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.
this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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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.
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.
Completely agree.
People are tribal - they tend to conform to what the group thinks and does. We're also primed with strong us vs. them tendencies, that is you want your team to win whatever happens.
As you say, if you believe that (for example) your friends and neighbours think democrats are radical socialists out to destroy American life, it would be highly dangerous to vote democrat let alone be on team democrat.
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.
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"
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.
No, the average person does not have critical thinking. You are correct.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid
it was a tool of mad suicide not a drug to get high on lol
That’s not the point of the phrase — the statement refers to the true believers drinking poison unquestioningly, without entertaining the thought that it will kill them.
I know. What you have hit upon here is my obviously unsuccessful attempt at making these people look more ridiculous than the OG death cult.
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.
You learn that truth is a dangerous luxery you can do without, as power dictates, and can do so for generations.
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.
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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.
I find the right balance (for me) to be actively seeking out conversations that challenge my beliefs and worldview, being open to being wrong, and developing a good bullshit detector. I guess growing up during the Cold War helped instill in me a fair amount of distrust for authority of any kind helped. Even still I believed the propaganda about the US being a beacon of freedom and democracy until I was exposed to the truth of the matter, but still, I sought out counter-narratives and listened to the weight of evidence and was willing to admit to being wrong and changing my views, so.. shrug
Up until recently, I thought carrots were good for seeing in the dark. It's something my mother told me over and over as a kid. I never bothered to research it - I liked carrots after all.
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.
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.
Yep. For example during the Soviet occupation here, the Colorado potato beetle got imported here somehow and given it doesn't have any natural predators, it destroyed potatoes like crazy.
Well, guess what? According to Soviet propaganda it was intentionally done by Americans to destroy our "paradise" and our food.
Everything bad that happened was because the evil imperialists worked against our paradise.
The country being so poor it couldn't afford enough toilet paper for its citizens? Westerners! All foreign fruit being very scarce and people standing in long lines to get it, while the ones in the back knew they probably aren't getting any today? Also westerners' fault. Meat being available only for the few lucky ones who came early, or were friends with the butcher? Yep, this one's on westerners too.
Propaganda is not the usual over-the-top stories, it's subtle. Would you today believe if someone told you that Americans have imported the Colorado potato beetle intentionally? And would you, if it was consistent with everything you've heard since you were a kid?
“Of course the Americans introduced the Colorado potato beetle! After all, where is Colorado? America! Check mate liberal”
For real though I hate those little fuckers. Every time I try and grow potatoes in a garden I get an infestation and it’s a pain to deal with in a small plot, can’t imagine how much of a nightmare they are on a proper field.
Do you believe that your media isn’t propaganda? Just because it seems less extreme doesn’t mean you’ve not been duped too.
There's too much lies in the world, I kinda developed a sort of "solipcistic" view of the world.
If I never witnessed it, I categorize it as "potentially false".
Of course, the entire news could be just fabricated. Nobody can tell for sure.
Anything beyond my immediate sorroundings could just be a stage. I could be in a truman show with everything I see being a deception, or in other terms "propaganda".
I'm not saying that everything isn't real, I just feel like that possibility should be entertained, to keep in mind as a potential possible explanation of what appears to be reality. Just as how a nation can lie to its people about reality, even the people closest to you, your parents, could also just be liars as well.
People never question if they are, in fact, the biological children of their parents, and just assume they are. That is another form of "propaganda". People just accept their parent's words as truth.
Propaganda is certainly everywhere. You cannot be sure what is real, other than the fact that "you" exist, in some form.
The concept of "the average person" is a good example of the type of crass generalisation that propagndists often use.
Social media is designed to override your critical thinking faculties.
Human beings aren't evolved to get news/information from such a wide variety of sources at such a fast rate. Your critical thinking faculties just get overrun.
Everyone has experienced this and accidentally shared an article from The Onion or whatever without noticing in the short term that they are responding to some kind of bias being confirmed.
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.
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.
I've recently gotten into BP debating and it teaches you a palette of skills useful in seeing through propaganda. (Seeing nuance in bad things, playing devil's advocate, narrowing down disputes to very specific points of contention, explaining things with chains of cause and effect, putting facts into perspective, making sure to explicitly define words, ...) I wish more people tried it – it would raise the quality of discourse in society so much.
Do people in authoritarian countries actually just eat the propaganda? To what extent do they believe the propaganda?
Where I come from? Not much, but part of that is because the lies are so obvious and in conflict with people's lived experience that you can't even delude yourself into accepting them.
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