Social Are majority of people stupid because they have been manipulated by just a few people for centuries and still are ?

[Your Account]

when you look at it , in history there was a king who gave orders and everyone listened to him.
Today there are politicians who are corrupt, do harm to the people, and send the army to war.
Didn't someone say, I hope they won't realize how few of us are and how many of them are?
How is it possible that someone tells you to go to war to conquer that country and you and thousands of others say ok, it doesn't matter that we might get killed and that it's not right, but let's go, our president or king told us so.
Isn't that stupid and actually speaks of human stupidity, and managing the masses of people?
Is there any hope for people to become smart?

 

[Croo67]

Low testosterone is the biggest driver, in my opinion.

Most women become more conservative once they become mothers, but so many meek men will eternally remain subservient to invasions of their country’s, obvious political corruption, and just general erosion of society.

It’s why the establishment gives people pills rather than a gym subscription.

 

[Cid]

 

[Cajun]

I think people want to believe that a candidate is good and honest because it gives them hope. A soldiers life is what they sign up for.

 

[oski]

Americans playing politics and never realizing...

 

[Sinister]

Low testosterone is the biggest driver, in my opinion.

Most women become more conservative once they become mothers, but so many meek men will eternally remain subservient to invasions of their country’s, obvious political corruption, and just general erosion of society.

It’s why the establishment gives people pills rather than a gym subscription.

Yeah you totally have too much testosterone to let unknown Messicans or weird Moslems move into your neighborhood. Makes you just wanna go to the gym that much harder!!

 

[Wrath of Foamy]

Low testosterone is the biggest driver, in my opinion.

Most women become more conservative once they become mothers, but so many meek men will eternally remain subservient to invasions of their country’s, obvious political corruption, and just general erosion of society.

It’s why the establishment gives people pills rather than a gym subscription.

I actually vaguely remember a thread about conquerors sneaking pornography to the natives, in order to placate them and make them easier to conquer.

 

[Domitian]

Soldiers get paid, get benefits, get all types of shit for signing up for the job. It's not like they are being forced to just go fight and die. At least not here in America.

Throughout history, most of all these soldiers who are fighting were getting paid. Back in ancient and medieval times, getting paid and travelling different places is better than sitting on your farm all your life. People need to realize back in those types of days a typical persons life was just staying on their plot of land farming and that's what they did most all their lives.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I think a majority of people (at least here) are stupid because they believe that the only reason anyone disagrees with them is brainwashing or "manipulation by elites."

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

Stopped at "Are the majority of people stupid". Yes , yes they are.

 

[Rod1]

 

[Spam On Rye]

This reads like TS just discovered what a human is.

 

[Jack V Savage]

People also don't realize "all politicians are evil" is itself a common (the most common) political message.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

people are too caught up with their own material means and the ability to take care of themselves and their families to be motivated to pay attention.

 

[Whippy McGee]

The strong family unit makes for strong armies that are willing to go to war. If you tell the men that their wives, mothers, children are endangered if they don't go fight... they will go fight. If you break down the family structure, what is the men's motivation to fight? Yes, you can get mercenaries, but they won't be great in numbers or motivation. Nations with strong family structures do well in wars.

 

[Satsui Ryu]

Basically tribalism. I and the people like me are better/right/just and everyone else is wrong or evil. When it comes to belief systems objectivity and nuance tend to go out the window. It is amazing what beliefs some very smart people hold without having any actual evidence.

This isn't a manipulation thing, it is a people thing.

 

[Bballfan123]

Low testosterone is the biggest driver, in my opinion.

Most women become more conservative once they become mothers, but so many meek men will eternally remain subservient to invasions of their country’s, obvious political corruption, and just general erosion of society.

It’s why the establishment gives people pills rather than a gym subscription.

this has literally nothing to do with the OP

The strong family unit makes for strong armies that are willing to go to war. If you tell the men that their wives, mothers, children are endangered if they don't go fight... they will go fight. If you break down the family structure, what is the men's motivation to fight? Yes, you can get mercenaries, but they won't be great in numbers or motivation. Nations with strong family structures do well in wars.

bro this is like elon musk conserva porn brainwashing on steroids. 'family structures do well in wars' huh????
what ???
we have guns bro. you can't 'fight harder'. whoever is the best shot and has the most money and biggest gun wins.

to answer the question, TS, you should read a wiki article on the Bicameral Mind.

