I have noticed a mentality that a lot of people have, a thought-terminating mentality that I will refer to here as the "consensus-divining rod."

A person who uses the consensus-divining rod does not believe things because they investigated them, examined the evidence, developed some understanding of the subject (whether a simple, abstract, high-level understanding or a detailed, academic understanding), and were convinced by what they found.

Rather, they believe things by looking to see which way the wind is blowing in the institutional "consensus." What do most people say? The thought never even crosses their mind to ask why people believe what they believe. They simply look at the dominant viewpoint within dominant institutions and treat its dominance as proof that it is correct.

Let's say someone believes X, so you ask them, "Why do you believe X?" They respond, "Because it is the institutional consensus."

You say, "Okay, maybe it is. But what if I disagree with that consensus, and here are some good reasons why I think it is wrong? How would you respond to that?"

Their response is almost always the same.

They completely ignore the substance of your argument and instead demand evidence that a large number of people within dominant institutions disagree with X, either a majority or at least a substantial minority. If you cannot provide such evidence, they dismiss your ideas without ever engaging with their substance. They will often resort to personal attacks, calling you crazy for holding a different view.

This mentality does not come up only when you argue against what someone considers the dominant consensus. It also appears when someone asks a genuine question about a widely accepted viewpoint because they want to learn more about it and understand it.

For example, suppose I also believe in X, which happens to be the dominant viewpoint within the relevant institutions. A third party has just learned about X and has some questions. They ask an honest question about it.

The consensus-diviner will not actually answer the question, because they do not even know why they believe in X in the first place. They might point out that the question should not be taken seriously because it challenges the consensus. They might even insult the person for daring to question it.

I encountered an example of this recently on r/AskPhysics. Someone posted a peer-reviewed paper from a legitimate academic journal that appeared to reach a conclusion contrary to a long-standing belief: that a local system cannot violate Bell inequalities. The person simply asked how the paper could have reached this conclusion if the conclusion was supposedly "known" to be wrong.

The thread had dozens of responses, yet not a single one offered a substantive analysis of the paper. The top-voted response essentially said that the paper contradicted the consensus and that its author was not famous, so it must be wrong.

Many other replies were outright insulting, claiming that the person clearly knew nothing about the subject if they did not understand that the paper was "obviously" wrong.

So I read the paper myself, and I did find what I believed to be an error. The paper appeared to confuse a Pearson correlation coefficient with the Bell correlator, then used the wrong quantity in its calculations. Consequently, it incorrectly concluded that it had violated the Bell inequality.

I posted my mathematical analysis explaining why I thought the paper was wrong. In the same post, I also called out the subreddit for attacking the person, downvoting them, and making vague appeals to the "consensus" without actually examining the paper's substance.

Clearly, the person had come to the subreddit because they wanted a substantive answer, not personal attacks and vague appeals to the consensus as a divining rod for determining why the paper was wrong.

Guess what happened? The moderators swiftly permanently banned me.

My comment was the only one in the entire thread that actually examined the mathematics and explained, substantively, why the paper was wrong. Yet I was permanently banned for criticizing what I saw as an absurd display of groupthink and dogpiling.

I encounter this mentality in every field, not just physics.

Consider economics. China, one of the largest economies on Earth, is governed by a Communist Party, and certain varieties of Marxist economics have consequently played a significant role in its academic institutions. There are entire economics textbooks devoted to these traditions.

Suppose you read one of these textbooks, find some of its arguments interesting, and ask someone outside China what they think of one particular argument. They may simply dismiss it because it does not reflect the dominant economic views in their country. Some may immediately treat you as a crank or a crackpot without ever addressing why the argument is supposedly wrong.

This also shows up, of course, in philosophy. Most academics believe in the "hard problem of consciousness." Personally, I think there is a fatal flaw in Chalmers' argument, that it relies on an axiom that I, personally, find to be entirely unconvincing. Very rarely, however, can I have a genuine conversation with a person about this. If I point out that I disagree with the problem because I disagree with this axiom used to derive it, I am called a crackpot and a crazy person for daring to not believe in the "hard problem of consciousness," that it is just an established fact.

