The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace.

It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.

In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.

Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent

Fake news is a way of persuading people of things even though there’s no evidence. Lying to you that the world is dangerous, or corrupt, or round.

Fake news used to only happen on April the first, but now it’s not just one day, it’s all the time. It’s a worse mission creep than Christmas.

Philomena Cunk, Cunk On Everything

People all over the world spend countless hours of their lives every week being fed entertainment in the forms of movies, TV shows, newspapers, the internet.

It’s ludicrous to believe that this stuff doesn’t alter our brains.

It’s equally ludicrous to believe that, at the very least, this mass distraction and manipulation is not convenient for the people in charge.

People are starving. They may not know it because they’re being fed mass-produced garbage. The packaging is colorful and it’s loud, but it’s being produced by people sitting around thinking, “What can we do to get people to buy more of these?”

They’re always selling you something. And the world—companies, governments, interpersonal relationships, all of it—is built on this now. And we’re starving, all of us. And we’re killing each other, and we’re hating each other. And we’re calling each other liars and evil.

Because it’s all become marketing.

We want to win—because we’re lonely, empty, and scared.

And we’re led to believe that winning will change all that.

But there is no winning.

Charlie Kaufman

Why am I watching all this shit? Because it’s not about the shit, it’s about me. So why am I doing it, and what’s so American about what I’m doing?

Why do we all feel so empty and unhappy?

I’m not saying that watching TV is bad or a waste of your time any more than masturbation is bad or a waste of your time—it’s a pleasurable way to spend a few minutes, but if you’re doing it twenty times a day something is wrong.

You’re performing muscular movements with your hand as you’re jerking off, but what you’re really doing is running a movie in your head, you’re having a fantasy relationship with somebody who is not real, running a simulation strictly to stimulate a neurological response.

When virtual reality pornography becomes reality, we’re gonna have to develop some real machinery inside our guts to turn off pure unalloyed pleasure or, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna have to leave the planet.

Because the technology is just going to get better and better, and it’s gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient. and more and more pleasurable to sit alone, with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money.

And that’s fine, in low doses.

But if it’s the main staple of your diet, you’re gonna die.

In a very meaningful way, you’re going to die.

David Foster Wallace

Ray: They’ve intentionally destroyed the public education system, because it’s easier to manipulate dumb workers, cops, and soldiers.

If I asked how you personally define a successful life, which of these answers would you choose?

A. A person is successful if they have followed their own interests and talents to become the best they can be at what they care about most.

B. A person is successful if they are rich, have a high-profile career, or are well-known.

Now, which one do you think most people would choose?

If you chose option A for yourself but thought that most people would choose option B, you are living under a collective illusion.

In private, most Americans don’t care about being famous. However, they think it’s the North Star for pretty much everyone else in America.

The vast majority of us want to pursue lives of meaning and purpose; yet we simultaneously believe that the majority doesn’t share our same values. As a result, we keep twisting ourselves into pretzels, trying to conform to what we falsely believe everyone else expects of us.

Your misreading of other people may lead you to become part of the problem without realizing it.

Todd Rose, Collective Illusions

What counts as an explanation—for everything from why our friend acts in such an annoying way, to why a project failed?

How can we tell the difference between events that are causally related and events that are merely associated with each other in time or space?

What are the characteristics of a good theory—in science and in everyday life?

How can we tell the difference between theories that can be falsified and those that can’t?

If we have a theory about what kinds of practices are effective, how can we test that theory in a convincing way?

How can we evaluate conflicting claims we encounter in the media?

And most important, how can we increase the likelihood that the choices we make will best serve our purposes and improve the lives of ourselves and others?

Richard Nisbett, Mindware

Nothin proper about ya propaganda
Fools follow rules when the set commands ya
Said it was blue, when ya blood was red
That’s how ya got a bullet blasted through ya head

No escape from the mass mind rape
Play it again Jack, and then rewind the tape
And then play it again and again and again
Until ya mind is locked in

Believin all the lies that they’re tellin ya
Buyin all the products that they’re sellin ya
They say jump, and ya say how high?
Ya braindead, ya gotta fuckin bullet in ya head

Rage Against Machine, Bullet In Head

In short, this story is about a person who fought with the tenacity of the damned to recover the use of his damaged brain. Though in many respects he remained as helpless as before, in the long run he won his fight. Writing was his one link with life, his only hope of not succumbing to illness but recovering at least a part of what had been lost.

From the patient: “I know there is a good deal of talk now about the cosmos and outer space, and that our earth is just a minute particle of this infinite universe. But, actually, people rarely think about this; the most they can imagine are flights to the nearest planets revolving around the sun.

As for the flight of a bullet, or a shell or bomb fragment, that rips open a man’s skull, splitting and burning the tissues of his brain, crippling his memory, sight, hearing, awareness—these days people don’t find anything extraordinary in that.

But if it’s not extraordinary, why am I ill? Why doesn’t my memory function, my sight return? Why does my head continually ache and buzz?

It’s depressing, having to start all over and make sense out of a world you’ve lost because of injury and illness, to get these bits and pieces to add up to a coherent whole.”

AR Luria, Man With Shattered World

Sean: I’ve gotta ask you about The Penis Mightier.

Alex: No no no—that’s The Pen Is Mightier.

Sean: Gussy it up however you want—what matters is, does it work?