Recommend this book.

This book needs to be read by everyone no matter your political or religious beliefs. In it you will learn what and how scammers, liars and manipulators work and more importantly what you can do to resist.

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Informative and objective

Well done Laura and Patrick. This book is easy to read and very informative. It presents many ideas that were new to me about how to guard against being manipulated by the usual suspects.

The narrator did a good job of delivering the content in an engaging way. I just wish some one had told him how to pronounce some of the basic words he mangled. It was a bit jarring at times.

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Very Informative and Well Written

This audio book was excellently narrated and well written. It gave me an insight into the various methods employed to nudge and coerce individuals/groups towards a certain viewpoint or action. I was surprised by the level of sophistication employed at times by both well intentioned and malevolent actors.

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This book confirms your suspicions...

Good listen and informative.... When it comes to the media in its hydra like aspects..... ts all about control.

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A must read or listen too

It was illuminating to see my self described in one of the early chapters in the book. I have always been regarded as a maverick and very hard to influence. I am now even better equipped to resist and fight back against so much of the nonsense pedalled these days. A top class pie e of analysis and means to resist.

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Scary, but so much truth in it.

I felt depressed listening to this book, but it contains messages we all need to hear about how we live our lives and engage with the world around us. I hope that, by being more aware, I may at least have a degree of choice in what I allow to influence me.

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Take back control of what and how you think

this book is very well narrated, well researched, and draws from a number of historical and contemporary sources to chart the progress through the ages in how our thoughts are manipulated to achieve control over us for good and bad reasons. it helps us spot the techniques and be more avoid them. each chapter ends with 3 or 4 practical things we can do to take back control of our minds

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1 person found this helpful

Not what I was hoping for, but it is trying to be

I've been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for about 5 years. It's one of those books that is so deep and detailed that there is always something to take from it. I have 3 copies, One is kept on the book shelf, one copy I take everywhere with notes made on the pages each time I find something to go back to, and one copy to lend out to others as I recommend the book so much.
Like Dr Bronowski (Ascent of Man) Thinking Fast and Slow is a life-changing book. From Thinking Fast and Slow I have learned a number of ways of tackling life problems, An example is forcing the use of System 2 and being aware that it's easy to fail into using System 1 if you are not paying attention.
I've been looking for books to help me know how to look at information well, particularly news from TV, Newspapers, and Social Media. And given that interesting people like Rory Sutherland and Lionel Shriver made comments on the back of this book I was hoping this book was it. But, it is not. It tries to be. It does push a number of agendas along the lines of X/Twitter hot button issues which is sad because if you can get past those you do get to some useful information. The book will take an interesting point, point out that the data on this issue has faults then make a point using it. Which just makes reading this very hard. An example is in Chapter 2 "Stand your ground" it will show One organization using an Availability Cascade but not other examples from other pressure groups. It leaves you with the impression that Brainwashing is being done by the authors and so the point is tainted.
But they do a great job of finding manipulation techniques and great examples of people like magicians and journalists where the techniques can be found then at the end of the chapters the rules are useful.
In summary, I had to wade through lots of the author's hot-button views on minority issues, for example, Toxic Masculinity, Covid Denying, Sex kinks, and Drag Show Story Time, when I just wanted to understand methods of pushing a narrative being used by all sides. The best thing I learned from the whole book was "think about what they are not saying" and "look where they don't want you to". In the meantime I will go back to Thinkin Fast and Slow.
PS an example of what I was hoping to understand is the Motte-and-bailey fallacy which would have been amazing.

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Nothing New But Great Reminders

Interesting collection of mind opening topics and info you might have heard before, regardless it's great to have it in one place as a single resource to return to time and again.

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Very relevant in today's world!

If you'd really like to understand how advertisers, politicians and other parties influence your decision making on a daily basis this is the book for you. Explained in very simple terms using some helpful analogies and metaphors I found this book filled with insights and useful strategies to counter some of the methods used to manipulate people. Very well researched, I bought this book after listening to A State of Fear by Laura Dodsworth, which is also an excellent read focussed primarily on the Covid-19 pandemic. I'd strongly recommend listening to both books.

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