Epstein, Thiel, Trump and the Danger of Conspiracy Theory
The worst corner of this flourishing conspiracy culture amounts to a deeply regressive view of the world. It denounces immigrants as the advance army of some hidden globalist agenda. It calls Black Lives Matter activists liars and Soros-paid actors, while the victims of mass shootings and their grieving families are condemned as fakes. It
... See moreAnna Merlan • Republic of Lies
Technology companies drove the survivors into a mindset of engineered efficiency—the belief that data tells you everything of value. “Just like the tech companies, journalism has come to fetishize data. And this data has come to corrupt journalism,” Franklin Foer writes in World Without Mind. “Once journalists come to know what works, which stories
... See moreGeorge Packer • Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal
The worse reality becomes—the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment sky-rocket—the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill
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