Yes, but... would be a be a much more wonderful world if that was the only problem. It's much, much deeper than that.
Tell me, which of our major modern divides can be solved by "rational discourse?"
Consider something like the coronavirus pandemic. Studying the virus itself is a monumental undertaking requiring the funding of states or large corporations. Laypeople must simply "choose sides" and pick the sources they like best. Suppose that you tell me the virus is killing X people a day and I claim it is only killing Y. How do we settle that via "rational discourse?"
We can't discover the truth by talking amongst ourselves like a couple of Greek philosophers using inductive or deductive reasoning.
Our choices are either to perform our own primary research (again, wildly impractical for an individual) or to point to sources we feel are credible.
Rational here means to me comparing (as in ratio, to compare)
So I would envision that it would mean people talking and finding out validity of statements made. If you come with a Mirror tabloid article that says that Coronavirus turned people into vampire zombies, that would be a much different discussion than discussing the minutiae of a topic.
The problem is “side thinking” and not enough “gradient thinking”
We might not know some of the finer details, but by inquisitive discourse we can come to a ballpark for your example, or identity problems with each method.
Tell me, which of our major modern divides can be solved by "rational discourse?"
Consider something like the coronavirus pandemic. Studying the virus itself is a monumental undertaking requiring the funding of states or large corporations. Laypeople must simply "choose sides" and pick the sources they like best. Suppose that you tell me the virus is killing X people a day and I claim it is only killing Y. How do we settle that via "rational discourse?"
We can't discover the truth by talking amongst ourselves like a couple of Greek philosophers using inductive or deductive reasoning.
Our choices are either to perform our own primary research (again, wildly impractical for an individual) or to point to sources we feel are credible.