The proud ignorance risk I agree with, as those movements have prominent historical precedents, but they didn't form from mere ignorance. They were rejections a

The proud ignorance risk I agree with, as those movements have prominent historical precedents, but they didn't form from mere ignorance. They were rejections and reactions, from the bolshevik condemnations of the imperial "Whites" in Russia to fascists attacking so-called decadence with slogans like "I don't care." I grew up in Toronto with a lot of immigrants whose families fled both fascist (italy, greece, portugal) and communist regimes (poland, former soviet states, vietnam and cambodia, etc.) and unless you were from New York, or maybe Chicago, these diaspora stories about movements like this probably weren't formative, and I would argue there is a naivety among the current generation of scientists and educated people in general about 20th century history. My own naivety is that I believed an education obligates one to have intellectual courage. When actual scientists align with people whose best arguments are to chant slogans like "denialists!", "source!", "pandemic of the unvaccinated!", "misinformation!", "hateful!" they are complicit. The scientists who went along to get along did so at the cost of betraying their fellow citizens who lost their jobs and livelihoods over matters of principle, and indeed some of their lives to the consequences of pandemic policy. It's quite serious. A scientist or doctor mouthing talking points for attention on twitter is an expression of that betrayal, and worse, a contempt that is difficult to reconcile. I hope people are unnerved enough by it to reflect a bit more deeply.