Mallory's Musings & Mischief
At one point when I was visiting my mom on Labor Day weekend we were talking about the state of the world and she asked me, "How does someone know what's true anymore?"
The first place to start is to accept that, even if it's possible to know the truth, there is no easy or straightforward way to find it. It's hard, messy work, because the world is a complex, messy place.
The second thing is to automatically be skeptical of anyone who claims to have an easy solution to the first part.
Mallory's Musings & Mischief
Whenever possible, get information directly from the source. Read the fucking research paper if you really want to know. I know, it's full of incomprehensible jargon, big words, and inscrutable statistics and plots.
Which is the point. The truth is fucking complicated and hard to understand, and I guarantee the headlines about that research paper make it seem simple. It's not.
Mallory's Musings & Mischief
Be comfortable with your own ignorance. If you don't know something say, "I don't know". If you are wrong, accept it. Hold your beliefs loosely.
Likewise, do not trust people who refuse to admit their own ignorance or when they are wrong. Don't confuse confidence with accuracy. The most trustworthy people will honestly and openly tell you the limit of their knowledge, and will be hesitant to make any claims beyond it.
Mallory's Musings & Mischief
A phrase that I've had stuck in my head for a long time is "things are _always_ more complicated than they appear."
It doesn't matter what it is — the deeper you dig into a topic, the more complex and nuanced it becomes, the more uncertainties creep in. Always. Whatever you think you know, there's always a deeper, more confusing layer. Even if you are correct, there's more to the story.
Accept that, deeply.
Mallory's Musings & Mischief
This applies equally to skepticism itself. I have my tips and tricks, but there are experts in this too. People who have spent their entire adult life endlessly debunking bullshit, misinformation, and pseudoscience. Try looking up what they have to say on the topic.
Don't believe any single person's opinions on any subject, especially mine, and especially when it comes to skepticism. Try to figure out what the experts agree on, disagree on, and —most importantly— why.
FIN
Mallory's Musings & Mischief
If you really want to know the truth behind something, be willing to put in the work. Remember, for any topic you are curious about, there is a person (likely many people) who have literally spent their entire adult life immersed in it. It's true that no single person knows everything and is always right, but sure as fuck there are people who know more than you do.
Don't just ask experts for the answer, ask them *how they know the answer*. That's what makes them an expert.
Mallory's Musings & Mischief
But that's also not an excuse to blindly accept what "experts" say either. The point is to *accept your ignorance*, and to NOT propagate information you do not understand.
Most of the shit you see online is an opinion of a summary of a summary of a summary. A LOT of shit got lost in translation, even if everyone is well-intentioned.
You are not the arbiter of truth in every situation. Be okay with not knowing the answer, and don't pretend that you do.
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