My friends sometimes says things that I have later validated as partially or fully incorrect. For example, they said "Of course there are blind bats. Why else would the saying *Blind as a bat* exist?"
I have gotten into the habit of asking "Oh, where did you hear that?" or "Really? Are you sure?". After some time they have picked up on me often questioning their facts and asking where they learned said thing. When their response is Google AI, I openly refute that as a source as I have found it is unreliable, sometimes finding the information is copy pasted from one site, but others having differing information.
I admit always citing your source can be annoying. I don’t do it with literally everything. Usually on topics that seem deeply science based, or stranger than fiction. (e.g How far a bullet could lethally penetrate water)
A recent comment that sparked this post was my friend saying-"You really don’t trust anything, do you?" in which I responded-"I am allowed to ask where people get their information from."
AITA?
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Being around people who confidently get things wrong all the time and constantly regurgitate “ai” bullshit is worse though.
Having to learn to actually check your facts is a good thing, whereas being constantly subjected to misinformation is actually harmful.
And to be clear, if my friends started spewing “ai” nonsense at me and got annoyed with me when I asked them to stop and just continued on, they would rapidly cease being my friends.
Mild YTA, more just annoying behaviour, from the examples given, i.e., trivia.
If someone is spouting spurious facts in a debate or serious discussion, then by all means pull them up on it.
But if someone shares some stupid thing they read online that has no impact on anything and you think it doesn’t ring true, you can just let it wash over you.
NAH you’re not necessarily an AH for questioning where they got that information, but your friends aren AHs for being irritated because you have to be right all the time. Who actually gives a shit if some bats are blind?
No one wants to be around a know it all. If it’s really that important to you just check it for yourself.
NTA. Trust but verify. This is what I was taught. I always Google things myself. If they are wrong, I don’t even bother to tell them.
YTA because having someone constantly asking you to cite your sources in a conversation would be extremely irritating. You say you don’t do with everything, but your friend saying “you really don’t trust anything, do you” feels telling to me. If you need to know where it comes from, just look it up yourself. You keep this up and your friends might stop hanging around you.
My brother does this so you can’t even have a normal chat shooting the breeze without every single word being questioned. My daughter does that but it’s as something she does at work in a professional capacity. I no longer bother having any conversations with either because it’s annoying. It’s mostly hi and bye.
It’s okay to question something outlandish but it’s better to just give your own point of view, as in “I am pretty sure bats can actually see very well.”
Soft YTA
NTA, I do the same thing when told about breaking news. Which network is a reasonable reply.
NTA! My DIL would ask me to post proof when I posted something on social media. We agree on current issues, and it forced me to be accountable and not post things weren’t true. I really appreciated her doing that.
Dont take that. Push back, tell them ,” if you were not such a pushover for other peoples random ‘facts’, I wouldn’t have to.”
“You have a track record of being gulled, just checking to see if it is still the case.”
“I’m checking to see if you are fact-checking.”
NTA
I have a friend who says things that are a bit out there some times, and he’s wrong every time. Now days there is so much misinformation, false information, and other lies that it is important to not only find one source but 3 trusted sources that have no affiliation with each other.
It sounds like your friend tries to use logic to make assumptions but that only works when you have thoroughly studied the world and how everything works. I myself have gone to great lengths to be able to make assumptions (2 degrees, a dozen fields of expertise, and tens of thousands of hours of personal research) and am still very cautious about what I claim. It is never a bad move to question sources, and to question the source itself. A good thing to remember; smart people will thank you for correcting them, a dumb person will not (and usually get angry).
I don’t give a fuck about what all the other whinge-bags are saying: You are absolutely not TA for expecting people around you to not subject you to a constant string of made up nonsense.
If they not only refuse to exercise basic standards of responsibility visavi information gathering but have the temerity to get annoyed when you do, that’s on them, not you.
Only people who are constantly wrong because they’re too lazy or self-absorbed to be right find out what’s right find the expectation of having to cite your sources onerous.
nta this is normal in conversation. I always ask people where they got the information they are passing along to me. critical analysis of sources is important.
NTA. My best friend and I often get completely different articles on a subject as the algorithms have put us into different bubbles although we share a lot of interests and opinions, we’re constantly asking eachother what our sources are. Of course, a lot of it is tone – you can’t come off snarky when asking.