The quacks do need to be out in the open facing ridicule. I think it gets worse if they are pushed to a telegram channel where they have no opposition.
I find it hilarious that people think they are informed on all the topics they consider themselves informed on. There is simply way too much information out there to be well-informed on all of it.
I can't be an infectious disease expert. I can't even be reasonably informed on all the stuff that goes on surrounding it. I need a sieve. I need filters. I need vetters. I need vouching. I need those who are informed on a topic to do all the legwork and present the results. And that's not you or other randos on the internet.
And that's what we've actually lost. We've lost all the filters and firewalls that stopped the majority of misinformation. With everyone having a global megaphone to broadcast their every thought, it's become harder to discern between those who are informed on a topic and those who aren't.
The world's signal to noise ratio is weighted too heavily towards noise.
How can you rely on this approach when some of them or some of their sources are censored?
Even 20 years ago, we just did not have the scope of information that we do now. Those sources you fear are getting censored, we'd never even know they exist before. It just wouldn't reach us.
Domain experts would hash out the wheat from the chaff. The plausible from the bunk.
Now people are getting their information from Joe Fucking Rogan of all people.
Are you saying that using our own limited understanding of the vast array of domains to process the impossible amount of information out there is a better system than deferring to various domain experts?
Because, just no. That would not be better. It would be worse. It is worse.
And I'm not saying deferring to domain experts is perfect. It is not. But it's better than expecting everyone to become domain experts in everything.
There are groupmind tendencies and competing groupthinks, as well as industrial corruption, in all of our scientific enterprises that I'm aware of. For me this is a serious issue, since I saw first-hand how pusillanimous scientists can become when their livelihoods or grants are endangered.
There is a war on for our minds. I think we each have to decide who we trust and don't trust. For many of us there is also a crisis of trust in our scientific institutions now.
The degree how people defer decisions and whom they trust is personal. Cannot change that anyway.