Seriously, it's like the default setting of most normies is set to maximum trust. They just read something and immediately trust it. They are told something and they simply trust it. Just like that! Does not matter what exactly it is or how absurd or unbelievable it is. If said information comes from some percieved authority, they'll simply trust it!
Sure, after a while they might start to question some things, but the very default is immediate trust.
Other huge problem is the inability of masses to comprehend complex concepts. You can put all the information right in front of them and they still won't be able to understand anything. Even if they start to understand something, usually they revert back to fallback questions like: who are they, why would they do it, it's not possible for everyone to be in on it or - at the very least - it's simply not possible, because that can't be true.
Who needs censorship when the masses are so dumbed down and their thought processes are so inert that even given all the information sitting right in front of them they still seem to be completely unable to get it?
You're absolutely thinking of the same things I did as I moved along in my investigations. Perhaps I could offer another couple of key observations you can keep in your back pocket as you try to put the pieces together.
The first is that you have to recognize these are all the same people you grew up with, went to school with, worked with, and lived next to all your life, and until very recently you never noticed a problem with them at all. D's and R's, blue and white collar, rich and poor and middle class. If someone a decade or two ago asked you to point out all the normies you wouldn't even know WTF they were talking about.
But now there are stark faultlines, seemingly out of nowhere. I would suggest that those faultlines were not created but simply revealed. The normies were being told, well, relatively normal things, and that's what they accepted. We all just assumed from the outside that they arrived at those conclusions the same way we would have. Now they're being told all this crazy stuff, and that they accept such is evidence that no, no one would arrive at those conclusions through the conventionally accepted processes of reasoning.
The other phenomenon I would point to highlights the commanding role of the unconscious in their behavior. When you were a child, did anyone tease you by saying that you were adopted? You freaked out, right? Got angry, told them to take it back, and so forth. It was deeply upsetting.
Pretty much the same thing is going on when you tell a normie about 911 or COVID or the Moon landings. First, their subconscious determines that what you're saying is possibly or likely true. (If you tell them something ridiculous, like a guy you knew growing said he had a Dobby in his house, they won't react negatively at all. They may even want to know more.) But if what you say is true then that means all the people that control their world (the government, media, scientists, doctors, etc) are a bunch of fools, liars and murderers.
This is intolerably upsetting and their psyche has to find a way out. By far the easiest way out is just like it was when you were 9 years old: get increasingly aggressive until the claim is retracted. Voila, "safe" again.
The true nature of human consciousness is one of the biggest secrets I'm aware of, and that's because it's the main pathway to manipulating us. It's easiest to win a game if your opponents don't know they're playing, let alone the rules.
Those are some good points. Especially about normies of past being normal not because they've arrived at it themselves, but simply because they were told to behave normal.
One way of looking at it is that they've kind of outsourced most of their critical reasoning to some other entity and as soon as some other information arrives their subconscious gets its defenses up in no time. Actual reality or truth does not matter that much anymore. What matters, however, is whether that new information contradicts and/or threatens outsourced one. That's why ridiculous stories about Dobby are ok and even welcomed, while serious information about real life issues is a big no-no.
If you've followed it this far, the best way I've found to conceptualize their way of thinking is that it's inverted from what we all assume it to be. That is, they begin with the conclusion and engineer backwards through "moral principles" to "reasoning" to "facts". (Ever wonder why, for some, "my body, my choice" could just evaporate like the morning dew?)
They start with themselves being "good", and immediately after that they must have the "truth". Note that they didn't get reasoned into this view and it's virtually impossible to reason them out of it. Starting there and working reverse from the normal direction, they can find and fit whatever they require.
Even mainstream science touches on this phenomenon:
You create your own false information, study finds: People misremember numerical facts to fit their biases (ScienceDaily 12/9/2019)
As I mentioned, it's a big secret and so everyone just lightly brushes on it with their finger and never drives to the heart of it. When your "radar is on" for this kind of research and little factoids, you'll notice these types of confirmations too.
Ah yes, backwards reasoning. I've seen that a lot. To be honest though it's not limited only to normies, a lot of non-normie people do that as well. Especially Q types of people. Absolutely no matter what happens in the World it will all be twisted and turned over and backwards in order to fit already fixed conclusion that good guys, white hats or whatever are in control and we should all just trust the plan, which is going along well. Just two more weeks, guys!
I've noticed that same phenomenon, and that it has become quite common across the conspir-o-sphere. It's not quite as obvious and I haven't done much research, but it fits into the same model so there's a finer point to be made here.
I've mentioned that about 80% are normies, and we can think of them as "asleep". Then there are the fully "awake", which is maybe about 5%. In between are the "drowsy", struggling from one to the other. (And one does have to develop from one state to the other, because I was just going along with the flow of the normies myself for almost all my life.)
Anyway, it seems like the drowsy have become prevalent among conspiracy theorists. That's a good thing because it shows they are developing or "waking up". But as the normies are driven by the psychological comfort of conformity, the drowsy seem to be driven by the psychological comfort of "being right". They have got to be the smartest person in the room.
So with that goal established, they easily fall into all the traps of what we think of as normal cognition: confirmation bias, cherry picking, moving the goalposts, the list goes on. It's like, whatever new evidence comes along, the response is, "Called it!" What a psychologically comfortable place to be, eh?
And if you're wondering, what I conclude to be the driving force for the awake is the search for the truth. How wrong you were before and how uncomfortable it makes you is irrelevant.
I look back and realize I was wrong about almost everything I "knew" about the world. Had to pitch it right overboard and replace with it with things that would cause the vast majority to consider me a lunatic if they knew. Not at all comfortable.
And even the subject we have been discussing--that most of the world would technically be described as in a state of hypnosis or psychosis--is that welcome news? No way.