>"Can we pull back into some sort of objective reality, or are we now doomed ...?

>I’d like to be proven wrong on this, but I sort of think we’ve entered a game over scenario for consensus reality ... If I’m being honest, probably consensus reality was always really broken, as anyone with a minority, immigrant, or other atypical personal status can tell you."

This is the core of the issue for me. The mainstream consensus is a subjective set of norms, which has always evolved. "Objective reality" was never within our reach.

What we had was a collective set of values, shared tribal identities that allowed us to operate upon shared assumptions. Deriding dissenters as conspiracists is often no better than base tribalism.

Yes, there are gullible, foolish people out there. There are also imaginative ones who are only along for the lulz. But inventing a fringe archaeological theory doesn't prove that all who disagree or dissent are operating in the same sphere as the marks for your invented theory.

Even on this esteemed message board, people have take to disparaging those who disagree as "flat earthers". It is too easy to dismiss everyone who is outside of one's own bubble with fringe or even establishment pejoratives.

So much for their claim "The truth is out there.".