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Notes -
In the case of online restaurant reviews I just look at the names of the reviewers and use those by people of whatever ethnicity's cuisine it is to judge authenticity and those by people with white surnames to judge their customer service; you can also try out the 3.5 star rule instead.
As far as other topics goes, a little bit of background goes a long way (the Pareto principle strikes again). Simply familiarizing yourself with the basic vocabulary of a field makes a potential swindlers' job much harder, as does paying attention to their behavior e.g. are they willing to explain things or are they obfuscating? Diversifying your friend group career-wise is also a good idea; I remember the first time I was in a room with a bunch of medical students and residents and they began discussing which hospitals in town they did not want to be sent to in an emergency because the doctors there were incompetent and I realized I should have been asking them about such things sooner.
That guy has some good points but I'd argue Japan is an outlier. Japanese service on the whole is amazing and I'm spoiled for anywhere else. This is tempered by the general assumption that service in restaurants abroad is shit, so I am not sure about their reviews. Japanese people (in general!) are not going to rank anywhere at the top or the bottom.
Probably he's more accurate about continental Asia, I don't know. Then again if you find actual Japanese people in a Japanese restaurant abroad you're batting 1000. Japanese are notoriously picky about sushi, rice, ramen, etc. served outside Japan.
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