[jidar]

It's not terrifying. It's how people are, and it's destressing to me that so few people seem to be aware of it. No amount of explaining what confirmation bias is will convince people that drones in the sky aren't aliens.

The people who have looked behind the curtain and come to this realization about people and their behavior tend to be the ones who make the skeptic community, so we have that going for us at least.

[AtlasBarfed]

The fundamental issue with skeptical truth and science is that it is boring in terms of mass market marketing.

Combined with the inherent anti intellectual bias of most of America inherited from the nerd hatred of us high schools, reality has no chance against fantasy.

Look at how newspapers treat science. Findings are held up like a freak zoo of "look at what the weirdo science nerds are saying now" as they sensationalize and warp things in the desperate need for clickbait.

So combine pseudoreality rules of media with pseudoreality of finance and economics, and the pseudoreality of politics, and reality simple doesn't have a chance.

[oceanplexian]

Intellectuals have the same blind spots. During COVID (At least the ones I worked with) made fun of the disease when it started spreading and refused to take it seriously, then did a complete 180 when their social circles took it seriously. And then did insane stuff like wipe down their groceries with bleach and obsessively washed their hands long after the science was clear that it spreading through the air.

No amount of intelligence will protect you from confirmation bias, authority bias, social proof, and the numerous other vulnerabilities we all have built in. Actually intellectuals are more vulnerable, since intelligent people tend to have a cognitive bias where they over-estimate their expertise in unrelated fields to their own.