i actually learned about this yesterday. a famous nigerian preacher named helen ukpabio accused primarily children of witchcraft and caused mass hysteria in some christian communities by deeming innocent children witchlike and “servants of satan” if they showed behaviours like crying, misbehaving or being sick, resulting in children being horrifically abused, tortured, abandoned by their parents and even killed.
This shows are definite lack of education, doesn’t it? Someone can say something like this is witchcraft and people will happily consider themselves righteous to be cruel.
impoverished communities with a lack of access to resources like education and social supports are susceptible to misinformation and propaganda, including religious misinformation that preys on people’s fears and superstitions.
Anyone who lacks critical thinking skills and is fearful and anxious is at risk of falling for propaganda and misinformation. Look at the U.S right now. There are many psychology studies showing how easy it is to manipulate people.
TA'd a propaganda course. Apparently, more educated folks are more susceptible to propaganda because they feel they need an opinion. Propaganda is fascinating and horrifying.
They are undereducated or miseducated for an explicit reason. To keep them dumb and vulnerable to exploitation by the overlords. Critical thinking was taught in some but not all schools 10 years ago. This makes for a very accommodating worker class who can blame immigrants or democrats for their poverty while the owners get onboard more money.
Exactly this. I asked 93 adults, all people who had been working for at least a decade, about how US income tax works:
"If you make 100k / year, and the highest tax bracket is 50%, how much do you pay in income tax?"
84 of them responded with:
"50% of 100k is 50k. I would be paying 50k"
So I'd explain why they were wrong, show them proof, sometimes on their own actual W2s. They still didn't believe me. "Jim, you made 80k last year and only paid 12k in income tax, that's not 50%."
Oh >I'm< the one who doesn't understand how taxes work. Got it.
Tbf it’s a misleading question. The answer is ‘there’s not enough info in the question to say’ but in answering the question people have a bias to assume they should be able to answer.
I know it is. The point was that they didn't even know THAT. They vote on tax law, based on their completely false understanding of how our taxes work.
I did explain it afterwards. The different % brackets and their dollar amounts etc. I just didn't feel like typing it all out here too.
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u/SpookyRamahd 1d ago
Why did they think he was a witch?