Bicameral mentality - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

basically humans used to be wired up slightly differently in our head. humans 3,000 years ago used to LITERALLY 'hear' the gods. the 'gods' being their internal thoughts. but to them they were what we call thoughts. obviously all of their 'thoughts' centered around obeying their leaders as they were dirt poor and lived horrible lives totally dependent on the tribe. ever seen videos of like cavemen or Bronze Age soldiers charging into battle filled with glee and bloodlust and wonder how you could do that today?

well, you can't. we have thinking brains now and life is individualistic. back in the day either
1) everyone in the area is doing GREAT
2) you are ALL about to DIE in a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE FASHION by an invading band of savages.



nowadays in life you can be doing great and your neighbor is doing horrible, or vice versa. our destiny is based on choices instead of what tribe you belong to, and if the tribe wins a war.

 

[fedorthegoat777]

when you look at it , in history there was a king who gave orders and everyone listened to him.
Today there are politicians who are corrupt, do harm to the people, and send the army to war.
Didn't someone say, I hope they won't realize how few of us are and how many of them are?
How is it possible that someone tells you to go to war to conquer that country and you and thousands of others say ok, it doesn't matter that we might get killed and that it's not right, but let's go, our president or king told us so.
Isn't that stupid and actually speaks of human stupidity, and managing the masses of people?
Is there any hope for people to become smart?

A lot of people are brainless and follow the crowd.

Look at covid, you had goofs wearing masks outside and alone while driving. Or let's go to a restaurant with a mask on only to take it off a few minutes later to eat.

 

[Jack V Savage]

this has literally nothing to do with the OP


bro this is like elon musk conserva porn brainwashing on steroids. 'family structures do well in wars' huh????
what ???
we have guns bro. you can't 'fight harder'. whoever is the best shot and has the most money and biggest gun wins.

to answer the question, TS, you should read a wiki article on the Bicameral Mind.

Bicameral mentality - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

basically humans used to be wired up slightly differently in our head. humans 3,000 years ago used to LITERALLY 'hear' the gods. the 'gods' being their internal thoughts. but to them they were what we call thoughts. obviously all of their 'thoughts' centered around obeying their leaders as they were dirt poor and lived horrible lives totally dependent on the tribe. ever seen videos of like cavemen or Bronze Age soldiers charging into battle filled with glee and bloodlust and wonder how you could do that today?

well, you can't. we have thinking brains now and life is individualistic. back in the day either
1) everyone in the area is doing GREAT
2) you are ALL about to DIE in a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE FASHION by an invading band of savages.



nowadays in life you can be doing great and your neighbor is doing horrible, or vice versa. our destiny is based on choices instead of what tribe you belong to, and if the tribe wins a war.

I read Jaynes' book and found it really fascinating (and discussed it here before the group's decline), but his claims weren't literally true, and they weren't really about following actual leaders. One thing he claimed is that people would interpret their own thoughts to be dead leaders or ancestors communicating with them. So the unthinking obedience was to one's own impulses.

From Scott Alexander's review:

So for example, a typical translation might use a phrase like “Fear filled Agamemnon’s mind”. Wrong! There is no word for “mind” in the Iliad, except maybe in the very newest interpolations. The words are things like kardia, noos, phrenes, and thumos, which Jaynes translates as heart, vision/perception, belly, and sympathetic nervous system, respectively. He might translate the sentence about Agamemnon to say something like “Quivering rose in Agamemnon’s belly”. It still means the same thing – Agamemnon is afraid – but it’s how you would talk about it if you didn’t have an idea of “the mind” as the place where mental things happened – you would just notice your belly was quivering more. Later, when the Greeks got theory of mind, they repurposed all these terms. You can still find signs of this today, like how we say “I believe it in my heart”. In fact, you can still find this split use of phrenes, which has survived into English both as the phrenic nerve (a nerve in the belly) and schizophrenia (a mental disease). As the transition wore on, people got more and more flowery about the kind of feelings you could have in your belly or your heart or whatever, until finally belly, heart, and all the others merged into a single Mind where all the mental stuff happened together.

One thing I think is interesting is that it's still kind of accurate. Emotions are a lot more physical than people appreciate, and thinking of ourselves as computers controlling a machine is a mistake.

And, yeah, GDP is what wins wars (it's actually a good measure of how good countries will do in war).

A lot of people are brainless and follow the crowd.

Look at covid, you had goofs wearing masks outside and alone while driving. Or let's go to a restaurant with a mask on only to take it off a few minutes later to eat.

Or taking crazy quack cures or not getting vaccinated because they were fashionable/unfashionable in their crowds.