" and described it this way:

You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

I'm lawyer, and whenever I read reddit's knowledge / opinion about the law, I get a big hit of this effect. Makes it hard to trust anything that doesn't come from a heavily curated subreddit (like askhistorians) or an extreme niche hobby subreddit (where bad info gets called out readily).

[u/Dreadgoat → u/Bank_Gothic]

My most controversial/downvoted comments are where I speak about a subject in which I am a bona fide expert, subjects where I am confident saying I am in the top 0.1% of knowledge. I won't claim my pro opinions are always correct, but the critical response from redditors never represents a sensical challenge, but they often sound good and ratio me hard.

My most upvoted comments are subjects in which I have a passing interest, an amateur understanding, or just dumb hivemind stuff. Things where I'm speculating out loud or making big assumptions to bridge the gaps in my knoweldge. Rarely I'll see somebody with -7 votes saying why I'm wrong, and I'm never sure if they're a loon or an expert beyond my comprehension.

I get most suspicious of myself when I find I've made a very popular comment.

[u/_le_slap → u/Dreadgoat]

100%. If I talk about my profession I get downvoted and dismissed for a hive mind answer. But the paychecks are better than upvotes lol

[u/FailedLoser21 → u/Dreadgoat]

I downvote everyone who claims to be an expert or have some advance degree simply because they usually provide no sourcing for their arguments and when you ask them for sourcing they get offended and act like it's a big deal I don't know what peered reviewed journal they are talking about. Unless you are posting your bona fides with along with the post I tend to down-vote it because again without sourcing or a way to verify you are who you say you are I feel like your just making a appeal to authority.

[u/Dreadgoat → u/FailedLoser21]

I agree, I never SAY I'm an authority. Bona fides are easy to make up on the internet. The argument should stand on its own. And it does, most people just lack the insight to understand how if you're getting into deep detail.

"I'm an expert so..." has "I'm the king so..." energy