So obviously this can tie into current social media and the spread of mal-information such as antivax, COVID mask protests, and memes that people let alter thei

So obviously this can tie into current social media and the spread of mal-information such as antivax, COVID mask protests, and memes that people let alter their impression of people. The traditional way to mitigate misinformation's harm was education and a respect for the educated. I think three things have happened that have prevented this from working: - We decided decades ago that people needed college degrees to enter much of the workforce. This has reduced education to an employment gateway in the minds of the majority of non-independently wealthy society. It may not have done so if people actually needed the degrees for their jobs and alternate career-starting things like apprenticeships were more available/known. - Education for all is seen as a method of making society for equal and therefore the solution of a number of social ills. It really is, but has to be done properly otherwise it doesn't work. Children who do not keep up tend to be socially promoted. Children who are outcasts for various reasons, including parental problems at home, drop out or degrade the experience for others in the school. This either causes or is because many of the non-independently wealthy masses see public school as a public babysitter, and they more or less have to see things this way if they are living paycheck to paycheck, because they can't afford to have someone stay home for their children. - The Internet has accelerated and likely caused fragmentation and in some cases destruction of mass media, and has made mass media have to sell out and become sensationalized to survive. Thus there is less and less of a common media between people, and therefore less of an opportunity to provide any substrate of a common culture. Social media bubbles exacerbate this.