There is no shortage of information out there, so what's so special about this blog?

There may be no shortage of information, but there is a shortage of information about how to consume information, and how to act on it. Without this meta-knowledge, all the data in the world is of little use, because it'll be distorted by your biases, reshaped to fit your existing beliefs, and misapplied to rationalize your basest behaviours.

This information-hijacking is already widespread; instead of using data to grasp the truth, we're increasingly using it to distract ourselves from the truth, and the growing demand for delusion has begun to transform the internet itself, from a vast archive of human knowledge into a predatory amusement park that exploits our worst impulses.

The evidence is everywhere: in the corrosive tribalism that pervades social media, in the tawdry clickbait that fills once-reputable news outlets, in the conspiracy theories that gestate on message boards, and in the constant micro-manipulations by big tech companies to predict, control, and monetize our most primal behaviours.

I have seen the causes and the effects. As a former web developer, I understand how tech companies use information to manipulate people online. And having spent years stalking and studying one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the West, I have witnessed first-hand how dangerous delusions spread from mind to mind.

Bringing these two strands of experience together, this blog is my attempt to describe the myriad ways in which technology and psychology conspire to fool us, and to explore how we can withstand the covert assault on our senses.

Just as a glass prism unweaves light into its constituent colours, so The Prism will unweave popular beliefs into their constituent elements, revealing the delusions, biases and agendas that lie behind today's most alluring narratives—including the ones we tell ourselves.

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A guide to navigating the Digital Age

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Exploring the ways we're fooled in the digital age.