Take a random political issue with two sides A and B. Suppose that exactly one of the following would be true for me given my moral framework and unlimited time to process all public information about the issue:
A is undoubtedly correct and (in a manner proportional to its importance) I should expend time/money/energy supporting A.
A is probably correct, but it’s not so clear that it’s worth doing more than just voting in the direction of A.
It’s unclear whether A or B is correct and anyone who claims otherwise is either not doing good epistemics or taking a moral framework that isn’t acceptable to me.
B is probably correct, but it’s not so clear that it’s worth doing more than just voting in the direction of B.
B is undoubtedly correct and (in a manner proportional to its importance) I should expend time/money/energy supporting B.
Let’s also say that:
Foreign actors will attempt to push people on twitter/reddit/etc. towards either (1) or (5), even if the answer is really (3) for them. Everyone I interact with is either partially influenced by these actors or discusses their opinions with people who are influenced by these actors.
I have limited time to seriously explore a given issue.
I would like to err on the side of approaching the center, but not drastically so.
The major issue to me here is (1), which might only get worse over time. I am aware of the post on epistemic learned helplessness by Scott Alexander, but I have become a little wary of certain academic fields. I have generally liked using Wikipedia to quickly explore issues, even though there are occasional biases (which have hurt this website in the past). I have also enjoyed reading blogs and opinions from people who appear highly educated and intelligent, but there are natural biases there as well.
I think it’s often the case that neither A nor B are true. Common opinions are shallow, often simplified and exaggerated or even entirely besides the point.
Now, you’re asking what a good way to form opinions is, well, it depends on what you want.
Do you want to know which side you should vote for to bring the future towards the state that you want?
Do you want to figure out which side is the most correct?
Do you want to figure out the actual truth behind the political issue?
Do you want to hold an opinion which won’t disrupt your social life too much or make you unpopular?
I expect that these four will bring you to different answers.
(While I think I understand the problem well, I can’t promise that I have a good solution. Besides, it’s subjective. Since the topic is controversial, any answer I give will be influenced by the very biases that we’re potentially interested in avoiding)
By the way, personally, I don’t care much what foreign actors (or team A and B) have to say about anything, so it’s not a factor which makes a difference to me.
Edit: I should probably have submitted this as a comment and not an answer. Oh well, I will think up an answer if you respond.
It seems to me that you might not have read the question/premise carefully. If you did and stand by this answer/comment, let me know and I’ll respond when I have time
I misread a small bit, but I still stand by my answer. It is however still unclear to me if you value truth or not. You mention moral frameworks and opinions, but also sound like you want to get rid of biases? I think these conflict.
I guess I should give examples to show how I think:
Suppose that climate change is real, but that the proposed causes and solutions are wrong. Or that for some problem X, people call for solution Y, but you expect that Y will actually only make X worse (or be a pretend-solution which gives people a false sense of security and which is only adopted because it signals virtue)
Suppose that X is slightly bad, but not really worth bothering about, however, team A thinks that X is terrible and team B thinks that A is the best thing ever.
Suppose that something is entirely up to definition, such that truth doesn’t matter (for instance, if X is a mental illness or not). Also, suppose that whatever definition you choose will be perceived as either hatred or support.
I don’t think it’s good to get any opinions from the general population. If actual intelligent people are discussing an issue, they will likely have more nuanced takes than both the general population and the media.
Lets say that X personality trait is positively correlated with both intelligence and sexual deviancy. One side argues that this makes them good, another side argues that this makes them bad. Not only is this subjective, people would be confusing the utilitarian “good/bad” with the moral “good/bad” (easy example: Breaking a leg is bad, but having a broken leg does not make you a bad person).
I think being rational/unbiased results in breaking away from socities opinions about almost everything. I also think that being biased is to be human. The least biased of all is reality itself, and a lot of people seem really keen on fixing/correcting reality to be more moral. In my worldview, a lot of things stop making sense, so I don’t bother with them, and I wonder why other people are so bothered by so many things.
I might be unable to respond for a little while myself, sorry about that