Technology

The core issue, IMHO, is a mixture of lack of critical thinking and intellectual laziness, reinforced by algorithms and echo chambers. You see it in almost any contentious debate these days, including things like politics, but it's pretty much everywhere.

Whatever my opinion is, various algorithms will figure that out and feed me a solid stream of crap that agrees with me because that's what I will click on and engage with. Every time I see an article that reinforces my opinion it gives me a little hit of dopamine that I am right and so I conclude that I am right and everybody smart agrees with me because my position is obviously the right one.
Meanwhile the guy on the other side of the issue has the exact same experience and thus is convinced that he is right and everybody smart agrees with him.

Combine this with an educational system that is teaching the test rather than teaching to think, and the very simple thought process of 'what if I'm wrong? What if I don't have all the details?' simply doesn't occur in an awful lot of people.

Elon Musk is a perfect example. A few years ago, he was a genius eccentric billionaire working to make the planet a better place with green technology and electric cars. Then he joined up with Trump, and suddenly he is a fraudster using Daddy's money to bully his way into companies and taking credit for their success. The rockets are bad, the cars are bad, the tunnels are bad, the brain chip is bad, and all these things always were bad from the beginning because it's easier to retcon than to acknowledge your position changed because of politics.

The fact is, in this age of information there is really no good excuse for ignorance. The information is always out there, if you put even a little effort into finding it. Yes it requires waiting through a lot of crap and slop, But it's out there. And as you say you can just head down to your local dealer and ask for a test drive, and then you have real empirical data to base an argument on. Not that anyone would do that, because to them, their opinion is just as valid as my first hand experience.