Comment Re:Each case is another chance for variants to app (Score 1) 339
You can't legislate that people will be "intelligent," but it might be possible to go after root causes. Why are not more people getting vaccinated? A small percentage don't for defensible reasons related to their immune systems and such. But the majority have been influenced by propaganda.
Propaganda today is fed mostly by two disciplines: psychology and data science. From psychology we get cognitive biases. One important lesson about cognitive biases is that you can't get rid of them! They are just part of being human. Psych professors sometimes teach a class this way: Do a survey in the classroom that reveals some illogical bias. Teach about this bias, where else it is seen, and other effects of it. Then do another survey. Will the now-educated and smarter class be immunized against this bias? Nope! There it is again.
So it's not as simple as "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Free speech is highly valued in the US, and I agree it should be. But propaganda is a kind of Guerilla warfare against a democracy. Weaponized speech should not be tolerated. I don't know what is possible to be done about highly-partisan media outlets. And partisan social media influencers are even more difficult to deal with.
Much like the evolving virus strains you're worried about, I'm worried that the US has no long-term path to victory against Guerilla-style disinformation.