Fact and Bias Check

• Mediabiasfactcheck.com - decent resource.
• Factcheck.org - good.

OSE Considerations

• Nothing is black and white - it's always a shade of grey. Note that 'conspiracy theories' - have 2 sides. The success of pseudoscience, cults, and conspiracy theories - and conspiracy theories in particular - lies in that there is a kernel of truth, or some insight, to be gained from the contrarian viewpoint. Ie, a conspiracy theory is typically not 100% BS, but some part between 1% and 100%. "Successful" or "attractive" conspiracy theories would thus be impossible to disprove, but have a considerable 'appearance' of truth, which implies it would strive to be as factual as possible while 'stretching the truth' as much as possible. There is always some truth or appearance of truth - or the conspiracy theory/paralogism/paramoralism would gather little support. For example with Qanon - the pedophilia part is real in that ~20% of American children suffer incest according to [1] - but incest data shows that pedophilia is distributed very 'democratically' and is not particular to specific political orientation.
• Note also that any new discovery is met 'with violent opposition from mediocre minds', as Einstein said, so when approaching scientifically-undocumented claims, keep that in mind as well.
• OSE favors an open mind - seeing that all viewpoints may have something to offer. Some viewpoints may be pathological and the proper approach is empathy and healing. The major obstacle to healing is that there is a very low level of psychological literacy today, thus promoting paramoralistic as opposed to psychological, factual, or scientic appraoches.
• Immunizing oneself against negative effects of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience happens by understanding Logical Fallacies, General Semantics, Mental Models, Critical Thinking, First Principles Thinking, Literacy, Numeracy, Science, and Political Ponerology.
• OSE promotes a secular and apolital, positive-psychology approach to solving pressing world issues, and on its media, is committed to solutions, reason, science, and empathy. 'We are all in it together' - we favor a collaborative approach that is open and transparent. Our view is not eschatological, but one of evolution and lifelong learning.

MJ Considerations

• I do not like polarizing arguments, as 'we are all in it together'. The opposite of evil is empathy - which is a lesson I take from Political Ponerology. I like to keep an open mind, and the best tool for navigating proper communication - so it doesn't turn to division - is understanding General Semantics to avoid faulty Mental Models. Life is about updating our mental models so we keep an accurate handle on reality.