People will then assume that, because I questioned it, I must simply not understand the "consensus," so they will tell me to go read the Wikipedia page or some philosophy encyclopedia and then I'll "understand." I try to explain to them that I already understand it, I've read all those and far more, and I'm saying I don't believe in it because I disagree with this axiom, and if you think the axiom is correct, please tell me why you think my criticism of it is wrong. They, again, won't address my point, but will just express bewilderment that I don't already agree with the consensus, and will continue to treat me as a stupid person who just don't know anything and hasn't researched anything for saying I disagree with it.

Even if you think I'm wrong... tell me why I'm wrong? Otherwise, my mind won't change.

This mindset is also widespread in politics. Most countries have an Overton window: a range of political positions considered acceptable or reasonable within mainstream discourse. If your opinion falls outside that window, you will often find that people refuse to engage with the substance of your argument. Instead, they express bafflement that you could hold such a position in the first place.

I do not know about other people, but for me, belief is not really a choice. I believe things because I am convinced of them, and I am convinced of them because I have seen, read, or heard an argument that made sense to me. At least in the way my own mind works, the consensus-divining rod cannot, by itself, lead me to believe something.

Of course, we cannot be experts in every field. But I do not spend my time thinking about every field, either. Most of what biologists do, for example, never even crosses my mind.

However, if some specific aspect of biology becomes particularly relevant to me, then I will research it enough to develop a basic understanding of why biologists hold the position they do. I want to understand it well enough that, if someone asks me why I believe that position, I can give them an answer that makes sense and reflects the reasoning that convinced me.

If I genuinely believe that position is correct and someone challenges it with an argument, I should be able to explain why I think their argument is wrong, at least to the extent of my understanding. I should not simply dismiss them as a crank for disagreeing with the consensus.

If someone presents an argument against a position I have never researched, I will simply admit that I do not know enough to respond. I will not immediately Google what most people believe and then attack the person for disagreeing with it.

When I bring up consensus, it is to make a different point: "Most people disagree with what you are saying, so how do you respond to their arguments?"

In other words, I use consensus as an invitation to explain a substantive disagreement, not as a reason to dismiss someone immediately as wrong.

This approach is also useful when dealing with people who use what I would call the "anti-consensus-divining rod." These people mindlessly believe whatever is opposite to the consensus. They also fail to provide substantive arguments, instead launching into irrelevant rants about institutions and their supposed corruption or incompetence.

Asking for a substantive response is therefore a useful way to determine whether a critic actually has reasons for their position or is simply reacting against whatever the mainstream believes.

If their argument intrigues me, I will research the topic further. I want to understand where they are coming from, or discover whether their argument is obviously mistaken and has already been addressed in the relevant literature.

If the argument does not interest me, I will simply move on. I will not attack someone for rejecting a consensus on a subject I know virtually nothing about, especially when I cannot even formulate a surface-level argument explaining why I think they are wrong.

I think if you find yourself behaving this way, you really need to reflect on that. Rather than attacking someone, use it as a learning opportunity. Actually do some research and figure out why, the people in these institutions, actually say that. You might learn something new, and grow as a person, rather than just being an asshole. Then, the next time you encounter a person saying something similar, you could actually explain to them why they are wrong.

Indeed, even if the person is obviously wrong and believes something obviously silly, the issue is, people have a tendency to interpret dishonesty as evidence they are right. If they were wrong, you could address their questions in an honest fashion. If you are incredibly intellectually dishonest, don't address the substance of what they say, and just hurl personal attacks, they will interpret that as evidence they are right, because why would you so desperately avoid addressing their actual argument if it was wrong?

The results of that behavior is that, yes, you and your friends might have enjoyed dogpiling on a person and belittling them, but the person themselves will probably walk away from that conversation more confident in their beliefs than ever, because they just put a challenge to a whole group of people, and not a single person could answer the challenge and give a substantive counterargument.

Ask yourself: what is your goal? Is your goal to actually change the person's mind, or just boost your own ego by hurting someone else? Because, it clearly does not achieve the former.

So, again, I implore you, if you are engaging in this kind of thought-terminating behavior:

1. Stop and ask yourself why you are doing it, what is your motivation, etc, are you really trying to change the person's mind?

2. Could you instead take this moment as a learning opportunity to research why you believe in this thing in the first place, so that you can actually learn something new and grow as a person, who can then defend that viewpoint on the grounds of substance next time it is challenged?