5 ms·

This is why people say "do your own research". Because trusting some other authority will end badly, just like this.

triceratops 5y ago
> "do your own research" How? I barely have enough time to do my day job. You think I have the time or expertise to research the origins of a virus? Where does it end? Do I grow my own food? Make my own clothes? Build my own car after mining ore, smelting it and doing a million other things?
- generalizations 5y ago
  It's a statement of consequences; just "the way the world works." Trust the experts if you've no time for more, but this is the likely result. Put time into your own research, and maybe you won't be caught off guard.
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > Put time into your own research, and maybe you won't be caught off guard. Why? What guarantees are there that I'll do a better job of research than the experts?
    - generalizations 5y ago
      It's not that you discover the One True Truth; it's that you know all the things that might be true. If you listen to the experts, all you hear is one possibility - hope they got it right.
      - triceratops 5y ago
        > If you listen to the experts The "experts" rarely have a unanimous consensus on anything. If you actually listen to all of the experts, you'll hear all of the possibilities. But that still won't tell you who's right and who isn't. On a question like "lab leak or meat market?" the answer isn't of importance to me, or any other average person. It's important for the experts to know the truth, in order to be able to prevent it next time. But other than that, finding someone (or several someones) to pin it on isn't going to give everyone the past 15 months of their lives back.
    - timelincoln 5y ago
      I don’t think anyone is suggesting you learn about virology and fly to wuhan and start looking around. Maintaining multiple explanations as possibilities until one is proven, while resisting political tribalism shrouding your view of the truth, is I suppose hard for many people to pull off. But that is what we’re suggesting you try to do, maybe next time we have a global pandemic…
      - triceratops 5y ago
        > Maintaining multiple explanations as possibilities until one is proven Why are you assuming my beliefs on this topic were set in stone previously?
        timelincoln 5y ago
        I’m not, it’s clear you’re too lazy to even consider anything until it’s kicked down to you by the political machine
        loopz 5y ago
        In beginning and middle of pandemic energy is better spent on solving the crisis first. Truth is for mortals like a set of possibilities. Here media presented both possibilities and reported usual facts and opinions. As we all know, media often gets thing wrong, as nobody are arbiters of Truth. So one reads it like that. When president turned traitor, that was more damaging than this virus itself.
        dang 5y ago
        You've broken the site guidelines badly and repeatedly in this thread. Crossing into personal attack is seriously not cool, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. And you broke other guidelines too. I'm not going to ban you because it doesn't seem like this happened before, but we ban accounts that do this kind of thing, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - fma 5y ago
    Nah what happens is then people start trusting people who say "don't trust the experts, here's my theory though" and says whatever it takes to get clicks to their YouTube channel.
    - generalizations 5y ago
      It's as straightforward a statement as it can get. I don't watch YouTube much, but when I read threads on this kind of stuff, that's the mantra: here's what I found, here's what I think, go do your own research.
  - calsy 5y ago
    Yes trust the experts if you cant run your own experts. You know the people who can be easily influenced by funding sources, political pressure and their own need for validation and success. If there is anything we have learnt is that 'Authority is Truth' and no one in positions of Authority or 'experts' has ever deceived the public.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    I'm still trusting the experts, and the experts are changing their minds. Nothing is going wrong here...
- reedjosh 5y ago
  At the very least, ditch ad funded media. When you're not the product, you'll get more truth.
- lmm 5y ago
  The more important takeaway is don't shout down those who are skeptical if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself. Get comfortable with not knowing, with being agnostic on a lot of issues, because it's often the only reasonable position. (The most important takeaway is to ignore Twitter - not "social media", but specifically Twitter).
  - chrischen 5y ago
    So I give every quack the same attention, legitimacy, as say, an expert I trust? That's almost as bad advice as trust no one and do my own research for everything.
    - loopz 5y ago
      At least after some damage, one then learns something.
    - lmm 5y ago
      No, you make your own judgements, but you don't publish them. Otherwise initially legitimate credibility gets amplified to unreasonable levels because everyone ends up circularly reasoning that the more credible people are more credible.
