The Mech Touch novel Chapter 709

"A word that’s closely related to indoctrination is brainwashing."

The good thing about brainwashing was that it sounded so obviously nefarious that the people subjected to them knew to put on their guard. This was why brainwashing only worked these days when accompanied by force or sophisticated technology.

Indoctrination, which was brainwashing’s marginally more acceptable cousin, worked more insidiously because few students were sober enough to put up their guard when it happened.

Teachers taught knowledge. Yet nobody said this knowledge consisted of pure, unbiased facts and widely-accepted beliefs.

Sometimes, even if the scientific community came to a consensus on those widely-accepted beliefs, a deviant thinker might have come up with an even better theory, but failed to gain acceptance due to existing inertia.

In fact, many researchers faced a lot of doubt and skepticism, especially when they came up with radically new or subversive beliefs!

"Once upon a time on Old Earth, people believed their world was flat. A visionary known as Galileo came up with the theory that it was round, yet did the people and the established institutions believe him? No! They called him crazy!"

An uncountable amount of visionaries, scientists and inventors faced the same storm of criticism whenever they advanced something new that was out of the scope of the public’s imagination.

Even the initial emergence of mechs almost flopped due to the universal ridicule their inventors received. If not for the heroic efforts of the pioneers along with the emergence of the MTA, mechs would have never become humanity’s principal war machines of the Age of Mechs.

The point was that almost every scrap of advanced knowledge was mired in some form of controversy or another. The advancement of cutting-edge knowledge at the forefront of the sciences resembled a chaotic battlefield where scientists ruthlessly fought to convince others of the validity of their beliefs!

If the researchers managed to convince enough of their peers that their beliefs had merit, it transformed into accepted theory. However, these success stories became exceedingly rare at this day and age. Researchers had to climb over millions of failures and thousands of rivals in order to gain acknowledgment from the scientific community.

"The lucky ones spend as much time in converting others to their beliefs than performing actual research." Ves observed. "Those with worse luck have to spend the majority of their time on gaining new converts."

Convincing intelligent, self-confident peers who held their own set of beliefs often turned out to be an up-hill battle. Researchers looking to gain support for their beliefs either had to come up with something decisively convincing, or they could start with defenseless children.

Young students attending universities and recent graduates looking to specialize even further became the favored suckers for these kinds of desperate researchers. They were smart enough to possess potential but lacked the accumulation to guard their minds and retain their original thoughts.

"People in my age group and life phase are prime targets for indoctrination!" He uttered as his eyes widened in realization. "Our foundation is deep enough but our minds are still too shallow, leaving us ripe for the picking to any researcher who wants to build up support!"

By necessity, these researchers became proficient in indoctrinating students and the like with their complex, multi-layered research publications. Anyone who hadn’t sufficiently kept up their guards became slowly more sympathetic to the viewpoints espoused by the researcher.

They were being indoctrinated without knowing it because they forgot to think critically!

It wasn’t as if the more unscrupulous research publications prodded their readers to cast doubt on the beliefs espoused from within. Research findings along with statistics could be presented in a myriad of deceptive ways.

"Almost every researcher is taking part in this race. Modesty will get them nowhere, not in a galaxy filled with rivals who can catch up to them at any time."

This pattern went on for thousands of years, spanning multiple Ages and continuing to thrive so long as researchers continued to convert more followers. At this stage, the scientists have become incredibly skilled in the art of indoctrination.

"You could say that teaching has become indistinguishable from indoctrination at this height."

Ves felt sad when he came to this conclusion. When Ves injected knowledge in his mind after purchasing various Skills and Sub-Skills from the System, he never truly encountered something controversial.

Now he realized that the System only dabbled in established theories and widely-supported models. This enabled him to assimilate the purest branches of a given field, but cut him off from the most cutting-edge of research. It also blocked him from immersing himself in more advanced applications of knowledge that had not yet gained acceptance.

"It’s like I’m designing boring mechs. They’re safe to pilot and come with rounded performance, but they’re too bland for many people to like. Confining myself to established theories is as colorless as eating a nutrient pack each day. This is no way for me to excel."

Mech designers were often attracted to extreme pieces of knowledge. They willingly embraced unsupported beliefs as long as they could use it to design better mechs.

It all centered around their design philosophies. If they wanted it to bloom, then they were practically compelled to seek out unorthodox sources of knowledge. The reason why higher-ranking mech designers became eccentric was because their design philosophy was built on a foundation of beliefs!

"Every design philosophy is a house of cards! It only takes a single shock for all of it to collapse!"

Ves understood now what he was dealing with and how reckless he approached the issue. He toyed with knowledge beyond his ken, unaware of how insidious they wormed their way into his mind.

The main issue facing Ves right now was that he lacked sufficient depth and understanding in the fields of stealth tech and ultracompact energy storage tech. How could be maintain a critical mind if Ves lacked the prerequisite knowledge to base his judgement of what he read?

"It’s like I’ve mastered parts one to three of a book series, but now I’m saddled with someone’s version of part fifteen! I’m missing too much in between to provide me with a good foundation on what is going on in part fifteen!"

The result was that Ves had to take the latest author’s word for what truly went on in part fifteen, because Ves lacked the content to call out potential inaccuracies or cast doubt on dubious passages.