No Stupid Questions

This can be controversial, but my opinion is that religious education normally is the opposite of critical thinking. If you teach the kids to accept beliefs just based on faith, you're killing critical thinking.

People focus their energies on getting through the day for the most part of their lives. It is very hard for people to muster the time and energy to paying attention to politics, let alone ideologically political propaganda.

The vast majority flat ignore it entirely and remain in an apolitical state. This is a primary function of propaganda: insulating people from political action or thought that might alter the status quo.

Something like host over half of all Americans cannot read above a 5th grade level. Almost a third are functionally illiterate.

It’s not that they don’t have critical thinking skills. It’s that the entire lower-90% have been so badly nerfed that it is increasingly difficult for anyone in that cohort to get to a point where they can educate themselves without copious assistance.

And that’s exactly how Republicans prefer the population - uneducated, illiterate, ignorant and gullible. The better with which to scam them for their votes.

Seriously, if you are AWARE of propaganda, you are also aware that you have been influenced by it. Propaganda is pervasive in civilizations. It is simply manipulation. TV ads and guys trying to pick up chicks are everyday uses of propaganda.

Decision fatigue is a real thing. Ask anyone who sat through three tests in one day; even if you have studied the material, it's hard to focus after a while. It's easy to fill our day with minutia that distracts us from the impostant issues.

I find way too many people talking about "common sense" as if that was even a thing. It frustrates me to no end.

Many of the United States have removed teaching critical thinking from their curriculum.

No one, including you, is immune to propaganda.

Propaganda doesn't necessarily need to convince people, but can instead attack the peoples ability to differentiate truth and lie by sowing mistrust about the most mundane and conventional things. When people stop believing their own eyes or following logic, they become easier to manipulate. A bit like gas-lighting, where you sort of turn the critical thinking against them, but on a large scale.

If you believe you're the only one feeling this way you're likely to doubt yourself. If it's dangerous to voice how you feel, you won't hear that others share this skepticism.

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.

A lot of people don't think. But a lot of people do think critically, and they just think differently from you or me.

If we believe nobody thinks critically, how can we even begin to effect change?

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

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.

Critical thinking has been an increasingly rare skill, partially because people are focusing on conspiracy theories instead.

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 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.

Do you believe in religion? Do you believe in any home remedies? Do you eat the same foods you grew up with?

It's a very rare person that questions literally everything and logically analyzes why they think what they 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.

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.

"Think twice? I don't even thinks once."

There is no greater enemy to logic, common sense and critical thinking than religion. Religion punishes skepticism and logic. In many places you can still be killed for blasphemy. When children discover Santa isn't real, this should be an opportunity for them to break free of the gaslighting of their family religion, instead many parents double down on the gaslighting. When people are too brainwashed to accept something as simple as "fairy tale creatures are not real" their brains become mush. What would you say if I told you, yesterday on my way home I crossed a footbridge and I saw a man walking on the water. Not only that, the man was a zombie. I saw him raise another man from the dead. We should probably be getting ready for a zombie apocalypse? You would immediately think i was either insane or making some kind of joke. And if you didn't, I would ask you to give me all your money for my new church.