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This reminds me of the guy who convinced me to take coronavirus seriously back in early 2020. I found an account talking about the future risks in an eloquent tone, and when I clicked his profile I saw that he posted nudes in a gay sub. It just so happened that I was able to cross reference the pic to a list of graduate students in an important immunology-centered PhD program, but even before that I trusted this guy significantly more, having seen his naked body exhibited to the internet at large. Sorry to use another dick example.
Because I’ve spent so long online I can tell with decent accuracy when a poster is legit and also when they have important information to convey. For instance, Chris Corner from the band Sneaker Pimps wrote a post on 4chan saying he had left to volunteer in Ukraine. Click that link only at your own peril. Although a normal person, whose intuition-AI engine was not trained on reading shitposts online, would read this and say it’s bullshit, I’m 90% sure it’s real. I have zero evidence that it is real except for the way it was written, and have no real desire to phone up a Sneaker Pimps member to confirm.
I have developed some, well, essentially bigoted heuristics over time. If I am 50% split on some debate, and one side has most of the autistic white/Indian twitter accounts (who usually don’t post in colloquial persuasive language but dense logical assertions), and the other side has more verified women scientists, I will always believe the former. For instance, right now I think the recent study showing increased IgG4 antibodies in fully-vaccinated individuals is a serious problem. As a layman, it’s impossible for me to fully understand the various competing claims (all-cause mortality rate versus disease severity rate vs IgG4 proliferation in measles showing it’s not a problem, etc). But the autistic Indian/white posters are telling me it’s a problem, and the verified women and Ukraine-flagged accounts are telling me it’s not a problem. My own bias is to always believe the former in matters of uncertainty as they have been correct about so many significant things IMO.
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