[DeathArrow]

For some areas you need expertise. But some areas can be checked by everyone. Affirmations like "according to the sources politician X was accused of fraud" and "during president X, the economic sector Y experienced a growth of Xyz %".

That still takes time, though.

[bbor]

Very true! But I’d still argue the idea that (partially) relying on commentary is what causes bias is hubristic; in practice, it usually just means that you’re relying on commentary without realizing it. Like, take the instance mentioned in the original comment: reading “the text of a law”. This is a great thing to do, but assuming you’re not a legal scholar and a political expert specializing in that field, it’s no reason not to also seek out commentary that explains the intent and likely impact of the law. To say the least, laws are not objective — that’s why we need the judicial system.

In my experience, this overall rhetorical tactic is often pulled out by people who pride themselves on some variety of centrism/moderation, and are trying to dismiss the worries of others. This is good when they do it to beliefs like “crime is going up” or “criminal immigrant are invading our country”, but not so much when it’s used against “yes, he really does endorse P2025 even though he claims not to”.

Plus cmon it’s gotta just infuriate any interlocutor. I’ve never dealt with “well you’re just not smart enough to understand why I’m right”, and this focus on reading primary sources seems like a variety of that.

Again, not at all saying that they’re wrong to read primary sources, or that it’s not sometimes absolutely necessary; just that the “worldview”-based confidence stemming from such a practice is misplaced.

[smeej]

Commentary has its place, but it's in the context of primary sources. It can't stand on its own. And there's a vast quality chasm between expert commentary and mainstream news commentator commentary.

I can't speak to everyone's experience, but I have never been to an event later reported in the news where the news report corresponded to what I witnessed enough for me to believe the reporter was even there. And anymore, they aren't. They're trying to synthesize observations from dozens of different people, who themselves may or may not have been there, and doing it so fast they don't have a chance to verify whether they were. It's like a giant game of "telephone," but it's presented as though it's all fact.

In the specific example of the law, I was specifically saying, "[Politician] approved the change of a law from saying X to saying Y," so the text of the law before and after the politician's approval was the specific issue in question. I can see why there would be lots of situations where expert legal commentary would be important to understanding the impact of the change, but in this case, my brother was trying to say that politician hadn't changed the law at all, which just plain wasn't true.

[photonthug]

> my brother was trying to say that politician hadn't changed the law at all, which just plain wasn't true.

And there’s a good chance that he rejects evidence to the contrary, or if finally faced with evidence beyond refute, it changes nothing, right?

One possible explanation for stuff like this is that you’re dealing with someone that has an anti-realist meta-ethic, which is not so unusual, but what is new is the blurred boundary between factual questions and ethical questions. Something like “Fair election?” would seem to be a clear and concrete question about the world, but the answer you’d get is always for a different question, and so it amounts to boo or hurrah. Even asking a simpler question about a specific policy changing or staying the same cannot untangle the discourse if that question is perceived as too close to an ethical one.

See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressivism , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism , etc.

[smeej]

> And there’s a good chance that he rejects evidence to the contrary, or if finally faced with evidence beyond refute, it changes nothing, right?

It actually wasn't even rejection. It was this pivot to, "You live in a different moral reality than I do, and therefore your assessment of factual reality is morally bankrupt," even though I thought we were talking about whether the law had changed, not the moral value of a change.

It got ugly really fast, and frankly I'm still bewildered by it. It would have been one thing if he didn't think there was a reality to appeal to. This was just, "You have a fact I don't like, and therefore are evil."