Post by MDCCCLXIII #donfre

From @0eople go down a particular rabbit hole they'll find a community of people and plenty of similar content that will reinforce this view and pretty soon it becomes impossible for them to even consider other perspectives as valid.
Even the most intelligent people can become slaves to their own confirmation bias, and nobody is immune. It's really difficult to break out of this mindset once you're part of that team.
That's one of the challenges of educating yourself via the internet. If you don't have an underlying understanding of a subject beforehand then you don't know what you don't know. Anybody can sound credible in the absence of other facts or information.
So what we've seen after the downfall of experts is the rise of pseudo-experts or grifters which, honestly, is far worse.
So am I arguing for us to trust "the experts"?
Nope...that ship has sailed, I'm afraid, because our academia and intellectual class has been infiltrated by politically biased progressives that just aren't objectively trustworthy. I'm not saying you should then trust conservative experts because you'll eventually run into the same types of problems. You can't trust "the experts" but you should try to listen to "the right experts".
You still do need to find credible sources on issues because you can't be an expert on everything yourself. There's just too much background information which is necessary.
Yet people fool themselves into thinking otherwise which is how you get to having entire groups of people who all believe the same political narrative on virtually every issue.
So what is the solution?
You need to identify people who demonstrate, over time, that they are intellectually honest and will provide you with accurate and complete information.
This is the key. You don't have to necessarily agree with their politics or opinions, but if they provide you with a reasonably complete set of facts you can do your own analysis.
Over time you need to develop trusted sources in different fields and for various issues. This is the best method I've found. I still consult what I would consider experts, but not before I've vetted them over time against what I'm reasonably sure is true.
You also need to listen to people who take different positions on issues...especially those with different political perspectives.
And always challenge your own beliefs. Always consider that you might be wrong. Don't be afraid to change your views over time even if it means admitting you were wrong. Being wrong and making mistakes is how we learn in life and admitting your mistakes is a sign of intellectual maturity.
But it all starts with being able to get a complete picture of the facts...of objective reality as best as you can understand it.
That's why on any given subject there are a handful of experts that I do trust to provide accurate information, even if I don't always agree with their analysis, conclusions or politics.
Otherwise, it's impossible to hold reasonably sensible opinions on so many topics that we're bombarded with daily...this idea that we can or should become internet experts on everything is crazy.
I'll always have much more respect for someone I disagree with, but can rationally argue their position based on accurate facts...than I will someone who agrees with me because they just believe a certain narrative.
One of the fundamental mistakes people make is thinking that intelligent and well informed people should always come to the same opinion on an issue.
Wrong. People can share the same facts and use sound reasoning to come to different conclusions because there's room for us to place value judgments on how we weight the various arguments in a debate.
But what's happening today is that we don't get past the part where we can agree on the facts and this is tragic because we never get to the part where we can debate ideas. That's where one can learn and grow from engagement with somebody that you might not agree with.
There is great benefit to actually understanding the arguments of the other side.
That's been my chief criticism of the left in recent years. We no longer share the same facts so we can't even have a dialog anymore. It's why I think concepts like objective truth are so important.
I need to make clear that I don't think there's a dichotomy between people that can and can't understand complex issues.
Rather, what I describe is part of the human condition insofar as none of us are really equipped to be experts on everything, yet that is what is currently expected of us.
Any of us is capable of falling into group think, believing narratives or getting our facts wrong, including this angry green bear. I know of what I speak through experience because I too have gone down rabbit holes from which it was difficult to extricate myself.
Some people are better at overcoming these human short-comings, and we fortunately tend to get better at this with age which is why wisdom does matter...but we are all capable of growing and doing better at this.
Beyond finding good experts to follow, what else should one do? I'd recommend be skeptical and require proof.
Be skeptical of everything, including your own beliefs. Question that which you find suspicious, but don't go so far as to believing it is true.
Always require proof before believing something as a fact. Too often people are good at the skeptical part, but not so much at the proof because they don't apply the same rigorous standard to verifying the truth as they do questioning that which they find suspicious. In other words, people are far better at noticing that something doesn't smell right than they are at figuring out exactly what is going on; so they tend to fall for the proof provided by convenient narratives which in turn depends on other narratives, etc, etc.