How do I enlighten someone with no idea on what's going on?

reply to post by Em2013

Is it just best to leave them be and not try to enlighten them or is there a path that can open the minds of individuals? Rather, would opening their mind just cause chaos in their life? What to do and is this how the majorities think?

I don't start spouting about the government unless it's relevant to the conversation.
Some people have no interest in knowledge outside of what they've been taught by authority figures.

However, some of my favorite examples of government BS are:

1953 Iranian coup d'état (CIA Operation)
Operation Northwoods (False Flag Terrorism Plan)
Operation Cyclone (CIA Operation)

Urgh this is a reply to the post in general. My on and off girl friend is one for believing everything that's put in front of her. I've tried explaining my views on the world and some of the things I read on here. I dropped the '9/11 inside job' thought to her and I was labelled as disgusting for thinking that some government would do that to its own country

I also said about the bin laden death .. About the lack of pictures/no witnesses to the burial and yet when Saddam was caught he was all over the tv.

I've told her about Fukushima .. That falls on a plain looking face, even after I explained about all the leaking radiation.

Back ground on my gf .. She's in her 3rd year at uni in the UK .. Studying politics. Nuff said. I do believe people that any to be 'enlightened' will listen to what you have to say where as others just won't listen

Originally posted by Em2013
There's just so much going on right now and it's pretty sad to know that some people just don't know what's going on in the world, particularly in the US. Like, I want to explain to this person that S might HTF and the reasons why, some background history and so on but I've tried it before on another person but I failed miserably because they thought that I was insane for thinking that the government does this and that.

Where do I start? How should I phrase things? How much information should I divulge at first? What are the most important things that I should say? The proof is available, you never know what might happen a month or two or a year from now, and what happens to those that knew about nothing? And by nothing I mean they barely know the name of the president.

Is it just best to leave them be and not try to enlighten them or is there a path that can open the minds of individuals? Rather, would opening their mind just cause chaos in their life? What to do and is this how the majorities think?

I think its sad people have arrogance to believe they know more than others about the goings on of things they have never been involved with, the need to wake other up with their enlightening knowledge.

Do you know whats going on in the world? Are involved in decision making that will end/preserve lives of many?

Or are you told and shown whats going on in the world through media and other avenues?

If its discussion you want and not a class you want to teach maybe your friends will listen, when you try to teach that which your friends know you don't know its makes you look stupid in their eyes for implying they're stupid for not knowing what you know even though what you know might not be fact.

Confusing?

reply to post by Garkiniss


Very true...however, it is the discussion of religion and politics that sheds the light on what people don't know, which can essentially allow them to see it in a different way.

Discussion is healthy.

Originally posted by ThePeaceMaker
Back ground on my gf .. She's in her 3rd year at uni in the UK .. Studying politics. Nuff said. I do believe people that any to be 'enlightened' will listen to what you have to say where as others just won't listen

I always find people studying the topic you're trying to delve deeper on are some of the worse for thinking any further than the textbook. Students don't tend to think about where funding for their courses may have come from and how this can influence what they are taught. It's like animal care being funded by the pet food industry and pet pharma leads to vets strongly advocating these pet foods and pharmaceuticals, irrelevant of any other information put in front of them. Same goes for doctors.

Education information is highly diluted which is very worrying.

There are many good things that came out of this thread, particularly good points and ideas and I'll tell you how it went and maybe this information will be useful to you. First and foremost, I'm not necessarily their friend so ruining a friendship that isn't really there isn't really a big deal to me. I'm more or less interested in learning how to talk to people and convince them to take action, in a legal manner of course.

Now that that is out of the way, I'll tell you how it went. Well, I decided to just talk about what he thinks about the economy, and what's going on in general etc... He said he has no idea except he heard the economy is bad. I followed up by asking him questions about how he thinks things are happening and asked why he thinks that way. In short, he doesn't pay attention to the news and doesn't really leave his bubble but whatever he does hear from the news, he believes it.

So I explained about various low-key topics about politics and news controversies and it kind of went okay. Then I was going to step it up to stage two which was to talk about the president. This started out alright since the things I told him he was like "well, he seemed more like a mascot than anything so it's not too surprising". Seems like he understood where I was coming along but the more I dove deeper into the subject, the more he became defensive about it. He couldn't believe what congress and the president were doing, and so on and he said that there's no proof and I said there's plenty of proof and I'm willing to present that to you if you'd like. But he said that I don't believe any of it even if you show me because it's probably all propaganda against the government. I responded by saying, even if those are links from CSPAN and the Whitehouse? He said he didn't want to hear about it. So I asked why...

He asked me if it was wrong to believe that the government is doing something good because it's hard to trust anyone even the government these days. I said yes, it's wrong because you're lying to yourself and to others around you. He called me out and said I wasn't a patriot etc etc... So he became very aggressive at this point. So in the end, he doesn't want to know about the bad that the government is doing because he is scared of the truth and wants to believe nothing is wrong with the world.

He told me that I was a problem as an "ex-patriot" and I asked why, he responded by saying that I talk bad about America. Of course I explained there's a difference between America and our government which is supposed to work for us. He knew he was wrong and he was being very stubborn and he didn't want to say anything more because he doesn't vote or actually participate in anything and gamed the government for a living. He knows he can't claim I'm not a patriot at this point so he stopped with that. But in the end we learned something new. Some people just want to believe that there's nothing wrong with this world, even though they clearly know there is, and don't care about the consequences that follow their decision not to care.

This was definitively exciting and good information to gather I think. I hope this information was useful to others

Originally posted by Haze617
I tried telling my dad about fukushima and he basically told me to stop worrying about things that are so far away from me that they won't affect me. I just shook my head and changed the subject..So basically if someone is set in their ways they aren't gonna hear it anyways

A solider that liberated a death camp in WWII was trying to tell his mother about some of the strange things he saw in one of the "doctors" offices. His mother told him to stop that making up stories. He said he understood right there that he could never really tell her anything about what he saw.

Jerry Seinfeld said that the same jokes he does at the comedy club wont even get a laugh on the bus. You need a crowd that came to laugh and hear some comedy.

Take certain fields of study. Say UFOS. Lets say you like to study the UFO controversy. Fill that in with any subject you like. You learn how different it is to talk out on the street as opposed to going to a symposium or to hear a speaker somewhere with a group of similarly interested folks where the subject isn't discounted on its face but given some serious inquiry.