It’s bad faith trolling. They are simply trying to waste the time of their opponents. Here is a quote from Sartre about anti-semite nazis from nearly 100 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

I mean there are issues around facts and sources to begin with. I have had conversations around philosophies were the person wants to link things about the philosophy like it proves it or want to link something like opinion studies and want to say its a fact around the thing. So having a source does not mean anything as anything can be a source. Still its reasonable with a news article to want to see a credible source if the only source is like a blog that claims a bunch of stuff. All that being said I have been in conversations were I recognize that the person im talking with have fundamental differences of perspectives and no actual unassailable facts are being exchanged and I will start to say I disagree and eventually that look we fundamentally disagree so the convo should just end. I keep on going because they will respond with something that is a question.

People want to feel morally righteous for condemning socially percieved evil, even if it isn’t real. People also generally “license” themselves to believe in that which they believe materially benefits them.

Essentially, people’s capacity for changing their mind on something is less about the facts at hand and more about their readiness to accept an alternative viewpoint, which is driven by reaction to external circumstances.

I often ask for source.
And sometimes I find that it’s headlines that are sensationalist or a specific interpretation of something.

Like, someone claims ‘XYZ believes/supports in ABC’, often to paint XYZ badly. I ask for source on it and they give an article where the XYZ is talking about something related to ABC or talking with someone related to ABC

I also ask for source, because of that.

As an example:
I had heard lots of anti-socialist stuff like the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, USSR invaded Poland etc. After joining lemmy and some reddit subs, I came to know about how the USSR was one of the last countries to create a non-aggression pact and other countries like Britain, France already had pacts and agreements. And that it happened after the Munich agreement where Britain, France and Italy came togethe to allow the Nazis annexation of Czechoslovakia.

I also learnt about how Poland invaded Czechoslovakia together with Nazi Germany and also denied USSR’s request asking permission for passage of its army to Czechoslovakia against the Nazi invasion.

So, I understand the value of asling for source and getting the context.

I do try to share sources as possible too. Though, it’s mostly wikipedia articles and may not be seen as a primary sources, but still.

1934 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Polish_declaration_of_non-aggression
1935 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_Naval_Agreement
1938 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
1939 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov–Ribbentrop_Pact

So everyone had pacts and agreements with everyone, but when taken out of context and presented to denigrate, it has an effect on some.

So, generally I ask for source or context for most things

Some people ask to see who agrees with what they already believe.

Sometimes I just wanna give an asshole some homework to do. It takes zero effort to drop a “Source?” and then never read the reply.

Just to give a different perspective than everyone else here but I have asked for sources before when people make claims like the water powered car, and then when they show a source that is a YouTube channels that breaks down to “trust me bro” I will usually reject their source.

I am not saying that’s what you are doing but if a person is criticizing your source, you should at least take a moment to consider “is my source valid”. It’s very common that people do just ask for a source and criticize regardless of validity as a way of wasting your time so don’t take it personally if a person does it

I think the breakdown in communication is due to a difference in how people’s brains have been trained to accept something as “true”. Some people embrace the scientific method, while others are dogmatic.

To elaborate, I imagine you (aspire to) readily alter your personal beliefs to fit the data you’ve observed. But that is a foreign concept to some people. In order to utilize the scientific method, you need to be appropriately trained in it, and you need the intellect to apply it. But if you’re lacking in either department, you still need to be able to function day-to-day, to dress yourself, do your job, pay bills, and just stay alive. No one has time to think critically about every single challenge they’re presented, so our default behaviour is to create heuristics which can be reused multiple times without needing to think.

The difference between science enjoyers and dogma stans is that the latter group slowly learned over their lifetime that heuristics helped them function in life more than relying on their ability to reason; and now not only do they depend on the exchange of heuristics between others in their group (their “ingroup” as-it-were) in order to function, but they assume everyone operates that way (it’s all they know). The scientific method is a just a vocab term they forgot in middle school, and the idea of re-evaluating your beliefs is frowned upon, because that means you must have bad heuristics!

So back to your original question, I believe the confusion happens because you and they have different implied meanings when you each ask for a source of information: You ask because you want new evidence that might change your conclusions about a subject. But they ask because they seek to discredit your source of heuristics. In their experience, if someone told them X, but then later that person turned out to be wrong, then that’s enough reason to doubt X. That’s their heuristic for doubt, so that’s their goal, to make a map of your ingroup and try to foster doubt within it.

That is the only reason in their mind that they would ever have to know your sources, the concept of empiricism is mostly foreign to them.

They’re trying to waste your time. It’s a very common trolling tactic.

Bad faith, really, that’s all.

If you know they’ll be asses regardless, there’s no point in dealing with them further.

As a ritual performance before they ignore you anyway

I think it’s psychology. When people make politics or certain stances their entire personality, then by disproving those items it’s literally tearing apart their own identity. They are so unable to actually confront this that their brains will believe wild crazy ideas like conspiracy theories because even if it’s insane, they are able to keep their worldview.

Their minds have been so warped to protect their identity that they will believe whatever they need to to be able to keep these views - to the point where it must be true, because if it weren’t true the house of cards would collapse. So when you are arguing with them, you’re not actually going to ever be able to penetrate this, because they will build up whatever they need to in their mind to protect it.

An interesting way to think of this (to borrow from the video below), is that as if becomes it is. Feelings become facts.

Take gay marriage. To a conservative white christian, it means nothing to them logically. 2 separate people are getting married which in no way effects them. However, gay marriage makes them feel as if their straight marriage is less important and the meaning of it has been deluded. To protect this worldview, since it’s impossible for any fact or reasoning to back up their worldview, that as if becomes it is. To them, now gay marriage is diluting their straight marriage and it is less important. It must be. It has to be. If it’s not… then what is their worldview? Their entire personality, their identity is based around these core beliefs. If it’s not actually affecting them… then what is their identity? So their view isn’t based on fact at all, and thus no amount of facts will ever persuade them.

Philosophy Tube did a great video essay on this, and I think it’s completely worth a watch.

Because as much as they want to claim they’re logical and rational, no logical or rational argument would ever be the thing to convince them. Identity politics prevents people from accepting anything from the “other side”, so they ask for sources so they can point to it as biased and unfair etc. There’s really no point in arguing with someone like that using facts. The things most likely to change their mind is their own personal experience or writing an entirely new narrative about the world.

I simply don’t argue anymore. I choose my discussion partners wisely.

I wouldn’t say you “shamefully invested” time into finding sources for your arguments. I see it as educating yourself. Don’t do it for them; do it for you.