I do think that I tend to update downwards on the likelihood of a piece being true if it seems to have obvious alternative generators for how it was constructed that are unlikely to be very truth tracking. Obvious examples here are advertisements and political campaign speeches.
I do think in that sense I think it’s reasonable to distrust pieces of writing that seem like they are part of some broader conflict, and as such are unlikely to be generated in anything close to an unbiased way. A lot of conflict-theory-heavy pieces tend to be part of some conflict, since accusing your enemies of being evil is memetic warfare 101.
I am not sure (yet) what the norms for discussion around these kinds of updates should be though, but did want to bring up that there exist some valid bayesian inferences here.
I do think that I tend to update downwards on the likelihood of a piece being true if it seems to have obvious alternative generators for how it was constructed that are unlikely to be very truth tracking. Obvious examples here are advertisements and political campaign speeches.
I do think in that sense I think it’s reasonable to distrust pieces of writing that seem like they are part of some broader conflict, and as such are unlikely to be generated in anything close to an unbiased way. A lot of conflict-theory-heavy pieces tend to be part of some conflict, since accusing your enemies of being evil is memetic warfare 101.
I am not sure (yet) what the norms for discussion around these kinds of updates should be though, but did want to bring up that there exist some valid bayesian inferences here.