How do you decide you trust a source? What sources to trust?
As a Te valuer, i frequently am faced with these questions. I know it's an open ended topic, but i was wondering about other people's experiences on how do you decide to trust a source?
Since i'm leaving it so open ended, you can pick any place/context to start and answer.
I always browse the comments section for anything online. Other people will usually point out misinformation sooner rather then later. Aside from that it really just down to gut judgment/common sense. Obviously something I read in a National Geographic magazine is going to have a higher likelyhood of being factual then something I hear from Alex Jones on Info Wars.
I generally apply my own wit to everything. I also like to think: what personal agenda does the source have by saying this.
On which topic?
Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit
I don't know what I trust, I tend to stick with the experts, like reading a lot of material from official sources, especially in academical contexts. Anyway that hasn't spared me a good amount of lies in the past, which I was sticking to as if the Bible. Even the experts don't know what's going on a lot of times, the bad part of that is that because of their position then their "truth" becomes the accepted one, even though it's wrong... but I'll only find out because of more experts eventually.
On another level, I've always been pretty skeptical of everything, like I tend to double check most of the information I go through, when someone tells me something I'm like... ummm are they telling me the whole story? In the end I tend to follow the ideas or facts that make the most sense to me, but that's just possible because of all the material I've accumulated by questioning the subject at hand.
I'm not too good at bringing on my own ideas and theories because I'm always unsure whether all the steps of my reasoning are correct and bullet proof-like. I need someone else's sources and ideas to validate mine... but then as someone said, every time you reach a big truth, its opposite must be as true.
And this just opens up the dilemma of what side of the blade you want to handle. Consensus, at least in an academical context, takes it all... but even outside of academies.
There's alot of Fi in how I choose sources. For example, if the person at the source of the information seems sketchy in a moral way, or the source itself seems sketchy in a moral/ethical way, I will probably reject the source. For example, a "news" site with a bunch of disgusting ads is not likely to be something I will consider a valid source, or even read at all. Something about it screams "stay the hell away from this".
That said, once a source is established as not sketchy in a moral way, it becomes a question of choosing the source that has the arguments that make the most sense logically. Comparing different arguments if there are conflicting voices. I also agree with N9 that looking at personal agendas of sources, even if they don't seem sketchy, can help eliminate some sources of information, or at least, if not eliminate them, make me become more aware as to why they are saying what they are.
Everything has bias, so it's best to be aware of it.
I don't fully trust or believe in anything, although I may trust individuals I have a good relationship with - and even then I apply a grain of salt in what they say and use my own discretion. Even if I've "established" that a source is reputable for something (say BBC natural science or certain scientific journals), if information is going to be used for something important, I will want to go step by step and dissect how they collected and processed their data.
In all cases I seek to know agendas, get to the bottom of the sources (primary sources and data circumstances), and apply my own sense. There's no formula to it other than this.
I guess in the case of not knowing a subject well, you could try looking for this: are competent people using this information to achieve their objectives? If yes, it's probably worthwhile to look at.
[Today 07:57 AM] Raver: Life is a ride that lasts very long, but still a ride. It is a dream that we have yet to awaken from.
It's hard to find a love through every shade of grey.
I don't know, but there's probably a general way of going about this.
I think that one thing to keep in mind, is that not only others can be biased, but so can yourself be biased, so you'd also need to be mindful about this (like confirmation bias, you're going to be looking for sources that agree with what you already believe to be true).
You'd generally want to confirm what you believe in to be true, so you'd need to ask if the source is factual, and/or has good arguments. And don't ignore something just because you don't like the result of something or it disagrees with your initial belief.
