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The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories
- The Psychology of Everything
- Narrated by: Tim Bentinck, Timothy Bentick
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
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The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories
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Publisher's summary
Who believes in conspiracy theories, and why are some people more susceptible to them than others? What are the consequences of such beliefs? Has a conspiracy theory ever turned out to be true? The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories debunks the myth that conspiracy theories are a modern phenomenon, exploring their broad social contexts, from politics to the workplace. The book explains why some people are more susceptible to these beliefs than others and how they are produced by recognizable and predictable psychological processes. Featuring examples such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and climate change, The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories shows us that while such beliefs are not always irrational and are not a pathological trait, they can be harmful to individuals and society.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By paro on 02-27-24
By: Ara Norenzayan
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Giving the Devil His Due
- Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 127
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 124
Who is the "Devil"? And what is he due? The devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have this for your own safety's sake, because his freedom is inextricably tied to your own. If he can be censored, why shouldn't you be censored? If we put barriers up to silence "unpleasant" ideas, what's to stop the silencing of any discussion? This book is a full-throated defense of free speech and open inquiry in politics, science, and culture by the New York Times best-selling author and skeptic Michael Shermer.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Flawed Audio
- By Private on 04-10-20
By: Michael Shermer
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A Lot of People Are Saying
- The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
- By: Nancy L. Rosenblum, Russell Muirhead
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new - conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum reveal how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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INSIGHTFUL
- By JaredENH on 04-30-19
By: Nancy L. Rosenblum, and others
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The Great Delusion
- Liberal Dreams and International Realities
- By: John J. Mearsheimer
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 448
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 374
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 369
In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dense, fact filled, sober analysis and prescription
- By John Brynjolfsson on 12-15-18
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Propaganda
- The Formation of Men’s Attitudes
- By: Jacques Ellul
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story5 out of 5 stars 38
From one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century comes a seminal study and critique of propaganda. Taking not only a psychological approach but a sociological approach as well, Jacques Ellul outlines the taxonomy for propaganda and, ultimately, its destructive nature towards democracy. Drawing from his own experiences fighting for the French resistance against the Vichy regime, Ellul offers a unique insight into the propaganda machine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent analysis on the dichotomies of propagandize media
- By Anonymous User on 04-03-21
By: Jacques Ellul
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The Science of Good and Evil
- Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
- By: Michael Shermer
- Length: 2 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
In The Science of Good and Evil, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores how humans evolved from social primates into moral primates, how and why morality motivates the human animal, and how the foundation of moral principles can be built upon empirical evidence. Along the way he explains the implications of scientific findings for fate and free will, the existence of pure good and pure evil, and the development of early moral sentiments among the first humans.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read by author
- By Gregory A. Townsend on 04-16-23
By: Michael Shermer
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The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,948
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,280
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,244
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
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Why Intelligence Fails
- Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs Series)
- By: Robert L. Jervis
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4 out of 5 stars 43
The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the belief that the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002.
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5 out of 5 stars
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It’s complicated
- By "btomaz" on 12-15-22
By: Robert L. Jervis
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Expert Political Judgment
- How Good is it? How can We Know?
- By: Philip E. Tetlock
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4 out of 5 stars 90
The intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq dramatically illustrate the necessity of developing standards for evaluating expert opinion. This audiobook fills that need. Here, Philip E. Tetlock explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events, and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Five-star book, one-star reading
- By Christian Tarsney on 01-23-19
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Moral Tribes
- Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
- By: Joshua Greene
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 635
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 530
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Story4 out of 5 stars 527
A pathbreaking neuroscientist reveals how our social instincts turn Me into Us, but turn Us against Them - and what we can do about it. The great dilemma of our shrinking world is simple: never before have those we disagree with been so present in our lives. The more globalization dissolves national borders, the more clearly we see that human beings are deeply divided on moral lines - about everything from tax codes to sexual practices to energy consumption - and that, when we really disagree, our emotions turn positively tribal.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Science, Bad Philosophy
- By Jacob on 10-27-16
By: Joshua Greene
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In Defense of Troublemakers
- The Power of Dissent in Life and Business
- By: Charlan Nemeth
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4 out of 5 stars 33
We've decided by consensus that consensus is good. In In Defense of Troublemakers, psychologist Charlan Nemeth argues that this principle is completely wrong: left unchallenged, the majority opinion is often biased, unoriginal, or false. It leads planes and markets to crash, causes juries to convict innocent people, and can quite literally make people think blue is green. In the name of comity, we embrace stupidity. We can make better decisions by embracing dissent. Dissent forces us to question the status quo, consider more information, and engage in creative decision-making.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Good Review of Group Thinking
- By J. Justice on 03-20-24
By: Charlan Nemeth
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Breaking the Spell
- Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 749
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 655
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 642
For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why - and how - it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Reader Actually Enhances A Great Book!
- By Don Caliente on 07-14-14
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Primates and Philosophers
- How Morality Evolved
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
"It's the animal in us," we often hear when we've been bad. But why not when we're good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality.In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Having Just Read...
- By Douglas on 12-14-13
By: Frans de Waal
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Strategy
- A History
- By: Lawrence Freedman
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 32 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 986
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 837
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Story4 out of 5 stars 827
In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Comprehensive 'Tour de Force' on Strategy
- By Logical Paradox on 07-20-14
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A Time to Build
- From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream
- By: Yuval Levin
- Narrated by: Ford Enlow
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 142
Americans are living through a social crisis. Our politics is polarized and bitterly divided. Culture wars rage on campus, in the media, social media, and other arenas of our common life. And for too many Americans, alienation can descend into despair, weakening families and communities and even driving an explosion of opioid abuse. Left and right alike have responded with populist anger at our institutions, and use only metaphors of destruction to describe the path forward: cleaning house, draining swamps. But, as Yuval Levin argues, this is a misguided prescription.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incisive and Illuminating
- By Jakob on 01-26-23
By: Yuval Levin
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Red Pill, Blue Pill
- How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us
- By: David Neiwert
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
Conspiracy theories are killing us. Once confined to the fringes of society, this worldview now has adherents numbering in the millions - extending right into the White House. This disturbing look at this alt-right threat to our democratic institutions offers guidance for counteracting the personal toll this destructive mindset can have on relationships and families. Author David Neiwert examines the growing appeal of conspiracy theories and the kind of personalities that are attracted to such paranoid, sociopathic messages.
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2 out of 5 stars
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little basis in logic and reality
- By Alex Martin on 08-27-21
By: David Neiwert
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Another Bloody Century
- By: Colin Gray
- Narrated by: David Shaw-Parker
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
Many nations, peoples and special interest groups believe that violence will advance their cause. Warfare has changed greatly since the Second World War; it continued to change during the late 20th century, and this process is still accelerating. Political, technological, social and religious forces are shaping the future of warfare, but most Western armed forces have yet to evolve significantly from the Cold War era when they trained to resist a conventional invasion by the Warsaw Pact.
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4 out of 5 stars
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a must read for those who study warfare
- By Austin on 01-21-24
By: Colin Gray