Earlier quoted context omitted.
The behavior that helped the most educated succeed was being informed. It’s not surprising that they maintain that pattern and in so doing, parrot mainstream media. Most people have limited experience in managing information that they consider authoritative which turns out to be wrong. I think the best example of authoritative misinformation for 2020 is Anthony Fauci’s guidance that masks don’t help until they do. I’…
You raise a great point. Trust in authorities is a very powerful mental shortcut. You don’t have to research anything. Go with the mainstream and you’ll always be right. Until that shortcut goes horribly wrong.
That's why it's very important to have a healthy dose of skepticism when receiving info from people who we trust, because we chose the gatekeepers based on our opinions which implicitly selects for our own biases.
For example I don't actually know that the election wasn't stolen. It's an opinion that I hold due to choosing to trust a specific gatekeeper (main stream media) and a lack of hard evidence from the other side. If hard evidence were to be presented, the I would have to reexamine my beliefs even if they go against everything I believed in previously.