3 ms·

The "default position" should be skepticism for everyone, all the time - not just data journalists.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Easy to say, hard to practice. I often don't verify that the bag of rice I bought with a digital monetary transaction is rice until I use it for the first time, and I don't even check it for biological agents at that time!
- rlucas 7y ago
  Life Improvement Protocol: Move as much as you can of your decision space into "default trust" environments. Save the "default skepticism" environments for areas where your counterparties are particularly sketchy and/or the parts of your job that make you a professional risk-sniffer-outer (journalist, investor, cop, etc.). Default skepticism is a hell of a bad way to go through life buying rice and greeting your coworkers in the morning.
- BackBackBack 7y ago
  Default skepticism doesn't mean verify everything every time. It means that when confronted with a new claim, a claim you've not decided yet its validity, you should abstain from taking a position until you have enough evidence to accept or refute the claim. In the case of your example, I gather you've bought rice before, you've probably bought at that store before, you've used money before and you've eaten food before. By the looks of it, you've probably cooked before with that same kind of rice. Hence you are not evaluating the rice and all its production line from scratch every time you buy the rice. You already evaluated that claim and you've found that the store and their products are acceptable to you and that is why you probably bought the rice. In that case you abandoned long ago the default position because you already had the required evidence to take an action. Which is the only purpose of the default position. The default position is not the forever position.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    The problem is that now you've evaluated that news agency or political leaning and you've stopped evaluating it, and 15 years later the message has changed but you haven't noticed.
    - BackBackBack 7y ago
      Why would you only evaluate the news agency? You evaluate "from the claim" not "from the claimants". I know that is what people do, and that is why this article exists, to tell them not to do that. Ironic I know. But hopefully someone will get it.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  Your sensory inputs provide a hell of lot of information about some rice. I'd also argue that experience, in many locales, recommends being skeptical that there's anything wrong with food sold in a store.

Easy to say, hard to practice. I often don't verify that the bag of rice I bought with a digital monetary transaction is rice until I use it for the first time, and I don't even check it for biological agents at that time!

rlucas 7y ago
Life Improvement Protocol: Move as much as you can of your decision space into "default trust" environments. Save the "default skepticism" environments for areas where your counterparties are particularly sketchy and/or the parts of your job that make you a professional risk-sniffer-outer (journalist, investor, cop, etc.). Default skepticism is a hell of a bad way to go through life buying rice and greeting your coworkers in the morning.
BackBackBack 7y ago
Default skepticism doesn't mean verify everything every time. It means that when confronted with a new claim, a claim you've not decided yet its validity, you should abstain from taking a position until you have enough evidence to accept or refute the claim. In the case of your example, I gather you've bought rice before, you've probably bought at that store before, you've used money before and you've eaten food before. By the looks of it, you've probably cooked before with that same kind of rice. Hence you are not evaluating the rice and all its production line from scratch every time you buy the rice. You already evaluated that claim and you've found that the store and their products are acceptable to you and that is why you probably bought the rice. In that case you abandoned long ago the default position because you already had the required evidence to take an action. Which is the only purpose of the default position. The default position is not the forever position.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  The problem is that now you've evaluated that news agency or political leaning and you've stopped evaluating it, and 15 years later the message has changed but you haven't noticed.
  - BackBackBack 7y ago
    Why would you only evaluate the news agency? You evaluate "from the claim" not "from the claimants". I know that is what people do, and that is why this article exists, to tell them not to do that. Ironic I know. But hopefully someone will get it.
maxerickson 7y ago
Your sensory inputs provide a hell of lot of information about some rice. I'd also argue that experience, in many locales, recommends being skeptical that there's anything wrong with food sold in a store.