Believers Don't Want to Know - Politics 

Your efforts are not in vain Aron. Your work DOES have an impact. And you give comfort to the rest of us that need to know sanity hasn't left the world.

For people who claim to love freedom they do come off as being very pro-tyrannical.

This hits home. I was talking to an older friend of mine (in his 70s), and he would just bring up total bullshit claims about the democrats out of the blue. I told him that I had receipts about what he was talking about disproving it. He even so much as held it over my head like I was lying if I didn't disprove him. So one day I brought him a thumb drive with over 500 mb of materials on it (told him earlier I would), many of which were either corroborated with references or were video of the fact. When I presented it to him, his excuse was, "I don't need to see it." I told him I'd spent hours on it and he didn't believe me. That's when it pissed me off. I was like, "Oh, so you just get to say all your BS and I have listened this whole time, but I spend hours actually looking legitimately for relevant materials, and you won't even look at it." That's when I knew he didn't care about the truth.

Ms Crockett is a national treasure

"I can't understand being incurious." Me either. In the information age, ignorance is a choice.

Being incurious is a red flag.

If god was real, you wouldn't need belief.

Yeah I totally feel this...I was trying to show my mom an ape-to-human skull fossil record photo a couple weeks ago and she wouldn't even look at it. Willful ignorance. This shit is scary. PS: Jasmine Crockett is a badass!

That guys Ms. Crockett is questioning. His body language is so revealing.

Sorry to read about your death 165 years ago :(

Truth is the first victim of religion and an endangered species in politics.

It's always disturbing when, not only do the fascists come close to power, the people are willfully ignorant of it. I'm English, but this upcoming election in the US is one I'm more invested in than any UK election. I'm also concerned that whatever the outcome, there's likely to be serious trouble. For what little it helps to know that my thoughts are with all the good people of the States and I hope enough of them can see reason and not let that psychopath get back into the Whitehouse.

I'm right there with you on this... it makes me want to cry. My mother, before she died, also didn't want to hear it, even though she agreed with us. It was because it was too much for her to handle, but I had to continue trying to get the information to her, primarily because she had a friend that was MAGA, and to arm her with the necessary information to help her friend. I'm working on becoming a RU-vidr, so I can be another voice to fight this insanity, and I don't care if it is made Illegal, I will do it even if it gets me killed. It's fucking important!!!

Aron doing politics, great news.

We need to prepare for its potential ascension to law. While life goes on normally if it fails- we oughtn’t be caught off-guard in the instance that it does happen. The American Experiment must continue as it was intended, democracy and secularism included. E Pluribus Unum.

I gave up debating right-wingers years ago. Turns out I was the stupid one for not realizing that they just don't care about the truth, they want to believe what they want to believe and that's that. Even though I was very meticulous about citing my sources and giving thorough explanations of how they are wrong, they just don't care, even if they read through all of it. Seems their new slogan should be "my feelings don't care about your facts." If they could ever be that honest I would maybe have a modicum of respect for them.

"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." - Isaac Asimov

Protect the First Amendment; vote against anyone in favor of Project 2025.

“I don’t want to know” It’s so afterwards they can say what so many Germans did: “we didn’t know”

Scary stuff indeed Aron, this NEEDS to ge brought to everyone's attention. I am s Brit by the way but if America sneezes today we catch a cold tomorrow.

Educating the " don't want to know people" is the hardest job in the world

The problem is when people engage in lying so much, they expect _everyone_ is lying, and that therefore there is no truth, just a preferred position.

Separation of Church and State 🇺🇸

Can you make yourself believe ? Wait,...wouldn't that be make-believe ? Oh... I get it now....😉😂

Of the ones i've spoken with, it's true --they don't want to know

Oh hell yeah. AronRa doing anti-MAGA politics 🎉

🤔 I'm 43 years old and when I was growing up it was beat into my brain that part of our freedom in this country is the ability to use our own judgement and, as law enforcement is concerned, the responsibility to think about orders given without automated enforcement. They also told me that if law enforcement received orders that are harmful to carry out that it's their responsibility and duty to disobey those orders. Also told me that it's impossible for an internal take over in this country because law enforcement and the military personnel are our own fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. Now, I absolutely cannot believe the crap that I'm seeing.

Great video. I totally agree about incurious people. Trump supporters don't even have the slightest interest in fact checking anything he says. They just assume he's telling the truth or even worse they don't even care if he is.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan

Nietzsche’s - The Antichrist is One of the Best Books I’ve Ever Read! Pretty much every single page has some of the best arguments against Christianity or religion in general that I’ve ever heard!

