read-a-fucking-book:

This took a while to answer because i want to make sure i say what i mean clearly. First of all, I think its good that you thought about it enough to have doubt. One of the biggest problems with the anti community is the fact that they refuse to consider they might be wrong. And that leads to a lot of flaws in their logic and reasoning. I doubting yourself is so uncomfortable that you cant let yourself do it, you cant think that deeply about a topic. If you actually think about why something is right or wrong a big part of that is going to be considering the other side of the argument seriously and considering the fact that you might not actually be right. So i think one of the best things you can do is doubt yourself. If you let that happen, once you have thought it through you will be much more confident in your beliefs, have more to back them up, be able to understand the other side, and be able to explain why you think that.

Now, one thing to keep in mind when trying to figure out the truth is that just because there’s an article on it doesn’t mean its true. If someone posts an article the first thing you should do is figure out if the publication is general reliable. The next thing to do is actually read and try to understand it. Someone once linked me an article and told me that it said that it proved that people will act out what they read and when i actually read it it was an article about how the act of reading can create new pathways in the brain. So, not what they said at all. 

If you read a post and its a study that seems to back up what the other person says, the next step is to look a little closer at the study. Was it done by actual experts? Was it peer reviewed? Are there factors that swayed the outcome, was its conclusion supported by the experiment, have other experts said anything about the study? Just because a study exists doesn’t mean its good. And i highly suggest that if its a  news article you try and read the original published study. News outlets can be kind of unreliable when trying to summarize these kind of things. To get the full picture and not miss any of the nuance, read the original.

So even if the facts are good the next step is to look at how the person is applying it to their point. A lot of times they dumb it down and twist it to fit their narrative so its important to really understand what the study actually said. Just because something applies to one thing doesn’t mean it applies to everything.

Antis also mix together facts and feelings in a very confusing way. So its important to be able to ignore the emotional “its disgusting you would agree if you were a good person” nonsense and just focus on the facts. And after that it really does come down to what you believe. I cant tell you how to figure that out, but as much as ive talked about facts some of it is just going to be opinion. S you have to really spend some time with your thoughts and decide what you think is right and good. How important is personal freedom to you? Do you think people can be evil? Its all those pretentious philosophy questions. So its definitely good that you re willing to doubt yourself because it means you are already thinking of those things.

So in conclusion, fact check, don’t take anything at face value, and just think about stuff. It surprising how many people don’t do these things.

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