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Thread: How do you decide you trust a source? What sources to trust?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Adam Strange View Post
    In an age when information can be made to imitate anything at all, the reputation of your sources becomes paramount.
    The reputation can also br madr to be anything at all

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aramas View Post
    Because academics never have any reason to collude.... $.$
    Academics become famous and gain financial support by proving each other wrong and making discoveries ahead of other research groups. Collusion is a really silly suggestion in that kind of environment, but if you'd rather see conspiracy theories everywhere then that's your choice.

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    Quote Originally Posted by silke View Post
    Academics become famous and gain financial support by proving each other wrong and making discoveries ahead of other research groups. Collusion is a really silly suggestion in that kind of environment, but if you'd rather see conspiracy theories everywhere then that's your choice.
    Academics become famous these days by patting each other on the back and begging for government grants under the auspice of crisis. Mental health crisis, climate crisis, drug epidemic, pathogen epidemic, kids aren't learning epidemic, fake news epidemic, etc etc. If you want to be naive, that's up to you.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aramas View Post
    Academics become famous these days by patting each other on the back and begging for government grants under the auspice of crisis. Mental health crisis, climate crisis, drug epidemic, pathogen epidemic, kids aren't learning epidemic, fake news epidemic, etc etc. If you want to be naive, that's up to you.
    You're assuming a lot of malice and pettiness on the part of people who choose to work in academia, which is simply not true. Nobody goes to work in academia so that they could scaremonger the population with crises, but if there is evidence it deserves attention and examination rather than being sorry when it's too late.

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    i think it's more important to know why i'm seeking sources because i'd probably use different criteria to determine the veracity of sources based on what i'm looking for. i would never trust a single source for everything, but realistically i don't have the time nor the means to do a background check on every individual source either. i do try to keep biases in mind but i don't think i try to identify specific biases, it's just a matter of being aware of balance. if it treads too far to either side of a spectrum then i become curious about the other side of that spectrum since b&w thinking sets off alarms in my head. when i'm interested in something, i usually just read whatever i can find. my brain probably does the rest of the work without me being conscious of how.

    so for that reason it's probably just as important to be conscious of our own biases. i feel like there's this idea that everyone has an agenda except us.

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    Quote Originally Posted by silke View Post
    You're assuming a lot of malice and pettiness on the part of people who choose to work in academia, which is simply not true. Nobody goes to work in academia so that they could scaremonger the population with crises, but if there is evidence it deserves attention and examination rather than being sorry when it's too late.
    Haha! I'm not assuming anything lol. I've had a lot of personal one-on-one experiences talking to academics. It's actually extremely cutthroat and bureaucratic. Students in graduate programs at top schools will sink to tactics like hiding research materials from each other to prevent them from getting their work done. And that's just the students. Professors and advisors will crap all over good ideas that come from their charges if those ideas threaten their power, and they'll use their power to prevent their students' ideas from coming to fruition, especially if those ideas overturn the theory their advisors created. Ordinary undergraduate students usually don't have the opportunity to see all the BS that goes on, and they don't know exactly how academia works until they go to grad school. People typically keep their mouth shut about it, though, for fear of retribution. A few people have spoken out about the problems in academia, but their voices get drowned out.

    The peer review process is broken, because it allows for the creation of a parasitic field that subverts the funding process if at least some or a minor majority of the members agree to collude and advance the idea that there's some crisis that needs solving, and academics are the ones to do the job. The fake crisis pulls in additional research money as long as the majority persists in asserting that there's a crisis and that funding is needed to solve the problem. Because all the members of that field benefit from the additional funding, there's individual incentive to participate in a collectively sponsored lie.

    If you don't think academia can be pernicious, look at the proven, factual relationship between top university academics from universities like Harvard and Stanford and the federal government in the specific context of the mkultra program revealed by the Church Committee. That single example by itself should be enough to convince you that the academic process can be subverted. And should you conclude that that is all stuff that just happened way back in the past, look at more recent examples of PhD psychologists who were part of the APA who participated in torture sponsored by the US military and federal government.

    People who work in academia are extremely petty people who are often extremely malicious. Anyone who doesn't know that must not have much experience with it. I'm not saying they're all like that, but there's a lot of them who are.

