| I think it's worth supplementing this experimental approach with some data on how the marketplace of ideas actually operates: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146 https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epj... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/information-overl... In a nutshell, there are only 24 hours in a day and humans have limited cognitive capacity; news and factual assertions tend to propagate fastest based on perceived significance and urgency, and it's easy to fake those qualities. Informally, consider the existence of tabloid newspapers and clickbait advertising on most news sites. I'm sure you're familiar with companies like Taboola and Outbrain that put up ads with iconic imagery and headlines like 'cure unwanted medical condition with this one weird trick' or 'Insider secret revealed: professionals hate him' etc. etc. Now, you can block ads with the help of an extension if you're technically competent, but let's face it, the web is awash in fake content. If you go to a popular news site without any adblocking software, it's absolute hot garbage, and sadly you can easily find a correlation between particular ideological tendencies and the incidence of garbage. The bottom line here is that that dishonesty is profitable and in marketplace of ideas terms that means it's easier to sell a defective product than a reliable one, because people prioritize emotional activation over truth. So picture the marketplace of ideas a a bunch of ideologues shouting out their thoughts on everything from the right end from which to eat an egg to what humanity's overall priorities should be. Now picture that the more successful ideologues purchase megaphones, platforms, and eventually gian sound systems. A naive consumer entering this marketplace is naturally going to accord the greatest weight to the loudest signals because it requires a tremendous amount of work to do otherwise. |