this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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I don't know about y'all, but if I grew up in a country that never has the news criticizing its leaders, I'd be very skepical and deduce that there is censorshop going on and the offical news could be exaggerated or entirely falsified. Do people in authoritarian countries actually just eat the propaganda? To what extent do they believe the propaganda?

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[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 34 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works 6 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Lyrl@lemm.ee 1 points 3 hours ago

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.