[verygoodname]

Ah, yes... the "if I put everything in doubt, even the most painfully obvious things, it makes me seem smart" crowd.

Here's the thing, though: if one is basing their "doubts" on random brainfarts or propaganda pieces they saw on youtube or facebook and decided to trust blindly, they're probably also doing it wrong.

Skepticism that is not accompanied by critical thinking, actual knowledge, intellectual honesty and a dash of humility is useless or worse.

TL;DR: Epistemology is hard, but "just doubt everything" is not it, chief.

[Chris2048]

Are you accusing tomp of being part of that crowd? Seems an uncharitable interpretation of their words.

[verygoodname]

Not at all. Just criticizing his blanket statement, apparently used to justify "doubting the results of US elections": "doubting" just for the sake of doubting, particularly when it feeds into narratives being driven by trolls, disinformation and hidden agendas, doesn't do Democracy or Truth any service.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the people in question (that are doubting the results of the US elections) are rather "skeptical" towards (so called) mainstream media, but not as much when it comes to the random crap on fox news, ann, youtube and facebook. If this is the case, then this makes them more "useful idiots" than actual "skeptics", in my opinion.

TL;DR: "Doubting blindly" (usually based on whatever Fox News or 4chan is spreading today) is as at least as bad as "trusting blindly".

[Chris2048]

> particularly when it feeds into narratives

This shouldn't matter, otherwise you'll succumb to false-flags and Reverse psychology.

In any case, the post you responded to doesn't say anything about fox news. Any basing an opinion on fox news isn't "Doubting blindly"; it would be blind trust.

Blind doubt aka scepticism is fine, because doubting something (with poor sources) isn't the same as assuming it's false - it's not assuming that it's true.

Lack of a reason to trust US elections is justification to doubt them. The standard is (should be) that these things prove themselves, rather than put the burden of proof on outside observers.

It's also worth noting the post that it was replying to said:

> My university educated in laws in the UK are doubting the outcome of elections in the US

which seems to take "doubting the outcome of elections" as automatically outrageous, without mention of reasons, sources or why.