> I would suggest that this is change, not a norm in the last few decades.

Propaganda is not a new thing and the reason it was and is widely used is because it works.

"But it would not work on smart people like me, but only on millenials or ...". Hint: If everybody considers themselves smarter than average...

I don't think there is a change in skills to handle this. I think that what happened is that now information travels so quickly while the variety of information sources people consume has decreased.

Before people had time to think about news and talk to people with different views and get push back. That additional friction slowed the spread of misinformation and guaranteed it would mix with the information. When given both, a sufficient portion of the population was able to determine which was which. Then these people could moderate the discussion with targeted persuasive arguments. Sure, a lot of people still believed the misinformation, but they were less confident about it.

Now the information and misinformation travel separate channels. By the time they meet odds are the people involved are already emotionally invested in one or the other.

> I would suggest that this is change, not a norm in the last few decades.

I am not so sure that we changed so rapidly. It would also make sense that this is not new, and it has just become more apparent in the last few decades, as people have been increasingly communicating with with more other people than ever before.

I think the vast majority of people never had the reason/opportunity to acquire critical thinking skills. It has been discussed by philosophers hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago, so I think it's safe to assume it's not new.

But regardless, I believe the real issue here is that we are not doing much to teach people to think critically.

What makes you think this is different? I think this process is baked into the structure of our brains and is part of the inherently biased way our brains operate.

> How did we get here

Everything about modern American culture; a nation of throwaway everything. Throwaway food, throwaway tools, throwaway friends, throwaway jobs.

> and how do we "break out"?

I dunno but maybe listen to and work to solve the things people complain about?

Income inequality, global warming, healthcare including mental health, education, penal system, politics