Current Events > Why don't people like to think for themselves?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Whether it's a political or religious leader, a celebrity, or an influencer, most people would rather copy the opinions of someone they follow, rather than verify if what they're saying is even true. As edgy as 90s people were, at least they liked going against the flow.

I agree

I imagine it has more to do with confirmation bias than wanting to copy the opinions of others. They just follow people who confirm their biases and never give any of it a critical thought.

Props to post #2.

For real, though, making decisions is hard work. Its much easier just to follow the steps.

ChatGPT is this true

Thinking is hard and scary.

Thinking is just too hard for a lot of people.

I agree with the consensus

AvlButtslam posted...

ChatGPT is this true

I know a particular "youtuber" who uses an AI as his co-host. He trained that fucking thing to be as stupid as he is. It's pathetic. And you have to imagine there are so many more people like him who continually talk to an AI until the AI is telling them everything they want to hear.

Everyone thinks that they think for themselves.

Everyone thinks that anyone who doesn't hold the opinions that they do has been brainwashed.

People generally want to be sure they're right, thinking introduces a bit of confusion, which people want to avoid.

ai123 posted...

Everyone thinks that they think for themselves.

Everyone thinks that anyone who doesn't hold the opinions that they do has been brainwashed.

True, but a good litmus test is this; if your gut is telling you something is wrong, do you listen to it?

nocturnal_traveler posted...

True, but a good litmus test is this; if your gut is telling you something is wrong, do you listen to it?

Yes.

But maybe my 'gut' is conditioned to respond to some things and not others. And many times, things that seem right, or feel as if they ought to be true, turn out not to be the case.

kind9 posted...

I imagine it has more to do with confirmation bias than wanting to copy the opinions of others. They just follow people who confirm their biases and never give any of it a critical thought.

It's this.

Grok is this true??

ai123 posted...

Yes.

But maybe my 'gut' is conditioned to respond to some things and not others. And many times, things that seem right, or feel as if they ought to be true, turn out not to be the case.

Your gut won't always respond to everything, especially due to said conditioning. I was just using it as an example for things that it almost always responds to. For example, unless someone has completely removed what makes them a decent person, their gut is going to tell them that treating a group of people like shit and wanting to kill them is a bad thing. Oftentimes they'll try to block it out with heavy amounts of booze or drugs.

ai123 posted...

Everyone thinks that they think for themselves.

Everyone thinks that anyone who doesn't hold the opinions that they do has been brainwashed.

But on the other hand, there is the perception that "they're saying what we're thinking", rather than "they said it so I think it". Not that the perception is necessarily or inherently true.

ai123 posted...

Everyone thinks that they think for themselves.

Everyone thinks that anyone who doesn't hold the opinions that they do has been brainwashed.

Everyone may think that, but some are actually correct. It is a factual reality that the vast majority of the rightwing in America has been brainwashed by decades of anti-intellectual propaganda and coordinated disinformation campaigns from Fox News and other far-right media outlets, and the constant firehouse of falsehood from Trump ever since even before his first time. Yet they are confident in their opinion that WE are the ones who are brainwashed, but that's factually not true.

The Leader is good
The Leader is great
I surrender my will
As of this date...

NANANANANANANA LEADER

https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1nuu5gc/i_understand_how_trump_got_elected_now/

This shit right here is stupidly common. Most people I meet in my day to day life is like this. They just drop a bunch of words without thinking about what it means and how the concepts interact with each other. I know a guy at work who keeps insisting they eliminate taxes cause inflation is so bad.

I don't understand people who don't critically think, I'll even go as far to say ruminating has its pros.

I love thinking, and if what I'm thinking about is outside my realm of control and it's making me upset I'll try to do something else lol

It's too much work for them. It's easier to let others think for them.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


That concentrated effort was by the Christian groups, in order to defend the concept of Biblical inerrancy. They didn't like Darwinian Theory calling into question the Garden of Eden story, so they had to shit all over science and call people evil for questioning the Bible. Even Frank Zappa was on TV arguing with these shit heads.

Their solution was to attack scientific theory and argue the DEFINITION of theory. That's how we've arrived at a point of "alternative facts" and disdain for fact checking, because the weight of ignorance or opinion was given as much importance as scientific theory and facts.

Humans are social creatures and we're not all wired to be leaders. It's just the issue is the people who are wired to be leaders tend to lack empathy.