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> I honestly don't care who or 'what' wrote something, as long as it is useful. I realize I'm replying to a 4-hour-old account and just wasting my time, but I

> I honestly don't care who or 'what' wrote something, as long as it is useful. I realize I'm replying to a 4-hour-old account and just wasting my time, but I gotta say that it's not possible for a person to verify the accuracy of every bit of information that they will consume, so it's important to seek out sources that provide the highest quality, most authoritative source material that's available. That means reading things like research papers. I realize that a much smaller percentage of Internet users read and discuss research papers and other authoritative source material nowadays (I miss Usenet) and it seems that this problem is only going to get worse.

h10h10h10 4y ago
I completely disagree. All throughout history the "experts" or the "most authoritative sources" were proven wrong againd and again. I'm sure lots of things we take for granted today we'll be proven wrong during our lifetimes. I want a different future, one where there are no authoritative sources, one where a journalist's words has no more relevance or weight than anyone else's.
- _hcuq 4y ago
  Pure noise is what you want then?
  - h10h10h10 4y ago
    No, but I do prefer chaos over the alternative of governments and government-aligned media determining what is information and what is 'disinformation'. If I wanted that, I'd live in China.
    - easyThrowaway 4y ago
      I don't see how that is any different than living even in the worst dictatorship, unless you're a nihilist or a situationist poet. Like, it would be a "nothing is ever knowable, nothing is real" kind of reality. I mean, interesting as a concept but sure as fuck I wouldn't live there.
      - h10h10h10 4y ago
        I see what you mean. I think that despite the noise, one can still tell what's real or important, and what's not, intuitively. This sense can get distorted when a government can spend billions of dollars/yuans pushing a specific narrative. What I mean is, I believe one can be closer to the truth when exposed to all sorts of ideas and propaganda, than when one specific entity controls the flow.

h10h10h10 4y ago

I completely disagree. All throughout history the "experts" or the "most authoritative sources" were proven wrong againd and again. I'm sure lots of things we take for granted today we'll be proven wrong during our lifetimes. I want a different future, one where there are no authoritative sources, one where a journalist's words has no more relevance or weight than anyone else's.

_hcuq 4y ago
Pure noise is what you want then?
- h10h10h10 4y ago
  No, but I do prefer chaos over the alternative of governments and government-aligned media determining what is information and what is 'disinformation'. If I wanted that, I'd live in China.
  - easyThrowaway 4y ago
    I don't see how that is any different than living even in the worst dictatorship, unless you're a nihilist or a situationist poet. Like, it would be a "nothing is ever knowable, nothing is real" kind of reality. I mean, interesting as a concept but sure as fuck I wouldn't live there.
    - h10h10h10 4y ago
      I see what you mean. I think that despite the noise, one can still tell what's real or important, and what's not, intuitively. This sense can get distorted when a government can spend billions of dollars/yuans pushing a specific narrative. What I mean is, I believe one can be closer to the truth when exposed to all sorts of ideas and propaganda, than when one specific entity controls the flow.