Ms. Crockett, i like you

I feel your frustration about relatives so much. I live in Hungary where Viktor Orban has built an autocratic, borderline fascistic regime in the last 14 years. Every single time I tell my parents about all the horrible shit they've done to this country, I'm always, ALWAYS getting the same response back. "Well, who else do we have? Do you really think all the other politicians wouldn't just do the same thing?" Nothing gets through to them.

superstition - noun 1a: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b: an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition 2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary Merriam-Webster

Nowadays some get the political views from church. Preaching how this country was built on God's laws. Which is wrong and complete BS.

I have been spreading the info on project 2025 also. Its scary. The good thing is trump is very old. I don't believe he has the voters or will win enough states. Normal republicans have abandoned him. See you in November.

As a Canadian outsider that has little regard for my own Country's leaders, I still find it difficult that in a Country of over 340 million people, Biden, Trump and RFK (not JFK as I accidently typed at first) are the choices for president. Biden by far, appears to be the best of the 3, but I would be surprised if he will complete the 4 years if elected. Trump should be in prison and it is an embarrassment for the Republican party that he is their candidate. Anyone voting for him at this point should consider themselves traitors to democracy and the Constitution. RFK (not JFK as I accidently typed at first), well, just seems to be insane. A great Country like the USA deserves better choices from their government. I hope everybody that got their panties in a bunch over my accidentally typing JFK instead of RFK can sleep better now. I know it can be frustrating for people that are perfect and never make a mistake, to have to put up with us flawed human beings.

Keep up the fine fight. Unfortunately, many would rather believe in a lie than the truth. It's a war, trying to aid those whom we love in general.

The guy Ms Crockett was questioning had the posture and mannerisms in his responses that screamed 'why is this black woman allowed to question me'.

My path to naturalism was a whole lot of coming to terms with bad news, not only _memento mori_ that I am going to die only just around when I'm comprehending the whole thing, but also that the human species is just another critter among critters, and while we're clever and inventive (and are great at throwing and persistence hunting) we're still mostly migratory hunter-gatherers trying to pretend we're enlightened beings. But we're not, and we've a handful of great filters to navigate before we'll be able to work out technological solutions (or be replaced by our AI masters). And one of those bad news things is that we _can_ be rational and reason our way through a conundrum sometimes, but most of the time we'd rather just go by our feelings. I discovered this trying to understand why game companies crunch their development teams (that is, force them to 90+ hours / week overtime as a deadline looms, sometimes for _years_ ) even when we have recurring studies showing that productivity plummets during crunch, well beyond the benefit of the extra hours. It also kills morale and discourages skilled workers from applying to companies that crunch. So why do they do it? Upper management is not used to people disagreeing with them, and they want to _feel_ like they're doing something to accelerate progress. Worse yet, they don't do the actual things that boost productivity, like offering pizza, massages and other amenities _for doing such a great job_ since good morale _does_ increase productivity. My wife's job in construction, despite her run of titles, was generally personal assistant or _executive handler_ which is to say managing the feelings of the executives and owners, sometimes acting as a barrier when they wanted to hit someone or fire someone or do something rash when things are going wrong (often from circumstances or external shenanigans). She was chief administrator, but mostly professional mom. We are closer to our hominid cousins, or really all mammals, than we'd like to admit. And yes, some of us will create regimens to help us make rational decisions (or at least not make major decisions while outraged or drunk or horny.) So all those science fiction / horror movies about a regime using mind-control to turn people into zombies are true. They just use mythical identity history and thought terminating clichés and three minutes of hate against undesirables rather than technomagic video effects. And our billionaires are not immune, stuck addicted to number-go-up, so they will only act to make themselves richer, even as additional wealth can only be used to make more additional wealth at that point. They could become saints of Haiti, or feed the entire human population for a year, or deliver free high-speed internet to all the populated parts of the world (even remote mountains we're trying to summit). They could pump R&D money into curing cancer or fusion power (or better fission power), but no, all they can think about is more vaults of more lucre where they can swim like Scrooge McDuck. I'd like to pretend I'm enlightened to some degree, and I suppose I do seem to have a good assessment of the world, but we humans are cows pretending to be gods, and despite all our relentless mooing and grass-eating and pooping, it is, for most of the population, too cruel a truth to acknowledge our (proverbial) bovine nature, even though it is through self-awareness that we learn to rise above it. I, too, grieve for my species.

