We are imprisoned in a global system of mind control created not by conspirators but by emergent, self-perpetuating, and self-serving sociocultural structures that subvert all agency except for the most trivial choices and won't die out because these structures are constantly competing for mind share and evolving to better exploit it, and if one structure dies another will replace it.
Consider religion. Christianity hooks people by playing on fear of death and hell as well as desire for eternal life, salvation and truth. Once it implants itself it burrows in, into mental habit, hijacking emotion. Eventually the believer experiences God, loves God and feels God's love, literally. It has hijacked the most powerful emotion we can experience to perpetuate itself. Through a few years the totalizing belief system becomes a perception of their world. They then are compelled to spread this belief system to others and their children, to spread the good news. And so it is with all religion, in various ways and degrees.
But even if traditional religion died out, it wouldn't matter. We have recently seen the fresh emergence of technology-worship in the wake of Christianity becoming less popular. Gods are promised as super-AIs that are beyond the limits of all humanity, benevolent machines that will save us. We will live eternally by uploading our minds. We will have limitless abundance as robotic servants do every task imaginable for us. We will ascend to the very heavens themselves in shiny spaceships and live among the stars. We will make Star Trek real. This is the atheistic religion of the technology consumer whose appetites know no end.
Nationalism, globalism, political ideologies and parties, socioeconomic systems, just look at how the Believers of these structures act, the mechanisms of control that act upon them, and you will see the truth of this. The Enlightenment myth is that we are rational actors, able to judge claims and ideas by reason alone, that being in error is merely a matter of ignorance, not having enough information. The reality is that we are usually ruled by our emotions, especially when our beliefs and perceptions are deeply ingrained. Because we are immersed in these systems of control our entire lives, we do not know otherwise, the illusion if our own agency can be maintained. We are able to choose between a vast array of products and services.
The economic world is effectively owned and/or controlled by large corporations and banks - socioeconomic entities that only have the purpose of persistence and profit. Even their investors are enthralled, owned by ownership. Most of the time pieces of corporations are owned by other corporations, and corporations may even own pieces of each other and indeed at the highest levels we find an enmeshment of ownership such that it is like a single corporation controls the core of the global economy: https://www.sg.ethz.ch/media/medialibrary/2013/12/james_glatteth-2007-02.pdf The super-rich aren't even in control.
We are immersed in consumer culture, from our birth we are bombarded by advertisements, marketing messages, and consumer media from all directions. It conditions us to focus on consumption, to love it. It plays on our basic reward and punishment mechanisms, giving buy highs, "buyer's remorse" and envy for not having. All of Maslow's hierarchy, every possible need is being serviced, including ones that cannot be commodified: buy this and you will be popular and belong, buy this and you will have self esteem and confidence, buy this and you will be like this celebrity, buy this will make you a good person in whatever way. Love and worship this celebrity, or hate and despise them, check out New Movie by Guy Everyone Loves. Just like religion hijacks all of human experience, so does consumer culture.
If you want peace of mind, reject all of this, as you will find easy to do. There is no way out of this matrix, one can understand their prison but cannot escape, cannot change it. The best one can do is to accept things the way they are, to find some measure of peace in their lives that isn't too enthralled by fed desires and fears.
If you want the red pill, you need to exercise awareness of your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and mental habits, and how they are influenced. Notice how hard it is to detach yourself emotionally when your most cherished beliefs are questioned or threatened, when someone simply says something you don't agree with. Ask yourself, which sociocultural structure is involved with this? Notice this in others as well. Once you cultivate this habit you will understand.