I’m not sure that listening-to/watching the hearings themselves, in this or other cases, would be of sufficient ‘info profit’ to me to justify not just ‘triangulating’ on the info/evidence I pickup thru my ‘secondary sources’.
I would have been surprised had the ‘primary sources’ NOT seemed meaningful! I think they’re optimizing for meaningfulness! But I think the means by which they’re doing that is crafting a Narrative, which I do distrust. (I expect reality to be generally much messier than a relatively simple story, especially any Morality Play.)
I think a big part of my judging the ‘primary source material’ not being of sufficient ‘info profit’ (for me) is that there’s so much of it. It also doesn’t seem like the kind of info that can be easily, and ‘representatively’, ‘sampled’. I’m sure I’d learn of lots of (supposed) details were I to listen to “a random sample of about 45 minutes” of something like this. But I wouldn’t expect to be able update my beliefs in the right (true) direction. But maybe that wouldn’t matter if I was also still ‘triangulating’ overall.
I’m definitely open to some info from ‘secondary sources’ about this kind of thing. I’ve already revised my beliefs a good bit from that kind of thing.
This seems like sensible ‘meta advice’; thanks!
I’m not sure that listening-to/watching the hearings themselves, in this or other cases, would be of sufficient ‘info profit’ to me to justify not just ‘triangulating’ on the info/evidence I pickup thru my ‘secondary sources’.
I would have been surprised had the ‘primary sources’ NOT seemed meaningful! I think they’re optimizing for meaningfulness! But I think the means by which they’re doing that is crafting a Narrative, which I do distrust. (I expect reality to be generally much messier than a relatively simple story, especially any Morality Play.)
I think a big part of my judging the ‘primary source material’ not being of sufficient ‘info profit’ (for me) is that there’s so much of it. It also doesn’t seem like the kind of info that can be easily, and ‘representatively’, ‘sampled’. I’m sure I’d learn of lots of (supposed) details were I to listen to “a random sample of about 45 minutes” of something like this. But I wouldn’t expect to be able update my beliefs in the right (true) direction. But maybe that wouldn’t matter if I was also still ‘triangulating’ overall.
I’m definitely open to some info from ‘secondary sources’ about this kind of thing. I’ve already revised my beliefs a good bit from that kind of thing.