[jaydenseric]

> At some point you're gonna have to trust an authoritative source. Whether that is APNews or NYT or straight from the government website.

Would you really teach your children "trust the New York Times and whatever the government says"? When both said Iraq had WMDs, did you believe them? In a perfect world we could all look at the source material (photos, videos, data, etc.) ourselves to figure out reality and there would be uncensorable platforms for individuals to call out corruption and reach the masses. This was the original promise of the internet and social media! Sadly the authoritarian left is insistent on defining "reality" and relishes censoring dissenting facts or opinions. Facebook and Twitter wields their "fact checking" and censorship on a might-is-right basis, which disenfranchises 50% of the population and is seriously incendiary to civil discourse.

[systemvoltage]

I am talking about authoritative source of truth. Not arguing which specific source.

[humanrebar]

Right. But evidence is more trustworthy than authority.

[systemvoltage]

I am terrified of the idea that the common public of 70 million people that voted for Trump did not have the basic skills to determine what's true and what's not from the evidence. They've been constantly fed lies - as we speak about election fraud. They're provided with plenty of evidence, they choose to not believe.

If you think about the world where 80% of the people are religious, who throw away evidence in favor of faith; you're in for a dark future.

[humanrebar]

I am saying I don't believe in authoritative sources of truth. All the "wrong" people out there don't enter into it when I am reading news. I look for facts that can be and have been validated.

And it's important to have humility about being right about everything. You don't have to go back far to find folks on the left excited about the prospects for Venezuela. Now, it's possible to find scapegoats, but it does explain some of the right-wing perspective on fake news. If the left and the media had to see a country basically collapse to call the Venezuelan government problematic, what do you call the reporting and debate points before that? "Factual" doesn't cut it.

[ryanSrich]

Pompous comments like this only drive people further away. Evidence being presented by a biased media is not evidence to be trusted. MSM “science” and “facts” are just as much a religion as Catholicism.

If I’m presented evidence from someone that has routinely lied to me, called me names, destroyed my career, and shipped my job prospects overseas, I’m not believing a single word they say.

[PaulStatezny]

The fact that you're getting downvoted on such a simple, objectively true statement shows the blatant bias of the HN crowd.

[systemvoltage]

What’s the distinction between evidence and authority in practical sense?

Vaccine efficacy according to FDA says it’s 90%. ~~~~> Authority.

Paper published by FDA shows data ~~~~> Evidence.

Right?

Who wrote the paper and who collected the data? Some authority.

[adventured]

> When both said Iraq had WMDs, did you believe them?

Biden voted for the Iraq War and 70 million people just installed him as President so we can go back to the glorious way things were before. Certainly the billionaire elites, deep state, globalists, big tech, pro war Democrats and Republicans, big business (which loves infinite cheap labor), China - they're all thrilled with where this goes next.

I wonder if all the people cheering for Biden (including the Europeans) will be offering apologies when Biden & Co. start the next round of wars, as we return to the ways things were pre-Trump. Biden's brain is jello, so somebody else is going to be steering the ship the next few years until he steps down for health reasons to set up Harris to run for re-election in 2024 running as the incumbent. Zero chance Biden's health holds up against the rigors of the job given how much he has collapsed mentally in the past four years (the stress of the job will make it that much worse).

As an American, I'm increasingly interested in leaving the country. Not specifically because of Trump or Biden, but because of everything, the general direction of the country, the imploding culture, the partisan venom, the fiscal disaster, the superpower globalism (including the war machine), the disastrous immigration policies. The US is fundamentally broken and will not be repaired, it's only going to get worse as real authoritarianism rises on both sides (socialism and fascism, both of which require extreme political violence, a small taste of which we've just recently been getting). The future of the US is Brazil, with more money. Canada is looking very nice (sane immigration policies, national selfishness regarding their priorities, no war machine, spending allocated effectively (the US spends more of its economy on its mediocre welfare state than Canada does and gets a lot less for it), a stable culture, and national civility).