[segfault88]

This is a quote from Carl Sagan:

> 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.

[andrekandre]

  > It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken.

religion and fandom can be like this as well...

[ethbr1]

The first step to getting out from under a charlatan is admitting you were an idiot.

Some people seem constitutionally incapable of ever doing that.