Trust is an ideal of which one can never be certain except in hindsight. Ijs are usually patient and reticent enough to look for consistency; I've even taken notes about key points that people have stated because I do not trust human memory - especially not my own. I prefer people who are consistent over those who may occasionally but deliberately mislead even though they may be well intentioned at the time. I've been close to people whose opinions I would never trust but they're consistently well intentioned as well as being consistently inaccurate. I do not think that one can fully trust any source and in a sense, unconditional trust is a sort of laziness. If one needs to fully trust a fact, then confirm from multiple sources. If one really needs to trust a friend then track consistency over the long term - but never assume permanence because I've seen 25-year marriages abruptly end in very ugly divorces.......
a.k.a. I/O
you don't have to trust something completely or not at all. the trick is just to listen, keep it in mind, then decide when you have to on the basis of everything taken together. also mistakes happen and perfection is impossible, so sometimes getting it wrong is part of getting it right in the future. the other thing is, from the point of view of Fi, its good to watch people and rely on people that get good results, and whom you don't detect anything unethical about how they got them. in the end character is a good proxy for the information they put out. directly trying to evaluate all forms of information is too much for anyone. eventually you've got to rely on experts, and if you can't observe their character, maybe they have credentials. the bottom line is ultimately they are indicators but people are good at collecting the trappings of success for precisely this reason, as if the trophies make them competent--credentials become more credible the more they originate in institutions or accomplishments that are hard to fake. humility is a good indicator of trustworthiness, but not necessarily accuracy of information
someone's willingness to genuinely entertain the idea they're wrong means they probably know what they're talking about and that all the ideas they've hitherto collected have gone through this process and are better for it
Congruence, reasonable support like facts, experience.
If it has facts. And it's proven.
Whether it comes from a homeless man or a PhD,
I just use common sense
I trust my gut because it's usually right. I ask a lot of questions mentally when I read something, to the point it drags me down and I probably don't finish. I don't have a consistent method that arises from that, though. I tend to easily notice logical inconsistencies or where a narrative breaks down or goes into arbitraryville. Sometimes uncertainty is the only fair conclusion.
Last edited by ouronis; 04-23-2018 at 02:50 PM.
I'm a Pyrrhonist and I actually care about what three living people have to say.
Last edited by leckysupport; 04-23-2018 at 03:51 PM.
ἀταραξία
Just assume that 99% is bullshit, and depending on the environment where measure is taken it can reach up to 5 nines 99.999%.
So how you figure out which 1% is useful? Well, the only way is to test it in real world. So if you find idea interesting, it's not being told by crackpots, newspapers or facebook (were you can assume 100% bullshit), you test it and see the results. It is hard work and sometimes you need to test many ideas before you find something which works for you. But once you have it, it will change your life forever. Or you may prefer to eat bullshit all the time and just live it by.
But before you test it, make good research if it's not going to give you cancer or something like that.
It's also good to have good measure of test results.
Last edited by falsehope; 04-23-2018 at 07:38 PM.
I live in a state of perpetual doubt accepting and rejecting all possibilities simultaneously when it comes to sources. Ultimately, I deem some sources more credible than others largely via their content and the reasoning behind it rather than blindly trusting the "experts" that can be easily manipulated by any outside third parties.
Last edited by Raver; 04-23-2018 at 07:50 PM.
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” Randy Pausch
Ne-IEE
6w7 sp/sx
6w7-9w1-4w5
Not going to give good method to public but this is how I roll:
Just read and determine how it fits in your framework of understanding while comparing emerging logical patterns (like everything you can extract) against stored frameworks of hoaxes and real stuff. That is 1st step and usually enough. It is bit funny that lots of Gulenko stuff gets stuck into this BS filter. Some need serious rework/rethinking.
MOTTO: NEVER TRUST IN REALITY
Winning is for losers
Sincerely yours,
idiosyncratic type
Life is a joke but do you have a life?
Joinif you dare https://matrix.to/#/#The16Types:matrix.org
I tend to trust moderate sources, that aren't too politically left or right in either direction. If you pay attention you can kinda sense when you are being manipulated vs. being informed.
I used to be heavily involved in a left-leaning forum (because I am of course more liberal than conservative and being a true 50/50 moderate kind of doesn't exist and just turns you into a useless pebble) But the moderate liberals were simply a fresh breath of air compared to the crazies that tried to control everybody's thoughts and dictate everybody's speech. Not saying that I always agreed with them either. I still felt challenged- but not in a way that made me feel gaslighted or terrorized. I think that's kind of the best ideal to hope for; information that helps expand and improve your own healthy narcissism.
