But was it due to ESR&#x27;s ramblings or due to patches overflowing his inbox capacity?<p>Personally, for years I had been completely ignoring everybody who framed something as &quot;a better alternative to talent&quot; (wtf?) or said the magic words &quot;you are smarter than me&quot;. They correlated too well with &quot;stupid ideas I knew (or quickly checked) to be wrong&quot;.<p>Nowadays I&#x27;m trying to fish for useful information even in messages which push my bullshit-o-meter out of scale, but it takes work.<p>If you want to maximize your chance of being treated seriously, stick to constructive arguments about the problem at hand, not some generic unfalsifiable wisdom.