good piece. there's too much openness and naivete and goodwill for wrong and weird ideas (somehow many people seem to be convinced the opposite is the case). Wh

good piece. there's too much openness and naivete and goodwill for wrong and weird ideas (somehow many people seem to be convinced the opposite is the case). When the Jehova's witnesses come knocking at your door you don't hold a theology seminar to disprove them, you just close the door again. >"Skepticism of weird ideas is a kind of “immune system” to prevent us from believing in nonsense." That's a useful way to frame things and I think we'd do well to go back to Dawkins original concept of 'memes'. Ideas don't spread by virtue of their truthfulness but by virtue of their fitness which is to say primarily their virality. (it's why hucksters with bad ideas love debates and attention, even if they're obviously wrong). with all the talk about need for open-mindedness and criticism of filter bubbles, a good filter is the best thing you can have in the modern world because that's nothing else than an immune system to a lot of not merely wrong, but predatory ideas.