Bred to be lazy consumers
Overview
If those who crave power want the population to be weak it is easier to understand why existing societies manipulate their populations to not think rationally and act in ways that weaken themselves.
Animal nature
Our nature is to accumulate things and find opportunities in life to relax, this makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint where accumulation of things would aid in survival, and when life was hard on our bodies it was important to relax at any opportunity.
We no longer live under those conditions and these drives can be used against us to maintain hierarchies of power and control.
Examples
Education system
The modern education system for the general public was designed to develop a work force, not encourage truth seeking, it was designed by powerful people for a society they deemed productive, where most people don't think too hard, their lives are laid out before them (by the powerful) and questioning established habits are viewed upon negatively.
Education for powerful offspring differs in that it teaches how to manage resources and manipulate the workers to be more productive. Classics and philosophy, truth seeking, are integrated into the powerful's education so they have the tools to maintain power more than those born into lower classes.
Consumption is happiness
Politicians and private sector power wants people spending, consuming, focused on accumulation of unnecessary things, many of which purport to improving life but in reality decrease that consumers quality of life.
As the science of manipulation becomes more effective the constant promotion of consumption teaches the majority of the population, many of whom cannot afford it, that consumption is the only path to satisfaction.
Capitalists support this as it maintains a manageable flow of power into their control. Politicians and capitalists want this because when the population is focused on consumption and lacks financial freedom they are easier to control. Roman's used the term 'bread and circuses' to describe how to distract a population from the truth, the bread being consumption in modern society.
Big tech's optimization
All successful large scale tech platforms use a dopamine model to manipulate people into becoming addicted to their service, this model rewards laziness and consumption with content that caters to our animal nature.
Tech allows this manipulation to scale immensely, near real-time systems can present multiple tests to large samples of the population, analyse which are most effective, and make adjustments to achieve desired results.
Because these platforms are controlled by those in power the planned results are almost always negative for the people using them.
Passed down over generations
Most people do not realize the system and culture they grew up in has bred them to be lazy and weak as most lessons are passed down by parents and peers rather than overtly from a powerful class.
Like most changes in society this happens over a long time normally without clear planned conspiracies, but rather through motivations. Those who crave power have low regard for others and given the opportunity will manipulate the population to think less and be consumerists as it serves their position of power.
It does not take strong arguments to convince people to consume and be lazy due to it being in our nature, people then find ways to justify this behavior, including passing that behavior down to their. This creates a culture and social beliefs that span generations and are difficult to challenge.