Dogmatism and being brainwashed.

Critical thinking is always good.

 

I've seen it happen a lot. I've seen people, leaders creating a very polarized view of things, getting people to see them as heroes and yet victims, so that they could have all these supporters blindly following them. Hypocritically painting the other side as selfish and power hungry. It's sad. There' nothing you can really do to get people to see a more balanced view of things, if they are devoted to following a certain belief or leader.

 

90% of people are 'brainwashed' about some thing. hopefully the majority it is not something critical to the kind of world we together create.

what is frightening is the popularity of anti-science, because of the kind of world we have seen that create historically in the middle ages.

 

I think that a lot of leaders recognize intellectual limitations/laziness/lack of critical thought in their voter base... it doesn't always mean that they're bad leaders.

The majority don't vote because they're informed... they're more likely to vote based on their perception of a politician's character, or even physical appearance. I remember seeing a study done where people could easily identify the winners of elections based on photographs alone.

http://www.academia.edu/1053696/Predicting_Elections_from_Politicians_Faces
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-look-of-a-winner

This is just another reason why I keep saying democracy doesn't work.

I also think that one of the biggest weaknesses of the human mind is its overconfidence in its own ability to be critical about things, and people who seem to think that they're above dogmatism/being influenced or persuaded.

I've noticed a lot of posts on here seem to think that they're above the common rabble who are easily misled, but chances are this isn't even slightly true and your prideful refusal to admit that you could ever be manipulated is actually making it easier for people to manipulate you.

There are a number of ways to influence or manipulate people, and appealing to their vanity is one of them. Even intellectuals tend to take shortcuts and 'borrow' opinions from what they consider to be reliable sources -- it's more efficient than actually investigating a topic that would take years of concerted effort to ever fully understand.

I think that different types of people are susceptible to different types of 'scams'... I don't think there is a certain class of people that is susceptible and a certain class of people that is not.