Labeled fantasy
I believe (and I try to avoid saying “believe” lightly) that people are fully capable of compartmentalizing the funky truths of fantasy and fiction away from the narrative/perceptual/quality truths that they use to get through their days.
This seems to be up for debate. The idea that the information we ingest as part of what we read and the games we play crops up like a Whack-a-mole periodically, with the most traction being when Tipper Gore convinced enough people that parental warnings needed to go on certain music.
It’s living and breathing today with book burning and removing books from libraries. Both are instances of neutralizing dissonant data in order to better support the interpretation wanted. In other words, it's a behavior of a low reality adhesion threshold trying to force reality to match interpretation. I don't think they understand that they are on the road to tyranny; however, that doesn't change the fact that every book burned or otherwise made unavailable is another brick on that road.
Again, we get to the quality of truth, even about truthiness, through critical thinking and triangulation. We have clearer triangulation on this problem because of our current politics.
Leg one: we aren't approaching our universe with the assumption of our fantasies
We’ve been watching for literally decades for base corruption from books and violence from games. Yeah, I know, the far right believes in it wholeheartedly. Again, I think transference is there: the far right has been utterly bamboozled by misinformation, and subconsciously believes everyone else is equally manageable.
They forget that they don’t believe Star Wars is real. They aren’t trembling in fear of getting above our atmosphere because we might stumble into the ongoing war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. They forget that they fully accept that movies like A Clockwork Orange and Soylent Green didn’t really happen in our past, that we’re not rebuilding from one of these dystopias.
We fully have the ability to compartmentalize fantasy from reality.
Leg two: perceptual truth has been compartmentalized as fantasy
By representing music, games, and books as creating violence and "gays", these people understand, maybe better than average, that the information in their perception skews how people approach our moment-by-moment problem solving. What's missing, though, is the triangulation. A pre-figured interpretation is unquestioned. The evidence of peace, like how teen violence has actually gone down, is ignored. Evidence of peaceful natures, happiness, and a prevalence of non-manipulation is set aside, because "that one story" was all the confirmation needed to fulfill their prophecy.
When people get in this mindset, that the broader patterns don't match interpretation is set aside. Triangulation and critical thinking is set aside — too difficult, too time consuming, too destructive to their mental models, or a hundred other reasons. That fantasy/fiction is already compartmentalized in the processing chain is ignored, too.
It doesn't stop the dissonance, so that dissonance is reattributed.
This has been done to massive effect with Trump — and this is part of the triangulation. We now see, on a mass level, through time, reinvigorated by a small break, that people can attribute “fantasy” to perceptual truth, and effectively derail the emergence of the quality of truth. Trump was stating his narrative truths on the political trail exactly what he intended to do these past few months. He was talking as a Janus figure about social security, letting people pick their preferred truth while intending "dismantle". People compartmentalized what they didn't want as fantasy.
There is an active aspect of human cognition that is willingly and actively discounted perceptual truth as fantasy, to facilitate their decision-making process.
Leg three: attributing fantasy as perceptual truth
For the last leg of the triangulation, I cite when people do believe in our fictions, and make those beliefs part of the ouruborus of perception — part of their processing chain.
So many people are befuddled when they hear stories of someone absolutely certain that they are living the Matrix. We can see them grasping to make sense of the shift, dealing with cognitive dissonance and attributing all kinds of imagined story to try to fold it into their sense of reality. These mistakes with clearly designated fiction affecting our decisions as direct interpretation (e.g., not symbolic) just don't happen that often. What's more revealing, though, is that this particular instance is in a liminal space between our boundaries of fantasy and simulation theory.
What few people seem to think about is the fuzzy edge of our sense of what-is-truth, and how easily narrative truth can slip to fantasy — and back again. Once a fantasy has slipped into narrative truth, all it takes is shaky use of critical thinking and triangulation for it to shift into perceptual truth.
