Why does everyone seem to be wrong about everything?

In our age of information abundance, we're somehow less informed than ever. The "paper of record" occasionally records things that never happened. Social media algorithms have turned our brains into slot machines that only pay out confirmation bias. We've accidentally created a world where everyone gets to be their own pope, complete with infallible pronouncements about vaccine efficacy based on YouTube videos watched while eating cereal.

From the spectacular failures of major news organizations to the psychology of filter bubbles, from displaced religiosity in secular movements to the drama triangles that fuel our politics, this book explores how we've managed to turn the greatest information tools in human history into engines of confusion and division.

You'll discover:

• How media bias actually works (spoiler: it's about giving people what they want to hear)
• Why your brain is basically a biological conspiracy to make you feel smart while keeping you ignorant
• How social justice movements, political ideologies, and wellness culture function as secular religions
• Why "they wouldn't print it if it wasn't true" is the most dangerous assumption of our time
• How to escape your information bubble without losing your mind or your friends

Part media criticism, part psychology lesson, part survival guide for the digital age, this book offers both a diagnosis of our current dysfunction and practical tools for thinking more clearly in an age of overwhelming information chaos.

If we're going to save democracy, we might as well have some fun doing it.

"Born bad lawyers, we decide too quickly which side we're on and seek only evidence that confirms we're right. The phones in our pockets contain the sum of human knowledge—they should be the great emancipator of ignorance. Instead, they're just idiotic echo chambers."