Again, let's not confuse our direct experience with the inferences we make from it.
Okay, I'll grant that it carries a bit of weight--just not enough to be compelling unless you've also accounted for alternative explanations of your experience....carries a bit of weight ...
Re: your example of police harrassment--I have no idea whether your interpretations are true or false; I just don't know enough about what really happened (as opposed to what people say happened, which memories and interpretations are subject to numerous sources of distortion) to assess it.
Millions of people have had experiences which lead them to believe that, for instance, natural disasters are God's punishment for homosexuality, or for our not being Muslim, or not believing in Jesus, or believing in evolution. They are wrong; they've inferred meanings in their experiences that weren't really implied. Do you think that a million people making the same wrong inference makes it true? Incorrect inferences constitute zero evidence. Zero times a million still equals zero. The plural of "wrong inference" is not "evidence". When everyone inferred from their experience that the world was flat, their misinterpretation didn't mean the earth was really flat; it was just a misinterpretation. Until you and your zillion friends who agree with you seek out and openly consider alternative interpretations, your "collective experience" (really your collective interpretations of your experience) is far from compelling evidence. No matter how many people agree with you, your position is weak until you've openly considered alternative interpretations of your experience/evidence. And that's true for those who disagree with you, too.I think that when you have a whole lot of people experiencing the same thing at the same time then you should pay attention ... when this happens you are beyond the realm of personal interpretation of events and into the territory of "collective experience", and that to me is a whole different ball game ...



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