Fuzzy spectrum, not a binary
We acknowledge that fictions are fantasy, and we can enjoy Star Wars and Soylent Green without making massive society shifts to manage the threat. We are fully capable of attributing a false ‘fantasy’ label to shared information that doesn’t align with their sense of reality, even after proven non-fantasy. We’re befuddled when someone loses that thread and does make massive shifts to their lives to manage a fictional threat.
People are fully capable of using fantasy and fiction to conjecture, troubleshoot, and just enjoy an idea. We have problems agreeing on when the fantasy/fiction slips into narrative/perceptual/quality truth, and when reductionist tendencies confuse the whole shebang.
There are a thousand ways to get from acceptance of misinformation to policing to maintain it. There is a part of us that can’t accept difference; can’t imagine the utter joy of making sense to yourself after a life lived in dissonance. Mirroring misinformation susceptibility (while denying it in themselves) makes sense to this cognitive pattern. It won't stop making sense until they can learn to think critically and triangulate, while working hard to set aside cognitive biases, which is most easily done with the intentional multiperception replication of scientific method. They have to talk with people they want to not exist, and actively try to understand their humanity outside of the perception of monstrousness. None of these skills are part of our standard education. They have been actively removed, and replaced with trust in the educational hierarchy and rote memory.
Simulation theory is actually the weak spot in this sense-making. In a way, that it's implicated in attributing fantasy to perceptual truth makes it even more interesting as a theory to dive into and poke at. It's on my mind, it will eventually shift my personal system of understanding, but I have no answers — just an information scent that there's a wobble in the system because of it.
There is still a good-enough-for-now truthiness embedded in here. We have a binary (true/false) to describe what is ultimately information evolution. Our language as it exists today isn’t up to the task while maintaining elegant and effective communication.
failing information states, garbage-in, ouruborus, processing chain, reality adhesion, reductionism
Kubrick, S. (1971). A Clockwork Orange. Warner Bros.
Burgess, A. (2011). A Clockwork Orange. Penguin Books.
...book burning...
Boissoneault, L. (2017, August 31). A Brief History of Book Burning, From the Printing Press to Internet Archives. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-book-burning-printing-press-internet-archives-180964697/
Wikipedia contributors. Book burning. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Book_burning&oldid=1284380348
Wikipedia contributors. List of book-burning incidents. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_book-burning_incidents&oldid=1286656616
Can it happen here? – the return of book-banning and burning in the United States. (2022, August 28). The Free Speech Project. https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/can-it-happen-here-the-return-of-book-banning-and-burning-in-the-united-states/
...game violence...
Violence in the media: Psychologists study potential harmful effects. (2013). American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/video-games/violence-harmful-effects
Study Finds No Evidence That More Violent, Difficult Video Games Spur Aggression. (2019, August 5). Association for Psychological Science. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/video-game-mechanics-aggression.html
Violent video games and young people - Harvard health publishing. (2010, October 1). Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people.
...living the Matrix...
Campbell, D. (2003, May 19). Matrix films blamed for series of murders by obsessed fans. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/19/usa.filmnews
Cheatle, J. (2017, June 10). The Matrix link to Washington D.C. sniper attacks examined on CopyCat Killers. Monsters and Critics. https://www.monstersandcritics.com/tv/the-matrix-link-to-washington-d-c-sniper-attacks-examined-on-copycat-killers/
...parental warnings...
Jackson, A. (2020, September 19). Parental Advisory: The Story of a Warning Label. JSOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/parental-advisory-the-story-of-a-warning-label/
Cole, T. (2010, October 29). You ask, we answer: “Parental Advisory” labels -- the criteria and the history. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/10/29/130905176/you-ask-we-answer-parental-advisory---why-when-how
...removing books from libraries...
Harris, E. A., & Alter, A. (2023, September 21). Book bans are rising sharply in public libraries. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/books/book-ban-rise-libraries.html
Smith, T. (2023, May 4). Library funding becomes the “nuclear option” as the battle over books escalates. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173274834/book-bans-library-funding-missouri-texas-ashcroft
American Library Association reports record number of demands to censor library books and materials in 2022. Ala.org. Retrieved April 26, 2025, from https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/03/record-book-bans-2022
Book ban data. Ala.org. Retrieved April 26, 2025, from https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data
Natanson, H. (2022, March 22). Schools nationwide are quietly removing books from their libraries. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/22/school-librarian-book-bans-challenges/
...simulation theory...
