So as to not pollute the Musk thread…
Let’s say that I made a statement, “I saw a study saying that black people can’t see well in the dark and can’t be used in military service, because you need people to be able to see at night.” People ask for a cite and I provide a link to a white nationalist website that discusses some paper written by some crank doctor that way never peer reviewed and just posted to his personal blog. The others point out that the website I chose is white nationalist, that the “study” is pretty much just an opinion piece, and that none of the conclusions follow from any of the evidence that was presented. And now, I say, “Woops, I just looked for the study. I don’t know that website, I didn’t check it before posting and I’m not a white nationalist.”
Now let’s say that I’m being entirely honest in this. I didn’t check the website, I didn’t realize that it was a white nationalist website and I really did just want to link to the research paper that I’d read about.
I’m going to propose that this doesn’t really change the situation much.
Firstly, we’re talking about a blog post that would, from the start, only be of any particular interest to white nationalists, racists, and the like. Even if I didn’t encounter the original information about the “study” from that specific, white nationalist website, it’s inordinately unlikely that I would have come into contact with it from a notably better alternative. Wherever it is that I saw the information originally was unlikely to have been better.
Secondly, once I went to find the study again, Google’s results would almost certainly not have come up with respected, recognized sources as its top results. The whole page of Google results would be a flashing, siren raising load of questionable, no-name websites with obvious racist and white nationalist bent. Every URL and page title would be screaming out that I’ve made a bad choice in life. And yet, I simply, blithely continued on to click into one of them that seemed less crazy and assumed that this one must be reasonable.
Thirdly, there’s still that whole, “Didn’t check.” Element that I, myself, admitted to. How did I get into this whole predicament to begin with? I read on some website - without checking the reasonability of that website - about this study. I accepted - without checking - that the study they discussed was a reasonable and well executed study. I’m real bad at double checking my own work.
Fourth, knowing that I’m bad at checking my work and having had someone else do it for me, I’m now aware that the white nationalist site is bad. Maybe I’ll never use it again. But, have I gone back to my original source, that I never linked to, and decided to drop it as well? Have I gone through all of my other failures of the past, worked to identify where I got the bum information on all of those, and dropped those sources as well? Have I gone into Facebook and Instagram and all my other sources of information and started to tell them to not recommend sources that I know mislead me? Have I really changed or have I committed to simply putting a band aid on it and continuing on as before?