There's a weird phenomena at play where ignorance has been advertised as a virtue and willful ignorance can be used as a superiority or virtue signal and used t

There's a weird phenomena at play where ignorance has been advertised as a virtue and willful ignorance can be used as a superiority or virtue signal and used to socially position people above others in the same way that other beliefs and belief purity tests end up harming the believer. It seems to be fed by a bizarre ecosystem of pseudo-information that fill the minds of people and discourage critical thinking -- and maybe plays on some desire for social belonging to a group with secret knowledge. I remember reading some papers and articles on this and how it kind of hacks the minds of people by playing to base insecurities. Critical thought is not really a natural state of humans, so it can be very easy to subvert.