Why is credibility worth caring about?

[Kelfuma]

I do not understand why authority and credibility is important in an argument. "So what if someone told you a complete lie, you believed it, and you lost $1,000,000?" Great, I learn and move on. I am deeply suspicious of authority and "credibility" when someone has to resort to those to save face.

 

[Brochacholomigo]

People get credibility for being consistently right or correct, usually.

 

[Kelfuma]

People get credibility for being consistently right or correct, usually.

So successful fortune tellers right?

 

[Brochacholomigo]

So successful fortune tellers right?

No. People who are consistently not terrible at their job.

Who would you consider a more credible information source about econoics, Warren Buffet, the most successful investor in America, or a homeless man with a college degree in economics?

 

[Brochacholomigo]

When you cite a news source that constantly screws up or gets its information wrong, people are going to (quite reasonably) assume that the story is wrong or false.

If the source regularly lies, its even worse.

 

[Kelfuma]

No. People who are consistently not terrible at their job.

Who would you consider a more credible information source about econoics, Warren Buffet, the most successful investor in America, or a homeless man with a college degree in economics?

What if some big debaters were talking about solutions to world hunger? On whose authority or credibility should they rely on for their own proposals? That's the context I'm using.

 

[Brochacholomigo]

What if some big debaters were talking about solutions to world hunger? On whose authority or credibility should they rely on for their own proposals? That's the context I'm using.

Hmmm...

In their position, for a pathos appeal, I would probably cite someone who has made significant progress towards preventing starvation in at least one country, and can prove that their plan/efforts have made a positive impact.

 

[CrabCake]

What if some big debaters were talking about solutions to world hunger? On whose authority or credibility should they rely on for their own proposals? That's the context I'm using.

If the way ideas worked was that brilliant ideas would spontaneously appear in random people's heads from time to time, we would have developed a system for harnessing these ideas by now and "credibility" wouldn't be as relevant. But that's not how the world works. People don't just have random moments of brilliance wherein world-changing ideas appear out of nowhere. Instead, people slowly become subject matter experts after years of study and experience in their chosen field and gain recognition and acceptance as they contribute to that field over time.

If a welder from New Jersey with no training or experience with the topic were to come up with a plan to end world hunger, he's probably not worth listening to. What are the chances he truly understands the problem, let alone good solutions? If, on the other hand, the idea is coming from the leadership of an NGO with a solid track record, then it may be worth listening to.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

I do not understand why authority and credibility is important in an argument. "So what if someone told you a complete lie, you believed it, and you lost $1,000,000?" Great, I learn and move on. I am deeply suspicious of authority and "credibility" when someone has to resort to those to save face.

If you had paid attention to credibility, you wouldn't have lost a million bucks.

That's why. Some people like to prevent making stupid mistakes in the first place.

It's not about authority; authority is rarely credible. Credibility is about having a track record of accuracy and ethics.

 

[Kelfuma]

If you had paid attention to credibility, you wouldn't have lost a million bucks.

That's why. Some people like to prevent making stupid mistakes in the first place.

It's not about authority; authority is rarely credible. Credibility is about having a track record of accuracy and ethics.

So the person who keeps such records is more powerful than the person being recorded?

 

[Kelfuma]

If a welder from New Jersey with no training or experience with the topic were to come up with a plan to end world hunger, he's probably not worth listening to. What are the chances he truly understands the problem, let alone good solutions? If, on the other hand, the idea is coming from the leadership of an NGO with a solid track record, then it may be worth listening to.

So who keeps record then?

 

[CrabCake]

So who keeps record then?

Depends on what you are talking about. It may be: Universities, NGOs, Government statistics bureaus, the United Nations, professional associations, award granting institutions, professional journals, non-professional publications, etc. Depends on the field you're talking about.

I don't think anyone is proposing a central repository of all accolades. Such things are best handled by the specific fields in question.

No one person really needs to keep track of it, if it's true then the person can show it is. In the world hunger example, it would be a simple matter for the person making the proposal to begin with something along the lines of: "Since beginning our work in Djibouti, we have seen a fivefold decrease in the number of families who eat less than one meal a day..." (or whatever the case may be). You can establish your own credibility as long as you really have the accomplishments to back it up.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

So the person who keeps such records is more powerful than the person being recorded?

In some ways, and unfortunately there's no way to completely get rid of that. Victors are the writers of history. Just reality.

In order for information to spread, someone has to spread it. The spreader always gets to choose whether they are going to be honest or not.

And that's why people care about credibility -- people who are credible are known for being honest.

Evaluating credibility is actually the best thing we can do to gain MORE power over the spreaders. If we reject them because they are known to be dishonest, they lose power.

 

[Cardinal]

I do not understand why authority and credibility is important in an argument. "So what if someone told you a complete lie, you believed it, and you lost $1,000,000?" Great, I learn and move on. I am deeply suspicious of authority and "credibility" when someone has to resort to those to save face.

People gain credibility through researching and being educated in what they're conversing, and through communicating honestly and admitting when they're wrong. The value in all of this is that it opens the boundaries of communication with others so that larger issues may be explored. However, when they speak authoritatively on things they know nothing about, deceive and never admit to error, the boundaries of dialogue with others shrink to the point that they find themselves fighting on all points of irrelevant minutiae, and their ability to communicate never grows beyond the suspicion that others have grown to have toward them.

In essence losing credibility can, in the most utilitarian sense of the question, can be considered extremely inefficient. Imagine how little you'd get accomplished in a day if everybody you spoke with needed to fact check everything because you became well known for deception and talking out your ass?

 

[Deuce]

I do not understand why authority and credibility is important in an argument. "So what if someone told you a complete lie, you believed it, and you lost $1,000,000?" Great, I learn and move on. I am deeply suspicious of authority and "credibility" when someone has to resort to those to save face.

If someone has lied to you a hundred times, would you believe the one hundred-and-first thing they told you?