[gcanyon]

This is reasonable as an ideal, but could be harmful in practice. A significant percentage of the U.S. population believes inarguably wrong and demonstrably dangerous things at this point. It is possible that the only effective way to fix that is corporate censorship. That wouldn’t make me happy, but I’m not going to agree with letting a crazy person steer the Titanic into an iceberg just because it’s their right to do so.

[native_samples]

Ah, but how do you know you're not the one believing crazy wrong and dangerous things? All those terms are highly relative and if your answer is argument by authority, well ...

[prox]

Because there are an awful lot of knowledge domains where there is consensus among experts, and one can verify their own knowledge along those lines.

[native_samples]

But none of those areas are the ones where people get worked up about misinformation. Unless you have been told there is a "consensus" about things like COVID, vaccines and climate change, where there most certainly isn't?

[prox]

Not commenting on covid or vaccines, not my field, but climate change for one has pretty much been established to a great deal of accuracy (that climate change is man made)

It even is mentioned on its Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climat...

Even someone like Senate leader Mitch McConnell isn’t denying it anymore. Research is still ongoing to what extend we are going to be impacted.

So, even if someone is denying climate change or reading misinformation, it doesn’t change that man made climate change is here, and what its causes are.

So yeah, there is scientific consensus in that area on the broad perimeters.

Now if you believe something different, that just goes against what we already established!

[native_samples]

"Man is changing the climate" is a very weak statement if taken literally, and not really what people mean by the term climate change. Of course man has some sort of impact on the atmosphere, as we do on all aspects of our environment.

Once you get into questions like, by how much is it changing, are those changes a big deal or not that serious, by how much does it really affect the weather, even what the actual history of global temperature is, there is a lot of disagreement even amongst scientists, although of course given the tiny size and cliquey nature of many academic fields, criticism from outside the field must always be considered as well.

[prox]

Those are pretty much already answered, and by many people. The Wikipedia link goes into that :) Data suggests we are currently looking at 2 degrees temperature change as a global average.

While everyone is free to come up with different answers, there isn’t anything credible at the moment.

A friend of mine programs climate models based on latest mathematical insights and data. For 10 years he would put his hand in a fire that it is happening and it will be bad.

Point by point : How much is changing? 2 degrees hotter on average. How does it affect weather? More outliers such as the recent heat wave in the NW of USA. Is it a big deal? Yes, because it unbalances a lot of eco systems and our ability to cope with it. History of global temperature? Has been measured for hundreds of years now and we can deduce temperatures before that. There is a lot of disagreements between scientists? No there isn’t (97% banks on man made climate change) Clique nature of academic fields? That’s an entirely different topic and doesn’t change the data.

[wtetzner]

The consensus of experts has been wrong many times throughout history.

[prox]

1)depends on the domain 2)not for a lack of trying 3) theories can be challenged, new proofs can be found

Also “history” is a broad term. I would say a true scientific method didn’t mature until roughly the 19th century.

[labawi]

I guess education and honest information would be too radical an approach.

Governments and leaders are concerned that people don't trust them, yet the truth is, they don't deserve to be trusted. When the system is designed to create a placated populace instead of critical thinkers, those in charge are routinely lying and blatantly misleading instead of informing, then it's no surprise people will believe in all kinds of fringe ideas.

Hiding and shunning information can be a temporary band aid, but the inevitable effect is that people will trust official sources even less.

[tomjen3]

>A significant percentage of the U.S. population believes inarguably wrong and demonstrably dangerous things at this point

Yes. Both sides can agree that they think the other believes in falsehods. Since one person has one vote, there is effectively nothing you can do about it.

[LudwigNagasena]

Well, remove their voting rights then if you think that they are too stupid. Why should I be the one who suffers?

[lenkite]

Until they commit crimes and are formally charged and prosecuted in a court of law, they can believe anything they like.