It’s a damn good assumption as I also could shit out a few dozen links after one Google search, too.

It’s not, though. That’s the point. Finding sources to back an unpopular opinion is, by definition, trawling through Google to find them. If you disallow that, you disallow unpopular opinion. Epistemological integrity does not simply oblige us to believe whatever view had the most sources, it’s not dishonest to have a gut feeling about something and check that it is reasonable, based on finding supporting evidence. It’s the mainstay of all academic essaying, for example. It’s normal to check one’s opinion is reasonable, we don’t all arrive with blank slates to fill and if you think you do, you’re lying to yourself.

Epistemic responsibility is about changing that initial view if it is overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary, it’s not about updating it according to some popularity contest. Truth is not decided by vote.

So searching through Google to find sources supporting your view is perfectly reasonable so long as the sources found are valid and reputable. That indicates it is reasonable to continue to hold your view. It doesn’t matter if a greater number of equally reputable sources present the opposing view because truth is not determined by popular vote.

If he does “do his research” and happens to have a list of links at the ready, that is just weird or it’s someone with a motive other than showing how smart they are

So damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

You’re familiar, I assume, with the self-immunised argument?

dissent with bad information is just poor form

It is. Unless the dissent is over whether the information is ‘bad’, in which case evidence must be brought to bear to support arguments to the contrary. No doubt this poster would not simply agree their information was ‘bad’, so that is the point over which you disagree. Again, assuming it’s bad when that’s the very point of disagreement is begging the question.

“despite increasingly popular opinion” is supposed to convince me of something based on the rumored opinions of what?

I was merely commenting on the increasingly popular move of repeating things back in alternating capitals aS iF tHaT pRoVeD aNyThInG At All.

Dissent is not spouting off Russian propaganda verbatim

Why not? If Russia finds information which is opposed to the US/NATO position they will use it in their propaganda. It follows that anyone dissenting from the US/NATO position may also use the same information.

Something being part of foreign propaganda doesn’t mean it’s false. Propaganda isn’t just lying. If the US had done something wrong, you can guarantee Russia would use it in their propaganda. They don’t just lie about everything. They lie about things they want to hide, but if the truth helps their cause they’ll tell it. It follows from this that some Russian propaganda is likely to be true (unless you want to make the case that the US never does anything wrong, or successfully hides it from Russia in all cases).

Dissent is also not searching for every internet based opinion piece with a flashy headline that aligns with a specific view.

That’s true it isn’t. But you’ve no evidence at all that this is what’s happening here other than that the resulting opinion is a dissenting one.

If you simply assume all evidence for dissenting opinion must have been derived this way purely on the grounds that the view it supports is not a mainstream one, then you have a self-immumised argument. The antithesis of rational thought.

It is a structural necessity of dissenting opinion that it be based on fewer sources. If you deny the ability to present sources simply on the grounds that they are select, then you deny dissent, because dissent, by necessity, will be based on select sources. Opinion based on majority sources is, by definition, majority opinion (among a rational community).

Dissent is actually showing, to the best of ones abilities, real cause for action.

No, it isn’t. Because whether a cause is a ‘real’ cause is the matter over which there is disagreement, so it is begging the question to only allow those causes you consider ‘real’ into a discussion about which causes are ‘real’. You preemptively clear the field of all dissenting opinion before the debate even begins.

To properly use these articles, you have to dig. You need to understand the authors, the sources and the motivation. Again, link-boy is likely not doing this

As before, you’ve no evidence this hasn’t been done other than that the resulting opinion is a dissenting one. If your proof that sources are inadequate is solely that they are used to support a dissenting opinion then you have by definition denied dissenting opinion.

You want to get all script-flippy about “sPeAkiG diSsEnT” when the people “dissenting” don’t know what the actual fuck they are posting with.

Unfortunately, despite increasingly popular opinion to the contrary, putting an argument into alternating capitals doesn’t make it go away.

So. Out of interest. Which alternative to presenting a dissenting opinion and sourcing it, would you prefer?

