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Unfortunately, “do your own research” is de facto shorthand for “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

There's a good standup bit out there: we used to have a word for "doing your own research": reading! Now everyone gives you shit for it.

Reading is worthless if you don't vet your sources. Encyclopedia Britannica and Uncle Johnny's Chemtrail Digest are not equally valid sources of truth.

And there's the actual hard part: institutional trustworthiness is in the shitter. Everyone will have their sources that they trust, and if were honest, none of us can really vet any of them.

A lot of these disputes can be simplified to "I don't trust your sources".

That's true; but I also think a lot of these disputes originate with "your research invalidates my axiomatic beliefs, so I will find whatever 'evidence' needed to counter them." Especially disputes percolating down from the political strata.

Sure. But you put evidence in quotes, presumably because you probably don't trust their source(s). Just like they don't trust yours.

Obviously, in your head your sources are evidence while their sources are 'evidence', and the same might be true for them.

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