How about, they were both utterly terrible?
Like, what does it matter?

British Empire were shits, enslaved people, stole relics/art/wealth, murdered people, tortured people, probably experimented on people.
Nazis were shits, enslaved people, stole relics/art/wealth, murdered people, tortured people, experimented on people.

The Nazi’s atrocities are certainly better documented.
Both because they are more recent in history, and because they were the losers. The winner’s atrocities were less likely to be documented throughout history.

I think both are rational (consistent with or based on reason) it is just that one of them is using the right premises.

Man, I had a whole thing typed out when I re-read what you wrote.
I’m assuming you mean “aliens are real” is the false premise here…
Because I’m glad I re-read. I had massively mis-interpreted your comment!

2… [Snip]

The way to teach this is critical thinking of “follow the money, follow the power”.
And it’s pretty murky.
I’m fairly certain “ban plastic straws” got so much traction because it diverted from actual issues.
Fishing nets cause more issues and pollution. People now hate pasta straws, and blame it on environmentalists.
Oil companies divert attention for another 5-10 years.

Maybe I’m just cynical.

The 3 things to fix:

1. Our collective feeling that things aren’t going well
2. Our general distrust in current authorities
3. Our collective belief that an authority is good/necessary

…

Also if we want society to be less susceptible to this we need to fix one or all of the three things

Ok, so:

1. Fix things that aren’t going well (or make people feel things are going well).
2. Have authorities we can trust (or make people trust our current authorities).
3. Reject authority (or make people believe that needing authority is a good thing).

I have no idea what you are trying to say.
It all seems really wishy-washy.

But I agree that people aren’t stupid.
I mean, on average, at least half the people are stupid. By whatever metric that is.
Chances are - however - they are irrational.
Despite all the evidence, they still want something to be true.

Irrational:

If you describe someone’s feelings and behavior as irrational, you mean they are not based on logical reasons or clear thinking

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/irrational

99% of conspiracy theorys are irrational.
By the time you know about a conspiracy theory, it is probably being tested and will likely be disproven. Or it has already been tested and proven to be wrong. Otherwise the conspiracy/theory would be a working scientific theory.
Believing otherwise makes you irrational.

Look at LK99. Huge deal, claimed proof, seemed legit. Within 2 months it was disproven to the satisfaction of the scientific community.

Now there will be stories about LK99 being legit, and the “scientific community” (read government) rejecting it because UFOs are going through US court whatevers. And LK99 came from extraterrestrial origins, or whatever.
This is irrational (edit: as pointed out in a comment, this is actually rational. It follows logic. But it is based on an irrational premise: that aliens exist).

Or … scientists made a mistake.
This is rational.

( Never mind the extremely infinitesimally small chance that extraterrestrial sentient life exists and coincides with our time, travelled across the universe and failed to survive an encounter with our planet (or that they successfully contacted only the government via means they were able to keep quiet, who then successfully kept that a secret). )

Rationality is different from stupid.
You can be stupid and rational.
You can be intelligent and irrational.