I think if you looked over the last 50 years, you’d actually see a collapse in trust in large institutions. I think what we’re seeing, in the US at least, is an authoritarian response from these institutions (government / media / academia) to the threats posed by the internet and their general decline in prestige since the 70s.
See the other comment in this thread that free speech has been “weaponized” and therefor presumably must be curtailed “for our own good.”
The population has lost trust in large institutions, but they also don't believe in a god or in anything else, so most people are just scared and double down.
Because if the government is wrong, and "science" literally caused the problem by playing with "gain of function" research, then they have nothing left to believe in their lives.
And yet we continue to suck down news-products manufactured by "large institutions", commercial, governental and otherwise, as if they were God's own gospel.
See I think this attitude is unhelpful. Free speech may well be being weaponised. That doesn’t mean that either a) the person bringing it up thinks it must be curtailed or b) that there might not be something other than curtailment we could do to tackle it.
It’s like even pointing out the problem makes you a heretic to the free speech absolutist creed.
See the other comment in this thread that free speech has been “weaponized” and therefor presumably must be curtailed “for our own good.”