No Stupid Questions

No offense, but this post is sort of crazy to me because I've read a bunch of comments explaining how it actually happens, and id categorize all of them as normal results of critical thinking. As in, you could've answered your own question with some critical thinking.

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 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.

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.

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.

Everyone believes and agrees with propaganda to some extent because world is a lie. All rules are just rough aproximation of reality. All modern rules are man made and most of them are not real. They are just real in this moment of time we live in. The moment we agreed those rules are true. So people just agreed that this propaganda you're seeing is ok for them right now. They can live with that. This doesn't mean they have no critical thinking. This means they are fine with things as they are because it doesn't touch directly major percentage of them.

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 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.

I've learnt this the hard way, but ALWAYS (LITERALLY FUCKING ALWAYS) assume you're the smartest in the room. People are dumb as fuck on average.

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.

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"

I think the real problem is, people don’t know how to manage their emotions, and those end up swaying them left and right. Opportunistic antagonists will take advantage of those triggers.

Stop thinking with with your gut, take a pause to analyze your body response to emotions. Are you sweating? Are you afraid or is it actually warm? If you’re afraid, what specifically do you fear? Etc.

Propaganda, echo chambers, peer pressure, and even vicious cycles of self-pity, anger, sadness… will have a weaker hold on you.

Feel, but don’t stop thinking.

I am gonna take a biased and unsubstantiated leap in logic here but no. Not because most people are incapable of critical thinking but because it is intentionally not encouraged by western education. Critical thinking is something that has to be taught to people and most people have never had a reason to learn it. All they need to know is how to go to work and consume.