I never knew Aron was a time traveler who was born in 1962 and predicted that his own death would take place in 1859. You'll have to tell us what Stephen Hawking's party was really like sometime. EDIT: Holy shit this is wild, I didn't realise how bad it was getting for you folks over there in the US. Unfortunately much of my family's safety depends on US protection so I really hope things get less insane very soon.

Also, people keeo saying that Trump never talks about project 2025 so he must not be on board. He's talking about taking funding from schools that have vaccina mandates. Which is every single public school in the country. If you get rid of those you don't need a department of education. He's been working this into his speeches for a while

Blind faith makes you blind to the truth. Religion relies on blind faith and the grooming of children to not question people in authority. You must always keep an open mind to all possibilities because when you have an open mind, the answers will reveal themselves. Everything that you have been taught is the truth could be wrong, so you must keep learning and improving your knowledge and yourself as a person.

I sincerely appreciate you making this. I think it’s incumbent on all atheists to talk about the rise of Christian nationalism; no philosophical discussion could possibly be as important as the very real threat we face right now. I left Jehovah’s Witnesses because I saw the parallels between what Trump was doing and what my leaders were doing, and it’s a profound bummer to see so many supposed skeptics drink the flavor-aid.

Great work, thank you! One observation though.. the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 "Mandate" document is not actually a mandate.. in that it will never have its own authority to compel action. The 900 or so pages of the plan are like the BLUEPRINT for a prison facility, instead of being the prison itself. Every piece of this blueprint will need to be implemented by a sympathetic Congress, signed by a sympathetic President, and affirmed by a sympathetic Supreme Court. Skipping any step ("the plan authorizes the President to bypass Congress and do X.."..) will require SCOTUS affirmation if anyone challenges it. Still.. nobody should doubt that "Project 2025" IS a blueprint for a new "Christian Nationalist" government which will stop paying lip servide to the premise that "will of the people" and "consent of the governed" are the basis of government authority, and will instead designate itself as being "endowed by God" with "divine" authority to rule over all of us in perpetuity. Project 2025 is theocracy, folks...and as such, it is the polar opposite of representative democracy, and it is the ENEMY of our Constitution and all of us who are loyal to the Nation established by that Constitution.

I am trans, and my mom plans to vote for people who call me a ped****** because of that. She can't see reality anymore and that is scary

My father is absolutely incurious. My father was also a Baptist preacher.

I stopped talking to my family about it. Most of them have blatantly admitted to believing what they want over evidence.

AronRa, thank you and the other amazing atheist activists, secular humanist, and even the christians who understand evolutionary biology and still love their god, with no issues whatsoever. I hope that you know that you guys have given me a plethora of info for my educational needs. I spent a long time thinking that education wasn't as important as it should be, and should have always been. That's because of being raised around Christian folk who think and believe just like the ones you've dealt with for the last 20+ years. I salute you my dude! Thank you very much.

Thank you Aron for the increased political content. As some who doesn't care about the 'founding fathers' in that I do not deify them and see that we need to improve on what they started, as someone who believes we do need to change the constitution but through a process and vote by the people, as someone who wishes to see a society of humans who work together for the individual and common good, voices like yours are necessary to hopefully bring people back here to the present so we have a future and not go back to the past. If not, videos like yours will be used by 'radical, underground' movements in the future to rally around so as to bring down the oppressors in that possible future. We need to stop those oppressors now.

Man…the more I study project 2025, the more I’m convinced that if implemented, it will send us back to the dark ages, in terms of education and individual liberties.

I like to make believe, but there is a time and place for that. The real world doesn't care about what I want to believe.

I've had the same thing happen with family, all Christians. Along the same lines, they didn't want to know anything about me once I left Christianity.

And they say "Handmaid's Tale" can never happen in the US...

Every accusation is an admission, from The GQP.

I despise politics and the turmoil it often causes in relationships, but as long as any agenda proposed in project 2025 has a chance to become a reality I will actively vote against whomever supports it.

Ms Crockett is an absolute firecracker. I love her no-bullshit attitude.

Terrifying times ahead if this goes through. It's scary how they don't want to know or understand things and how they think we can drain all of our resources and life for corporations. And when it's all gone "we'll why didn't anyone tell us? What do we do now?" It's scary and sad

Fantastic video. Thank you. You are a good man

2 worst things that have happened to the planet is #1 religion, #2 petroleum industry.

My problem isn't that I don't want to know, my problem is that I want to know too much. More than I have time or energy for of learning.

