I agree. The article's key takeaway is that "Mute buttons in any form should raise red flags".
The cigarette story is a story of the MPI doing its job. It’s a story of a needle of truth rising up from a haystack on the fringes of the big brain’s consciousness and piercing its way through a century-long barrage of gauntlet attacks until it had conquered the Thought Pile mountain and become the mainstream, status quo viewpoint.
Ignoring a bad idea does not make it go away.
Look up spoon theory for a practical explanation.
You'll never change the conversation if you don't engage with it - its perfectly fine to step away from time to time, but unplugging and living in your own reality serves no one.
If you're saying that people who feel a need to block threatening voices shouldn't do so, who's lecturing, exactly?