There’s an actual exercise where the speaker actually tell a series of lie while nodding their heads and eventually the crowd will start nodding their heads as well.
Then the speaker would tell a series of truths while shaking their head and eventually the crowd would shake their heads as well.

It goes to prove that once people have their attention captured their minds are vulnerable as well and once you have those then your reality will soon become theirs.

I don't think your fairly annoying people are right.

one can only hope.

note that "perceived" is the operational word in your understanding. perceptions can change, and not ONLY by mass movement. one can wake up to objective reality, assuming we're not all dreaming ourselves and each other; it is certainly paralyzing to imagine so, so we assume the pavement or farmland underour feet is real and keep walking. given that little caveat and tossing it aside, ideas aren't things. things are things. it's okay to keep knowing there are no gods, even though other people imagine there is at least one.

g