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Notes -
Oh, they probably do. Maybe even in these specific cases!
That doesn’t make a series of anecdotes into evidence.
That's the case for all anecdotes. On top of that, the nature of some questions can deprive us of our preferred tools to deduce fact from fiction. That doesn't invalidate the questions or unburden us from the consequence of the answers. Using heuristics to help guide us towards some sense of rationality is perfectly valid and reasonable.
A key example of this would be military propaganda. We know it was used. We know there were branches within the armed forces and government whose sole purpose was understanding, disseminating and otherwise advancing propaganda for whatever purpose. Seemingly all the major players in conflict hide or obfuscate their casualty numbers in a variety of scenarios. So without evidence we can reasonably claim that news about Ukrainian or Russian or IDF or HAMAS casualty numbers are at best skewed. Why would the US army be different in this regard? Maintaining a narrative of how strong the US specials forces are or how powerful the navy is seems to fall within the basic purview of a propaganda arm.
Yes, we are missing fact, but the nature of the subject matter kind of has that problem built in. That doesn't make it unreasonable. In fact, the only position on could argue that point from was if one believed one had a better understanding of reason than anyone else. That one is here to finger wag other people as if they can't understand the nature of the question and the inherent problems just overviewed.
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