Here’s the thing: you can believe you can fly unaided. You can convince yourself that it’s true. Your friends can tell you that it’s true.

But when you go to the top of a building and jump off, you will fall.

So what does it mean when those in charge make decisions based on made-up information? We may all soon find out what it’s like to hit the pavement…

What We Cover

* The eight levers of power—and why controlling knowledge sits at the center

* Jeff’s shameful participation in coal company manipulation.

* Why firing statisticians and promoting vaccine denialism follow the same pattern

* How to spot reality manipulation in real time (who benefits, what’s the quality of evidence, can it be disproven?)

We start off with the 8 levers of power and the current focus on Masters of Influence and then we move on to the dirt.

Because this episode is a confession of sorts. Jeff talks about work he did for a coal company, work that involved creating doubt, not through scientific study but perception. They perfected the playbook first written by Big Tobacco, which lost not because people were dying of cigarettes but because they admitted people died of cigarettes.

This strategy has evolved; now everybody gets their own strategy. Trump fires statisticians for the wrong numbers, RFK junior has decided that he knows more about vaccines than 99% of educated doctors in the world. That’d be fine if it weren’t your life he was messing with.

Here’s the thing: physics is physics.

Reality doesn’t care about your perception, your bias, or your beliefs.

Gravity works whether you accept it or not. Viruses spread regardless of your Facebook profile. Climate change accelerates even if you throw a snowball on the Senate floor.

The problem: humans are terrible at perceiving reality accurately. We trust our senses even when they mislead us. We see correlation and assume causation (hello, vitamin C). We make decisions based on incomplete information (Germans not allowing yeast in beer). It’s in that gap between perception and reality that manipulation thrives.

The scientific method exists precisely because we can’t trust perception. Double-blind studies, peer review, replication, these aren’t academic niceties. They’re the tools we use to move beyond bias and get closer to what’s actually true.

So when someone tells you “scientists are lying for grant money,” ask: who actually profits from the doubt? Scientists make their reputations by disproving established science, not confirming it. But fossil fuel companies with billions in infrastructure? Wellness gurus selling “vax-free baby” merch? They profit from the lie...

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Why This Matters

We’re living through a wholesale assault on shared reality. Controlling what people believe to be true is the ultimate power move.

This isn’t left vs. right anymore. It’s reality-bound vs. reality-optional. And the stakes couldn’t be higher because while you can debate politics, you can’t debate reality.

Or, well, you can debate reality, but reality always wins. The question is how much damage we do to ourselves before we accept it.

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—Jeff & Joe

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