What is the fastest way to shut down critical thinking and end conversations?
Utter the phrase common knowledge.
Used in a sentence: it’s common knowledge that there are two types of people in the world, “essential and nonessential.“
Repeated often enough, designer phraseology hypnotizes the mind until accepted as fact, without question or verification (i.e., Studies show…).
Common Knowledge = Consensus Science
Studies show… common knowledge is consensus science.
In science, the phrase “safe and effective” is common knowledge for products, treatments, or interventions that not only achieve their intended results but also do so without causing harm. No evidence required!
Since the 1950s, it is common knowledge that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. Soon after, “safe and effective“ drugs were prescribed.
More than 23 million people diagnosed with “depression” take prescription anti-depressants (i.e., SSRIs) every year… with NO evidence for this link. It is based solely on a belief. That’s 74 years of medical treatment for a diagnosis based on a hypothetical notion.
Common knowledge works because it is much easier when everyone agrees.
Even if people get hurt.
More than half of patients on SSRIs get no relief, and most suffer debilitating side effects, including violent behavior; suicide and homicide.
Common Knowledge = General Intelligence
Common knowledge is a road that leads to AI.
When computers learn human thinking (i.e., machine learning), the end of the road is the creation of a Hive Mind…
When Common Knowledge becomes General Intelligence.
AGI is when General Intelligence is considered Human-Level Artificial Intelligence (HLAI).
Why build a “human level AI” unless the purpose is to eliminate human intelligence altogether?
The decline of critical thinking became survivalist thinking, as noted in a 2023 article in Psychology Today.
The Cosmic Onion
With permission, I’m including a section from a blog published in The Cosmic Onion titled, “Common Knowledge Sucks” which presents additional insightful views.
1. Common Knowledge, the Elephant in the Room
“Common knowledge” is the most powerful idea no one ever examines. It sits in the room, massive and unquestioned, while conversations politely orbit around it as if it were furniture instead of a living animal.
Common knowledge isn’t knowledge at all. It’s agreement.
It’s what everyone is assumed to know, which conveniently means no one feels responsible for verifying it. The moment something is labeled common, curiosity shuts down. Asking questions feels unnecessary, even improper. Doubt becomes a social violation rather than an intellectual act.
This is how beliefs become load‑bearing without ever being tested.
Take something simple and familiar: fluoride prevents cavities in children. Most people accept this instantly. It’s repeated by dentists, schools, public health posters, and well‑meaning parents. Ask how they know it, and the answer is rarely experiential. It’s just what you’re supposed to believe. Questioning it doesn’t invite discussion; it produces discomfort. Not because the idea has been personally examined, but because it has already been socially settled.
That’s how common knowledge works. It doesn’t argue its case. It skips the reasoning and arrives pre‑approved. Once an idea reaches that status, evidence becomes secondary to compliance, and doubt starts to feel like irresponsibility rather than inquiry.
Most people don’t believe things because they’ve tested them against reality. They believe them because everyone else already does. The belief arrives bundled with social safety. To question it risks friction. To accept it costs nothing. So it spreads.
Common knowledge thrives on repetition, not accuracy. It doesn’t need to be true — only familiar. Over time, repetition gives it weight. It begins to feel solid, inevitable, even natural. People orient around it without noticing they’re doing so.
This is why intelligent, kind, well‑meaning humans can defend ideas that quietly fail them. The belief isn’t held consciously. It’s ambient. It’s in the air. It’s simply how things are.
And because common knowledge presents itself as neutral background, it escapes scrutiny. It doesn’t announce itself as ideology. It feels like reality itself. Questioning it can sound strange or extreme, not because the question is unreasonable, but because the belief has been insulated from inspection.
History is full of once‑unquestionable truths that collapsed — not under debate, but under contact with reality. They didn’t fall because someone argued better. They fell because the world stopped cooperating.
The elephant in the room isn’t that people believe false things.
It’s that everyone assumes someone else has already checked.
Why do some people fall for the “common knowledge” trick and others don’t? To continue reading the full 5 points, go to the Cosmic Onion website here, or see related articles.
Related past blogs:
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