Matt Might enjoys a certain amount of credibility on HN for his fantastic blogging on CS topics. While I don't begrudge his attempts to share aspects other aspects of his life and even monetize his blogging, I think you raise some valid criticisms of this post. Certainly the topic of personal fitness and weightlifting is much deeper than a single article with sparse links, I'd treat this more as his personal experience with starting instead of a definitive guide to the subject.
I'd treat this more as his personal experience with starting instead of a definitive guide to the subject.
If it's supposed to be taken that way, it should be written that way. Instead, someone with a little bit of personal experience about a subject wrote a soup-to-nuts guide for beginners that strikes an authoritative tone, acknowledges no other authorities, implies a great deal of expertise (even implying that the information he presents is derived from scientific studies,) gives advice that is extremely incomplete and in places off the wall, and refers entirely to his own work with NO suggestion that readers should seek out any other source of information. That's not normal. It's bizarre. Our jaws should be dropping at the inappropriateness of it. If it feels normal to people, I can only surmise that it is due to a distortion of culture where pumping yourself up as an expert (and "monetizing your blog") is not something that can be accurate or inaccurate, or honest or dishonest, but is simply assumed as the socially normal way to communicate.
