It's generally easier and less time consuming to produce a bad argument than it is to produce a good argument to refute the bad argument. For the targets of the arguments, it often is harder and more time consuming to follow the good argument, too.
Get too many independent sources of bad arguments in your society, and there simply won't be time and resources to counter them.
Yep, that's the main reason the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop works.
> Get too many independent sources of bad arguments in your society, and there simply won't be time and resources to counter them.
You can find time and resources to counter the most damaging bad arguments, though. Many bad arguments just do things like sell pills or supplements that don't actually do anything measurable that beats placebo; not really harmful per se, even if based on bullshit. See: "Dr." Oz.
Trying to scale effective debate is a hard problem. I've run across a few entities that are trying to make civil, open discourse more commonplace. Unfortunately I forget the name… Anyone got examples?
Bad arguments are so prevalent because their staunchest peddlers aren't arguing from ignorance alone, but arguing from deep-seated convictions or selfish interests. That is, they violate the criteria of good faith and open mind.
im sorry but to me this seems counterintuitive. occams razor and all. do you have any supporting info for this? genuinely curious