So, that is a common problem I’ve seen. I was writing from experience. For example, seemingly intelligent, educated people who are better writers than most have read a book like The Fabric of Reality then later posted opinions on the book’s discussion group like:
- FoR doesn’t discuss solipsism. (This belief was entrenched and the guy persisted in the face of evidence such as the lengthy index entry for that topic.)
- Popper never said induction is a myth that doesn’t work at all. Obviously he wouldn’t have done that since Popper was smart but that position is stupid. I believe this person had the same opinion about Deutsch. (Again this belief was entrenched. It was highly resistant to arguments and evidence.)
I remember someone on my forum who wasn’t an Objectivist and then read multiple Rand books without discussing them while forming their beliefs about Objectivism. Then they had wild, extensive, entrenched misconceptions about Objectivism. If the result was they dismissed Objectivism it wouldn’t be so bad, but they liked it! I was unable to fix it.
There have been many times where people read a book or essay or they participate in a forum or chat discussion with me and then they comment on something from earlier on, from memory, and it’s not really recognizable as corresponding to any actual text and they won’t go back and find the text and the issue never gets resolved.
Limiting your reading has risks and downsides too so it’s up to you. Ultimately it’s your life and you have to use your own judgment a lot. Figure out some error correction methods that you can use now that work well for you and aren’t too burdensome, and maybe improve them later. Take error correction seriously and do something about it that involves other people sometimes but don’t get hung up with fear.