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His point wasn't about ANY authority figure though. It was about ones with directly relevant expertise. In his example, firefights are authorities... In regard

His point wasn't about ANY authority figure though. It was about ones with directly relevant expertise. In his example, firefights are authorities... In regards to smoke and fire. Yeah I'm gonna trust what they have to say, both over what Bob has to say about smoke being good for my aura, and over anything that an irrelevant authority, like the town mayor, has to say. Likewise back in February 2020 I found really great authorities on virology, a podcast with a rotating panel of 5+ virologists and people with other relevant phds, plus a doctor who headed up a COVID ward in NYC and started giving weekly clinical updates. Naturally this resulted in me being called a sheeple who just did whatever the mayor (in the example in question) told him rather than following Bob, who must be true in saying smoke is good for me because he's wearing a lab coat and YouTube is censoring him.

calculatte 4y ago
And in this case, we were supposed to listen to the same "doctor" that caused hundreds of thousands of AIDs deaths in the 80s by pushing known toxic and harmful "medication" while simultaneously blocking proven helpful medications. All because he gets kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies. Why does that sound so familiar? Whatever, guess I'll just defer to authority. A panel of authority figures is no excuse to stop thinking. They can be misled and corrupt like any others. All people need to think for themselves and question authority now more than ever.
- thedorkknight 4y ago
  >And in this case, we were supposed to listen to the same "doctor" that caused hundreds of thousands of AIDs deaths in the 80s No. Go to a podcast search engine and type in "virology". Go to duck duck go and look up "epidemiologist blog". Go to your library and search for books on immunology. >A panel of authority figures is no excuse to stop thinking Careful not to skip into straw man territory. Thinking for yourself isn't mutually exclusive with educating yourself on a topic, which is best done by learning from people with relevant expertise. Doing something like a thesis defense requires a crazy amount of both thinking for yourself, AND years of studying from experts. I suspect that if you went to write a thesis on astrophysics, you'd put a lot of effort into studying from authorities. Though I would love to see someone go for a thesis defense with work based purely on "thinking for themselves". >Whatever, guess I'll just defer to authority. I cannot emphasize enough the difference between "authority" and "authority with expertise in a specific area." If your car engine needs fixing, I'm willing to bet money that you'll end up deferring to an authority one way or another. Unfortunately, when a topic becomes politicized, people quickly fall into black-and-white thinking and false dichotomies pretty quickly

calculatte 4y ago

And in this case, we were supposed to listen to the same "doctor" that caused hundreds of thousands of AIDs deaths in the 80s by pushing known toxic and harmful "medication" while simultaneously blocking proven helpful medications. All because he gets kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies. Why does that sound so familiar? Whatever, guess I'll just defer to authority. A panel of authority figures is no excuse to stop thinking. They can be misled and corrupt like any others. All people need to think for themselves and question authority now more than ever.

thedorkknight 4y ago
>And in this case, we were supposed to listen to the same "doctor" that caused hundreds of thousands of AIDs deaths in the 80s No. Go to a podcast search engine and type in "virology". Go to duck duck go and look up "epidemiologist blog". Go to your library and search for books on immunology. >A panel of authority figures is no excuse to stop thinking Careful not to skip into straw man territory. Thinking for yourself isn't mutually exclusive with educating yourself on a topic, which is best done by learning from people with relevant expertise. Doing something like a thesis defense requires a crazy amount of both thinking for yourself, AND years of studying from experts. I suspect that if you went to write a thesis on astrophysics, you'd put a lot of effort into studying from authorities. Though I would love to see someone go for a thesis defense with work based purely on "thinking for themselves". >Whatever, guess I'll just defer to authority. I cannot emphasize enough the difference between "authority" and "authority with expertise in a specific area." If your car engine needs fixing, I'm willing to bet money that you'll end up deferring to an authority one way or another. Unfortunately, when a topic becomes politicized, people quickly fall into black-and-white thinking and false dichotomies pretty quickly