I first read "how do you thrust" in the title and was like sure I can tell you I'm da boss & came here to write about it, but then I realized
Well I rely on my gut what else that's it, adiós amigos have fun
@Chae
Did you see that episode with mariah's shoe closet? Omg her entire shoe closet is like as big as the first floor of an average-sized middle class suburban home. Probably even a little bigger.
I go with my gut. It's as simple as that.
The sources which are recommend by an expert or by several of them.
If the theme is interesting for me then I should to have an opinion about that experts by their works and understand the degree I'd trust them.
Then I may get own opinion about the source during the comparision with other sources, - how much it matches with them. Partly due to own understanding.
I have always disliked using the word "resonate" but I guess that is part of it. Trusting in things like synchronicity, intuition, observations etc... but I also keep a level of healthy skepticism until I validate it myself one way or another. I know I have biases but when I listen to intuition instead of my feelings or thoughts it works out better for me. If my first reaction to the is source is rolling my eyes I might just move on since it doesn't usually get much better from there. Sometimes it does but not usually.
I understand what I consider using my intuition is different than other people's ideas of intuition. It is not just as simple as most socionics one paragraph version of "intuition" in lead position. There are different kinds. Sensing is rather "intuitive" in a different way and so are feelings but feelings are the least reliable, unfortunately, because they can be clouded by strong emotion that are not always reliable. Emotion and ethics tend to make things too personal. Sensing can miss the whole or be too literal for me to trust but I would trust a sensor for some things for sure.
Like someone noted I have some very obscure sources. I am not afraid of using the dark net either. Embarrassing myself enough times by not checking my "facts" early on has made me even more sensitive to spreading disinformation and looking foolish. I will keep something to myself most likely if I can't find proof for it irl. Proof isn't for me though. It is a connection point for being understood by others. I was raised by logical types so I think in a way I have a bit of advantage from that.
I trust that when I really need to know something it will show up and be accurate. I think keeping various things in my subconscious makes this easier too. I know things I don't even realize I know until I need them.
Growing up/maturing led to more experience which helped me the most. This is a rather tricky question and I do not want to refer to any specific function by name because no one even agrees on what they look like.
“My typology is . . . not in any sense to stick labels on people at first sight. It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimitation of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical.” —C.G. Jung
I trust accuracy. If I can corroborate information, if there is evidence for what I am reading, I tend to trust it. I may not always agree with the perspective it's coming from, but information in itself is unbiased and we're the ones who attach the bias to it.
Hmm, I'll use even flakey sources if there's something true in them, or they provide a perspective I find interesting or pertinent. The source isn't really the point, it's the ideas and information that it contains. When talking to someone about a topic, I try to tailor the sources I bring up to them when I can. For example, if you're talking about a religious topic with a Christian, it's better to use the bible as a source, but if you're talking to an atheist, then you use secular sources as the bible won't mean anything to them. You don't even have to agree with everything that your source says (I usually don't agree with everything any source says, but that doesn't mean I can't use it.)
When I'm learning something, looking up information on something and want to make sure it's accurate, I can cross-check with other materials on facts, but if they have shitty reasoning I won't take it seriously and depending on how bad it is, will either continue reading for any usable parts, or if it's really bad I'll just discard it and move on.
I don't even think in those terms i.e. establishing trust with a source, as even the most trustworthy sources sometimes falter. Instead I'll try to verity the information, and if the information coming from some source repeatedly proves to be biased and misleading then that source is likely not very credible.
Academia/professional field: typically within any field there is a journal or several journals that have are both peer reviewed and have a high impact factor - these are the ones you want to subscribe to and occasionally read to keep track of what's happening in your professional field. Peer reviewed means they aren't publishing any random article they received and high impact usually holds them to a least some standards in publication. If you do not know what these are, you can ask your coworkers or your boss, and check out the references on articles to see which sources are available out there.
