Before printed books and libraries, fact-checking was near impossible; before the Internet, it was often prohibitively difficult; now it is almost trivial. Few people exercise these abilities as much as they should—but that has always been the case, and those who do exercise them have an outsized influence on the world. Besides, if you think the average person today is misinformed, compare them to the sailor who feared monsters at sea, or the villager who joined in literal witch hunts.