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AnnaSalamon comments on Support That Sounds Like Dissent - Less Wrong
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I agree with most of your analysis, but, if we're going to be expressing agreement more often in random discussions, we should seriously consider devices for reducing information cascade. We may need speech signals that distinguish between "I have independent evidence that should add to our confidence in the speaker's conclusion" and "based on the evidence others have presented, I now agree, but don't take my agreement as further reason to update".
Is it unreasonable to simply suggest that, if someone has independent evidence that adds to confidence, they provide said evidence in their agreeing post?
Lack of novel informational content in agreement strongly indicates the second mode, at least to me.
Person A says "Based on my 20 years of experience in industry X, it seems to me that Y". Persons B, C, D, and E all take the mike and say "IAWYC, and/but __".
I imagine myself assuming B, C, D, and E have additional evidence. I imagine myself increasing my confidence in conclusion Y. Do you expect to respond differently in this case, SA, or do you expect to respond the way I would in this case but believe this case is unrepresentative?
It doesn't seem at all clear to me that persons B through E have additional evidence, no, and I would not adjust my confidence on that basis (unless they then indicate some form of evidence in their later statement after the "IAWYC and/but", of course).
However, I likely would increase my confidence in conclusion Y to some degree, depending on the statements these people made, because each person remarking on the conclusion without pointing out a catastrophic flaw in the reasoning is (weak) evidence to me that such a flaw does not, in fact, exist.
How about metoo or rockon? These may not be quite the terms we want, but I'd bet that natural language already has a solution to both the phantom evidence/updating problem and avoiding jargon.
Meta: It would be nice if people did this when they were commenting or upvoting/downvoting
edit: just realised you're basically identifying the synthetic/analytic divide, discussed heavily in analytical philosophy. Quinean critiques apply, I don't see a distinction between those two and therefore don't see a need to signal this sort of thing.