[kipchak]

Is there anything new about an alarming number of people believing in untruths? The trade off seems to be how much you trust normal people to correctly parse information and sort the truth from untruth, and how much you trust organizations to parse and dictate truth.

The Downside of the common man having too little oversight is more people believe things that aren't true (Flat Earth), and the downside to too much oversite is people believe different things that aren't true (PRISM, Nayirah testimony, Tuskegee Syphilis Study). The trade off of which is worse varies, but generally most individuals are fairly powerless but there are many of them, and organizations are few but wield much more influence.