[robbedpeter]

The USDA food pyramid and nutrition education would suggest that there's an inherent danger in just letting people believe irrational things after a correction is known. It depends on the belief - flat earth people aren't likely to cause any harm. Bad nutrition information can wreak havoc at scale.

[vkou]

Flat earth beliefs doesn't cause harm, but flat earth believers have largely upgraded to believing more dangerous nonsense.

[exporectomy]

Data or it didn't happen. This really sounds like you're inventing a caricature of your enemy and assigning them "dangerous" qualities so you can hate them more.

[vkou]

Nobody needs to caricature the insane beliefs surrounding COVID (or flat earth), people holding them are doing a good enough job of that themselves.

I do have a few favorites. "COVID tests give you COVID, so I won't go get tested" is certainly up there. I can't say I give two figs about your opinion on the Earth's topology, but this one is a public health problem, that's crippling hospitals around the country.

[exporectomy]

So it didn't happen?

[robbedpeter]

Exactly - like the "Oklahoma horse paste overdoses overwhelming emergency rooms so gunshot victims can't get tratment" the stories validate all the caricatured biases against middle America as a bunch of ignorant redneck yokels. None of the story was true, but people leapt on it because it resonates in that echo chamber.