Yeah I sometimes call it mind rot. I often refer to it as a mental or mind virus too.
Just like most illnesses it has a lot of unpleasant but different symptoms depending upon where it occurs.
That's why I bother arguing with them. It is rare I wake someone up. Yet when I do they usually become quite amazing. It is much like people surviving an illness then having an immunity.
Education is the only place we might be able to confer that immunity without them having to live through it. Yet right now the Education System is one of the clusters of illness that is spreading it everywhere else.