@SecondJon I dont do either. Usually when I hear an issue I consider what test or reality might validate or invalidate the argument, then I go try to find the data and I determine upfront what data will cause me to take one side or the other.

Guns would be an example of that. The first time I started to care about guns I decided that the best measure is to look at countries that made guns illegal or legalized them and then see if the overally violence int hat society increased or decreased in the 1 - 2 decades following.

@freemo my thought is : what other factors are others considering that may be valid but I simply haven't thought of?

For example, I just heard from two sources (one a person I know currently in medical school the other in the media) that life expectancy in the US could look a bad reflection on US Healthcare, BUT if you remove deaths due to automobile and homicide (two factors fairly unaffected by whether health care has been socialized), then Americans have the highest life expectancy in the world.

If I only went with what I thought was the relevant stat, I could have missed a different, more nuanced perspective.

By searching out the ideas of others I feel I'm able to learn and broaden the input for me to consider.

@SecondJon Nothing wrong with hearing the other side, its good in fact. The ssue I find however is that arguments specific to one side or the other tend to be highly cherry picked and distorted in such a way as to be intentionally manipulative. Whereas the approach I take looks at raw data and since I am a professional statistician I can make sure I look at it in a way that is fair.

With that said I do think its a good idea to listen to the logical arguments of both sides, but only with extreme prejudice where you personally research every assertion and have the expertise to do so effectively.

For example does america really have the highest life expectancy, and lets not forget car accidents and homicide still HIGHTLY depend on the quality of our healthcare since in the vast majority of those cases the victims dont die instantly but get rushed to a hospital first where they may stand some chance of being fixed up. So to cherry pick your data and leave out those two datapoints seems intentionally manipulative. Even if they die on the scene their mental health has a strong influence on their likely hood to get in a car accident or be involved in a homicide. So even then it isnt completely detached from the quality of healthcare.

@freemo it may be that a homicide victim's mental health is to blame for them being murdered, though that's an assertion I don't know any evidence of. I don't know why the US murder rate and rate is deaths in auto accidents is higher. It could be somehow because of health care... But I suspect there's other factors as well. Boiling down all causes of death to a single factor (health care in this example) seems manipulative in itself. I'd hope that instead of immediately writing off new or not-my-bias facts as intentionally manipulative may cause us to miss helpful information. Recognizing that in myself is what led me to try to understand the views of those I disagree with.

I'd rather have a... Steel man (not sure if that's a real term, trying for the opposite of a straw man) of someone else's idea, and not just assume malice or deceit. I think that's a way of both showing decency to others and growing myself by considering evidence I may not have thought of in a Silo/echo chamber of my own.

@SecondJon I am not saying that a murder "a homicide victim's mental health is to blame for them being murdered". What I am saying is that we know, without any doubt, that at least some murders are the result of poor mental health, not of the victim but of the person commiting the murder. The only thing we dont know is how strong of an influence that connection happens to be. As such you cant just eliminate those from the statistics, you much show some scientific rigor to justify that, something that was not done in this case.

The point is YES there are are other factors. So what? In the world of statistical analysis "other factors" are precisely why no correlation is 100%, but if that correlation is high enough then it is relevant. You need to show what that correlation is before you start cherry picking your data.

One thing is clear, concluding that healthcare in america is great just by cherry picking your data without scientific rigour to support it is exactly what I said, manipulative and biased.

But I agree, you shouldnt just write it off as manipulative. Listen to the ideas, but treat them with extreme bias. Unless you can work through the scientific rigour and confirm its validity (or there is strong consensus in the scientific community if you dont have the expiernce yourself.. well then your likely to be the victim of bias rather than rising above it.