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by krcz 1962 days ago
Maybe there just is no objective "right" and it's better to have two biased stories with diverse biases instead of one trying its best to be unbiased.
1 comments

I don't have an opinion whether sourcing information from multiple opposing sources gives best opinion. Maybe it is fine, my point is that the premise of "averaging opposing narratives gives the average correct result" is not right.

Let's consider a few (made up) scenarios:

A is right and B is right, but they show two different sides of the story - for example a description of hurdles of two different social groups from the insider perspective, and description of a conflict between them using that perspective. Reading both is clearly good, because your understanding of the issue is deeper than just following your bubble's narrative. So far so good.

A is wrong and B is wrong. For example A says, that if we let the tribe FOO win the election, it will cause the economical collapse, and B says that if we won't let the tribe FOO win the election, it will cause the economical collapse. Both (in this hypothetical scenario) are just putting a bogeymen to advance some narrative - you are not smarter from reading them, even more, you may truly believe either A or B and have your opinion altered by a cynical actor. Not so good, but still - you may think - since both say something completely opposite, then maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle; then you benefit from the fact, that there are two (not one) - just as you said in the parent comment.

A is right and B is wrong. Say one group says, that FOO is good for you (and it is an opinion supported by some amount of evidence, and in our artifical example it is true that FOO is good for you), but B says that it is very very bad for you - be it ignorance or cynical narrative incited by Mordor-funded trolls :-) Clearly with one source of information (that is A) we are better of.

So please let me reiterate - I'm not saying that sourcing information from multiple outlets is good (or wrong), only that saying that "averaging" the information gives you a more correct opinion seems dubious to me.

In these examples, you seem to know whether these stances are right or wrong.

How will I get a chance to figure that out too, unless both sides are presented? Surely, I'm not just supposed to trust you, right?

I've emphasized a few times, that examples are made up (for a purpose of explaining different scenarios). I haven't included any actual opinion to make it even more apparent.

You should it read it like this:

_given_ [ A is right and B is wrong ] this and that _may_ happen

with emphasis put on the word "given".

In real world are usually more than two actors and multiple mutually exclusive narratives; authors even when deliberately lying include some truth to make it more believable etc etc, my point of the previous post was that adding a new source with an agenda usually does increase the noise, but not _necessarily_ the signal.