The "marketplace of ideas" is a fiction that has long since been debunked. The best ideas arent the ones that win out, it's the loudest ones and the ones that appeal to our most base emotions that win. Only a small percentage of people actually possess intellectual curiosity. Most just mindlessly follow social trends.

> The "marketplace of ideas" is a fiction that has long since been debunked

I don't think it's been "debunked" as you say. Provide evidence. A few examples is not evidence to make such a blanket statement.

> The best ideas arent the ones that win out, it's the loudest ones and the ones that appeal to our most base emotions that win.

Again, very much disagree with this. If you look short term that may be true, but long term historically speaking at least that has not been the truth.

Oh really? Then why is the number of people who believe the earth is flat on the rise? Why do people still believe in ancient mythologies that contradict scientific knowledge that has been available for centuries?

Maybe on the scale of millenia ideas based in truth are more likely to dominate, but I don't see how you could make that claim about history when our current paradigm of empirical knowledge is only a few centuries old, and already it seems as though cracks are starting to form.

> Then why is the number of people who believe the earth is flat on the rise?

Why do you say it's on the rise? Have you considered that there's lot more people, or that that the internet and various "communities" on the web just gave extra amplification to all sort of ideas? This is exactly why nothing should be banned. If you want wrong ideas to be corrected, you let them be discussed in the open. If you start pulling down videos that talk about flat earth you're gonna end up with grouping all people who think like that in a community where they only get exposed to ideas that affirm their erroneous belief.

> and already it seems as though cracks are starting to form.

again, provide examples or evidence for how and where you see this.

>you're gonna end up with grouping all people who think like that in a community

That's exactly what not banning them is doing! Not that I think flat earth content should be banned, as it seems to be mostly harmless. Before the internet, people who believed in fringe conspiracy theories didn't have a good way to coordinate and group together at scale.

Hell, even in the mid 2000s, after the internet had been around for a while, fringe communities tended to self-segregate in their own forums. They group together and formed echo chambers, yes, but they were also insulated from broader society, and therefore had little ability to acquire new converts. It was recommendation algorithms that popularized fringe ideas, by pushing them to bigger audiences that otherwise never would have been exposed to them.

I think that's really the core of the problem, recommendation algorithms. The algorithms don't know how reliable or accurate the content they push is, they just push whatever the machine learning model predicts will keep the user engaged. I would much rather group the people at the fringes into online ghettos than have them roaming the broader web and spewing their nonsense to anyone the algorithm recognizes to be vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking.

As to examples of cracks in the paradigm is respect for empirical knowledge, I don't think you have to look far. The rise of political extremism has resulted in more people on the far right and far left, ideologies that are hostile to the notions of nuance and cool headed reasoning, and thrive on emotionally driven messaging. More than 15% of Americans believe in QAnon, and nearly a third believe in the election conspiracy.

Meanwhile on the left, you have rhetoric that is increasingly hostile to data-driven approaches to problems, instead preferring "lived experience", ie anecdotes. You have cases like David Shor's firing for daring to tweet a study from a respected scholar that appeared to challenge the zeitgeist at the time. Many of these people are highly educated, or even academics themselves.

And that's to say nothing of regular old snake oil that has nothing to do with politics. Essential oils, healing crystals, you name it. Misinformation is on the rise, and most of the population is not equipped to deal with it. Maybe this is a temporary growing pain, maybe not. I don't think there's any way to know for sure right now. But we do know that for most of human history we have lived in the darkness, so it wouldn't be terribly surprising if we end up returning to it.

practicing the 'marketplace of ideas' led to the single most important idea/practice/accomplishment in history - the constitution of knowledge. just read jonathan rauch's new book. sure there are threats to this way of learning and understanding, and it isn't perfect. but it's the best we have, and it has not been debunked

To clarify, I belive that the marketplace of ideas is still a useful principle, and I absolutely am worried about censorship in certain domains. However, like any market, the marketplace of ideas is vulnerable to market failures. The idea that everywhere should be a marketplace of ideas is deeply unwise in my view. There should be areas where people can discuss any ideas freely, but I think it is foolish to deny the idea that information can be dangerous in some contexts. Look no further than the needless deaths caused by anti-vaxx conspiracy theories. To have a healthy marketplace for ideas, you need some degree of structure.

> To reiterate, what I'm saying is: Shady ideas fester in the dark. Banning won't help society. Exposure and discussion does

Are you sure? That hasn't helped flat earthers or anti-vaxxers ( of the vaccines cause autism camp), why do you think it's true?