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While "I met a guy, didn't like him, I think this is why" is a bit too dismissive, your dismissal of a desire for factual data is disturbing.I find the over-reliance on second hand ("factual") data, charts and figures, disturbing.
People have to learn to observe, think, and understand themselves.
Not just passively consume pre-made charts and statistics (which are the easiest thing to manipulate). And learning how to spot BS statistical claims wont help when the raw data can be themselves cherry-picked, manipulated, and diced in tons of ways.
Not to mention that live experience is 360 (if one tries), where data will always paint less than the whole picture. One could arrange for great "official" charts and figures for every country -- and most countries do. Unless one gets on the field and talk to the people on the street and the workplace, and try to check the reality in various situations, they can have a totally BS picture painted for them by the statistics and "factual data".
>One person's experience, no matter how broad for an individual, is still just one individual's anecdotal experience.
Well, you're not 10000 people. You're just one, like everyone else is. In the end, whatever you're fed or read or watch, you have to make up your mind for yourself.
>The principles of fact checking and bias analysis should not be relegated solely to academia.
Nor should fact checking and bias analysis start and begin with data people are handed down from official or other sources. Those can range from perfectly accurate to badly compiled to totally and mischievously misleading (for saving face, incompetence, for profit, etc).
If you lived in USSR, would you trust the official data, or you would try to balance things and do direct observation?
You shouldn't blindly trust "facts" and "figures" anywhere else either...
