I notice a similar phenomenon, and I attribute it in part to the way that in-groups tend to judge their out-groups based on those out-groups’ loudest, most controversial, or otherwise most newsworthy members. I find that the conversation I have with anyone about beliefs which differ from theirs tends to start with “so why is it that you think that all x believe y? how many x have you actually talked to about this?”
Unfortunately, the tendency of information to spread like this seems to emerge not from any individual’s unique and addressable weaknesses, but rather from the systemic bias to pay attention to things which seem unusually extreme. It’s like how what’s shown on TV is selected foremost for making good TV, rather than foremost for truth or accuracy or any loftier virtue. Certainly each audience has a plausibility or evidence threshhold where they’ll feel better about engaging with content if it Has Citations(TM), but the effort it would actually take to read all of the cited evidence for every argument they see is absolutely inaccessible to most of the population. Sure, maybe people technically “could” if they just Tried Harder And Were Morally Superior, or if The Education System hadn’t Failed Them, or however you want to frame it, but ultimately they don’t.
I notice a similar phenomenon, and I attribute it in part to the way that in-groups tend to judge their out-groups based on those out-groups’ loudest, most controversial, or otherwise most newsworthy members. I find that the conversation I have with anyone about beliefs which differ from theirs tends to start with “so why is it that you think that all x believe y? how many x have you actually talked to about this?”
Unfortunately, the tendency of information to spread like this seems to emerge not from any individual’s unique and addressable weaknesses, but rather from the systemic bias to pay attention to things which seem unusually extreme. It’s like how what’s shown on TV is selected foremost for making good TV, rather than foremost for truth or accuracy or any loftier virtue. Certainly each audience has a plausibility or evidence threshhold where they’ll feel better about engaging with content if it Has Citations(TM), but the effort it would actually take to read all of the cited evidence for every argument they see is absolutely inaccessible to most of the population. Sure, maybe people technically “could” if they just Tried Harder And Were Morally Superior, or if The Education System hadn’t Failed Them, or however you want to frame it, but ultimately they don’t.