alt Hacker NewsEverything you think you "know" is information just put in front of you (most of it indirect, much of it several dozen or thousands of layers of indirection deep)
To the extent you have a grasp on reality, it's credit primarily to the information environment you found yourself in and not because you're an extra special intellectual powerhouse.
This is not an insult, but an observation of how brains obviously have to work.
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Your ability to check your information environment against reality is frequently within your control and can be used to establish trustworthiness for the things that you cannot personally verify. And it is a choice to choose to trust things that you cannot verify, one that you do not have to make, even though it is unfortunately commonly made.
For example, let's take the Uyghur situation in China. I have no ability to check reality there, as I do not live in and have no intention of ever visiting China. My information environment is what the Chinese government reports and what various media outlets and NGOs report. As it turns out, both the Chinese government and media and NGOs report on other things that I can check against reality, eg. events that happen in my country, and I know that they both routinely report falsehoods that do not accord with my observed reality. As a result, I have zero trust in either the Chinese government or media and NGOs when it comes to things that I cannot personally verify, especially when I know both parties have self-interest incentives to report things that are not true. Therefore, the conclusion is obvious: I do not know and can not know what is happening around Uyghurs in China, and do not have a strong opinion on the subject, despite the attempts of various parties to put information in front of me with the intention to get me to champion their viewpoint. This really does not make me an extra special intellectual powerhouse, one would hope. I'd think this is the bare minimum. The fact that there are many people who do not meet this bare minimum is something that reflects poorly on them rather than highly on me.
On the other hand, I trust what, for instance, the Encyclopedia Britannica has to say about hard science, because in the course of my education I was taught to conduct experiments and confirm reality for myself. I have never once found what is written about hard science in Britannica to not be in accord with my observed reality, and on top of that there is little incentive for the Britannica to print scientific falsehoods that could be easily disproven, so it has earned my trust and I will believe the things written in it even if I have not personally conducted experiments to verify all of it.
Anyone can check their information sources against reality, regardless of their intelligence. It is a choice to believe information that is put in front of you without checking it. Sometimes a choice that is warranted once trust is earned, but all too often a choice that is highly unwarranted.
> much of it several dozen or thousands of layers of indirection deep
Assuming we're just talking about information on the internet: What are you reading if the original source is several dozen layers deep? In my experience, it's usually one or two layers deep. If it's more, that's a huge red flag.