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You should not believe firsthand accounts you find on the internet anyway. People are here for recreation, for starters, which does not set a high bar for accuracy.
For instance, if I said I tried a dragonfruit the other day and it tasted amazing, you would be somewhat foolish to assume that I actually did try a dragonfruit the other day.
If you follow the general rule of holding reasonable doubt about all firsthand accounts you read online, you will not fall into this trap. Note that the doubt does not need to be complete, just partial. This is sometimes described as taking things with "a grain of salt", and honestly, is a good idea irl as well.
You absolutely do not want to be one of those people that just believes everyone. That is extremely unhealthy, and will result in you being misled and/or scammed.
A good example would be user reviews, which are highly corruptible. If you go onto amazon, you will find a number of low quality, garbage products that are full of glowing reviews that have likely been solicited by the seller, in one way or another.
Why? It’s a fairly common experience to eat dragonfruit. Why should I be skeptical of people that say that did something common?
Should I call bullshit on people who say they drive a car? Say they watch a show in TV? Say they eat at a chain restaurant?
I mean, sure, they could be lying, but why?
So, thinking they are automatically lying is even worse than thinking they must be telling the truth. The position you need to hold is between the two.
The reason to hold it consistently is to take advantage of habit building and using how your brain works to your own advantage. You can try to calculate an independent "likelihood" for every claim if you want, but you'll frequently be wrong, just because you can't take everything into account. And it's a massive waste of energy.
As to why, it varies. Humans are very different from each other, so the reasons will be many and varied. But the important thing to remember is just how easy the lie is, and how there's really no consequences if someone does.
Very good explanation of why you should be skeptical online. I just wanted to chime in as someone who does eat dragon fruit regularly, that they are absolutely delicious when ripe. Although the red ones do stain quite bad.
Nice try. That other person told me nobody online has ever eaten dragon fruit.
And you just believed them?
Yes, take everything with a grain of salt.
In some areas of knowledge I have to act a little dumb and not flaunt my credentials, and in others just do more research to appear slightly more knowledgeable, to avoid revealing my real identity online.
Yes, and sometimes you have to throw in a real curve ball!
By the way, as head of quality at a saltworks in Europe, I should point out that there are as many shapes and sizes to processed salt as there are subtleties to their trace mineral concentrations. So "a grain of salt" isn't a well defined quantity.
And why should I believe you on that? You're just a random person on the internet... ;)