These kinds of articles induce a feeling of deep hopelessness. Frankly, I can't understand how people managed to remain relatively sane for so long, given the circumstances. Being an abusive, smug, deceiving human being that tries to win arguments with rhetoric, maneuvering and logical fallacies is easy and looks good to others - look, they're crushing the other side! Taking it down requires dozens of paragraphs of instruction, and a single misstep is an almost instant loss, you have to have surgical precision. Worst of all, being right in those scenarios is extremely boring, and by the time you dismantle one of these claims, everyone's already looking the other way, towards the 17 new talking points that have spawned while you were methodically discussing the first one.
Why didn't their side win sooner? Perhaps 'being right' in the scientific sense has just been too beneficial for humans so far. But if that weakens, I fully expect humanity to go back to zealotry, superstition and undiscerning hatred, perhaps forever.