  - triceratops 5y ago
    All fair points. But again I question the part where you said "if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself". How would I, a person with no training in virology, do that? At some point, you have to trust someone or some institution or organization or system.
    - lmm 5y ago
      > But again I question the part where you said "if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself". How would I, a person with no training in virology, do that? My point is that maybe you shouldn't stick your oar in in that case. The polarisation was exacerbated by a lot of non-experts who not just trusted the WHO (reasonable in itself) but felt the need to pile on anyone who was questioning them.
- timelincoln 5y ago
  Perhaps begin by entertaining ideas as possible until proven otherwise. No scientists ever provided conclusive proof the virus didn’t originate in a lab. If you were to look at what some scientists were saying such as the former director of the CDC you would hear explanations including evidence that suggested it probably did leak from a lab. But since the dawn of search engines, we’ve been suggesting that lazy people investigate and seek out the truth instead of clinging to dogma that validates their biases. Perhaps that will never change. I get it if you’re not interested in the actual truth, but that is exactly the problem. We as citizens who have dealt with this crisis deserve to know the truth. And by the way, an empowered and informed citizenry is what makes a nation strong across all metrics. If you only care about yourself I get it, make your money. But some of us still care about our country (whatever country we live in).
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > Perhaps begin by entertaining ideas as possible until proven otherwise You're assuming I didn't already do that. I'm just objecting to the exhortation to "do your own research". I'm not going to do that, because we live in a modern society with labor specialization. > No scientists ever provided conclusive proof the virus didn’t originate in a lab. Where the virus originated from is nice to know for later. But I really care about getting my life back right now. The scientists and experts can debate all the evidence, consider all the options, and report back their findings. "Doing my research" isn't going to help anyone.
    - timelincoln 5y ago
      I understand you’re self interested, so why are you even commenting on this thread? Get back to your ‘life’ for however rewarding that is to you
      - triceratops 5y ago
        What you said upthread stood out to me. > suggesting that lazy people investigate and seek out the truth instead of clinging to dogma that validates their biases What's more common with the "do your own research" types is seeking out sources of information that validates their biases. And calling everything else "dogma" or "MSM" or whatever. I know my own field (software) and I'll readily call out BS when I see it. In this field, I can trust my own judgment after doing my own research. I don't care for my doctor's opinion on encryption or network protocols. It's likely to be seriously misinformed or lacking in perspective. By the same coin, I recognize that I don't have the expertise or a sufficiently strong knowledge base to form a serious opinion on other things just on the basis of "research" i.e. typing some terms into a search engine. That's intellectual humility, not laziness.
colechristensen 5y ago
People say "do your own research" but really more than most people are incapable of finding and evaluating information on their own. "Read a bunch of blogs and facebook posts until something fits your pre-judged intuition" doesn't count as research and that is the extent of the abilities of people. There is something distinctly missing from education even through undergraduate degrees: gathering, evaluating, and criticizing conflicting high quality research. I took a philosophy class in the spring and one of the most striking things about it wasn't the material but the other students (most of whom a decade or more my junior) reactions to the material. A few of them were openly upset at the disagreement and inconsistency of philosophical opinion on every topic discussed; I didn't really understand it at first but then... What seems to have happened is basically for their entire education up to their senior years in undergrad, these people had only really ever been taught the Truth as though everything presented to them were solid facts and as a corollary, in general things should just be known and true or not. There is a really big gap there. Sure, there are plenty of things which are quite certain, but people need to be driven to realize the truth doesn't just pop out one day, it is arrived at through a long process of disagreement and development and there are few ideas out there which weren't in their time quite controversial, and there is plenty still which is being presented as True which really has quite a bit of room for doubt.
dang 5y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27389001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27389001.

