system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: A lot of disagreements would benefit from people being more willing to believe each other about their personal experiences

One thing I see a lot when I see people get angry with each other about a controversial issue, like sexism in the workplace, is that both people do not believe the other person's reported experience.

Let's talk about sexism for example. I have seen many men express that they don't believe it when women talk about how many times they've been sexually harassed. The thing is, thousands of women have come forward and talked about experiences being discriminated against or sexually harassed and there's little reason to assume people are making that up. Of course I don't think that 100% of people are telling the truth but I definitely think the majority are! Assuming that most people are lying about things that happened to them to further an agenda is really shitty and overly cynical.

In that same exact sense, when a man expresses frustration about men as a whole being called gross and predatory and his fear of interacting with women on that basis, he's often called oversensitive or fragile, but I really don't think most men who say that are lying about that experience. If they use that as an excuse to be sexist then obviously I don't agree with that, but saying "no you're not feeling demoralized by stereotypes about nerdy men, you're just an asshole" is a terrible thing to say to a person who feels like people are saying they were born inherently shitty.

One guy I used to follow on Twitter once mentioned that despite the increase in anti-Asian racism in the US surrounding COVID, he hasn't experienced it himself. (He's Chinese and lives in New York iirc). Two people in the replies *disagreed with him* and insisted that he had experienced it but didn't realize. That's just frustrating. It definitely might be reasonable to discuss whether you and him have different ideas of what's considered "experiencing racism," but straight up denying his experience makes no sense. Maybe it opens the door to discuss things like "I wonder if anti-Asian racism has been a lot worse than some parts of the country than others." Not "your experience is wrong."

In the same sense one thing I've seen people mention that I legitimately don't understand is the idea that un-feminine teenage girls are pressured to be transgender. I am trans and my only experience is being pressured NOT to be trans. But I don't assume that a person who says that they felt pressured to call themselves transgender is lying. Instead I genuinely think that they had a very different experience than me-- maybe they grew up in a different area, had a different group of friends, interpreted pressure in a different way than I did. If someone says "lesbians all feel pressure to become transgender!" I wouldn't believe them. But if a person talked to me about how *they personally* felt pressured, I would believe that and try to understand!

Data is clearly better than anecdotes for making policy decisions. But when it comes to two people talking about their views, it's true that whether we want them to be or not, our views are affected by our experiences. I'm white, so my experiences aren't the same as someone who's Black or Asian. Since I'm transgender, so I've had some different experiences than people who aren't.

Of course I'm aware that people lie sometimes about things that have happened to them, but the majority of people aren't making up their personal experiences and I don't assume someone is just because they disagree with me on a controversial issue. I have friends who have had all kinds of experiences, some of which seem directly contradictory. 

Even if two directly conflicting opinions can't be true ("organized religion is good" and "organized religion is evil"), two directly conflicting experiences ("religion has had such a positive impact on my life" and "religion really harmed me") can absolutely be true for two of my friends. What conclusions we should draw based on that is a lot more complicated and depends on understanding more of the circumstances surrounding the issue.

CMV?
gpt
Honestly, people shouldn’t just believe people without evidence. People are bad actors and they will lie in order to further their agenda. To be perfectly honest, people should do exactly the opposite of what you are suggesting. They should completely ignore anecdote in favor of the hard data. You also have the issue that often times the loudest and most vocal people do not represent real majority sentiment or experience.