    And anyone who really believes in the process of peer review should try it with school children. The error comes in when you assume that adults don't play the same games and don't have the same bullshit that kids do. They're just more grown up about their tactics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aramas View Post
    People who work in academia are extremely petty people who are often extremely malicious. Anyone who doesn't know that must not have much experience with it. I'm not saying they're all like that, but there's a lot of them who are.
    If you aren't saying all of them are like that (bolded) then don't state it in that way (underlined).

    Possible you are projecting your own motives onto others.

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    I'm sure that there are a lot of pettiness in the academia, but it seems more like they're seeking prestige, recognition and esteem more than anything else.

    Why would they want funding, just so that they could do some bogus researches? That makes no sense. I mean if they were so malicious, then the bogus researches would obviously be criticized and ridiculed by the other academics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Delilah View Post
    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?
    I don't think I trust any source per se. Some are better than others, and obviously official sources on a given topic tend to be better, but obviously I can still find some contradiction or error in any source. So, I often check multiple sources and I just rely on my own sense of consistency putting it all together and also against my experience if that's applicable.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    I'm sure that there are a lot of pettiness in the academia, but it seems more like they're seeking prestige, recognition and esteem more than anything else.

    Why would they want funding, just so that they could do some bogus researches? That makes no sense. I mean if they were so malicious, then the bogus researches would obviously be criticized and ridiculed by the other academics.
    Honestly if they are that malicious and wanting to get rich and good at finding ways to get money, they'd not waste their time in academia, they'd go and do something else to actually get rich...

    Lol though prestige and recognition... I would never in my life want to write research articles just so I get cited enough times.

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    Well I'm sure that the corruption in the academia is a real thing, and it may not even be a small problem. But corruption tend to happen from the top-down, and not bottom-up. Naturally, the government and people with money have the power. Academics have less power than them, and they are at their mercy. So if anyone corrupts the academics, then it's usually those who have the power.

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    first of all, maybe the corruption did come from the top down--doesn't change that the academy has issues

    second, within the academy there is certainly a top and a bottom, i.e.: a heirarchy. as soon as two or more people are gathered (in other words a group, and within all groups) there is a power disparity and a potential abuse of that power, i.e.: the source of corruption

    third, assuming there is a top down structure corrupting the academy (unless you believe either the academy is pristine or the world-above itself is perfect), the academy is like a conduit, its literally in the business of propogating information, that corrupts the new minds exposed to it, as well as to everything "beneath" it

    what you're really proposing is not that the academy is not corrupt but that solutions must come from the top down, i.e.: a kind of monarchism or totalitarianism

    rather the solution is both that corruption and redemption come from the bottom up, because only individuals not institutions or figureheads can fix things, because it is within their individuality that lies initially uncorrupted and for some, uncorruptable, state--the "top" is just a manifestation of the mob and cannot but be, like you concede, by its nature somewhat corrupt (albeit necessary)
    Last edited by Bertrand; 05-01-2018 at 05:54 PM.

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    Meh, obviously I'm saying that things like big-oil corporations can use their money and influence to buy out and lobby politicians, professors, researchers, the media and other influential people to conduct bogus "researches" to influence things in their favor, and also to manipulate public opinion. And of course, the government can either try to threaten to cut fundings or fund things to what they'd approve of.

    And as for things like "corruption" in the liberal arts and universities etc, well that's just kind of their own stupidity and problems with their philosophies than it has to do with corruption.

    Actually there could potentially be "corruption" from the bottom-down, and that is the suppression of certain researches from "the mob", like people protesting. That ranges from both the left and right, like "political correctness" and agendas, and religious suppression like creationism.
    Last edited by Singu; 05-02-2018 at 02:18 AM.

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    yeah to suggest otherwise would be to say that the bottom is perfect and corruption comes from the top only

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    I don't really trust anything, not even myself, at least not until I've had a chance to critically assess what I'm given. That's what kind of bugs me about political discussions is that I come from a perspective of thinking I might be wrong and probably missing many things in understanding, whereas most often other people have already decided they were right, chosen a side, and want to make ideology into a debate. meh,

    And I don't understand how people can go to say a mechanic or a repair shop and trust the technician to diagnose their problem. Not knowing yourself just leaves the potential to get taken advantage of.

    And I don't get how some people think they will do something right "the first time". And when that doesn't happen, they think the solution is to defer that something to a "professional", as if learning isn't worth making mistakes...

