General consensus is that normies are naive, brainwashed, believe everything the news tells them etc, etc... But is that really so? Maybe they are not as dumb as we think they are? Maybe most of them know it's a lie, they just choose to go along with the narrative?
Sure, there always will be some who are genuinely duped, but I'm not sure it's the majority. Like, when covid was going on, I met a lot of normies who publicly went along with the narrative, but privately it was obvious that they are not afraid of the scary virus at all. They didn't admit it out loud (even privately), but their actions were telling that (at least on some level) they know it's bullshit.
I find this thought a quite dark and depressing one. That would mean most of the people are happy to accept a lie and live with it just because it offers them some sort of benefit or simply because it's easier that way. Maybe this is why getting the truth out is not as effective as we'd like it to be. Also, that would mean mass awakening is probably not forthcoming, because there's nothing to awake from. Normies for the most part are already awake. They just don't care.
Normies don't believe anything. I've come to realize most people do not have principles, values, and thoughts. They are animalistic in nature, acting on instinct and then rationalizing it posthoc. As an example, most people may say they are against trannies because it is a perversion of nature or against God, but from what I've observed the majority of those people start from the point of "ew this is disgusting to me" and then rationalize their disgust with principles they do not always keep, but are convenient now. It seems to be the minority of us that evaluate first to inform our opinions (not to say we can't have instincts either, but still my beliefs are downstream from thoughts and values whereas for most they seem to be downstream from instincts and desires which are later rationalized).
Point here being, normies do what they want, if they crave security and acceptance they will believe anything and won't think anything of it
Yeah, but will they actually believe? Or will they just make believe?
They don't have actual beliefs, not in the way you or I might, so that's a difficult question to answer
I think I know what you mean and you could be right. Usually we assume that for most people thought process is more or less the same, but that might not be the case. In other words, NPCs really might exist.