While "critical thinking skills" are great in principle, empirically they are invoked almost exclusively by people practicing their very own brand of pseudophil

While "critical thinking skills" are great in principle, empirically they are invoked almost exclusively by people practicing their very own brand of pseudophilosophy. The core tenets of that particular groupthink are the rejection of the "mainstream media" as corrupt/"biased"/irrelevant (usually in favour of some guy publishing daily 60 minute rants on YouTube), an unhealthy obsession with IQs in general and its variability between races and/or genders in particular, and the unwavering belief that Flat Earthers and Holocaust Denialists are the result of a lack of information on the respective subjects. "Self-Indulgent" is a perfect term here: these people expand the universe of possible sources to almost infinity, which is laudable, at least in theory. But in the necessary next step of cutting it down to the amount one can actually handle, they fail to preserve the diversity of the input signal. From the rich buffet that is on offer, they pick 15 cheeseburgers.