Ascher, R. (2021, January 31). A Glitch in the Matrix. Magnolia Pictures.
Illing, S. (2019, April 10). Are we living in a computer simulation? I don’t know. Probably. Vox. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/10/18275618/simulation-hypothesis-matrix-rizwan-virk
...Soylent Green...
Harrison, H. (1973). Soylent Green [Film]. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Harrison, H. (1966). Make Room! Make Room! Ballantine Books.
...Star Wars universe...
Wookieepedia. Fandom.com. Retrieved April 26, 2025, from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
...Trump...
Wikipedia contributors. False or misleading statements by Donald Trump. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump&oldid=1285764731
Doherty, C. (2024, November 13). What Trump supporters believe and expect. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/13/what-trump-supporters-believe-and-expect/
Tomasky, M. (2025, April 21). Who were those gullible people who believed Donald trump’s bullsh*t? The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/194176/donald-trump-voters-gullible-lies-ukraine-tariffs
This, and what this administration is doing to information, is why I decided to push to get this book done, and then make it available without a paywall.
What this administration is doing is leveraging populist fears and sense of otherness to make headway into accepting tyranny. They are removing all forms of LGBTQ+, gender equality, and race equality language from websites and libraries maintained by government offices. Women and black people in positions of power have been fired for specious or no reason. Strong-arm tactics have been used to force this ideology into business, education, and even trade partners. People have been taken from the streets. Mass deportations have happened; except they weren't really deportations, but extralegal removal to a third-party nation. Attempts to strong arm the judicial branch has begun, up to and including the Supreme Court. Arresting judges has begun.
It's not stopping there. Information that helps broad populations survive — EPA, NOAA, NIH, CDC, education, library, PBS, NPR — are being actively defunded and dismantled. Organizations are being dismantled that are intended to help govern some equality into our society as a balance to capitalism, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the IRS, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
And still it doesn't end. RFK Jr. wants a list of people with autism — and very clearly not to help them, but just to know where they are, while concurrently stating that they have horrible lives and will never contribute to taxes (which is so far from the quality of truth that it's hanging on by a thread between fantasy and narrative). In the same week, the administration is removing all safety oversight for our food, drug, and environmental systems, while synchronously declaring that anyone getting sick has only themselves to blame.
It's only just beginning. What tariffs will do to our economy is going to stress all of these systems.
...making sense of yourself...
Watch RuPaul's Drag Race with a suspension of disbelief. Close the blinds, lock the door, and make sure the kids aren't home if you're worried about the transference of information. Focus on the parts where they are talking about their life experiences. It's mostly later in the series, as they've become more comfortable with each other. The most jarring and heartfelt conversations are while they are applying makeup; close your eyes and listen if the visual sparks too much anger to _hear_. Near the end of each season, RuPaul will ask them to talk to their younger selves. This is a less intense version of those greenroom conversations, and much easier to find.
...simulation theory...
The part about simulation theory that most intrigues me is the sense of an ineffable system that is part overseer, part definer, and incredibly dissonant. Simulation theory attributes the ineffable with presence, and without being able to see the presence, but that presence being meaningful. A godlike code, or a god that codes, or a code that is an unlistening god.
We are a species that has a long history with making sense of the ineffable with the idea of a knowing presence. This is the basis of our shamanism, religions, nature-worship, even many of our conspiracy theories. What if there is a seed of truth...but it's misattributed?
My hammer is information, so there's a cognitive bias on my part to test against. But I also know experientially that the connections within data are often sensed by people who haven't developed their information architecture understanding as transparent, untraceable, somewhat magical...ineffable. My working hypothesis is that it it _might_ be a narrative for our gestalt sense of the power _and misalignment_ of our working-theory information systems (IT, culture, society).