Shows / Crisis in Perception
Crisis in Perception
Crisis in Perception is a long-form educational podcast examining how we misunderstand the world around us. Using books as entry points, each episode explores history, psychology, economics, science, and power structures to reveal how systems actually work—and why our perceptions so often fail. Clear, evidence-based, and non-tribal. Crisis in Perception uses AI-assisted tools for narration and synthesis in service of long-form educational analysis.
Episodes
Crisis in PerceptionThe Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong — The Price of Dietary Fear
What if much of our anxiety about eating is shaped not simply by nutritional evidence, but by a culture that turns food into a test of health, morality, and…
Crisis in PerceptionWinner-Take-All Politics — How Organized Power Shapes the Economy
What if America's growing economic divide is partly a story about who has the resources to influence government long after election day? This episode presents…
Crisis in PerceptionHow to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment, and How to Fight Back — The Silencing Tax
The internet can be open to everyone and still impose a much higher price on some people for speaking. This episode presents AI-narrated educational analysis…
Crisis in PerceptionFree and Equal: A Manifesto for a Just Society — Who Gets to Shape the Rules?
What if the central question of justice is not how much freedom or equality a society promises, but how its institutions determine who can actually exercise…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy — The Real Constraint
What does it really mean for a government to live within its means when that government creates the currency it spends? This episode presents AI-narrated…
Crisis in PerceptionDark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right — Jane Mayer
What happens when the financial resources available to a small group of donors allow them to build political influence that extends beyond elections? This…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America — Segregation by Law
What changes when residential segregation is understood not primarily as an accident of private prejudice, but as the accumulated result of public policy? This…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Anxious Generation — How Childhood Was Rewired
What changed about childhood in the early 2010s—and why did adolescent anxiety, depression, and social isolation rise during the same period? This episode…
Crisis in PerceptionInventing Reality: The Politics of News Media — Who Controls What We See?
Who decides which stories become news, whose perspectives deserve attention, and which questions remain outside public debate? The influence of journalism may…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World — When Ideals Serve Power
What if the most reliable way to understand foreign policy is to examine what governments do rather than what they claim to believe? This episode presents…
Crisis in PerceptionHow to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict — Trust as a Weapon
What makes a democracy vulnerable to information warfare? The answer may have less to do with sophisticated technology than with the fractures already running…
Crisis in PerceptionBowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community — Why We Stopped Showing Up
What happens when the institutions that once brought neighbors together begin to disappear—and what does their decline mean for democracy, trust, and…
Crisis in PerceptionEverything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World — Why Evidence Can Mislead
What if one of the greatest obstacles to understanding reality is not a lack of evidence, but misunderstanding what that evidence actually tells us? This…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion — Morality Binds & Blinds
Why do people become more certain of their moral beliefs even when confronted with reasonable arguments that challenge them? This episode presents AI-narrated…
Crisis in PerceptionManufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media — How News Is Filtered
What determines which events become major news stories, whose perspectives are considered credible, and which questions remain outside mainstream debate? This…
Crisis in PerceptionAttack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America — When Lies Become Political Power
What happens to democratic self-government when public trust in elections, institutions, and independent evidence becomes a target of organized manipulation?…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together — The Drained Pool
What happens when racial division convinces people to accept less for themselves rather than share more with others? This episode presents AI-narrated…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies — The Cost of Being Wrong
What if one of democracy’s weaknesses appears not when voters are ignored, but when their mistaken beliefs are successfully translated into policy? This…
Crisis in PerceptionWhat’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America — The Backlash Paradox
Why do political movements sometimes deliver economic policies that appear to conflict with the material interests of many of their supporters? How can…
Crisis in PerceptionPoverty, by America — Who Benefits from the Invisible Welfare State?
Why is government assistance so visible when it supports the poor, yet often nearly invisible when it benefits the financially secure? This episode presents…
Crisis in PerceptionNickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America — Why Working Still Leaves People Poor
What happens when working hard is not enough to afford the basic necessities of life? This episode presents AI-narrated educational analysis based on published…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things — When Fear Distorts Risk
Why do extraordinary dangers dominate public attention while everyday risks remain comparatively invisible? This episode presents AI-narrated educational…
Crisis in PerceptionWhat If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures — Making Climate Solutions Work Together
What if the greatest challenge in addressing climate change is not discovering new solutions, but reorganizing the systems that determine whether existing…
Crisis in PerceptionNineteen Eighty-Four — How Power Takes Control of Reality
What happens when political power controls not only information, but the evidence people rely on to distinguish truth from falsehood? This episode presents…
Crisis in PerceptionFacing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays — When Duty Overrides Judgment
Why do people sometimes carry out actions they privately recognize as wrong? This episode presents AI-narrated educational analysis based on published sources…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t — Why We Defend False Beliefs
Why do we sometimes defend beliefs more fiercely as the evidence against them grows stronger? This episode presents AI-narrated educational analysis based on…
Crisis in PerceptionMindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America — When Politics Goes Private
When political messages are tailored to private psychological profiles, what happens to the shared reality on which democracy depends? This episode presents…
Crisis in PerceptionThe People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism — Who Gets to Define Democracy?
Who decides when the political demands of ordinary citizens represent democracy in action—and when they become a threat to democratic order? This episode…
Crisis in PerceptionPeak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines — Can Growth Escape Resource Limits?
