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Comment by dariusj18 | Hacker News Reader

There is a built in fallacy that one can listen to all the sides and form an educated opinion from that. Firstly, if there is one truth, than there are infinite falsehoods. Secondly, I don't think the human mind works like that. We are sponges for information and the more bad data we put in it will inevitably cause confusion if you are just being a passive listener.

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While you make a fair point, it seems like the alternative is to assume that the consensus opinion is the correct one and discard everything else. That doesn't seem like the way to go to me.

The alternative is to trust the opinion of someone who has done the work to gain specialist knowledge of each subject. Experts, rather than Ivermectin grifters, moon-fakers, 911 truthers etc.

Until they are wrong…as is often the case.

How do you identify that one truth?

We learn as a society to elevate those with training to positions of authority with a system of checks and balances from others with knowledge to moderate any instability.

We're already doing this, there's just a segment of society that doesn't seem to understand that skepticism isn't the same thing as critical thinking.

It would be ridiculous for the Bar Association or medical boards to be directly elected by the general populace, so they have a credentialed population with training and at least a modicum of specialization in the field.

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