“Someone said Y X” is still a shitty standard of evidence to begin with. [...] it’s still not epistemically hygienic.
Most people just say “Y X”. Explicitly saying “Someone said Y X” is relatively good epistemic hygiene, because it communicates something about the evidence for the claim, not just the claim itself.
Agreed, it’s better than “Y X”, but still relatively worthless, especially when someone is looking for quotable examples for an article. Repeating stories like this is sum negative since it adds social proof to things of very low probability. This is what I meant by hygiene.
Most people just say “Y X”. Explicitly saying “Someone said Y X” is relatively good epistemic hygiene, because it communicates something about the evidence for the claim, not just the claim itself.
Agreed, it’s better than “Y X”, but still relatively worthless, especially when someone is looking for quotable examples for an article. Repeating stories like this is sum negative since it adds social proof to things of very low probability. This is what I meant by hygiene.