or just pose or pretend to think
and go along with what some remote
thinker somewhere fed to the crowd

A few hours a day of really thinking
will determine "what choices we make in the next few decades." However, most persons, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices, (Knute Rockne said)
and if they don't like having that said about them, at least know it was said with love.