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Something else to be skeptical of: skepticism.

A good amount of skepticism is great. Questioning everything is belligerent and actually close-minded rather than open.



There's no objective measure for one to define what is a "good amount" of skepticism. The trap of using this as an excuse to shield yourself from people who have a higher level of conspiratorial or counter-consensus thinking than you prefer or have yourself is one worth trying to be mindful of. Claiming there are people who "question everything" is a yellow flag, imo, because that literally doesn't exist, though I know you were speaking hyperbolically. But having the capacity to bucket people into a group who "questions everything" despite the reality such a person literally cannot exist, may mean you are over-weighting this mental model.


It sounds like you agree that there is a "bad amount" of skepticism but no way to measure that either?

Then it is as easy for me to say you have fallen into the trap of being overly skeptical but are using an excuse to shield yourself from people that would call you a raving nutter.

I don't worry too much about finding a way to measure what a "good amount" of skepticism is. Like pornography, I know it when I see, er, smell it.


No, I reject the over-simplified model in general, but my argument is that whatever terms you are, in your own model, using to mean "good" and "bad" and "too much" and "too little" are irrelevant to the question of, even if you could define them clearly, if you can also place and measure a valid threshold. Given the problem here specifically is the epistemological value of consuming views you currently disagree with, by setting yourself up as judge and jury of who is considered worth listening to you're just begging the question, regardless of your framework to act as said judge.

At the end of the day, you have scarce attention, so there are necessarily heuristics you need to use to navigate information and consuming it due to opportunity costs. But my argument is that pegging some people and not others as "too skeptical" is low on the list of good heuristics.


What you describe is called pseudoskepticism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism




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