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If Steve Jobs made some claim about the history of Apple Computer, I wouldn't ask for a source because he is a source. If he were making a claim about the corre

If Steve Jobs made some claim about the history of Apple Computer, I wouldn't ask for a source because he is a source. If he were making a claim about the correlation between attractiveness and success, then yes I'd ask for a source, because why should he know anything about that in particular? But even in that case, he's already a real person I know of, a person who is known to be pretty intelligent, a person whose motivations I can have a reasonable guess at, a person who I know needs to be careful about what they say in public fora. Each of these things put Steve Jobs a little ahead of 'random stranger on the internet' for reliability.

Tichy 15y ago
"a person who is known to be pretty intelligent" That is just the thing. Your default assumption about an unknown person seems to be that he or she is not intelligent and doesn't have anything worthwhile to say. That might be rational, but I don't think it is very conductive for human exchange. Another thing: why should I be interested in convincing you that I have something worthwhile to say? What is in it for me?
- robertskmiles 15y ago
  > Your default assumption about an unknown person seems to be that he or she is not intelligent and doesn't have anything worthwhile to say. My default assumption is that the person is of average intelligence. Jobs is of substantially above average intelligence, as demonstrated by having founded and run an extremely successful technology company. That puts him ahead. > why should I be interested in convincing you that I have something worthwhile to say? What is in it for me? I've addressed this before as well, when I said "if you want to be taken seriously". If you don't care about the opinions of people who read your posts, that's fine. If you do care, cite your sources so people can tell that what you're saying corresponds to reality. Still, if you really aren't concerned about what people think when they read your comments, why not just write them in a text file? Why publish things on the net if you don't want people to think you're saying something worthwhile?
  - Tichy 15y ago
    I'd say the notion that providing lots of citations leads to people taking me more serious needs at least a citation. I don't think it works that way in general. It is also not as easy: how does pointing to another random person on the internet (my citation) make me a more credible random person? Even studies by actual scientists can be bogus. How am I to know which sources you trust? Also, I made a claim that was very easy to verify ("there are lots of studies on topic x"). Should I also provide sources if I claim "the sky is blue"?

Tichy 15y ago

"a person who is known to be pretty intelligent" That is just the thing. Your default assumption about an unknown person seems to be that he or she is not intelligent and doesn't have anything worthwhile to say. That might be rational, but I don't think it is very conductive for human exchange. Another thing: why should I be interested in convincing you that I have something worthwhile to say? What is in it for me?

robertskmiles 15y ago
> Your default assumption about an unknown person seems to be that he or she is not intelligent and doesn't have anything worthwhile to say. My default assumption is that the person is of average intelligence. Jobs is of substantially above average intelligence, as demonstrated by having founded and run an extremely successful technology company. That puts him ahead. > why should I be interested in convincing you that I have something worthwhile to say? What is in it for me? I've addressed this before as well, when I said "if you want to be taken seriously". If you don't care about the opinions of people who read your posts, that's fine. If you do care, cite your sources so people can tell that what you're saying corresponds to reality. Still, if you really aren't concerned about what people think when they read your comments, why not just write them in a text file? Why publish things on the net if you don't want people to think you're saying something worthwhile?
- Tichy 15y ago
  I'd say the notion that providing lots of citations leads to people taking me more serious needs at least a citation. I don't think it works that way in general. It is also not as easy: how does pointing to another random person on the internet (my citation) make me a more credible random person? Even studies by actual scientists can be bogus. How am I to know which sources you trust? Also, I made a claim that was very easy to verify ("there are lots of studies on topic x"). Should I also provide sources if I claim "the sky is blue"?