In general, if someone chooses to believe comforting falsehoods over inconvenient/frustrating/complex truths, I don't see how they can be particularly convinced

In general, if someone chooses to believe comforting falsehoods over inconvenient/frustrating/complex truths, I don't see how they can be particularly convinced otherwise. Especially by message board comments [0] - maybe some fantastic orator could do it in videos by using the same skills as politicians but "for good" rather than self-interest. In this discussion, I am still not sure - have I met your bar for informing you here, at least somewhat? I have answered some of the questions you posed, yet you seem to still be implying that I have not done enough work for you? In general it's going to be awfully hard to prove a negative, which is why I say it's the critics that need to meet the bar of proof rather than defaulting to undermining our public institutions. You say in your profile that you are "conservative minded", so surely you must appreciate that. [0] I've got this idea I've been chewing on that a fundamental part of the problem we're facing is that there is zero social context in online communication. The only thing you know about me is my comments, and those deep-dive into politics real fast. Whereas in meatspace you'd see more facets to me, and then if we touched politics it would start off at the surface level.