The question is, what do you mean by “independent thought”? If “independent thought” means “mistrust everyone” then clearly it can be a harmful heuristic. If “independent thought” means “use your own thinking faculties to process all evidence you have, including the evidence which consists of the expression of certain beliefs by certain other people” then it’s not clear to me there are significant populations that would be harmed by it. If there are, it means that the society in question has wise and benevolent leaders s.t. for large swaths of the population it is impossible to verify (given their cognitive abilities) that these leaders are indeed wise and benevolent. It seems to me that arriving at such a situation would require a lot of luck, given that the leadership of a society is ultimately determined by the society itself.
The question is, what do you mean by “independent thought”? If “independent thought” means “mistrust everyone” then clearly it can be a harmful heuristic. If “independent thought” means “use your own thinking faculties to process all evidence you have, including the evidence which consists of the expression of certain beliefs by certain other people” then it’s not clear to me there are significant populations that would be harmed by it. If there are, it means that the society in question has wise and benevolent leaders s.t. for large swaths of the population it is impossible to verify (given their cognitive abilities) that these leaders are indeed wise and benevolent. It seems to me that arriving at such a situation would require a lot of luck, given that the leadership of a society is ultimately determined by the society itself.