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It's so nice of you to tell us what would you do and how you'd behave in an hypothetical situation that you have never been nurtured and raised on, and how good you'd do facing it under your current morals and mental framework that may or may not be available during that situation
Good times, critical thinking was had by all
Intelligent people in those countries do realize though...
Do you believe the propaganda in your own country? What a painfully ignorant comment
No one, including you, is immune to propaganda.
I try and explain this to people all the time but many don’t want to believe it.
There are 2 types of people in this world; those who are influenced by propaganda, and those who don’t know they are influenced by propaganda.
I mean, honestly, I'm questioning if anything my parents told me is even real, or is it just exaggerated to make themselves seem like great parents in order to diminish my view on their toxicity.
It's hard to distinguish between what's a genuine doubt from a conspiracy theory.
That's the thing with people.
Some have zero skepticism, and believe everything they see.
Others are overly skeptical and distrusts everything, including science.
It's hard to find the right balance.
The average person has lots of critical thinking.
It's just not a life hack to truth. You can critical think yourself into any conclusion. The average person uses critical thinking to reinforce their biased instead of challenge them.
I haven't thought about it like that, but now that you've made me, it makes a lot of sense.
It's bleak, but if you want to persuade a large number of people to think differently, you don't challenge their worldview, you create new biases that they will then defend in their own.
See: trump's constant repetition of blatant lies.
I was idly thinking about this the other day, how absolutely lonely it must be in say North Korea, where if you're caught by the regime to be thinking the wrong thing you'll get killed. I'd know its bullshit, but I'd be terrified of speaking out or asking questions, incase the person I'm speaking to is an agent of the state, or will suspect me of being an agent and inform the authorities incase I'm testing them.
It must be awful not knowing who's a secret police, who's a gullible rube for buying the propaganda and who's just hiding behind forced conformity.
I don't think many of them will believe the propaganda, but I bet the ones who do will be the happiest. Or least miserable I guess.
I thought you were talking about the US a moment there
Critical thinking is a skill, not an inborn gift. You may end up better at it than someone else by virtue of some as-yet-unknown genetic or epigenetic factor, but only if you both learn the skills and practice them.
Worse, even with learning and practice everyone fucks up at least a little. Even if the only place they fuck up is thinking that because they have the skill and practice that they can't fuck up.
We're all fucking meat bags filled with hormones and chemicals. That shit will override every bit of common sense and critical thinking that's ever existed. Not every time, but eventually, and more than once in your life.
Propaganda is only propaganda if you aren't part of the institution generating it. If you're a random asshole in fascistan, or whatever, chances are that the propaganda is just noise, the same way commercials or waves crashing are. There's no need to think critically if all you want to do is coast and get by.
So they "believe" it in roughly the same way that people believe if they work hard, they can achieve anything they want. Even if they know better, what's the alternative? Seeing reality and still being stuck in the same place? Nah, even the ones that have practiced thoroughly aren't fucking around most of the time. Why would they bother if they apply that critical thinking and realize nobody really gives a fuck as long as they aren't too hungry, and the worst stuff is happening in some letter town? They wouldn't. It's too fucking depressing.
Also, you assume that critical thinking can overcome a lack of information. The "news" is always the news. If you have no other sources of data, critical thinking doesn't apply until something contradicts that news. If you control what people see and hear, you control the people. There won't be enough opposition to matter, if you've set up your regime right.
Critical thinking is a skill that requires teaching and practice. If children are not given that preparation they won't have that skill in adulthood. That's why authoritarian governments care so much about controlling and/or limiting access to proper education.
Critical thinking has to be taught in order for a person have it. And when you either restrict/limit education (for example, making it so that one needs a lot of money for proper schooling, thus barring lower classes from getting the education they need) or alter the education to become indoctrination. (These methods are most efficient combined!) It's why authoritarian people and parties want to control and/or destroy education systems so bad.
Being a history nerd, I've been convinced that the vast majority of people can be tricked into believing nearly anything. No one is immune to propaganda, it's just a matter of circumistances and the education you receive.
If you had grew up in a society where everyone told you that, say, pigs are a type of lizard, and your school taught you that pigs are lizards, all biologists were bribed or forced into saying pigs are lizards, and all the books you read and all the movies or shows you watched said pigs are lizards, chances are that you would believe pigs are lizards.
I'd also like to note that the above scenario would work especially well if you had never actually spent time with pigs. For example, it's a lot easier to convince someone that gay people are evil if they don't personally know any gay people.
I also think that often people know that, for example, elections are fraudulent, but they are too scared to say anything and thus act like they aren't.
often people know that, for example, elections are fraudulent, but they are too scared to say anything
People might vaguely understand that elections don't produce good outcomes or have systemic bias. That’s then condensed to „elections are rigged“, regardless of the facts and details.
Most people know little about most things. It’s difficult to even have good fundamentals about most things in our complex world. So people will defer to their personal experience and information seeped into their minds by osmosis/exposure.
Things like an economy or political system are extremely complex already and not fully understood even by experts.
There is deeply emotional resistance to the idea of topics being too complex for the average person to understand. The "experts" promote something that superficially contradicts our lived experience? They must be corrupt liars! Down with the experts!
The economy had, on balance, positive trends in 2024? We felt poorer, so economists should be lynched! /s
Feels scarily like America is moving towards something like China's Great Leap Forward https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
The Great Leap Forward stemmed from multiple factors, including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals... Mao was dismissive of technical experts and basic economic principles...
Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies... Mao did not retreat from his policies; instead, he blamed problems on bad implementation and "rightists" who opposed him...
...dozens of dams constructed in Zhumadian, Henan, during the Great Leap Forward collapsed in 1975 (under the influence of Typhoon Nina)... with estimates of its death toll ranging from tens of thousands to 240,000.
The failure of agricultural policies... suppressed the food supply... The shortage of supply clashed with an explosion in demand, leading to millions of deaths from severe famine.
I think this USSR quote is a good answer:
We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.
(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
In any authoritarian system where indoctrination starts young you'll probably have a fifth of the population that's high on the coolaid or never questioned anything due to ideology or intelligence (or both). The rest know they're lying, etc. And keep their mouths shut because they don't want to go to Siberia or El Salvador.
Also applies to modern day Russia. Everyone knows the elections are fake, for example, but they keep their heads down.
Yeah, and just because you know they're lying, doesn't mean you know what the truth is, much less so how to prove it to someone else.
The thing about propaganda that's often overlooked is the fact that it isn’t just about controlling what people think - it’s about controlling what people think other people think.
Propaganda, is a craft, it’s a whole world of tricks and manipulations. Not just censorship and positive stories about the leaders. It can get shockingly sophisticated. We usually only take note of the obvious and obtuse propaganda.
People aren’t dumb for believing it, it’s a whole field of figuring out how to convince people about things. Often if the propaganda doesn’t work on you, that’s because it’s not designed for you, or it has worked but the goal of it wasn’t what you thought it was.
Do people in authoritarian countries actually just eat the propaganda?
They surely do in the USia, why wouldn't they do it in other countries. It is only takes to convince third of a population but it has to be the loud third to maintain power in a modern "Democracy"
Obedience doesn't come exclusively from lack of understanding of the whole picture. Besides propaganda there is also brutal enforcement. Those who are aware of the situation are swiftly brought back to their place by force if they try anything funny. Many people are aware, but they cannot show it, and it's near impossible to cooperate with others at this stage.
Well, here is me, who fell into nuclear propaganda.