you have me except for the last paragraph. sometimes there really are misguided groups that need to be shown the way. flat earthers are a good example.
> you have me except for the last paragraph. sometimes there really are misguided groups that need to be shown the way. flat earthers are a good example.
Are they though? Isn't some giant fraction of flat-eartherism self-consciously unserious (e.g. taken up as a joke for fun as a troll), and that that isn't is tiny and utterly marginalized?
That last paragraph you responded to is quite apt for very large numbers of people in the political mainstream that are in no way like the semi-mythical flat-eathers.
Popehat's Law of Goats applies.
If you want to advance things, ignore group affiliation. Study ideas and collect everything you can about them to build up knowledge, but if it's genuinely new, expect mostly confusion, dismay or indifference when publishing and presenting. The world doesn't care about knowing things until there is self-interest involved, and then it will care about winning by knowing, as if there is an exam to pass. Most things learned in school, for example, are about passing the exam, and therefore are only learned to be socially correct. This learning enables sophomoric behavior. The really good stuff has to be struggled for in all instances, by each person, at their own pace.
We should expect to mostly be incorrect in trying to save the world, because we aren't good, pure or innocent either.
I've thought for a long time that the flat earthers are predominantly not a group of people who actually think the world is flat, but rather a group of people who enjoy the creative mental gymnastics required to try and rationalize it. I'm sure there are some people who actually believe it, but my impression is they are the minority.