    And it doesn't help that everybody has their own perspective on anything, especially when it comes to disagreements. It's almost like human intelligence is designed not to see eye-to-eye on things. So the more opinions, perspective, angles, views, etc I have, the better decisions and conclusions I can make imo.

    I think I'm off-topic now.
    good bye

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    Quote Originally Posted by strangeling View Post
    I don't really trust anything, not even myself, at least not until I've had a chance to critically assess what I'm given. That's what kind of bugs me about political discussions is that I come from a perspective of thinking I might be wrong and probably missing many things in understanding, whereas most often other people have already decided they were right, chosen a side, and want to make ideology into a debate. meh,

    And I don't understand how people can go to say a mechanic or a repair shop and trust the technician to diagnose their problem. Not knowing yourself just leaves the potential to get taken advantage of.

    And I don't get how some people think they will do something right "the first time". And when that doesn't happen, they think the solution is to defer that something to a "professional", as if learning isn't worth making mistakes...

    And it doesn't help that everybody has their own perspective on anything, especially when it comes to disagreements. It's almost like human intelligence is designed not to see eye-to-eye on things. So the more opinions, perspective, angles, views, etc I have, the better decisions and conclusions I can make imo.

    I think I'm off-topic now.
    Se devaluing E6?

    I mean the way you interpret motives of other people (falsely btw -- it feels like you are biased and it's definitely not matching reality in every case) who stick to certain conclusions seems like you are coming at it from a devalued Se pov. That and/or Irrationality.

    As for going to a repair shop: you can check their references if that helps you feel better.

    And no, I don't think learning everything yourself is worth the waste of time. A day is 24 hours only. Sometimes yes you want to learn it yourself but sometimes you do want to delegate the task to the professional. And I don't see why you put that word in quot. marks lol. Do you think there is no such thing as a professional who actually has valid and deep expertise?

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    wait, what. What motives am I interpreting? That was just a general abstract...

    You can check references, but it's still good to know what's wrong before asking someone to fix it (for many reasons).

    And you don't have to learn everything per say. Just enough not to get screwed by lack of information.
    good bye

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    Quote Originally Posted by strangeling View Post
    wait, what. What motives am I interpreting? That was just a general abstract...
    These: "other people have already decided they were right, chosen a side, and want to make ideology into a debate"


    You can check references, but it's still good to know what's wrong before asking someone to fix it (for many reasons).

    And you don't have to learn everything per say. Just enough not to get screwed by lack of information.
    Yeah but I think it matters what information to get... so for example checking references can be way faster than trying to learn enough about what's wrong (especially if as you said you need to be very thorough before you reach certainty). It depends on the situation ofc

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    Every source, more or less, goes in the "probably (mild)" file.

    Trust doesn't come into the equation at all. The further I can grasp motives behind the info's release, the more I can push the info from "probably (mild)" to a stronger "yes", a weaker "yes", leave it in ambiguity, or even have it end up in some area of "no". Not all bits and pieces of the source material will shift equally.

    Different sources lining up -- this moves everything closer to "yes". When one piece of truth lines up with a backlog of other truth, it all moves closer to a solid "yes".

    I don't need certainty to act, I don't need certainty to choose; if I'm better than a coin flip, this is usually good enough. I don't need chunks of coherence to all meet each other in some perfect network either.
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    Addendum: in most cases, the tidbits we absorb aren't really relevant to how we live on a daily basis, so the truth value of those statements isn't really all that important. Most things in the news, for example, are irrelevant. Most of us have no impact or means to alter the course of events beyond our immediate influence.

    So, whether or not I trust info is also dependent on whether or not it needs to be trusted, or whether it matters if I'm misinformed or not.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Myst View Post
    These: "other people have already decided they were right, chosen a side, and want to make ideology into a debate"
    ???
    good bye

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    Quote Originally Posted by strangeling View Post
    ???
    Now you sound like the mystified one

    So anyway, what I bolded are assumed motives.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Myst View Post
    Now you sound like the mystified one

    So anyway, what I bolded are assumed motives.
    Yeah, I get it. It's just not relevant when you mis-characterize what I said. You seem to do that a lot.
    good bye

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    Quote Originally Posted by strangeling View Post
    Yeah, I get it. It's just not relevant when you mis-characterize what I said. You seem to do that a lot.
    I did not mischaracterize it.

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