also, i absolutely reject this pesimistic view.

history is replete with examples of humans figuring out they were duped and putting the perpetrators to the guillotine. ok, maybe not so much in recent history but a society that has no defenses against this shit is on the downhill to extinction. and there has been many of those, not gonna say that some peoples just utterly fell for it. but even of those, a remnant escaped and learned from it.