STUFF THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

The hosts of the titular podcast translate their investigations to the page.

Among a spate of new books about virally strange ideas, among them Michael Shermer’s rather more insightful study Conspiracy, this one has a pointed purpose: By exposing bad and dangerous ideas while acknowledging their origins, the authors seek “to arm you with knowledge”—and, of course, knowledge is power. Aside from ignorance, the herd mentality, and bad-faith grifters, there’s also this stark truth: “Your government is lying to you.” Considering the web of lies surrounding the Trump administration, for instance, it’s no surprise that there’s a prevailing narrative that Trump operates behind a smoke screen in order to fight the “Deep State” and the dark forces that seek to enslave America, “the core claim of the QAnon conspiracy theory.” As the authors enumerate, behind weird paranoiac bugaboos such as chemtrails and UFOs, there have been numerous secret military tests repeatedly disavowed and then revealed to be true. Black Americans, in particular, have reason to be concerned that biowarfare is being waged on them. In addition to the shameful Tuskegee experiments, it’s true that AIDS, Covid-19, and other catastrophic diseases have taken a disproportionate toll on Black communities, a fact likely better attributed to systemic racism and classism than to a malicious government-backed origin. Feel spied on? You should, and there’s a truth behind it. Thanks to data monitoring, “a growing percentage of the US population—the vast majority—has simply given over access to their personal lives.” We are manipulated, lied to, and bought and sold—a particular bête noire of the authors is the adman Edward Bernays, propagandist extraordinaire—and scarcely have control over our destinies. Small wonder, then, that people believe in the bizarre.

A page-turning book to give to someone who believes in pizza pedophilia or that the Illuminati rule the world.