Some expressions cannot be evaluated without knowing what people think about them. The truth is not determined by popularity, except from the perspective of the

Some expressions cannot be evaluated without knowing what people think about them. The truth is not determined by popularity, except from the perspective of the person who chooses to believe in the falsehood. I think it's relevant, but not sufficient, to know what other people believe if you want to understand the world. Of course, the whole problem is that this reflects back on itself. Such that a highly upvoted comment will be upvoted by a person who values popularity too much, whereby he thus alters the very property he used to judge whether or not he should alter the property in the first place. So some people's over-reliance on popularity destroys the usefulness of the reading for everyone else. Classic observer effect.