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Notes -
I am in broad agreement. My specific inciting reason for my disjointed rant was the last line of @ArjinFerman post, about the burning books. In reasoned debate and discussion source provision is indeed a standard we should all abide by, but source poisoning is a tactic so regularly yet inconsistently applied that the calls for a source are warning signs of bad-faith poisoners readying their needles instead of honest requests for verification.
Appeal to authority is indeed a logical fallacy, but explicating the objection to a source is never framed in that way. Instead the arguers aim to pull off a heads I win tails you lose, for no source means no proof and a source means proof of your right wing bias. In public forums, requests for sources are not attempts at furthering an argument or discussion, they are performative kayfabe to pretend at decorum while castigating the other side.
This can of course be said of most public facing forums and indeed institutions as a whole, with mindshare capture being the meta of discourse shaping. I wish we could find a way to arbitrate and give concrete value to facts and opinions shared, but the upvote is just inconsequential goodboypoints.
Btw pls updoot for visibility, thank
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