The brainwashing is a form of addiction, but comes with two major problems. 1) They are not aware they are addicted. This causes people to be easily groomed into an affirmed narcissistic state without even realizing what they are doing. This is like being told by everyone around you that you need to take a vaccine for your health and it turns out the vaccine is actually heroin. Imagine that all you see on the news is "take your shot, or you could get the virus" you'll feel withdrawls every once in a while and seek another shot. However, this happens in your brain even with information. The idea of safety is addictive and we, as people, seek affirmation to the point of requiring it as a chemical addiction. 2) Since peoples sense of safety is bound to the way they feel, and essentially need to rationalize their sense of dopamine with how they perceive others around them, making them require their sense of safety be attached to how they are affirmed by others. This causes them to re-broadcast the affirmation around them essentially peer pressuring those around them to slip into the infantalization and reinforces each others addictions. Consider drug addicts in a drug house and how they rationalize their addiction. The addicts pressure the non-addicts to "chill out" and join them in enjoying heroin. The newly addicted rationalize how they feel by re-broadcasting the same (virtue signalling). When one becomes aware of this issue, you'll see it all around you and will have hope for yourself. But, the peer pressure around you will easily cause you to slip back into the bubble if you're not constantly fighting it. The governments of these over crowded places use the agitation of the crowds to herd the populations into ideological bubbles that make them triggered to go out of and so more and more oppressive rules are applied. Now, corporations do this with media and digital phones and people keep slipping deeper and deeper into their own perfectly procured filter bubbles that they can't escape from. Facing reality becomes more and more stretched and more and more painful to face and people just beg to keep the lie going. It's like someone addicted to credit card spending, and the politicians keep delving out doses of credit to keep the lie going.