169 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Mar \ parent \ on: Discuss this Quote- John Adams BooksAndArticles
I think it's a combination of what you describe and an inability to realize they're being conned by shameless sociopaths.
Isn't the inability to realize they're being conned a symptom of not taking responsibility to think for oneself? Outsourcing thinking to media and "experts", while following "expert advice" without applying critical thinking. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
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Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
When that's the dynamic, then I agree. However, the con is so massive that I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to be able to see through it.
In Plato's cave, the problem wasn't that people didn't take responsibility, it was that some deranged sociopath had severely restricted the information they had access to.
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Control of information definitely plays a major role in keeping the con successful. However, with advancements in technology and the emergence of the internet, the information is out there for the taking. I think it's getting harder and also getting easier to run the con these days. Easier because it is so easy and cheap to distribute lies and propaganda to the masses through online sources such as social media and "reputable" sources. But harder because if someone suspects they're being duped, it is often not too hard to find information to either confirm or deny their suspicion. You can actually do your own research and use your own logic and intuition based on your findings to formulate a truth that makes sense to you.
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We are getting to where the only people still being duped are exactly the ones you were talking about who are abdicating thinking for themselves.
I sympathize with people who just want to trust the experts and then go on with their lives. In a functional society, trusting the experts would be a good enough heuristic for most people. We can't figure everything out ourselves after all, so the battle is really in figuring out who to trust and what to trust them about.