Utopias and dystopias, propaganda, and memory holes: Weekend reads for June 15, 2024

Lessons for the disinformation age from mouse utopias, Black Mirror memorials, anti-vaccine subterfuge campaigns, and more

Who’s responsible for the truth?

Our conversation earlier this week with the social psychologist and disinformation researcher Sander van der Linden got us thinking more broadly about the struggle to understand and defend what’s true. Disinformation and propaganda are everywhere, and whether it’s generated by a distant foreign power, distributed by a domestic corporation, or sent by a friend via your social network, your role is the same: think critically about the techniques employed in the message so you can figure out what’s meaningful and what’s misleading. There are forces out there trying to conceal and confuse for sure — but there are also lots of great people working on educating people how to cut through the fog of information warfare.

That's why we spend so much of our time here at The Ink talking to just those folks — the writers, activists, journalists, researchers, and academics who’ve made it their business to understand the operations of politics and power. And since we also do a ton of research on our own, as we do each weekend we bring our subscribers a collection of readings — this week, looking mainly at how powerful institutions have worked to conceal, evade, mystify, and manipulate. From false utopias to shadowy anti-vax campaigns from a disappointing source to stories of innovators hindered for who they truly were, to the strange tale of the invention of the notion of brainwashing itself, we hope these links will surprise, inform, and entertain you until Monday.

In case you missed it

We talked to social psychologist Sander van der Linden about what to do about deepfakes, how to inoculate people against propaganda, and what it will take to educate the next generation about threats to the truth. 

Subscribers can now listen to the full audio version of our conversation with author and policy expert Heather McGhee, about why reparations are an investment in the future, how Democrats can learn to reach voters, and why Trump is the only political leader in America who’s making meaning for his followers.

Feeling conflicted about backing Biden and Democrats in November over Gaza? Read what strategist Waleed Shahid has to say about how democracy in America really works before you vote for a third party.

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From the archives

Our thoughts are with Noam Chomsky this week, so we’re looking back at our still-timely conversation with the left titan from 2020 about backing Biden and continuing to push for change, along with his reflections on his own legacy.

Take Biden's campaign positions. Farther to the left than any Democratic candidate in memory on things like climate. It's far better than anything that preceded it. Not because Biden had a personal conversion or the DNC had some great insight, but because they're being hammered on by activists coming out of the Sanders movement and others.

After reading our new conversation with Sander van der Linden, check out our interview with Check My Ads co-founders Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin about their campaign to defund one of the biggest domestic disinformation outlets — Fox News.

We believe Fox News has an inalienable right to produce lies across its network. We also believe that advertisers have an inalienable right not to advertise on it.

And for graduates and those who support theme, we think Anand’s commencement address to his high-school alma mater will inspire, no matter how challenging the future may seem.

If we don’t claim our progress, the story of that progress will be turned upside-down and weaponized into a dystopian tale of groomers, wokeism, and critical race theory. We need to be evangelists for our progress, cheerfully spreading the good news.

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From our disinformation file

Lessons for the future from a utopia for mice

Humans are so much more complicated than mice. So if mice need challenges and obstacles in order to flourish, we need them all the more. People are not built for passive lives—and the tech billionaires who are chasing this (out of greed, not benevolence) are courting disaster on the largest scale imaginable. [The Honest Broker]