The flip side of the coin is protecting truth or useful ideas from ultimately less true or useful ideas. Or just simply avoiding the overhead of exhaustively vetting every idea without regard for its apparent merit. It's just like genetics: mutation can be valuable and is ultimately the way that anything evolves, but any given mutation is much much more likely to be problematic than valuable. There's a fine balance in identifying the ideal level of mutation for the long-term health of an ecosystem. Similarly, there's a balance in finding the right degree of resistance to novel ideas. Maximum support for heresy is probably not the equilibrium point.
I don’t think we should feel the need to comprehensively entertain every idea that is different and sounds silly.
For a healthy ideas ecosystem: If you hear a new and silly idea, and you don’t have the time or energy or interest to look into it properly, the best thing to do for everyone’s sake is to ignore it.
Either address an idea properly, or ignore it. Don’t write a 140-character snarky dismissal of it, don’t attack the personal characteristics of the person holding it, and certainly don’t seek to censor or “cancel” them.
