Getting brainwashed.

Just look at what's going on now. How media and government projects fear into people. And people play right into it. Though i'm sure i have much that is deeply ingrained into me as well. Perhaps stuff i'm not aware of yet. Good to see it in others but have you seen this in yourself? Maybe you too are brainwashed in some way but aren't aware of it yet.

 

Hell, I know I’m brainwashed. I agree that the media has a lot to do with swaying opinion and I try to be very wise to it, even teach my daughter to think outside the box when it comes to topics, but it’s very difficult because she’s easily drawn into bullshit. Her friends actually listen to me and agree with me more than she does, LOL!
Sorry for going down the rabbit hole but yeah, I agree, we are all brainwashed in someway, whether it’s political, religious, etc.

 

Wait....


There's a box?

 

Lol, I know- a way overused quote I should try to get away from. It meant so much in its prime, now it’s pretty lame - especially when kids are saying it.

 

Have you observed hypnosis techniques in the media ? I have . The voice is dull , the gaze is steady ,
the content is repetitive and suggestive , and maybe there's an interjection of some such bewildering
nonsense as 'everything I say is a lie ' to knock you off balance .

 

i don't know, it seems like old folks are the ones who are most likely to just believe everything they're told.

 

Umbrage taken.

 

Good. So she's resisting your brainwashing.

 

What’s up, Pilot?

 

Resistance is futile. Of course we're brainwashed. It's a phenomenon of evolutionary psychology. It happens in several ways: (1) social conditioning via our elders who we learn to trust as information sources (if we didn't, we'd be on our own and probably eaten by something early on); (2) cognitive psychology inclining us to see patterns even when there are none, and to perceive agency even when there is none (if we mistake the log for an alligator, no porblem; if we mistake the gator for a log, big problem); and (3) ego defense against existential anxieties about misfortune, meaninglessness and death; and (4) manipulation of the foregoing by various social agents: shamans, priests, , the media. The best we can do is try to understand these influences, and as best we can use judgment to analyze them rationally in light of available evidence to decide what we are willing to accept and act upon.

 

Run through a list of cognitive biases - with explanations and details of research for each in the list- and you'll see how much we brainwash ourselves.

 

Just don't watch the news or pay attention to politics just work cause you need the money and have fun and do what you want to do.

Trust me, I ignorantly ignore any news media and politics and I'm happy as can be a lot happier than people that get mixed up in news and politics. That shit only effects you if you let it.

Be ignorant, it's not like the news or politics is going to do anything for you anyway. You're always gonna be stuck working and paying taxes and that's all you need to care about. The rest of it, is bullshit.

 

the root of gullibility might be this idea that anything has to be certain. instead every instence is its own specicivity, not an expression of some universal uniformity.
if people want to call that chaos, well this is the same thing. another simple answer is one word: ego. the reluctance of the subconscious to accept that things it doesn't know can exist.

it isn't that there's anything to stop what we want to pretend, its that whatever there is, owes nothing to our doing so.
people are shocked when confronted by anything that doesn't fit their world view.
they shouldn't be, and i'm not claiming its any easier for me to not be.
i think that's part of growing up, that so many people seem to never do, is to realize the universe owes nothing to what we think we know about it.
we can explore, observe and learn, but any time we think anything is the only way it can possibly be, we are deluding ourselves.

and that's the down side also, of any religious belief, when it is taken to be an absolute and infinite understanding.
which doesn't deny that they can also have an up side. which is to encourage people to be considerate.
when the are used as an excuse to do the opposite, then they are opposing their entire own intrinsic point.

yes yes there's that comfortable anchor thing. and comfort can be good. it just isn't the universe, which isn't out to get us either. just completely neutral and impartial.

work and taxes are also a bullshit perspective. the reality at the root of it, is that survival requires some effort.
but not the indebtedness to perspectives that have no relationship to the avoidance of causing harm.

there is nothing to stop there from being self aware somethings, that we can commune with psionically, who are neither physical nor imaginary,
but it isn't them, isn't from them, isn't about them, has nothing to do with them, when someone else tries to tell us how to think or look at things.

 

That's news to me!