I think a significant problem is that people are confusing facts with truths.
There is only ever one fact, which is immutable as far as the world is concerned. Our ability to perceive facts can change as our ability to do so changes/improves, but the facts themselves will never change. Getting electrocuted is one such very obvious example.
Truths, however, are as numerous as there are people and can even change on a whim. Someone could get electrocuted and that's a fact, but whether he agrees is a different question and his answer is his truth regardless of the fact.
"Fact"-checkers thus are about truth-checking and specifically programming certain truths upon the commons. A Ministry of Truth. The NPC meme isn't far from the mark.
Truths are not facts and facts are not truths. Forcing people to believe, speak, and act in certain ways violates the very basics of human rights.
One of the costs of a free society is that everyone has a right to their own opinion, their own truth. Personally, I believe that cost is more than worth the many benefits of a free society; but that's just my truth and you probably have a different idea.
Reading your comment, could we use another word here, beliefs?
If so then I'm not really against people having their own beliefs, except beliefs aren't facts and they can become extremely harmful, especially at scale, even to those holding onto the beliefs.
I guess you've heard about the Jonestown massacre, for example?
>Reading your comment, could we use another word here, beliefs?
Doesn't really matter, ultimately certain people want to enforce the notion that there is One True Truth/Belief/Opinion/Narrative/"Fact" and any heretics must be burned at the stake.
I like and appreciate a free society, so I am decisively against such notions.
When online, im the world's foremost expert on fusion reactors, general relativity, geopolitics, genetics, and culture. I can dig up scholarly articles to back my position. If someone disagrees with me, the topic is deep and complex enough that I can't be decisively proven wrong.
The nature of the modern era is that everybody has a opinion about even the most niche topic. They get away with this because the stakes are non-existent and people have no real skin in the game. This habitual behavior has become the norm.
It's so true in my opinion "doing research" is has often become, "finding a view that agrees with my world view" and to add to that, using that view to reinforce my beliefs.
That's a great point -- in addition, some facts are less consequential than others. For example, if I go around believing that the Earth is five-thousand years old, it may not affect me negatively at all (unless I'm a geologist or archeologist), in contrast to your electrical wiring fact that would have immediate effect.
> I’m wondering if it’s because the majority of people seem to be living more than 50% of their lives online. Facts seem less important in the virtual world.
Or when you're online, it's much easier to assemble a hyper conformist bubble (which cultivates a sense of self righteousness) and be rude to people you disagree with (because they're often just an abstraction you'll never interact with again, and also the enemy of your bubble). Then once developed, the habits formed in those spaces can bleed into interactions that aren't so conformist or anonymous.
Go play with some live electrical wiring and see how quickly facts about electricity become important.