Also in favor of not only reserving judgment but ideally deferring exposure until one can seriously evaluate things, You Can’t Not Believe Everything You Read; and then there’s the mere-exposure effect to worry about, especially from prolific authors or in environments with a lot of repetition. (This is again the weird thing where you have apparently opposite biases which show up in similar situations, and it may not be obvious which direction you’ll be taken. In this case I’d guess it depends on one’s initial disposition and the level of conscious attention the idea is getting. [In particular, “inferential distance” isn’t the determinant—with the illusion of transparency, the gap can go unrecognized by either party and lead to unjustified agreement.] Luckily, one is led to similar reading/discussion policies either way.)
Also in favor of not only reserving judgment but ideally deferring exposure until one can seriously evaluate things, You Can’t Not Believe Everything You Read; and then there’s the mere-exposure effect to worry about, especially from prolific authors or in environments with a lot of repetition. (This is again the weird thing where you have apparently opposite biases which show up in similar situations, and it may not be obvious which direction you’ll be taken. In this case I’d guess it depends on one’s initial disposition and the level of conscious attention the idea is getting. [In particular, “inferential distance” isn’t the determinant—with the illusion of transparency, the gap can go unrecognized by either party and lead to unjustified agreement.] Luckily, one is led to similar reading/discussion policies either way.)