1. Not presenting any dissent at all - the only opinions posted should be ones that agree with the mainstream view?

2. Present a dissenting opinion, but don’t provide any evidence for it?

3. Present a dissenting opinion but then provide evidence supporting the mainstream opinion instead?

Dissenting opinion, by it’s very nature, has fewer sources, that’s the whole point of it being ‘dissenting’, as such the character of any set of resources supporting it will be one of having “trawled through” a load of sources presenting the opposing, mainstream view.

By suggesting that any argument whose sources display that character is to be ignored, you’re arguing that we should live in a society with no dissent from mainstream opinion.

Is that the sort of society you think Ukraine are fighting for?

Yes, because MI5 never lie for the government do they? Famous for telling the absolute truth all the time are MI5… terrible at counterintelligence as a consequence… But at least they’re honest…

Unbelievable. If the government says jump, you say…?

Antibiotics and other prescription medications are more often prescribed to older folks

But https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6996207/

In this study, we also analyzed antibiotic prescription rates according to age. The highest prevalence rates were observed in patients aged 71 years (80.3%) followed by 4-year-old children (60.7%).

Since 71 year olds wouldn’t show any long term effects, that leaves the four year old group.

as a prescriber, I do warn my patients of the dangers of taking antibiotics willy nilly.

Of course you do, I’ve no doubt you’re very diligent. Because now we know they have serious negative consequences. 40 years ago, however, the people this article is about would have merely been told they were “safe and effective”. That’s exactly the point I’m making.

You now have to take precaution with a medicine because of new information about its safety that wasn’t known at the time it was developed.

Same is true for every other factor mentioned in the report. Human innovation is absolutely suffuce with things we thought were safe and effective at the time, but later turn out to be quite unsafe.

Yet taking this unequivocal fact and applying it to a rational scepticism about new medicines has, since 2020, become ‘misinformation’.

Its the one that coincides with a concern of mine, yes.

Do you comment on absolutely everything regardless of whether it interests you or not?

Are you suggesting that the mere fact of being more interested in some issues than others indicates some kind of unreasonable level of fantisicm?

So “no firm conclusions” means what, in terms of the other comments here?

As far as I can tell, people are understandably a bit troubled, and a bit cross (since some of the proposed causes probably should have been dealt with a lot earlier). They’re maybe hastily jumping to theories about a few likely candidates. Do you blame them?

Or should we just do nothing? Wait, and put all our faith in…? What?

The vast majority of the things mentioned would do us absolutely no harm at all to avoid, or even legislate against as a precaution. So is there a good reason we should wait for “firm” conclusions?

Seemed as good a place as any.

I assume the report wasn’t posted in the spirit of “oh well, nothing we can do about it”. I assume the message was, “let’s try not to let this happen again”.

But maybe im assuming too much basic human compassion.

No, not at all.

I’m pointing out that concern about vaccine safety is legitimate given that many treatments thought “safe and effective” at the time later turn out to have been harmful. The effect antibiotics have on the gut biome being just the latest example.

People concerned about the safety of the drugs they are told to use are not all “lunitic conspiracy theorists” as often branded. Some simply have a completely reasonable caution about the hubris of the medical establishment.

Funny how so many responses have skimmed over the implication of antibiotic use.

Now ask yourselves, these antibiotics… If you’d have asked your doctor at the time “are these drugs safe and effective?”, what do you think the answer would have been?

Now ask your doctor if the latest vaccine is safe and effective and tell me how confident you feel about their response.

None of it is ‘clear’, and of course we don’t ‘know’. The question is what on earth you have on your list of reasons to give Antony Blinken the benefit of the doubt.

I’d love to know what it is about his record in office that inspires such trust.

Honestly, the level of fawning obsequiousness to the government these days is like something from Mccarthy’s America, I thought we’d moved on as a society.

The point isn’t whether he actually did approve bombing aid trucks. The point is that he, like any government official, should be terrified of the response if he did, because it’s only that fear that reigns in the abuse of power.

Do you think Antony Blinken is going to be terrified of “oh, we don’t have absolutely conclusive proof he actually said those exact words so we’ll just drop it”?