At least 400 kilobyte.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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It depends. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
None. I believe everything. Especially the contradictory parts. It's one of the powers granted to me by my true nature, revealed through the one true Slackmaster, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.
Depending on the fact I should be able to find sources for it on .ORG and .GOV sites.
If i just find random blog posts, or facebook groups in the search results I take it with a grain of salt.
Like with questions posted in a forum: at least, having little more to read than just its title ;)
I have a model of everything. Everything I am, my understanding of the world, it all fits together like a web. New ideas fit by their relationship to what I already know - maybe I'm missing nodes to fit it in and I can't accept it
If it fits the model well, I'll tentatively accept it without any evidence. If it conflicts with my model, I'll need enough proof to outweigh the parts it conflicts with. It has to be enough to displace the past evidence
In practice, this usually works pretty well. I handle new concepts well. But if you feed me something that fits... Well, I'll believe it until there's a contradiction
Like my neighbors (as a teen) told me their kid had a predisposition for autism, and the load on his immune system from too many vaccines as once caused him to be nonverbal. That made sense, that's a coherent interaction of processes I knew a bit about. My parents were there and didn't challenge it at the time
Then, someone scoffing and walking away at bringing it up made me look it up. It made sense, but the evidence didn't support it at all. So my mind was changed with seconds of research, because a story is less evidence than a study (it wasn't until years later that I learned the full story behind that)
On the other hand, today someone with decades more experience on a system was adamant I was wrong about an intermittent bug. I'm still convinced I'm right, but I have no evidence... We spent an hour doing experiments, I realized the experiments couldn't prove it one way or the other, I explained that and by the end he was convinced.
It's not the amount of evidence, it's the quality of it.
I have a model of everything. Everything I am, my understanding of the world, it all fits together like a web. New ideas fit by their relationship to what I already know - maybe I'm missing nodes to fit it in and I can't accept it
Same, and I would add the clarification that I have a model for when and why people lie, tell the truth, or sincerely make false statements (mistake, having been lied to themselves, changed circumstances, etc.).
So that information comes in through a filter of both the subject matter, the speaker, and my model of the speaker's own expertise and motivations, and all of those factors mixed together.
So as an example, let's say my friend tells me that there's a new Chinese restaurant in town that's really good. I have to ask myself whether the friend's taste in Chinese restaurants is reliable (and maybe I build that model based on proxies, like friend's taste in restaurants in general, and how similar those tastes are with my own). But if it turns out that my friend is actually taking money to promote that restaurant, then the credibility of that recommendation plummets.
It’s not the amount of evidence, it’s the quality of it.
Quality evidence has an inherent quantity wouldn't you say?
It varies widely depending on a combination of whether it impacts me directly, whether it contradicts or is inconsistent with information I have already accepted as fact, and the source. The source includes being reliable and if the fact could be something that serves the source's self interest as that would require corroboration.
Until recently, if NASA tells me their current data shows that black holes exist at the center of a galaxy I take their word for it. They have been consistently reliable for decades and their entire mission is about increasing knowledge and sharing it with the entire world. With recent administrative changes I am more skeptical and wouldn't trust something that contradicts prior scientific discoveries without corroboration from an external agency like the European Space Agency. I would take the ESA at their word currently.
If a for profit company says anything I want corroboration from a neutral 3rd party. They have too much incentive to lie or mislead to be trusted on their own.
Something from a stranger that fits into prior knowledge might be accepted at face value or I might double check some other source. Depends on how important it is to me and whether believing that would lead to any obvious negative outcome. I will probably also double check if it is interesting enough to want to check, and I'll use skepticism as an excuse.
That covers actual factual stuff that could possibly be corroborated by a third party. Facts like the Earth orbits the sun or Puerto Rico is a US territory type stuff.
Then there are other things that can be factual but difficult to determine and that is a combination of experience and current knowledge, plus whether believing it would be a benefit or negative. If someone tells me the ice isn't thick enough based on their judgement I will treat it as a fact and not go out on it unless I had some reason not to believe them. If they told me apples were found to be unhealthy I would check other sources.
Thank you for such a detailed answer.
is it a fun fact that impacts nothing? i'll accept it as fact immediately and without question
is it a fact that has some weight to it? i'll probably double check and if i find a reliable source that also claims it to be fact i'll accept it (if i'm reading about it from a reliable source i will accept it immediately)
is it a fact that contradicts my current beliefs/understanding of the world? i'll do some research on it, check if there's any recent articles like "that thing you thought was right? is not!", and depending on the nature of the fact think about why it's been debunked and how that changed my perception on the world
That's the great thing about science.
Things that are considered facts in today's world can be disproven by new experiments and observations (recreated through experimentation and after adequate peer review).
So for me, it depends on what is being evaluated. 2+2 is a fact. Exact age of the moon might be up for more debate.
2+2 is a fact
In some sense, if every single human thought that 2+2 equaled 5, it would become true
(I'm not smart enough to come up with this lol, got it from Orwell's 1984)
It doesn't even require belief.
2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2.
While a facetious statement in general, it is factual if those values derive from rounding. Significant Digits must be maintained.
Only if you completely redefine some aspect of the equation. You'd have to define "5" to actually mean "4" or change the meaning of "+" or "=" in some way that changes the operation. 2+2=4 isn't just an abstract statement, it's based on the way the physical world works. If you have 2 apples, and then I give you 2 more, you don't suddenly have 5 apples because we all decided 2+2=5.
Orwell's meaning in 1984 wasn't about belief changing the world, it was about the power of brainwashing and how fascism demands obedience.
If you have 2 apples, and then I give you 2 more, you don't suddenly have 5 apples because we all decided 2+2=5.
