However, it does not seem to me to be the case that the multiple-orders-of-magnitude increase in the ready availability of information has led to an overall reduction in the frequency of disagreement, or a meaningful decrease in the heat/intensity/urgency of that disagreement.
The book The Status Game helped resolve a lot of similar questions/confusions for me. You can take a look at Morality is Scary where I quote a relevant section from it, and also this comment with another quote. Rob Henderson’s idea of luxury beliefs comes from a similar vein.
In short, I think the answer is that there’s a demand for using “crazy beliefs”/disagreements for tribal identification, signaling and playing status games. When available information makes some beliefs too obviously crazy to serve that role, the demand doesn’t disappear but is just driven to some other topic that isn’t quite as obviously settled yet.
The book The Status Game helped resolve a lot of similar questions/confusions for me. You can take a look at Morality is Scary where I quote a relevant section from it, and also this comment with another quote. Rob Henderson’s idea of luxury beliefs comes from a similar vein.
In short, I think the answer is that there’s a demand for using “crazy beliefs”/disagreements for tribal identification, signaling and playing status games. When available information makes some beliefs too obviously crazy to serve that role, the demand doesn’t disappear but is just driven to some other topic that isn’t quite as obviously settled yet.