The danger is not merely that people are being persuaded, but that persuasion is being outsourced to actors with no skin in the game. These mercenaries, whether credentialed or influential, suffer no consequences for being wrong. Fauci's retirement wasn't affected by his catastrophic failures. The modelers whose predictions justified lockdowns faced no accountability when reality diverged from their forecasts.

The influencers who pushed dubious COVID interventions simply moved on to the next trend. The academics whose research justified disastrous climate policies got tenure. No skin in the game means no incentive for accuracy, no cost for failure, no reason to prioritize truth over what pays.