No, but some types of addition follow their own rules.
Sometimes 1+1 is 2. One Apple plus one Apple is two apples.
Sometimes 1+1 is 1. Two true statements joined together in conjunction are true.
Sometimes 1+1 is 0. Two 180° rotations is the same as if you didn't rotate the thing at all.
If you don't define what kind of addition you're talking about, then it's not precise enough to talk through what is or isn't true.
How is 2 + 2 a fact?
How do you know, through new experiments and observations, that we will never determine the exact age of the moon?
You have 2 apples. I give you 2 more. How many apples do you have? Unless you redefine what the numbers or the operators mean, then you now have 4 apples. That's a truth that is evident in the world and can be verified. That's what a fact is.
He didn't suggest we could never determine the age of the moon. He said that science refines it's methods and gathers new information, and so we may change our estimate of its age based on new evidence.
Maybe the person who isn't you that I asked can weight in because I didn't ask you about your comments context.
Reading it once on social media
I think this applies to vastly more of us than are comfortable admitting
Hearing it in a YouTube short linked by a one day old account
It takes a lot for me to accept something as fact, but I'm okay with living my life on a combination of likelihoods, reasonable plausibilities, and vibes
Facts are overrated
I remember there was one fact I was really beating my head on; A dishwasher should always have some food or other gunk on the dishes before starting the machine, otherwise the detergent will attack the coloring on the dishes instead.
How has no company solved this problem? It makes no sense. Many people do wash their kitchenware so it doesn't stink up the entire dishwasher if it has been sitting for a while... idk.
I would be happy to hear if anyone can help confirm or dismiss this.
Phosphates were banned in dishwasher detergents in 2011, so most of the name brand companies switched to enzyme-based cleaners that use amylase and protease, which dissolve starches and proteins, respectively. And then some traditional detergent, which allows oil and water to mix, washes it all away.
The nature of the enzymes are that as soon as they've broken up the starch or protein, they survive the reaction and can happily move onto the next starch or protein molecule. So if they're overactive, without enough targets, then any portion of the dishes that are sensitive to that particular cleaner is going to get a higher "dose" of that cleaner working specifically at it.
I have heard this before and as far as I was ever able to find it is a bunch of bunk that seemed to originate from damage done by a recalled detergent.
Sounds like bullshit.
I'm going out on a limb and saying untrue.
How would the dish soap not "attack" the pigments on the crockery not covered by gunk, do you need to make sure that the plate is covered in an even spread? It's a desurficant, iirc, with hydrophobic molecules to get into molecular scale sized spaces. Maybe unvarnished crockery could lose the colour... But eating off that and washing it wouldn't be the best choice either.
Also, most dishwashers instruct you to rinse the worst off in the sink before loading. And we've followed that and most of our china still has good colours, the one that doesn't I know was left in direct sunlight for over a summer.
One datum
Nah, 42
Depends how interesting or important or complex the thing is. If you tell me that your foot is 25cm long, I'll believe you without question. If you tell me it's 52cm, then you're going to have a hard time convincing me (unless you've already convinced me that you're a talking kangaroo).
This is why it's much more important to be skeptical of people's views on political issues too, because the situations are always complex, and important to different people in different ways.
If I can find three reputable sources that say the same thing, I feel pretty confident in accepting it as fact. The real trick is finding reputable sources. Media Bias Fact Check is really helpful for this.
If I can find three reputable sources that say the same thing
They used to say ALL cholestrol was bad, every doctor said it. But then someone discovered about HDL and LDL
Also, doctors used to say smoking doesn't cause cancer.
Also, doctors used to say smoking doesn’t cause cancer.
Doctors paid by cigarette companies said that, and they were in a tiny minority of doctors.
There are scientists now who say global warming is a hoax because they have a monetary interest.
Have you ever tried the 1 Left, 1 center, 1 right source when looking into something? I try to do this myself when I have the time and can find the articles.
How do you define the centre? Do you account for existing wide-spread social biases? E.g. systemic racism, or the neoliberal belief that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet?
The center is the middle of the right and left.
I am unsure what you are asking after that.
They're referring to the shifting variance between political sides and the range expressed between them. The Overton Window usually.
The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse. The key to the concept is that the window changes over time; it can shift, or shrink or expand. It exemplifies "the slow evolution of societal values and norms".
Outside of this window you still have Left and Right, but they're the more extreme beliefs that the general populace doesn't currently accept. The window shifting over time means something that would have been considered absolutely insane 20 years ago, could be entirely mainstream now.
A current example would be federal deployment of the military to handle local protests when there is no declared State of Emergency and local government doesn't need or want assistance.
But left and right aren't absolute positions, they change in time. E.g. democrats now hold a lot of similar positions to what the republicans held in the 1980s (and also a lot of different ones).
Left and right are also a unidimensional approximation of a multidimensional value space.. E.g. most people on the left disagree with nearly everything Marjorie Taylor Greene says, but they agree with her that the US should not be supporting Israel's war on Iran.
There are also people on the left AND the right that oppose global economic liberalisation, but what is often called the "centre" supports it - clearly not a "middle" stance.
So how can you meaningfully define what is led and what is right, for the purpose of your reading?
But left and right aren’t absolute positions, they change in time.
What do you think that means for the center?
That it also changes in time and is not absolute. And also, in many ways, that it does it does not exist (in the sense that the "centre" in one dimension might be correlated with extremes in another)
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If we're talking about things that are easily quantifiable, not very much at all.
yeah that makes sense, like a math proof
What would you classify as easily quantifiable?
I don't know, like measurements of something. Quantities of something. Distance, speed, volume.
Things that don't very much over time, like your height.
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