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Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

#61

/r/conspiracy subreddit but the credible information is mixed together with fake news. But it's easy to figure out which is which if you do a few searches online. A lot of stuff on there just seems insane, but then you start searching and sometimes it all checks out.

I'd call this a case of "humans are really good at noticing relationships but not their nature".

Yeah, much of the time people are on to something - and most of the time they have no idea what, just that something is amiss, whether it's their understanding, media coverage, or an actual systemic issue.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

#62
post #5

My main trick is simply to know a lot of really smart people in various fields.

The thing is, smart people can be wrong ( or being bought ) as well, and if OP is looking for facts (things that actually happened) "smart people" could easily present a different version with hidden biases of what happened. I hope by smart you didn't meant "people I agree with". I would try to find news sites without opinions, or social media posts from people that live in the place where the event happened and/or o…

Smart people active in a field usually aren't bought or wrong. They can be but as a rule they're not and even if they'll typically know a lot more than I do. And nobody stops me from knowing more than one smart person in a field so I still get to play 'multiple sources'. Agreement you can have on facts or on opinions. Agreements on facts are easy as long as whatever you are looking at is stationary or can be looked at again, outside of that it is always going to be a matter of consensus. Disagreement on opinions outside of discussion forums where people usually don't come to have their minds changed - particular subreddits excepted - are usually fruitless and a complete waste of time.

Social media posts, both-sidesism (aka the false middle), people claiming to live in a place where some event happened (or did not...) doesn't move the needle factwise. It's all just different degrees of hearsay and that does tend to converge on 'what you agree with'.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

#64

Prioritize sources where I understand some motivation beyond traffic/ads for the existence of that source. Non-profits dedicated to providing information (Wikipedia, MDN), individual people I am familiar enough with to believe genuine interest in their topic, publicly-funded yet independent journalistic outlets, documentation written by the actual author of software, etc. I often find these in my Google/DDG searches,…

I think taking into account human motivation is a very smart system, but the motivations of a lot of what you mentioned aren’t necessarily aligned with everybody.

Take Wikipedia for example: it started nobly but has become an ideological battleground for petty editors to wield influence when you look at what kinds of edits are made to important current day topics.

Or take non-profits: I’m sure many of their employees have fine motivations, but in a big picture sense the organization dies if they actually solve the problem they’re designed to solve. It’s hard to perfectly trust the motivations of even non-profits.

As far as publicly funded journalistic outlets, do you mean stuff like NPR? Without getting into an argument about NPR, there’s a substantial amount of real criticism about them out there. It’s hard for many to perfectly trust them either.

The best system I think is trusting independently minded journalists who have developed some credibility: namely those willing to take real shots against their own “team”. I’m open to finding others, but the best one in this regard that I’ve come across might be Glenn Greenwald. Time and time again, he’s willing to take shots against his own political side, even when it damages his career: that carries some credibility with me. I’d love to find more independent journalists like that.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this: if you grow into this approach, it's almost impossible to become a "radical" believer in anything; usually any serious discourse has very solid points on both sides, which are formulated by very smart people. It's quite hard to live with it, actually, humans are not built for seeing nuance everywhere.

Although you have to be careful not to fall into "Enlightened Centrist" mode all the time. While there are usually solid points on both sides of an argument, you should take one side on many (most?) issues.

why should one do that?

truth is often undefined, and you can simply weigh sides with probabilities.

There is however 100% certainty this post will be downvoted.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although you have to be careful not to fall into "Enlightened Centrist" mode all the time. While there are usually solid points on both sides of an argument, you should take one side on many (most?) issues.

why should one do that? truth is often undefined, and you can simply weigh sides with probabilities. There is however 100% certainty this post will be downvoted.

> you can simply weigh sides with probabilities

Absolutely.

And is most cases one side has a 60%+ probability. That should be your side.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

#68
post #20

You look for information from the original source, not opinions. You take that information and come to your own opinion. You validate your opinion with an open mind and curiosity - look out for people who can challenge their views. You introspect and change your mind. You also say that some information is beyond your comprehension and “too hard to understand”. “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that…

When seeing a trend of a common narrative, even if it's socially or corporate driven, look for opposing ideas.

This. But you'll be seen as troublemaker.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find credible information online?

#69
post #23
post #20

You look for information from the original source, not opinions. You take that information and come to your own opinion. You validate your opinion with an open mind and curiosity - look out for people who can challenge their views. You introspect and change your mind. You also say that some information is beyond your comprehension and “too hard to understand”. “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that…

"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." — W. Edwards Deming

This is irrelevant quote. All data could be collected and interpreting in different ways based on actual knowledge.

We have data for knowing that grass is green. But it is not true at night.

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