There is something that usually for both academia and personal situations and that is concilience - this is when you see multiple independent sources corroborating the same information, so for example 3+ research groups from different universities finding the same kind of results, or on personal level 3+ different people telling your the same thing about your work. This increases the likelihood that there is something objective there and they aren't presenting you with skewed and subjective interpretations.
News/politics: try to figure out their group affiliations and biases; read news from multiple sources, both left and right, your home country and other countries, this way you get well-rounded information that isn't slanted to support only one group. After participating in both left and right leaning groups in US I would say that politically oriented information has the highest probability of getting distorted and faked, because they are just out to sway opinions most of the time.
On result sensing: who/which group actually produces results that are of value and interest? they are likely to have something figured out that is reliable.
Because academics never have any reason to collude.... $.$Originally Posted by silke
“My typology is . . . not in any sense to stick labels on people at first sight. It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimitation of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical.” —C.G. Jung
Omg.
I am actually so bad at being able to distinguish "good" from "bad" analyses that I end up basing my analysis on what I feel about the person doing it. I start to sort out, do they have a particular bias, an emotional agenda?
This works in certain situations but not all. Sometimes things really do just require reasoning and forecasting, I ask someone else for their opinion then.
that graph implies the possibility that looking dumb makes a thing misinformation. as if the truth was always met with open arms
lol it made sense in my own head but it was out of context so here is the link from the first page.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessica.../#2a2e0dea1792
“My typology is . . . not in any sense to stick labels on people at first sight. It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimitation of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical.” —C.G. Jung
I don't think that's how graphs work... It just means that the degree of looking dumb increases as you repeat more misinformations. X is usually the independent variable, and Y is the dependent variable.
Last edited by Singu; 05-01-2018 at 01:03 AM.
When I was a child I had four books:
a bible for children
an Encyclopedia
a book on animals
a book about various topics like archeology and space travel
I felt like I had the combined knowledge of the whole world in my hands. I remember telling my mother "Look, female skeletons have one more rib than male skeletons because the bible says that god made women from a male skeleton's bone. It all makes sense now!"
When I found out that the additional rib was BS[1] I lost all trust in the children's bible and never read in it again. As a child I felt like it lied to me. Books were holy to me. How could they have misinformation?
The encyclopedia had an entry with a picture about the different taste areas of the tongue. When I found out that that was BS[2], too I grabbed a red crayon and corrected the entry angrily.
Moral of the story: You can't even trust books. j/k
Today I think the reputation of the author matters a lot. But everyone does mistakes or mixes facts with opinions. Then there is the fact that knowledge is never really set in stone. We continue to theorize, reinvent and disprove so active reading (common sense and not just consuming info without questioning the reasoning) is your only defense.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/notesand...,-1550,00.html
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tongue-...map-all-wrong/
Quick! Why do I trust the sources above? Because they say I'm right. And that's exactly how modern news work. Keep your eyes open (:
Last edited by Cosmic Teapot; 05-01-2018 at 01:10 AM.
In an age when information can be made to imitate anything at all, the reputation of your sources becomes paramount.
Holy shit, you don't have to come up with yet another bullshit just because you didn't know of things like independent variables or how to read graphs and you were ignorant.
It's like you're the prime example of that graph.
if everyone repeated misinformation it would make repeating that misinformation make you look not-dumb. that's the whole point of propaganda and marketing. its just a dumb graph
i understand independent variables, the point is you assumed a "usually" and I said "possibly" the two things are consistent, and you're missing the point, and being amusingly self righteous about thinking you scored a technical win
the whole graph is an IEIism in that its predicated on a bunch of assumptions couched in a pseudo technical presentation and it think its makes it look right. its essentially a big recursive loop of self satisfied nonsense
LOL you don't know how to read a graph. Why did you delete that post?
Are you just trying to be the example of that graph?
I deleted the post because I thought of a quicker way to get to the point without being bogged down in a useless debate... but you were all over it, so good job
yes I'm an example of that graph
think about that
Quicker, because you actually wrote more information than before? LOL.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