What if modern economic prosperity depends on an extraordinary period of cheap energy that cannot continue indefinitely? This episode presents AI-narrated…
Crisis in PerceptionOne Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy — The Rules Behind the Vote
What determines whether an eligible citizen can actually exercise the right to vote? Beyond campaign messages and voter preferences lies an institutional…
Crisis in PerceptionNoise: A Flaw in Human Judgment — When Expert Decisions Become a Lottery
What if the difference between a fair decision and an unfair one depends on which expert happens to make it? This episode presents AI-narrated educational…
Crisis in PerceptionWhy We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being — How Belief Builds Our World
What if the most powerful force shaping human civilization is our capacity to imagine realities that do not yet exist? This episode presents AI-narrated…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics — Who Really Holds Power?
Why can leaders survive politically even when their decisions undermine the welfare of the people they govern? The answer may lie in the hidden structure of…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone — Why We Confuse Access with Understanding
What if much of what we think we know actually exists in other people's minds? This episode presents AI-narrated educational analysis based on published…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life — When Lies Feel True
Why do people sometimes become more committed to a belief when the evidence begins to contradict it? This episode presents AI-narrated educational analysis…
Crisis in PerceptionReleasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves — When Belonging Becomes Control
Can a person surrender independent judgment while believing they are exercising complete freedom of choice? This episode presents AI-narrated educational…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark — Why Skepticism Matters
What protects our judgment in a world where convincing explanations are often easier to find than reliable evidence? This episode presents AI-narrated…
Crisis in PerceptionProfit Pathology and Other Indecencies — Who Pays for Private Profit?
Can a system be financially successful while becoming increasingly destructive to the society that sustains it? This episode presents AI-narrated educational…
Crisis in PerceptionMindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit — Can Profiling Reveal a Killer’s Mind?
Can the behavioral patterns left behind at a crime scene reveal the psychology of a killer—or might our interpretations tell us as much about our own…
Crisis in PerceptionCredible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers — How Power Shapes Belief
Why are some accounts of sexual misconduct subjected to extraordinary skepticism while others receive an almost automatic benefit of the doubt? This episode…
Crisis in PerceptionRage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger — Who Gets to Be Angry?
Anger is often understood as a personal emotion. But what happens when society decides whose anger is legitimate, whose is dangerous, and whose should remain…
Crisis in PerceptionSister Outsider: Essays and Speeches — Why Movements Reproduce Exclusion
Why can movements committed to liberation reproduce the very hierarchies they seek to challenge? This episode presents AI-narrated educational analysis based…
Crisis in PerceptionEqual Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home — The Invisible Work of Running a Home
Equality at home is often measured by who does the chores. But what happens when one partner remains responsible for planning, remembering, and managing…
Crisis in PerceptionUnequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age — Who Really Governs?
What happens when citizens possess equal voting rights but unequal influence over the policies that govern their lives? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where…
Crisis in PerceptionWork: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots — Why We Still Work So Much
Humanity has never been more productive. So why does work still dominate so much of our lives? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems…
Crisis in PerceptionDemocracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government — Identity and the Vote
What if elections do not primarily translate citizens’ policy preferences into government? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Technological Society — When Efficiency Becomes the System
What happens when efficiency stops being a means and becomes the standard by which society organizes everything? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we…
Crisis in PerceptionInventing the Enemy and Other Occasional Writings — Why Societies Need an Other
What if an enemy is sometimes not merely discovered, but socially constructed? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world…
Crisis in PerceptionThinking in Systems: A Primer — Why Structure Keeps Recreating the Problem
What if recurring problems persist because we keep changing what is visible while leaving the structure that produces them intact? Welcome to Crisis in…
Crisis in PerceptionWilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy — Anatomy of a Coup
In 1898, a thriving Black community and a multiracial political coalition challenged the established power structure of Wilmington, North Carolina. Within…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape — The Cost of Sprawl
What if the places we regard as normal are quietly determining how we move, spend, interact, and live? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the…
Crisis in PerceptionPlaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits — How Litigation Becomes Power
A lawsuit is supposed to resolve a dispute. But what happens when the process of litigation becomes a strategic advantage in its own right? Welcome to Crisis…
Crisis in PerceptionDo We Have A Center? — The Systems Behind Political Polarization
America's elections increasingly resemble contests between opposing political camps. But does that visible division accurately reflect what citizens believe?…
Crisis in PerceptionToo Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation — Growth Meets Limits
What happens when a civilization becomes so confident in technological progress that it struggles to recognize the physical limits supporting its prosperity?…
Crisis in PerceptionLiving in the Long Emergency — Can Growth Conceal Systemic Fragility?
What happens when an economy becomes increasingly dependent on the same financial and energy arrangements that may be making it more fragile? Welcome to Crisis…
Crisis in PerceptionUnequal Protection — How Corporations Gained Constitutional Rights
How did corporations come to possess constitutional protections, and what does that transformation reveal about the relationship between economic power and…
Crisis in PerceptionHoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth — The Media–Power Feedback Loop
What happens when the relationship between a president and a news network becomes so intertwined that each begins shaping the other's version of reality?…
Crisis in PerceptionLandslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency — When Loyalty Filters Reality
What happens when political power becomes increasingly insulated from the information needed to exercise it responsibly? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where…
Crisis in PerceptionHow to Raise an Antiracist — How Children Learn Race Before We Talk About It
What if children begin learning about race long before adults deliberately teach them anything about it? Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the…
Crisis in PerceptionThe Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control — The BITE Model
What happens when political allegiance becomes intertwined with identity, belonging, fear, and the information a person trusts? Welcome to Crisis in…