The "Reliable Sources" Scam

I normally don't quote the source for most of my ideas. I keep track of ideas, and not the sources. Many sources contain some useful ideas and some lies and propaganda. I'm much more interested in keeping track of ideas than keeping track of sources.

For example, most people know what a dog is. Are you required to always give credit to the first person who told you what a dog is? It's assumed to be common knowledge that everyone knows. Similarly, I keep track of ideas, and not the original source. That can be problematic if you can't distinguish between false ideas and true ones. If nobody does that, then false ideas keep propagating.

It is convenient to not keep track of the source of each idea. Most authors have good ideas mixed with lousy ideas. For example, on mises.org, some pro-State trolls say "Mises and Rothbard never wrote about the Compound Interest Paradox. Therefore, the Compound Interest Paradox is not a problem." By tracking ideas and not authors, I avoid repeating the mistakes that others made. This only works if I'm able to tell the difference between a good idea and a bad idea.

Quoting sources is something that pro-State trolls do. Read a typical academic article. It's heavily footnoted. Are those articles comprehensible? Are they useful? Do the footnotes add anything? Usually, the footnotes are useless.

On Wikipedia, the "reliable sources" policy is the functional equivalent of a censorship policy.

For example, the Compound Interest Paradox does *NOT* meet Wikipedia's standards for inclusion. No mainstream media source mentions the Compound Interest Paradox. If I were restricted to quoting "reliable sources", I would be barred from writing about the Compound Interest Paradox.

Insisting on "reliable sources" is equivalent to insisting "You must recite the propaganda spewed by mainstream media."

When arguing against the Federal Reserve and income tax, the way they operate in the present is well-documented. You may verify all the details on the Federal Reserve and IRS's own website. The conclusions "The Federal Reserve is immoral!", "Taxation is theft!" and "Inflation is theft!" are almost never explicitly stated in a mainstream media source.

Whether the current corrupt system evolved as part of a conspiracy or by accident is irrelevant. The important thing is that we do the best we can to correct the problem. Arguing about who said what 50+ years ago is pointless. We can't go back in time and check. Mainstream media sources frequently retroactively change history. It's just like in George Orwell's 1984.

For example, some people say that "income" as commonly defined in 1913 did not include "wages". Is this relevant? No. The important point is that the income tax is immoral, along with all other forms of taxation. Whether the 16th and 17th amendments were properly ratified or not is irrelevant. The important part is the erosion of individual freedom.

I don't bother quoting sources for most of the ideas I read. I'm more interested in polishing and extending ideas I read about. If you don't like my style, then why are you wasting time reading this?

If a quote is interesting, use it. It doesn't matter if you can prove the original source actually said it or not. For example, there are some quotes by Woodrow Wilson where he admits that he ****ed up when he signed the Federal Reserve Act. Did he really say that, or was it misattributed later? Does it matter?

The obsession with "reliable sources" is a type of censorship.