Probably not. A sensible person ought to be willing to suffer for a few very important things… but very few. So a very disreputable belief ought to also, in some way, also be very important to be worth believing. In practice, when a contentious issue also seems not very important (or not very relevant to me) I don’t bother investigating it much—it’s not worth becoming disreputable for.
This, however, means that your above comment is in need of some strong disclaimers. Unless of course it’s directed at someone who lives in a society in which all highly disreputable beliefs happen to be false and outright implausible from an unbiased perspective. (But would you bet that this is the case for any realistic human society?)
Probably not. A sensible person ought to be willing to suffer for a few very important things… but very few. So a very disreputable belief ought to also, in some way, also be very important to be worth believing. In practice, when a contentious issue also seems not very important (or not very relevant to me) I don’t bother investigating it much—it’s not worth becoming disreputable for.
Knowing whether disreputable beliefs are true is helpful in figuring out what intellectual institutions you can trust.
This, however, means that your above comment is in need of some strong disclaimers. Unless of course it’s directed at someone who lives in a society in which all highly disreputable beliefs happen to be false and outright implausible from an unbiased perspective. (But would you bet that this is the case for any realistic human society?)