I'm not advocating for a heuristic, I'm saying how functionally it works. Liberal / educated society has a different opinion than conservative society, for example. In your examples, societies of different time periods had different measuring sticks. Clearly we don't agree with the opinions of those societies but that's not surprising.
If modern liberal/educated society agrees that flat earthing and anti-vaxxing beliefs are unfounded and dumb, then people who believe those things will find themselves better accepted in niche groups who share their views. Similarly political correctness arises out of a subset of society saying "wow we find some things to be hurtful" and contrary to how it's being painted in Sam's writing it's not some minefield of things that hinder free thought; it's just that there are ways we interact that can hurt and silence others. Being mindful of these things is, in some opinions including mine, a low bar and not much harder to achieve than observing what's going on and concluding "gee the world is round and we should be kind to one another."
> In short, all your heuristic says is that the opinions that are "valid" are whatever the current status quo for your local societal norms happens to be.
Again no espousing of any heuristic here, only a description of functionally how society works. The great thing is the the subject here is specifically _modern liberal silicon valley educated society_ and what it finds acceptable. The thread is mostly to discuss whether this specific society's net opinions today are chilling on innovation or beneficial for innovation. Sam thinks it's chilling; Anil and many others think it's beneficial / necessary.
Is that really the heuristic you want to advocate?
- If, a millennium ago, an individual had questioned the divine right of kings to rule, s/he would have been called an asshole.
- If, 750 years ago, an individual had called into question the primacy of the dominant religion for his/her region, s/he would have been called an asshole.
- If, 500 years ago, an individual had suggested women's suffrage, s/he would have been called an asshole.
...etc...
In short, all your heuristic says is that the opinions that are "valid" are whatever the current status quo for your local societal norms happens to be. Forgive me for saying this, but that seems more like a conservative viewpoint than a liberal one.