It’s funny how fast Murica has fallen into authoritarianism, I’m genuinely having a hard time believing that such a large portion of the population can be so stupid.
It’s been the calculated plan for far longer than I can remember.
Conservative politics relies on stupid uneducated voters incapable of critical thinking.
The voters that, with a lack of actual knowledge of their own through either experience, formal education or even just good old fashioned intellectual curiosity about the world around them, will happily cede their opinion to the first authority figure who tells them what they are already presdisposed to believe and confirm their biases.
It’s the entire reason there has been a coordinated attack on the liberal arts and college education under the guise of “financial constraints” and the push in the last few decades towards trade schools.
Conservative politics requires stupid who are content to learn how to be a tradesman, without any of that inconventient history or critical thinking getting in the way.
I get that’s been the game plan, and to be honest it’s worked perfectly, but poor people actually gloating about “owning the libs” while shooting themselves in the foot, the face and all else beggars belief!
“A person can be smart. But people are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it.” – Kay from MiB
We’ve all been hardwired with groupthink. We had to be. When a member of your tribe comes running by in a panic, you don’t have time to stop and think what the hell is he running from?, you just start running along with him. It’s the difference between living to hunt another day or getting killed by a bigger predator than you are.
The more people that are running. The more important it is (to our brain) to just start legging it. No one wants to be the straggler at the back that gets picked off. For that reason, group-think and herd-mentality skews incredibly towards the simplistic. In terms of evolution, there’s no time to worry about the why…you just trust that if everyone else is running, you probably should be too. In terms of modern day that is the susceptibility of uneducated people to dogma, polemics and confirmation bias.
A single person…and individual that has critical thinking skills and the ability to look at the wider context, can overcome that instint. They can stop and say “hmmm…maybe I should look and see if this really is something that is going to harm me.” They can reason themselves out of group-think.
But without that context. Without that critical thinking, you have almost no choice but to rely on the fact that if someone is telling you to run, they must know more than you…so get it in gear.
Whether that person is telling you to run from a predator, or to hate immigrants, it’s all due to the same inherent mentality in humans.
Spot on regarding the person vs group. Being a fan of history I’m amazed at how far we’ve come technologically, but how our base instincts haven’t changed. Even in the face of all the evidence about our behaviour historically, we repeat our mistakes time and again.
It’s the good-ol’ lizard brain and it isn’t going away.
It’s the part of the brain that controls emotions, moods, fear, fight-or-flight, etc… The Limbic Cortex
The sole purpose of critical thinking skills and knowledge of things like history, civics, etc… (whether that comes from education, experience or just good old fashioned intellectual curiosity) is to give the rest of our brain the context necessary to override that lizard brain. (In my opinion).
Too many people just don’t care enough about the world around them to bother with that and are content to just let their lizard brain run things. It’s these people that are susceptible to group-think, and it’s these people (ironically) who think that they are ones who are thinking for themselves when in reality it’s quite the opposite.
The sole purpose of critical thinking skills and knowledge of things like history, civics, etc… (whether that comes from education, experience or just good old fashioned intellectual curiosity) is to give the rest of our brain the context necessary to override that lizard brain. (In my opinion).
I’m seconding that opinion, makes a lot of sense. It’s so funny, I’m not an American, but I do have friends and family there, yet I find myself outraged by maga and this speed run into fascism. I can’t imagine what it must be like living there these days.
Optics, they are praying for optics.
It’s funny how fast Murica has fallen into authoritarianism, I’m genuinely having a hard time believing that such a large portion of the population can be so stupid.
Think of how stupid the average person is
Half of em are dumber than that
RIP St George
We need him now more than ever. He’d happily carry our disdain.
If stupidity has a symmetric distribution.
It’s been the calculated plan for far longer than I can remember.
Conservative politics relies on stupid uneducated voters incapable of critical thinking.
The voters that, with a lack of actual knowledge of their own through either experience, formal education or even just good old fashioned intellectual curiosity about the world around them, will happily cede their opinion to the first authority figure who tells them what they are already presdisposed to believe and confirm their biases.
It’s the entire reason there has been a coordinated attack on the liberal arts and college education under the guise of “financial constraints” and the push in the last few decades towards trade schools.
Conservative politics requires stupid who are content to learn how to be a tradesman, without any of that inconventient history or critical thinking getting in the way.
I get that’s been the game plan, and to be honest it’s worked perfectly, but poor people actually gloating about “owning the libs” while shooting themselves in the foot, the face and all else beggars belief!
The truest line ever uttered in film…
“A person can be smart. But people are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it.” – Kay from MiB
We’ve all been hardwired with groupthink. We had to be. When a member of your tribe comes running by in a panic, you don’t have time to stop and think what the hell is he running from?, you just start running along with him. It’s the difference between living to hunt another day or getting killed by a bigger predator than you are.
The more people that are running. The more important it is (to our brain) to just start legging it. No one wants to be the straggler at the back that gets picked off. For that reason, group-think and herd-mentality skews incredibly towards the simplistic. In terms of evolution, there’s no time to worry about the why…you just trust that if everyone else is running, you probably should be too. In terms of modern day that is the susceptibility of uneducated people to dogma, polemics and confirmation bias.
A single person…and individual that has critical thinking skills and the ability to look at the wider context, can overcome that instint. They can stop and say “hmmm…maybe I should look and see if this really is something that is going to harm me.” They can reason themselves out of group-think.
But without that context. Without that critical thinking, you have almost no choice but to rely on the fact that if someone is telling you to run, they must know more than you…so get it in gear.
Whether that person is telling you to run from a predator, or to hate immigrants, it’s all due to the same inherent mentality in humans.
Spot on regarding the person vs group. Being a fan of history I’m amazed at how far we’ve come technologically, but how our base instincts haven’t changed. Even in the face of all the evidence about our behaviour historically, we repeat our mistakes time and again.
It’s the good-ol’ lizard brain and it isn’t going away.
It’s the part of the brain that controls emotions, moods, fear, fight-or-flight, etc… The Limbic Cortex
The sole purpose of critical thinking skills and knowledge of things like history, civics, etc… (whether that comes from education, experience or just good old fashioned intellectual curiosity) is to give the rest of our brain the context necessary to override that lizard brain. (In my opinion).
Too many people just don’t care enough about the world around them to bother with that and are content to just let their lizard brain run things. It’s these people that are susceptible to group-think, and it’s these people (ironically) who think that they are ones who are thinking for themselves when in reality it’s quite the opposite.
I’m seconding that opinion, makes a lot of sense. It’s so funny, I’m not an American, but I do have friends and family there, yet I find myself outraged by maga and this speed run into fascism. I can’t imagine what it must be like living there these days.
The dumbing down policy certainly worked.
As a Canadian I look on in absolute horror like a deer spotting the hunter in the woods.
Jesus actually said something about that, it turns out. Not that it matters to these knuckleheads.
Well they got em. The Lord truly does provide 🙌🥴