Steven Poole

Quassim Cassam’s analysis of “epistemic vices” offers a framework for understanding how political leaders can become arrogant, indifferent to evidence and resistant to correction. The review applies these ideas to the disastrous expectations surrounding the Iraq War and to Boris Johnson’s alleged contempt for truth and expertise, distinguishing such traits from mere laziness or deliberate lying. It also examines dogmatism, conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial and online misinformation, questioning how much blame ordinary people deserve when information systems and education fail them. Although the book persuasively diagnoses the problem, the review concludes that meaningful remedies remain distant while political leaders and public institutions continue to weaken society’s capacity for critical inquiry.

Ru Marshall’s biography presents Carlos Castaneda as a Peruvian-born fraud who invented the Yaqui shaman Don Juan, passed fabricated spiritual teachings off as anthropology and never admitted the deception. The books became major countercultural successes despite growing evidence of plagiarism and fakery, partly because their rejection of Western rationality appealed to 1960s and 1970s readers. Castaneda later built a high-control group around sexual exploitation, paid workshops, magical claims and increasingly extreme teachings, with several followers disappearing after his death. Marshall also explores Castaneda’s literary talent, possible family links to colonial atrocities and the broader cultural appetite for charismatic tricksters, conspiracy theories and challenges to accepted knowledge.

Steven Poole reviews Mark O’Connell’s Notes from an Apocalypse, a travelogue examining bunkers, American survivalists, billionaire retreats, Mars colonization, eco-apocalypticism and disaster tourism at Chernobyl. The book argues that preparations for catastrophe often express fantasies about social transformation, restored patriarchal roles or elite freedom from government, rather than fear alone. The review connects these ideas to the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump, Dominic Cummings and the growing visibility of conspiracy theories, while praising O’Connell’s blend of conceptual seriousness, humor and self-deprecation. Its central conclusion is that apocalyptic thinking reveals desires for either a final resolution or a radically renewed world, although catastrophe has always already arrived for someone, somewhere.

Steven Poole reviews Edward Snowden’s memoir as an account of his childhood interest in computers, his work as a systems administrator for the CIA and NSA, and his decision to expose US mass-surveillance programs including Stellarwind, Prism and Turbulence. The book’s strongest analysis concerns the corruption and inefficiency of outsourcing government intelligence work to private contractors. Snowden frames privacy as inseparable from freedom and urges readers to use tools such as Signal and Tor, while the review questions his treatment of the extent of the leaked files, his relationship with Russian security services and the propaganda benefits his exile provides Vladimir Putin. Despite these omissions, the memoir is characterized as thoughtful, readable and relevant to the expanding surveillance economy.

Martin Moore’s Democracy Hacked is praised as a warning about how technology companies have transformed digital platforms into systems for surveillance, targeted advertising and political manipulation. The review argues that Apple, Google and Facebook are extending their influence into healthcare, education, news and government while weakening privacy, social solidarity and democratic accountability. It links Russian disinformation and the Trump campaign’s voter-suppression tactics to the business models of ad technology, which reward highly engaging and often incendiary content. The review concludes that democratic societies should build transparent, publicly accountable digital infrastructure, citing Estonia as a model.

Laurence Scott’s book examines how technology, social media, smart objects, marketing and digitally mediated relationships shape contemporary experiences of reality. The review finds its prose imaginative and its discussion of Brexit, statues and smartphone-based literary interpretation occasionally compelling, but criticizes its claims that familiar phenomena are unprecedented, its reliance on shallow research and its academic mannerisms. The strongest material treats everyday communication as a form of literary criticism, while the book’s broader account of post-truth culture is judged less convincing.

Steven Poole reviews Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Skin in the Game, arguing that Taleb’s emphasis on personal exposure to risk produces valuable insights into finance, probability and political responsibility. The book is also portrayed as repetitive and bellicose, filled with attacks on academics, experts and ideological opponents. Taleb’s anti-intellectual style, libertarian contempt for political elites and machismo are compared with Donald Trump’s public persona, leading Poole to conclude that Taleb is both a genuinely insightful specialist and an intellectual whose views on nearly everything are treated by followers as authoritative.

False and sensational news, political lying and public distrust long predate the current post-truth era. Reviewing books by Evan Davis and Matthew d’Ancona, the piece argues that “bullshit” includes much ordinary indirect communication, while deliberate misinformation is intensified by political tribalism, corporate lobbying, institutional failures and declining trust. Facts and scientific knowledge are treated as socially mediated and open to revision, so simplistic appeals to “the facts” can deepen polarization rather than resolve it. The most credible response is not a government or industry truth police, but stronger source evaluation, skepticism, critical thinking and philosophical education, with readers retaining ultimate responsibility for what they believe.

Steven Poole reviews Daniel Dennett’s account of how evolution produced human intelligence and consciousness. Dennett argues that cultural memes, especially words, transformed brains into reflective minds, extending the idea of evolution as unintelligent design. The review praises the book’s wide-ranging treatment of biology, engineering, information and artificial intelligence, including its warning that people place excessive trust in computerized systems. However, Poole argues that Dennett leaves consciousness poorly defined and does not solve the Hard Problem of explaining how first-person experience arises from neural activity.

The article reviews books by Grayson Perry, Jack Urwin, Rebecca Asher and Tim Samuels that address an alleged crisis of masculinity. It argues that many supposedly male-specific problems—loneliness, workplace stress, emotional suppression and insecurity—are broader problems of modern personhood, while gender stereotypes are socially produced and reinforced through parenting and culture. The most constructive responses include more sensitive treatment of boys, emotional openness, paternity leave and healthy forms of social and physical activity. It concludes that redefining masculinity may be less useful than abandoning the category as a rigid social ideal, since the notion of a crisis in masculinity can itself reinforce male exceptionalism and patriarchy.

Wearables and wellness gadgets such as the Apple Watch, Muse, Neuroon and Pavlok promise better fitness, sleep, focus and productivity by measuring bodies and conditioning behaviour. The article argues that these technologies revive discredited radical behaviourism, replacing conscious thought and personal agency with algorithmic rewards, punishments and corporate data systems. It warns that workplace wellness programmes may make this loss of autonomy compulsory, turning people into digitally managed “lab rats,” while calling for open debate about whether technology-driven behaviour modification is socially desirable.

GPS provides extraordinary convenience and precision, but its reliability depends on imperfect maps, shifting reference points and vulnerable satellite signals. Originally developed for military targeting and navigation, it now underpins transport, precision agriculture, electricity grids and financial trading, creating significant risks if disrupted or hacked. The technology also enables extensive surveillance and may weaken people’s spatial memory, although it supports valuable applications such as earthquake warnings, weather forecasting, wildlife research and spacecraft navigation. Greg Milner’s book explores these technical, military and cultural dimensions while questioning what society loses by outsourcing navigation to digital devices.

David Wootton’s The Invention of Science argues that modern science emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries through a revolt by mathematicians and experimenters against Aristotelian philosophy. The book emphasizes the roles of religious belief, the printing press, new instruments, experimentation, and new concepts such as facts, evidence, hypotheses, theories, and laws of nature. It persuasively explains how intellectual tools and knowledge-sharing networks transformed scientific inquiry, while its claims about discovery and Shakespeare, along with its aggressive treatment of the 1990s science wars, are less convincing. Overall, the book is judged a richly researched and beautifully produced but uneven history of the Scientific Revolution.