“If some evaluation of circumstance or ‘news’ inclines you toward hopelessness, despair, fear, rage, shame or disgust — you have acquired a parasite whose ongoing dominance and presence depends upon a lie. The lie is that the hidden purposes of our interest in these evaluations neither inform nor empower: their purpose is assault, dismemberment, deception, torture, and inhibition.

If your evaluation of the news, your performance, or your prospects… or those of your cohort, nation or people of concern… inclines you away from creative, enthusiastic agency… you’ve acquired a parasite, and the way it continues the relationship is by the active invocation of nonsensically narrow perspectives that are carefully counterfeited to appear authoritative. And terrifying. Disabling. Hopeless. Or outrageous.

They are lies.”

— an intelligence agent