I’m trying to think what shattered the illusion for me… Weirdly, one of the first ones was when I was in high school, my Spanish teacher told me that in Spain, they had hardly any computers (she had just visited that summer). I told that to a friend of my dad, and he was like “uh… No, pretty much everyone has them”. Which wasn’t propaganda, but I think they was the first time I felt ashamed of my ignorance

Then in college, I was having a discussion about politics with someone from Paris, and mentioned offhand how it’s different because they’re a socialist country. He laughed and said “what? We’re not socialist”. That was pounded into me since elementary school, that the UK and France were socialists.

The guy owned a business, and I knew this and the fact he was fairly wealthy due to said business… And that’s when the illusion completely shattered, and I realized I was repeating shit I’d been taught without evaluating the information

Propaganda works. On all of us… It works less if you’re aware of it and examine your own beliefs, but that shit creeps in through the cracks. It’s insidious

If banning tik tok ends up galvanizing demand for healthcare reform I’m going to laugh my ass off

So I’m not crazy? I could’ve sworn I looked into it, and it was basically just a credit score where you also get dinged for police interaction or living with someone who committed a crime