If trenchant dismissal of claims unsupported by evidence is perceived as combative, it’s a canary for that individual - to become better at handling trenchant dismissal of claims unsupported by evidence.. challenging dubious claims is the default, most rational approach. We should all do it, all the time. Sorry if it seems combative. Maybe it is, but it’s optimal and normal.
Do you do this with everything? Search down examples of child sexual abuse material and murders before you believe they exist?
I don’t think it a “dubious” claim at all - you’ve been on the internet there is a community for _everything_ it’s not surprising there is a community for this.
Traditionally the method is there are some things that people just assume exist and for things outside that circle they require some smidgen of evidence to believe in. It is a bit like me saying I believe there are people in the Arctic (never really seen evidence of it, but seems reasonable) vs. pixies (if I'm being asked to believe in pixies, I'd like to see some evidence).
The idea that there are sites promoting eating disorders does seem to me plausible by default, but nomilk does allude to a good point that without examples it is hard to talk about harms. These sites, if they exist, might be quite difficult to find without going and looking for them. I don't remember ever seeing a hint of such a site.
I suppose the difference for me is I've not seen any examples of Child sexual abuse online. Its obviously a bad thing, so steps taken to prevent that directly are a good thing. When you start restricting everyone, in order to stop that harm, then you need to start quantifying risks.
This isn't arresting murderers, this is restricting the sale of rope that murderers might use on their victims. or to get more specific. this isn't banning clubs where murderers can get together. this is imposing checks on all clubs to make sure there aren't any murderers in them.
If it reasonable for the boy scouts to do checks on their members to make sure that a few of them aren't planning a murder? should the boy scouts be responsible if a few boys do go and murder someone? a murder that was planned in the scout hut?
This is restricting the sale of "how to murder people" handbooks, even at garage sales. Therefore every garage sale proprietor is burdened to make sure they aren't selling a handbook explaining how to murder people, even if they got a load of miscellaneous items from an anonymous person.
> challenging dubious claims is the default, most rational approach
I would bet ignoring dubious claims is the default. Challenging and questioning any claims is a better default but I don’t think it is a common default reaction by many people.
If trenchant dismissal of claims unsupported by evidence is perceived as combative, it’s a canary for that individual - to become better at handling trenchant dismissal of claims unsupported by evidence.. challenging dubious claims is the default, most rational approach. We should all do it, all the time. Sorry if it seems combative. Maybe it is, but it’s optimal and normal.