My own devoutly religious sister-in-law openly admitted to me, "You just vote for the Republican." No research necessary. Pure, blind loyalty to the party, as if it was part of her church.

Sadly it seems a large enough group of people would rather allow everyone else to do the thinking for them. So, the greedy and the horrificly twisted step up and say "sure, i'll take the job!".

Atheism is freedom. Free to live as you please. Free to love as you may. Free to become better. Much love to you all!

G'day all. As i sit and watch this happening in your country I am glad there are still some people left with a brain in your government. Crockett is hopefully going to be around for a long time there. She is smart and fiesty and if what happened to Marge is something to go by capable of destroying people with just 6 little words. The best part about that was Gomer Pile missed it completely, still makes me laugh.

Aron is not trying to "reason" 19:28 with his family and friends... or else he would show BOTH sides of the Video... Aron shows the Congressperson's Interpretation... but NOT the counter reply argument. Well then, Aron is NOT trying to use balanced reasoning to reach his family and friends.

My older brother is a face punching wannabe Chuck Norris who ripped me off for years. No apology even. His friends are like aging proud boys. I had him spinning like a merry go round in front of mom in the backyard once and it was too easy. I didn’t toss him but I understand that if he tried the face punching thing again, he would begin to wish it never happened. I did punch him in the face once at age 9, and then I felt bad seeing him sliding down the fridge door crying as blood was leaking from his fingers, but if he was asked about that, he would say it never happened as i heard him say over the years. His friends would probably help him dump my body if they got involved.

It is sad and frightening to think about people who are entrenched in their beliefs. I am sure you are aware of studies that have shown that facts alone will not convince people to change their minds. People make many decisions based almost entirely on emotion, so for people who do their best to set their emotions aside when looking at a situation and make a decision based on the facts as they know them, it is incomprehensible that others don't. I grew up in the 60's and when people asked if what happened in NAZI Germany could happen here, the response was "that can never happen here". Fast forward 55 years and we are facing that problem that "couldn't happen here", and people still don't really believe it can happen, even when it is staring us in the face. The beauty of lying all the time is that when one actually tells the truth, people don't believe it. So when Trump and the MAGA Republicans say they want to create a Christian Theocracy people don't believe them.

I wish I could go back to believing. Life was simple, but I have this problem, I keep asking WHY! I have had a drive in me that since I was little that I need to figure things out. I'm just not wired to think something is true when it really isn't.

Intelligent people know that right wing and left wing are just 2 wings of the same bird .. both advocate for destructive and anti American ideologies .. if you find yourself rooting one way or the other .. you've found your bias

"I don't care!" "I don't wanna see it!" "Well, they all lie" God, am I too sick of hearing these statements and just so disappointed in hearing them. I agree with you; I'm perplexed at the lack of curiosity of many people and disregard for verifiable truth. This shit matters.

The truth is often time ugly. Some folks would rather believe a fairy tale instead (like some mythical time in the past when America was "great", and that there is a "God" who likes what they like and hates what they hate.)

I fear for my people in Mexico and my brothers in the US we seem to be going in the same direction politically, all power concentrated in one person or political party

Just pointing out the Ozzy Osbourne poster in the back for anyone who didn't notice

Oh my G…oodness! I had not investigated 2025. I heard it was not a good thing, but I had no idea. Thank you so much for my education. May I have courage to swim upstream of all my friends and most family, . who are confirmed maga. Pray (or wish) me luck. Ha

By the way, the Dunning-Kruger effect isn’t real. Their study was badly designed, and they’d get the same result for random data.

At what point does 1984 stop being fiction and become a documentary?

I like the intro! It sounds like a variation on Sabbath's Under the Sun.

I would love to see Aron Ra read through what Javier Milei has done with Argentina.

Fascism could never have existed if this attitude was not pervasive in people to begin with.

It's frustrating. Story after story comes out from Faux news, gets debunked immediately, and they repeat it over and over. People I care about watch that garbage and vote against their own interest. I didn't even know you were going to say that when I wrote that. I know how you feel though.

I feel your pain as I try to reach people through my posts. I can only suggest to keep fighting your fight, and don't give up. You will reach someone; be it family or not.

