Ask HN: What is your source for answers?

I surround myself with people I trust. They tell me when I'm wrong and when I'm right. Everyone is right, everyone is wrong, and everything has bias. Instead of trying to discern what is real and fake, I think you should try to decide what you believe, and through that belief, you will find liars and trustworthy people full of valuable information. Most importantly, try to understand people who disagree with you - I grew up with a family with entirely different values and beliefs than I do. Having people around you who agree and disagree with you, with whom you feel comfortable discussing those topics, is vital to personal development and growth.

Currently what I do is that I am training myself a lot on critical thinking.

Reading a lot of fiction books which are considered classics, philosophy. And of course, meditation.

When I want to get informed about something controversial or very loaded in politics, I check the most extreme sources in both sides that I can possibly find, and because I know that often the 'truth' I am looking for is somewhere in the middle, I make my own conclusions. This includes newspapers, AI, Google, Reddit, X.

I relate. I used to outsource my judgment to whatever seemed most convincing online, which meant I also picked up a lot of disempowering “truths.” What helped me:

Test in reality. Instead of debating which advice was right, I just tried things in small experiments. Reality gave better feedback than any forum.

Write before searching. I’d first note down what I already know or would try. Then compare outside input to that. It built trust in my own reasoning.

Now I treat all advice (AI included) as raw input, not truth. My “source” is a mix of experiments + cross-checking multiple perspectives. The key shift was asking: does this expand me, or shrink me? That filter alone cut out a lot of limiting beliefs.

I wish I had a good answer to this question for you and for me.

Everything is full of bias, propaganda, partisan activism, and outright lies. Government institutions, educational institutions, the media, Internet forums, social media, books and journal articles by the experts, and everything else. Unfortunately, AI is trained on all of this suboptimal input so it really isn’t any better.

The best thing I’ve been able to do is attempt to find a source on both sides of a topic and attempt to glean the truth that way. It’s still a flawed methodology that leaves me susceptible to biases, most dangerously of which are my own biases.