For a short time, I taught a Healthy Living class for Community Health, which included some info about how to get your life on track. Interesting and appalling how much resistance that created in some of the students.
One fellow in particular, maybe 25 - 30, hard to tell because he was so fat, said he spent all his time sitting in a lounger chair playing video games. I detected signs of intelligence, gave him some encouragement to lose some weight, apply for work.
OH boy, he scurried back into his "I can't do anything" shell quick as a cockroach. Either he had been told he was an idiot from birth and believed it OR he was told to ACT LIKE an idiot to keep those bennies coming.
What a horrible waste of a life.
I bet his government keepers DO make it very hard for him to break away. They could easily make him believe he would fail . . . THEIR jobs depend on it!