One time I was reading their article on "mistaking the map for the terrain" and in like 2 clicks ended up on anti-terf stuff.

Have you ever read one of those online rants with starts off with some basic skeptical principles and then ends with "and because we can't trust authorities who tell obvious lies, there is no doubt that the world is being run by reptiles". Or that start with why you cant trust doctors because they don't really know the science, so, buy this snake oil. Like, they try to sell you on some wild claim, but when they deunked the main thinking they are debunking their claim as well. Like "your Christianity is a cult. And that's why you should join our coven."

It had that kind of feeling. Like, no, if the mainstream proof to trust official narratives isn't doubt free, and you're telling me to raise my standard of proof, then your off the wall rambling about how it really is is already ruled out when ruling out the official story. If a close look at the science is what tells me cure x is really just a pharmaceutical company scam, then you're going to need reliable science on your feel good power vitamin that proves it's even better. You can't just write off "medicine" as not being scientific but then your natural cure is equally non scientific. You just raised the standard of proof when you said we should be careful about checking the science of our prescriptions. Finding out adhd meds have been over prescribed or finding out about the placebo effect in no way means the substitute you're trying to sell me will work for the problem.

It was just that the very logical fallacy of mistaking the map for the terrain had been used in the argument they were making agaisnt terfs.

As a person who is both paranoid and tragically logical (from autism) I would see these sites (or think any book that wants to tell you about aliens. They start with an overview of skeptically based critical thinking to get you to disregard the official narrative, but then ask you to 100 percent set that scrutiny aside when they make their case) and they're all like "here is a guide to how to detect bullshit" that is totally legit. Then, they spin bullshit combined with human behavior into a conspiracy theory, and then try to sell you a bunch of extra bullshit as their explanation.

You JUST told me not to trust a doctor simply because he has a PhD (which is legit. A quack with a PhD is still a quack. We shouldn't automatically accept something on authority. If we can't understand the medicine science ourselves, we should at least make sure the expert we are listening to has a good reputation among other experts).

Then, they go from "here is how to recognize the logical fallacy of appealing to authority a d exactly why it is bullshit and some critical thinking strategies you can apply to judge the credibility of the person who is an authority is areas that you aren't educated enough to distisghing between the facts for yourself"

Directly to "this guy is the number one top expert in cryptozoology and we don't have any records but he says he worked for the govnement hunting bigfeet."

Being autstic and paranoid I would get hung up on these arguments until I realized some people are crazy, some people want to sell you something, and some people are crazy and want to sell you something (Alex Jones really hammered this home).

I still think rational wiki is a good resource for exercising your brain, but when I clicked like 2 or 3 links between mistaking the map for the territory to wind up on anti terf that persistently mistook the map for the territory I had that "why am I supposed to trust the authority of the alternative doctor when you just said trusting authority is bullshit to tell me not to trust the medical doctor? This is just circular shit to push me to your way of thinking, not an actual argument" moment.