Mental Immunity

Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think

De: Andy Norman

Narrado por: Charles Constant

Why do people reject science and believe online conspiracy theories? How are people radicalized online and go on to commit acts of violence? Why is our society so politically polarized?

Astonishingly irrational ideas are spreading. Covid denial persists in the face of overwhelming evidence. Anti-vaxxers compromise public health. Conspiracy thinking hijacks minds and incites mob violence. Toxic partisanship is cleaving nations, And climate denial has pushed our planet to the brink. Meanwhile, American Nazis march openly in the streets, and Flat Earth theory is back. What the heck is going on? Why is all this happening, and why now? More important, what can we do about it?

In Mental Immunity, Andy Norman shows that these phenomena share a root cause. We live in a time when the so-called “right to your opinion” is thought to trump our responsibilities. The resulting ethos effectively compromises mental immune systems, allowing “mind parasites” to overrun them. Conspiracy theories, evidence-defying ideologies, garden-variety bad ideas: these are all species of mind parasite, and each of them employs clever strategies to circumvent mental immune systems. In fact, some of them compromise cultural immune systems – the things societies do to prevent bad ideas from spreading. Norman shows why all of this is more than mere analogy: minds and cultures really do have immune systems, and they really can break down. Fortunately, they can also be built up: strengthened against ideological corruption. He calls for a rigorous science of mental immune health – what he calls “cognitive immunology” – and explains how it could revolutionize our capacity for critical thinking.

Hailed as “a feast for thought,” Mental Immunity melds cutting-edge work in science and philosophy into an “astonishingly enlightening and productive” solution to the signature problem of our age. A practical guide to spotting and removing bad ideas, a stirring call to transcend petty tribalism, and a serious bid to bring humanity to its senses.

Disappointing

The title sounded promising. The attacks and use of political examples make it lose credibility and appear more like an attempt to gain popularity.

Awesome

I am listening to this again and look forward to playing the reasoning game with friends and family.

I was hoping for an in depth psychological profile

I was hoping for an in depth psychological profile to q anon and Donald Trump's supporters, what exactly is wrong with them, why they do the things that they do, are they evil? Do they have a Mental Disorder? Do they know that they're wrong? Are they just trolling us in real life? Is it greed? Is it racism? I was hoping he had talked to people who either believe in Q ANON and/ or had voted for Trump or both. But they are hardly mentioned. After doing years of research on my own, this book basically just tells me the things that I already know. There's not too much new information, and if you're already an aware person who has done shadow work, has empathy and compassion or asks yourself why you believe or why do the things that you do, you are willing to take a new evidence and change your mind when new evidence found is presented then you probably don't need to read this book. Unfortunately the people that do need to listen to it and learn how to think critically and listen to science/facts probably will never listen to this book. It's like an alcoholic they can't get help until they admit that they have a problem. Ultimately those who have voted for Trump or Q ANON will continue to believe the lies and live in their own altered reality, so we must start with the children. We need to implement critical thinking into schools, using discernment, basically changing the entire model of education that's telling you what is true, and what you need to believe. We need to teach people how to access information, discern what is true/what is real, what is verifiable, and then make judgements as to what is needed. Teaching empathy, sociology, humanities getting in touch with nature, there's so many things that could fix these problems, but until people are willing to make the changes and do the work ourselves in order to be the change we wish to see, many will continue to believe misinformation. Hopefully social media sites will be regulated more and the spread lies/misinformation will be reduced. I returned this book because it offered me no new information, and it's very repetitive, it probably could have been cut down a couple chapters if he took out what he repeated multiple times.

Deceptively Obvious

Brilliant information and rationally argued on the logic; but glaringly unapplied by the Author. The obvious progressive liberal views overflow and pollute the very principles presented.

Narrator and punctuation

This book is great; really interesting and engaging. I found myself pausing what was just said to process the idea. So what is my problem? The narrator has a nasty habit of running over full stops. That sounds petty - I'm sorry. Full stops (periods) are an important part of writing, speech, storytelling and yes, narration. The brilliant work that Andy Norman has done writing this book is severely hampered by this rookie mistake. Following is my review with the punctuation removed...

This book is great really interesting and engaging I found myself pausing what was just said to process the idea so what is my problem the narrator has a nasty habit of running over full stops that sounds petty I'm sorry full stops (periods) are an important part of writing speech storytelling and yes narration the brilliant work that Andy Norman has done writing this book is severely hampered by this rookie mistake following is my review with the punctuation removed

Annoying right?