How gullible is the "average" person?

guisborough_rob said:
I taught A level Critical Thinking for a while and some of the students’ reasoning levels were, to put it bluntly, terrible. I remember one young lady thinking, because we live on an island, you could swim underneath it and really thought that the UK could be moved like a rather big boat.
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That's not gullible though. That's stupid.
 
Rauko said:
And the gormless fools replying are the ones who claim they " .. do their own research" and who are trying to "wake the sheeple up" ..
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Doing research now means reading stuff on the internet apparently, including Twitter/X

Twitter is "some bloke in a pub" for the 21st Century.
 
Frozen Horse said:
A majority voted for Brexit; many of them believed in "project fear".

I say pretty damn gullible. The new firm of gullibility is the proliferation of conspiracy theory: people are so convinced they are worth fooling, they find it easier to believe they are victims of conspiracy than they might be wrong.

Maybe the internet has made people "next level gullible": they're superficially cynical that they're prepared to believe anything about the person's motives.
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I'd say that believing people voted for Brexit based purely on "project fear" is in itself pretty gullible.
 
festa5 said:
Frequently seem to come across stuff on social media that looks dodgy (made up quotes etc) and the comments suggest many people take it at face value and don't question it at all.

Is this is a bigger problem in wider society than we think or just a small sample of the outliers? My mind is frequently blown by how easily some swallow the very transparent lies of politicians.

This video appeared in my Facebook feed. I mean it's very clearly a spoof in the style of the office. It's fairly amusing to be fair. But then you read the comments...... how do people possibly think this is real? 🤯.

www.facebook.com

Meet the builder who earns thousands from O.F. 🤑 | Meet the builder who earns thousands from O.F. 🤑 | By On The ToolsFacebook

Meet the builder who earns thousands from O.F. 🤑
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Brexit, illegals, single mums, kids with iphones, NHS-tourists, ECHR.....etc. etc.

As a deflection from corporate influence, elitist greed, tax evasion, tax avoidance, aristocratic influence and wealth, public school cliques, etc.

The latest gullible bus, stopping at a town near you is "Reform will solve all the immigrant issues and make britain great again"......and there are queues of white van Daily Mail reading men, blue rinse pensioners, 20 stone flag shaggers, and under educated racists just waiting at the bus stop to get on board.

Yes, the general public is highly gullible and always has been.


.....is this post maybe a bit demeaning of some sectors of society, yes! Am I fed up of the sh!tshow this country has become because of those people to the point of just not giving a F..., also yes.
 
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guisborough_rob said:
I taught A level Critical Thinking for a while and some of the students’ reasoning levels were, to put it bluntly, terrible. I remember one young lady thinking, because we live on an island, you could swim underneath it and really thought that the UK could be moved like a rather big boat.
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Saw a couple in Lanzarote looking over towards Fuerteventura she said “it’s not far is it, I bet they’re connected under the sea” 😳

I said to Mrs F ‘I hope they are or we could end up half way across the fkn Atlantic!
 
BoroMart said:
Brexit, illegals, single mums, kids with iphones, NHS-tourists, ECHR.....etc. etc.

As a deflection from corporate influence, elitist greed, tax evasion, tax avoidance, aristocratic influence and wealth, public school cliques, etc.

The latest gullible bus, stopping at a town near you is "Reform will solve all the immigrant issues and make britain great again"......and there are queues of white van Daily Mail reading men, blue rinse pensioners, 20 stone flag shaggers, and under educated racists just waiting at the bus stop to get on board.

Yes, the general public is highly gullible and always has been.


.....is this post maybe a bit demeaning of some sectors of society, yes! Am I fed up of the sh!tshow this country has become because of those people to the point of just not giving a F..., also yes.
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You also have to look at the other side though and realise that not everyone that votes differently to you does it because they are thick, racist, selfish or gullible. There is not always a right or wrong answer. There are things you prioritise above other things that other people don't and different people can come to different decisions with the same information. Believing that is just as gullible as them believing the things they do.

Too many people think their decision is right and they have to have a reason for everyone else making different decisions to them without stepping back and wondering if maybe the alternative view has some merits. The internet especially makes it very easy for people to find people that agree with them and then chase away and ridicule anyone that doesn't.
 
Time to dust off the old GK Chesterton quote: "When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything."

And I mention this as a devout atheist.
 

“No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”​

― H.L. Mencken

Replace 'American' with the country of your choice.
 
festa5 said:
Or were you gullible in thinking he was serious?

Tongue in cheek post and clearly a joke. Well maybe not that clear it seems......😂
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I wasn't sure whether it was serious or not so I checked the dictionary and at first could not see the word. This raised the possibility that the OP believed what they had posted rather than it be a joke.

On closer inspection the word it followed was gull meaning to dupe.

Thought I'd post to see what it would flush out.
 
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