Provocative title. More accurate, but less surprising would be "A significant portion of a population were fooled by a charlatan offering simple answers to complex questions". That wouldn't be as salacious though.
But I'm very happen with what VoF did. The book has still been a huge annoyance for years though, and I've seen personally workplace accomodations based on its idiocy.
But if I'm allowed to generalize a bit myself, I would say that it's not more people than are swayed daily by political facebook memes or fake internet "news" publications with superficially professional design, regardless of nation.
Critical thinking is hard, and takes a lot of time to process, and we're continuously hit with increasingly more information that it's impossible to deal with. I hope that people smarter than me can create tools and models to make it easier.
But I'm very happen with what VoF did. The book has still been a huge annoyance for years though, and I've seen personally workplace accomodations based on its idiocy.
But if I'm allowed to generalize a bit myself, I would say that it's not more people than are swayed daily by political facebook memes or fake internet "news" publications with superficially professional design, regardless of nation.
Critical thinking is hard, and takes a lot of time to process, and we're continuously hit with increasingly more information that it's impossible to deal with. I hope that people smarter than me can create tools and models to make it easier.