It's been extremely tough for me as well. When I was younger, I got into all these conspiracies... and I put my reputation on the line... and I told people about them, family friends, and eventually someone would say something that poked holes in all these conspiracies. At first I wouldn't look at the other side or try to debunk them - I was too busy looking for proof of it. Everything seemed to line up with the conspiracies. But over time I started to realize that almost none of these conspiracies were true. Yes conspiracies do exist, but they are few and far between and usually never the ones promoted in the main stream. But as I started to debunk all these conspiracies, all the people I left in my wake, started to believe a lot of these same conspiracies that I used to believe in and, like Aron - no one likes to verify their claims and admit they could be wrong. It's empowering knowing these conspiracies... that you know things that other people don't. But the difference is, I couldn't help but try to challenge them .. and when you do, they all fall down like a house of cards. So now in my life, about 99% of my family believes in all these crazy easy to debunk types of things. They ask my opinion and I tell them information they don't want to hear, because it goes against their conspiracy... it's just like religion. And because of this, it's made me dislike family... hanging around them ... or talking to them about anything because they are so closed minded. It feels there are very few normal people left.

Sen Crocket really puts it all out there. Project 2025 is the GOP saying the quiet part out loud.

Download that doc. Read it. Yeah, it's 920 pages. Use search terms if you must. Try small chunks at a time. Take some notes.Be afraid, be very afraid. Better yet get motivated.

It was on the news today here in New Zealand that Louisiana had passed a law mandating the ten commandments be displayed in schools I felt so sad for all those kids who have one more obstacle to rational thinking and inclusivity. Meanwhile our own (minimally compared to USA) right wing government is busy stripping the health system and also getting rid of "wasteful" programs ie anything that benefits lgbt, minorities, Maori or references Treaty obligations. I keep saying look at whats happening in the USA because that's what this will lead to here. Don't give up Aron I have been watching your channel since we first got internet (2008, this is NZ) you've given me hope many times, even when it is just that there are still good people in the world. I'm sorry about your family I volunteer to be an honorary Ra if you want more family as long as I don't have to hold a snake. Aroha to you and yours.

It should be called Project 1825.

At 0:36, "Aron Ra (1962-1859)". Aron Ra, inventor of the time travel machine?

I agree 100% with Aron on this... knowledge that is actually CORRECT has the most value. But I guess, to some degree, this is only true in terms of the UTILITY of what you know. I guess the situation is different if the main use you have for "what you know" is "comfort". Some people seem to actively avoid "knowing anything that makes them uncomfortable". And, to those folks, curiosity can actually be a deadly threat to their peace of mind. Personally, I derive SATISFACTION from "having the most accurate view of reality I can have". (And that satisfaction supersedes any comfort I might feel from believing "happy lies".) (I also find myself UNABLE to choose to avoid learning facts BECAUSE I find them unpleasant.)

I find it frustrating that there are only two parties. Out of all of the people in America, these two guys are who we have to choose from. 🤦

I was raised in a cult and have awoken, it seems, to find I have only shed one layer of the matryoshka doll of ignorance. My disappointment in human society is immense.

There is nothing more freeing than finally seeing the universe exactly as it is, knowing that none of that shit you used to believe was real. It puts you in a sense of peace and calm, because whether you fail or succeed in the goals and purpose you set forth for your life, it really isn't going to matter a million years from now. So just give it your best shot.

Thank you for existing

I have cried. Nothing I say or do gets through to them, and it fucking hurts.

Sorry to be pedantic, but I believe Nietzsche doesn't deserve to be in the crazy mustache club. That was the doing of his sister who was his caretaker while he was slowly dying from syphilis. It wasn't his choice or fashion. He just wasn't in his right mind.

The great irony of democracy is that people who don't care get to vote. And the great irony of American democracy is that they managed to turn it into an us-vs-them dichotomy where people vote for the party they vote for because they've always voted for that party and so did their parents and their grandparents and their greater family and that's who they vote for. If they included a paper test of stated policies and statements made during debates that you had to score highly on for your vote to count, more than half of the voters would probably fail, and it would be unconstitutional, but what it comes down to is that for many voters those things aren't determining who they vote for. That decision is already made.

Okay, is there a way to make fighting against this stuff a full time job? I don't have a way to produce video, but are there organizations looking for people in the OK/TX/MO/AK area? I'm trying to make fighting against this my job, my passion. It's getting to hard out here for too many people.

I am crying with you. My mother is a Trumper and stepfather is extremely conspiratorial and antisemitic.

Aron, hate to burst your bubble, but not everybody on the planet is going to agree with you on every single one of your opinions. The sooner you come to accept this, the sooner you'll come to be a happier person.

Aron, can you make that intro a little heavier? lol. Love your work man.

thanks for providing us with the link to the project2025. i can now read and show my american friends what i, the german, am afraid of to happen to the us. love your work! greetings from (currently) az