> "do your own research" How? I barely have enough time to do my day job. You think I have the time or expertise to research the origins of a virus? Where does it end? Do I grow my own food? Make my own clothes? Build my own car after mining ore, smelting it and doing a million other things?

generalizations 5y ago
It's a statement of consequences; just "the way the world works." Trust the experts if you've no time for more, but this is the likely result. Put time into your own research, and maybe you won't be caught off guard.
- triceratops 5y ago
  > Put time into your own research, and maybe you won't be caught off guard. Why? What guarantees are there that I'll do a better job of research than the experts?
  - generalizations 5y ago
    It's not that you discover the One True Truth; it's that you know all the things that might be true. If you listen to the experts, all you hear is one possibility - hope they got it right.
    - triceratops 5y ago
      > If you listen to the experts The "experts" rarely have a unanimous consensus on anything. If you actually listen to all of the experts, you'll hear all of the possibilities. But that still won't tell you who's right and who isn't. On a question like "lab leak or meat market?" the answer isn't of importance to me, or any other average person. It's important for the experts to know the truth, in order to be able to prevent it next time. But other than that, finding someone (or several someones) to pin it on isn't going to give everyone the past 15 months of their lives back.
  - timelincoln 5y ago
    I don’t think anyone is suggesting you learn about virology and fly to wuhan and start looking around. Maintaining multiple explanations as possibilities until one is proven, while resisting political tribalism shrouding your view of the truth, is I suppose hard for many people to pull off. But that is what we’re suggesting you try to do, maybe next time we have a global pandemic…
    - triceratops 5y ago
      > Maintaining multiple explanations as possibilities until one is proven Why are you assuming my beliefs on this topic were set in stone previously?
      - timelincoln 5y ago
        I’m not, it’s clear you’re too lazy to even consider anything until it’s kicked down to you by the political machine
        loopz 5y ago
        In beginning and middle of pandemic energy is better spent on solving the crisis first. Truth is for mortals like a set of possibilities. Here media presented both possibilities and reported usual facts and opinions. As we all know, media often gets thing wrong, as nobody are arbiters of Truth. So one reads it like that. When president turned traitor, that was more damaging than this virus itself.
        dang 5y ago
        You've broken the site guidelines badly and repeatedly in this thread. Crossing into personal attack is seriously not cool, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. And you broke other guidelines too. I'm not going to ban you because it doesn't seem like this happened before, but we ban accounts that do this kind of thing, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fma 5y ago
  Nah what happens is then people start trusting people who say "don't trust the experts, here's my theory though" and says whatever it takes to get clicks to their YouTube channel.
  - generalizations 5y ago
    It's as straightforward a statement as it can get. I don't watch YouTube much, but when I read threads on this kind of stuff, that's the mantra: here's what I found, here's what I think, go do your own research.
- calsy 5y ago
  Yes trust the experts if you cant run your own experts. You know the people who can be easily influenced by funding sources, political pressure and their own need for validation and success. If there is anything we have learnt is that 'Authority is Truth' and no one in positions of Authority or 'experts' has ever deceived the public.
- chrischen 5y ago
  I'm still trusting the experts, and the experts are changing their minds. Nothing is going wrong here...
reedjosh 5y ago
At the very least, ditch ad funded media. When you're not the product, you'll get more truth.
lmm 5y ago
The more important takeaway is don't shout down those who are skeptical if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself. Get comfortable with not knowing, with being agnostic on a lot of issues, because it's often the only reasonable position. (The most important takeaway is to ignore Twitter - not "social media", but specifically Twitter).
- chrischen 5y ago
  So I give every quack the same attention, legitimacy, as say, an expert I trust? That's almost as bad advice as trust no one and do my own research for everything.
  - loopz 5y ago
    At least after some damage, one then learns something.
  - lmm 5y ago
    No, you make your own judgements, but you don't publish them. Otherwise initially legitimate credibility gets amplified to unreasonable levels because everyone ends up circularly reasoning that the more credible people are more credible.
- triceratops 5y ago
  All fair points. But again I question the part where you said "if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself". How would I, a person with no training in virology, do that? At some point, you have to trust someone or some institution or organization or system.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > But again I question the part where you said "if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself". How would I, a person with no training in virology, do that? My point is that maybe you shouldn't stick your oar in in that case. The polarisation was exacerbated by a lot of non-experts who not just trusted the WHO (reasonable in itself) but felt the need to pile on anyone who was questioning them.
timelincoln 5y ago
Perhaps begin by entertaining ideas as possible until proven otherwise. No scientists ever provided conclusive proof the virus didn’t originate in a lab. If you were to look at what some scientists were saying such as the former director of the CDC you would hear explanations including evidence that suggested it probably did leak from a lab. But since the dawn of search engines, we’ve been suggesting that lazy people investigate and seek out the truth instead of clinging to dogma that validates their biases. Perhaps that will never change. I get it if you’re not interested in the actual truth, but that is exactly the problem. We as citizens who have dealt with this crisis deserve to know the truth. And by the way, an empowered and informed citizenry is what makes a nation strong across all metrics. If you only care about yourself I get it, make your money. But some of us still care about our country (whatever country we live in).
- triceratops 5y ago
  > Perhaps begin by entertaining ideas as possible until proven otherwise You're assuming I didn't already do that. I'm just objecting to the exhortation to "do your own research". I'm not going to do that, because we live in a modern society with labor specialization. > No scientists ever provided conclusive proof the virus didn’t originate in a lab. Where the virus originated from is nice to know for later. But I really care about getting my life back right now. The scientists and experts can debate all the evidence, consider all the options, and report back their findings. "Doing my research" isn't going to help anyone.
  - timelincoln 5y ago
    I understand you’re self interested, so why are you even commenting on this thread? Get back to your ‘life’ for however rewarding that is to you
    - triceratops 5y ago
      What you said upthread stood out to me. > suggesting that lazy people investigate and seek out the truth instead of clinging to dogma that validates their biases What's more common with the "do your own research" types is seeking out sources of information that validates their biases. And calling everything else "dogma" or "MSM" or whatever. I know my own field (software) and I'll readily call out BS when I see it. In this field, I can trust my own judgment after doing my own research. I don't care for my doctor's opinion on encryption or network protocols. It's likely to be seriously misinformed or lacking in perspective. By the same coin, I recognize that I don't have the expertise or a sufficiently strong knowledge base to form a serious opinion on other things just on the basis of "research" i.e. typing some terms into a search engine. That's intellectual humility, not laziness.

colechristensen 5y ago

People say "do your own research" but really more than most people are incapable of finding and evaluating information on their own. "Read a bunch of blogs and facebook posts until something fits your pre-judged intuition" doesn't count as research and that is the extent of the abilities of people. There is something distinctly missing from education even through undergraduate degrees: gathering, evaluating, and criticizing conflicting high quality research. I took a philosophy class in the spring and one of the most striking things about it wasn't the material but the other students (most of whom a decade or more my junior) reactions to the material. A few of them were openly upset at the disagreement and inconsistency of philosophical opinion on every topic discussed; I didn't really understand it at first but then... What seems to have happened is basically for their entire education up to their senior years in undergrad, these people had only really ever been taught the Truth as though everything presented to them were solid facts and as a corollary, in general things should just be known and true or not. There is a really big gap there. Sure, there are plenty of things which are quite certain, but people need to be driven to realize the truth doesn't just pop out one day, it is arrived at through a long process of disagreement and development and there are few ideas out there which weren't in their time quite controversial, and there is plenty still which is being presented as True which really has quite a bit of room for doubt.

dang 5y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27389001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27389001.