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If there ever was such a country, would people want to live there? And if they wouldn’t, doesn’t that just mean it would change?

I can’t see how some form of free speech absolutism would even function.

As for the size of the damages: in the US, weirdly, rich people pay more damages because I assume it’s also a way of making them stop committing the crime and not simply compensation for damage done.

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Yes, I think people should be able to tweet things like “masks do/don’t” work without being able to be sued.

It’s the same thing with covid. It was made illegal to question it

> It’s the same thing with covid. It was made illegal to question it

It was not

You can tweet "I believe that ..." all you like and not get sued.

Is that really enough to avoid being sued for defamation?

It's a bit more complicated than that, but fundamentally, defamation involves a "false statement of fact". Weasel wording that would be understood by a "reasonable person" to imply facts can be defamatory even if the verbiage says "opinion", so it may require more careful language to stay on the safe side, but I can't think of any opinion that couldn't fundamentally be expressed at all.

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