Thanks for the tip. I've referred to that as "epistemological awareness" before, but never got too in depth with it; I've just over time become increasingly frustrated when people make claims that they do not seem to recognize the complexity involved in verifying (if possible at all), as well as fully understanding the constructs and limitations of the types of knowledge they're wielding.

An obvious example off the top being "there are no gays in Russia". Like, obviously a ridiculous statement, but also absurd to claim to know, even if it was somehow true because how on Earth are you going to gather that kind of data with integrity? You need access to peoples' lives we simply do not have. Further, "gayness" can manifest in a myriad of ways, so you have to first define a set of acts that you can actually bear witness to, then go about doing it. But gayness cannot always be seen, so you have to go about defining gayness in such a way that you can notice it. At that point, you might as well retroactively define it as exclusive to Russians. "Sure, Russian men might suck each other off, but that's not gay because they can't be gay, they're Russian!" It's all just absurd.

On the other side, being conscious of this (empowered by my irritability of dealing with it in others) has really dialed in my own thinking.