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The sooner you realize the vast majority of humans are simply not very intelligent, the more everything starts making sense. And the more depressed you will be.
I have no science behind this (and am therefore a hypocrite) but I’m giving up on the assumption that people think. I suspect that most people feel and make decisions on those feelings.
Thinking happens later, if at all.Humans are animals that navigate life through the lens of emotions with logic being something that we have to work towards - so you may be closer to the truth than you think.
It is a combination of this and the power of propaganda.
When you can control the information that people consume, you can have a huge influence over what they think.
If you can influence the thoughts of a big portion of the populous, you can create control structures. You use these control structures to move people into their emotional decision making more often. The more often you can keep people in their emotional decision mode, the easier you can control what they do.
The thing is, the easiest way to keep people in their emotional thought mode, is to pull the fear and anger levers. Keep people afraid and angry, and you can steer society.The other problem with this is, the people who see through this kind of thing are not the majority.
The people who can see through the techniques, are not always the traditionally "smart"; but higher intelligence is certainly an advantage.This is true. Always has been, always will be. Many Trump voters are already regretting their decision after seeing the early consequences of Trump's statements. But that won't be permanent. Many will likely be duped again by another conman using the same tactics.
I need to mention that old school 'patent medicine' (ex: snake oil) in the 19th to very early 20th was not destroyed by advancements in actual medicine and education and awareness... it was done by simply banning the patent medicines and forcing others to disclose their ingredients. When buyers of said medicine were aware of the bullshit of old snake oil, they just moved onto another brand of snake oil (which may or may not have been made and sold by the same guy).
If they removed regulations on medicine and legalized many of the old hard drugs we would see a resurgence in patent medicine that caused so many problems in times past. There was actually a reason why people who avoided all medication in the 19th century actually had a longer than average life expectancy.
Keep in mind that if you are in a public space, about half the people around you have an IQ below 100.
Half of all people are dumber than average.
Replace 'average' by 'median' to be correct. The average can be distorted by especially dumb people.