This raises a point that I have been pondering for a while. When we are living in a "state of nature" we have a very small circle of concern, mostly around thi

This raises a point that I have been pondering for a while. When we are living in a "state of nature" we have a very small circle of concern, mostly around things like finding enough food, avoiding predators, and creating shelter. Having correct opinions about these subjects is a matter of life and death. But when we introduce society things get kind of unbalanced. We start getting information about all kinds of events from outside our immediate surroundings, which is really exciting to the "opinion having" part of our brains. But we aren't really accountable for those opinions - we won't die if we think the moon landing is fake, or Obama is a lizard-person. So it allows for a lot of "mental rot" to accumulate unchecked. The beliefs that have the most direct impacts on us are still heavily constrained though. Stuff like "My boss will fire me if I stop coming to work" or "I will be hungry later if I don't buy groceries" etc. largely keep society functional. But we don't actually have any sort of consensus reality - we just think we do because people's crazy beliefs don't usually impinge on the public sphere. And without any evidence to the contrary, we just sort of assume other people think roughly what we do. But with issues like COVID-19, suddenly everyone's crazy opinions about which secret society is using 5G to control our minds actually matter a great deal. And as society becomes more interconnected, those things will matter more and more. How can we solve collective action problems like climate change or pandemic response when we can't agree on basic facts about the world? It seems possible that "society" as a whole might be an unsustainable condition. It can last long enough that we become dependent on each other, but then it destroys itself because of that interdependence.