Is ratism increasing here on Chess.com?

I think this is the most hilarious post I have ever seen on chess.com forum. Thank you for the entertainment. 

Please report any instance of ratism you see on this thread. Let's keep a list of all ratists on this site.

as a recipient of ratism myself I am glad to find a place to be myself. thank you to the OP for this mediocrity.

Let's think about it like this. If two players each express an opinion on some chess position or opening and all we can go by to determine who is right is their ratings, then of course the smart thing to do would be to listen to the higher rated player. But we don't have to do that. We can think for ourselves. In most cases "ratism", as you call it, is a form of laziness by people who don't want to bother thinking for themselves and just throw in with whomever is highest rated. Or it's a form of arrogance on the part of the higher rated players themselves that they're right by default whenever disagreed with by someone lower rated. 

In Chess one has to think and understand for oneself though. That doesn't mean one shouldn't look for outside input, and it doesn't mean one should n't act pragmatically and think that, for instance, Carlsen's advice is probably worth a closer look than Joe Woodpusher, but it does mean one should keep an open, analytical mind.

While this isn't a serious thread at all I am going to make a serious response because this is an important topic in places like this. 

Apart from the silly troll posts and stupid questions, one thing that sets this forum apart is that there are a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about who claim to know what they're talking about. I recently had a discussion with such a member about a few lines of the London but I won't get into specifics here, it doesn't matter...

The main thing is the vehemence of some people. Those of us who aren't strong players (i.e. those who don't have at least a title), which is the vast vast majority of us, don't really know enough to have very strong opinions about openings or various things like that. Even most people who do have a title only know a little sliver of the truth.

For this reason you often see appeal to authority. You get a lot of  "[insert GM here] in [insert book here] wrote that this opening is good/equal/unplayable and do you want to disagree with [insert GM here]??" but the reality is that even GMs have a great deal of disagreements about these things, and furthermore, nearly every opening book, video, or material in existence is very optimistic for whatever is being advocated. 

You've just got to keep an open mind, say what you think, and don't pretend that you "know" it, or that it's fact, or that you're some great chessplayer. Even many players who do have "red letters" next to their usernames won't know what they're talking about, so if you don't even have that, and all you're boasting is a 2k otb rating like me, then you really can't claim to be an authority on much of anything. 

And we can try to avoid letting these debates stray from chess discussion and move into "my rating is better than yours" or "the authority I'm citing is better than yours" territory, as so often happens, and instead focus on chess analysis. We'll all be better off for it. 

In non-opening threads where we see people talking about improvement, I have even stronger feelings on this topic, but that's enough for now.