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Comment by afpx | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like you’re saying to not trust reason without evidence. For example, it’s reasonable to believe climate change exists because the news reports that climate scientists overwhelmingly state that it exists. With that knowledge, I may reason that the likelihood of that claim being wrong is little. Do I need to actually read all of their research to believe that?

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I tend to think the issue is learning not to trust, not to grant unreserved trust to anything without the ability to either verify personally, or the issue at hand exists in an environment of shared verification, an environment where it is possible if not easy to verify and many do, which they then make public.

In addition, the issue of learning to live with uncertainty, being mature to the degree that unknowable answers and their questions simply set in an unknowable and ripe for exploitation category in one's mind. Grasping the power granted to others when they claim answers to unknowable questions is the true source of evil in this human society.

My thinking exactly! Do not extend trust - extend the attempt to try to verify, if you think the matter is important.

On living with uncertainty - this seems to be our major struggle. We can't say "I don't know", we would rather the life-raft of a comfortable story that assuages us. Most of us are both arrogant not because we know/have verified but because of stories/beliefs. It is hybris!

That only holds water if the news orgs are truthful

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