But you've got to do both. Doubting oneself is "critical thinking". Doubting other sources of authority is "independent thinking".

The thing is, nobody has enough expertise to be an independent thinker in every area. So you essentially MUST delegate your ideas in some areas (variable between people) to external authorities. At which point what you "believe" depends on which authorities you choose.

A related question is "how firm is that belief?". This also tends to vary wildly with little apparent (to me) reason behind it. This is one feature that *can* be related to IQ, but isn't always.

It's not just widespread, it's universal. What varies from person to person is the domain that they apply thinking to, and how they validate the authority they choose to trust.

Nobody is an "independent thinker" on every topic. Wherever one is an expert, one tends to be an "independent thinker" in that domain. Where you don't feel knowledgeable, you tend to accept an authoritative source...possibly after doing some amount of checking to see whether others think it reliable.

I don't think it's directly related to IQ. I also don't think it's restricted to chatbots. A lot of people are willing to accept the opinion of any authoritative source that they've accepted. Think religion or political party. Once they accept it, they stop questioning it's proclamations.

Note that this also applied to those who accept the proclamations of scientists or compilers. Once you accept an authoritative source, you pretty much stop questioning it. It's been multiple decades since I really argued with a compiler...unless it was a known bug from a source I trusted. I generally just assumed that I misunderstood what the language meant by that construct. (Of course, the few times I really didn't accept it, I eventually turned out to be wrong. Oh.)

Those techniques won't work on overeating because you need to eat to live, you can't just stop cold turkey like with smoking.

Overweight people have it constantly hammered into them that they're endangering their lives, it's not a messaging issue.

And if it's so bad, why is having the meds such a problem? Their side effects are minimal and they work better than diet and exercise and lifestyle change. Most of the arguments seem to be based on some weird puritanism, where only the "worthy" should be able to weigh less.

The current administration is focused on making it look like they're doing something.

If they really wanted to regulate microplastics they'd regulate them, not put them on a list where they'll sit and do nothing.

"We spent a ridiculous amount of effort to stop smoking in this country but have done almost nothing in regards to obesity"

I disagree strongly. We have spent as a society uncounted billions on addressing obesity, including on government programs. The problem is it's just a harder problem than smoking.

At the end of the day, just about everybody knows obesity is bad and that you have to exercise and eat healthier. Lack of knowledge isn't the problem.

"You have to admit that the majority of people are not like diligent you but are more like those bakery patrons"

So then the drugs sound like the best option? The only other argument is basically that of a sociopath -- people should be punished because they don't have the willpower you think they do.

If the game bugs up 10% of the time I am out. I'd rather play it on Windows.

Unless it's a Bethesda game, in which case only bugging up 10% of the time would be an improvement over the Windows version.

Don't be such a hater, at this rate we'll reach 95% market saturation for desktop gaming by the year 3,562

Microsoft Office if Microsoft Office compatibility is what you are going for, which it seems these groups are.

This, however, is far from that point. ... But I *do* prefer LibreOffice. However my use case is different.

Not necessarily impossible...but almost always inadvisable. They can be sure that all their actual competitors already have copies before they get the takedown issued.

In this case I don't think a takedown will even limit the damage...it might well exacerbate it.

At some point it just seems less exhausting to just use Office.

Well, he did say "for some imaging tasks". That's probably a reasonable goal...but you've got to be *very* selective.