the fact of the matter is that most people just dont want to know. they are complacent denialists who are emotionally and intellectually incapable of accepting the reality of the world around them.

But once you wake up you never fall back asleep.

Edit 1--I am coming to find that more and more public education is the biggest stumbing block in educating the public.

This.

Sadly I wish I could fall back asleep. Now that I know how truly fucked up the world is I get depressed as I don't see any end to it. We will live and die slaving away to scrap a living, treated as subhumans etc.

Try not to let it get to you, Instead of depression use the knowledge to make yourself stronger against it. Join the legions who are enlightened, and begin to work to oppose it. By being aware, you are armoring yourself a little. Those who are aware are better able to make the right choices and their chances of survival are higher than those of the half-conscious masses.

That's the truth, truth.

yeah, the matrix did a good job of illustrating the concept. once you go down the rabbit hole theres no turning back.

Arrogance

i would say that the media and the schools, at least in america, receive up 90% of the blame, IMO. The status quo is reinforced through these institutions.

Lack of humility.

Emotional Weakness.

Insecurity.

Conformity.

You forgot, easily manipulated. We are all equally subsceptable.

I think Adam Curtis might have made a documentary about that too.

The Asch Experiment is good too.

The public.

People generally don't think that this "comic book villain" level of contempt and malice can even exist in reality.

We have tons of movies and media, "predictive programming", that is fictional, depicting similar scenarios, and if similar things transpire in the "real" world, those such things are automatically associated with the fiction and therefore are not real. It short circuits the brain, a cheat code that hacks the planet.

Television.

Oh that is but one link in the chain my friend.

But you speak truth.

We are bombarded with irrelevant information and fear,anger and distraction generating situations by the media. It is very difficult to believe that the top strata running media and state education have ever desired an educated well informed general public.

Beer, sports, nascar, complicit media reality tv, and a failed education system that teaches memorization over critical thinking.

Sports worship is truly a cancer, fills mens heads with useless information and turns them into idiots.

the public

In his book Mein Kapmf, Hitler made the observation that the credibility of a lie increases with the size of the lie. i.e. the bigger the lie the more likely people are to believe it is true. They think that their government would never so brazen as to lie about something so horrific, so they go along with the official story. People simply do not want to believe that their government would lie so badly to them.

Except it has, time and time again.

Be the change you want to see.

Don't worry about what others think.

"Waking people up" has never and will never work.

They'll catch on when shit hits the fan.

LALALA I CANT HEAR YOU DONT WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT I LIKE COOKIES PIE AND COKE LALALA

Or what r88shun said

1. Too many post read like a 10 year old wrote them. Lots of emotion and "strong" words making accusations combined with terrible grammar/format. If all you want to do is give other believers a little more information then you don't have to worry about it. But, if you want to convince others that you're right then you need to be able to, at the very least, write an article that someone has looked over and verified there are no spelling errors, no complicated jargon, and no WTFness.

2. Almost everyone that posts assumes that anyone viewing it will know what they're talking about. I have to constantly ask what they are talking about, and I've been reading this subreddit for more than 1 year. Just because you know what you're saying it doesn't mean that I do.

If you combine those 2 points, then the crazy vs. substance ratio is too high for a reasonably intelligent adult to take seriously. If you fix those two things then it will be read more objectively.

One more:

Obvious and well-known conspiracies. There are a lot of every day conspiracies that people know exist, but don't make the connection that it is actually a conspiracy. There was a post featuring a documentary describing the diamond industry and revealed it to be a conspiracy, which it is. Featuring more every day conspiracies like the diamond industry will make people realize that, maybe, there are some larger sinister forces shaping our world.

Featuring more every day conspiracies like the diamond industry will make people realize that, maybe, there are some larger sinister forces shaping our world.

For the evangelists amongst us, this seems like a sensible approach. If you intend to post stuff to facebook or to friends in other ways, choose the frog in the pot method. i.e start the temperature low. I think the films by Adam Curtis are an excellent start for many people. The problem of often though is that people are not interested and there is not much you can do to get over that hurdle.

Try to be objective yourself and step outside of the conspiracy channels and into other arenas to poison the discourse. As an example a good avenue for exploration is the sciencey type who are clearly capable of rational thought but are caught up in the science circle jerk. pointing out gems such as epedemiologist ben goldacre on ted, robert lustig (sugar , the bitter truth) even stuff like the work by elisabeth gould and adult neurogenesis.

If you have a rational mind and are presented with that type of information and take time to assimilate you probably are going to have your world view altered quite considerably.

Cass sunstein talkings about poisoning the discourse in places such as these and so that must be the modus operandi to retaliate.

It has been made apparent even if you have that magic formula it is still likely to be dismissed. It helps, for sure though.

Lack of concrete evidence.

I don't say this to be rude or dismissive. I say it to show that most people are not willing to make logical leaps or assume certain things, whether it be because they're complacent, intelligent, rational, etc.

Circumstantial evidence and conjecture just aren't very effective forms of argument. Try making a conspiracy theory without either of those things and we'll go from there.

In a lot of cases there's plenty of concrete evidence, however. How do you get past that?

What is the biggest stumbling block in educating the public?

: The United States

It's human nature to not want to admit you're wrong and that's what you're asking people to do when you try to wake them up. Most people don't want to rethink anything - it's just more work and they feel helpless to do anything anyway. I start small by asking if they've heard about "insert current outrage and it's real explanation here". Then change the subject to something agreeable and move on. If they try to argue just tell them to Google (give them a helpful phrase) and read with an open mind some of the diverse opinions that never make the 5pm news. I've grown to accept that most people aren't worth the investment in trying to educate them but I plant a seed in case there's some fertile ground.

I'd like to ask Conspiracy now when it became others responsibility to educate you.

Almost every time I see someone confronted with something that undermines their world view they ask those that are questioning it, to educate them.

Personally, that doesn't make any sense. Why would I want the one "fucking up my world view" to educate me? For that matter, why can't I do the same or better research in a more 'skeptical' manner rather than being supplied with the "obviously biased" views of my discussion partner?

I just wanted to know r/conspiracy's take on this knee jerk reaction, not only from the mainstream, but within science, skepticism, atheism, and within our own culture.

Lack of evidence for most of the claims made here.

Not really in complete agreement with you, but the sentiment that we should not be so sure that we have all the answers is a healthy one.