The Hidden Persuaders in Your Head

Monsters, neighbors, and the stories that divide us

A few minutes after the World Trade Center attack, a man in a business suit handed NYPD Detective Yuk H. Chin a passport issued to Satam al-Suqami. Later investigations revealed that al-Suqami was one of the hijackers on Flight 11, the jet that crashed into the North Tower.

It seems counterintuitive that a passport would survive such a fiery crash. From the beginning the al-Suqami passport was taken as evidence that 9/11 was a controlled demolition, with the passport conveniently “found” to shift attention and blame to a group of terrorists. You would expect a paper passport to be shredded by the blast force and seared to ashes in the fireball.

The 9/11 Commission held on January 26, 2004, displayed four hijacker passports. One was found intact; Abdul Aziz al Omari’s luggage did not make it from his Portland flight to the Boston/NYC leg of his trip (Flight 11). Two badly damaged terrorist passports were recovered from the Pennsylvania crash site of Flight 93. And inspectors found the UA 175 boarding pass of Mohand al-Shehri, one of the hijackers, amidst the wreckage of the South Tower.

But in some circles, the 9/11 Commission findings only served to make its case less credible. Doubters noted, quite rightly, that governments often lie. Politicians are infamous for telling prospective voters what they want to hear and making promises they have no intention of keeping. Espionage is a notoriously dirty business and disinformation gets passed out like Halloween candy.

But their justified skepticism hardened into an absolute principle: if the government says it’s true, it must be false. They were no longer taking official sources with a grain of salt; they were salting the fields. Distrust of government sources became distrust of anything that challenged their conclusions. Their beliefs could no longer be falsified, because contrary evidence was not questioned but rejected outright.

So do I believe 9/11 was an inside job?

Honest answer: I don’t know.

The people who came on the train as I was going home that morning all appeared traumatized. Several said that they saw planes strike the Towers. Everyone I spoke to who had witnessed the attacks described planes. I never encountered anyone who claimed to have seen explosions in the absence of aircraft. I’m inclined by the law of parsimony to think that those eyewitnesses were describing what they saw, especially since it aligns with the available photo and video evidence.

Staging a fake event in downtown Manhattan and convincing thousands of eyewitnesses they saw planes would be an enormously involved and costly undertaking. Even then, you would have at least a few people coming forward to say everyone else was wrong. Sure, the government could silence them with threats or assassinations. But since they haven’t yet done so with “9/11 Truth” movement leaders, I’m not sure they’re that dedicated to their Big Lie.

Before 9/11, we had a very clear image of what an airplane hijacking looked like. The plane was diverted to a different airport. There the passengers endured long hours of boredom until the hijackers made a deal or until authorities stormed the plane. We didn’t imagine hijackers turning jets full of passengers into guided missiles. Osama bin Laden did. Don’t underestimate the capabilities of nineteen men who found a security loophole and who are willing to die for their cause.

Is it possible that bin Laden received help from other governments? Absolutely. There are lots of governments who have tense or hostile relations with America, including major players like Russia and China. There may have been elements within the Saudi government who looked the other way while bin Laden recruited his team. Many have noted America got more pro-Zionist and anti-Palestine after 9/11, so Israel may have had a vested interest in bin Laden’s success.

More than a few have even suggested that American agents helped bin Laden. 9/11 helped American politicians get the PATRIOT Act through with little debate. It provided the military-industrial complex with lucrative contracts for our Afghanistan and Iraq wars. If we were reading an Agatha Christie novel, we’d note that all our suspects have credible motivations, and few have airtight alibis.

Alas, governments are rarely so logical and well-organized as an Agatha Christie mystery. Few historical catastrophes are wrapped up in a few chapters with the villains punished and the village restored to its usual peace and harmony. Political events often involve reams of conflicting and contradictory evidence, partisan interpretations, and a final report with lots of possibilities but very little certainty.

We were storytelling apes before we were toolmaking apes. We like tales that resolve with a clearly defined beginning and end. We sort our characters into good guys and bad guys by ethnicities, flags, religions, political affiliations, or (occasionally) ethical codes. But the world only rarely provides us that degree of clarity. Lacking that, we find ourselves searching for answers—and constructing our own when reality refuses to provide them.

Did social disintegration lead to our increased interest in conspiracy stories, or did conspiracy stories lead to our ongoing social disintegration? Ultimately, what divides us is not conspiracy stories so much as the fact that we’re suddenly faced with many different stories—so many that it becomes difficult to determine which ones we find believable. We no longer have to rely on our television or our local newspaper to tell us what’s going on in the world; in fact, we don’t even have to rely on journalists.

Today anybody with a ringlight, camera, and microphone can set themselves up as podcaster. Some have become very successful. An average episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast attracts between 11 and 15 million listeners. CNN averaged 683,00 total primetime viewers for the week of May 5, 2026; during that same period, Fox News averaged 1.57 million total viewers.

Some sort their way the all-you-can-eat buffet of possibilities by sticking to the tried and the true and rejecting “fake news” from “disinformation providers.” There is certainly lots of questionable information on the Internet, much of ranging from silly to actively dangerous. But the algorithms care primarily about one thing: does this story attract engagement? A false story that gets clicks, eyeballs, and comments will travel further than a true story that does not.

Mainstream media has been hemorrhaging cash for a couple of decades now. They have always relied on advertising, and now they know exactly what stories are most easily monetized. As a result, we’ve seen a shift away from the appearance of neutrality and efforts to appeal to readers across the political spectrum and toward greater polarization and segmentation. Journalists are starting to sound more like podcasters, because that’s what their listeners want to hear.

Viral stories draw subscribers and add dollars. That cold economic fact shapes the way even the most honest journalists and editors decide on what they write and what gets printed. Whether you choose NPR, Fox News, or your favorite podcaster, you’re still getting information from a source that has bills to pay. Donor priorities, advertiser concerns, and economic realities all shape what gets covered and how it is presented. But the greatest concern of all is audience expectations.

We like to imagine ourselves as seekers after truth. More often what we seek is reassurance. We want truths that prop up our worldview, not raze it to the ground. We’re inclined to consume information that fits our preconceptions. And as our preconceptions grow increasingly shaky, we’re apt to start screaming at people who question them.

Let’s take a look at this entirely fictitious conversation between Jake Goldstein, DDS and Arturo Rodriguez, a pro-Palestinian activist and protestor. But before we get started, let’s make these characters something more than their beliefs.

Jake is a secular, left-leaning Jew. None of his relatives died in the Holocaust, at least none that he knows about. His family has been in America for around 150 years now; he visited Israel once but found the food mediocre and the people abrasive. He used to donate to Peace Now, but became more pro-Israel after October 7.

Arturo is not an anti-Semite; his partner Isaac is Jewish, and so are many of his friends in the pro-Palestinian cause. His family was Pentecostal Christian, and strong supporters of Israel by way of Left Behind and similar literature. His church disowned him after he came out, and visits to his family, as with many families, remain awkward but loving despite it all.

If they had met in Jake’s dental office, they would likely have a pleasant conversation, at least as pleasant as a dental visit can be. Alas, they met on the sidewalk where Jake is trying to get to the subway and Arturo is holding up a sign that says STOP THE PALESTINIAN HOLOCAUST. Arturo is a few inches shorter than Jake. The first thing he sees is the Star of David necklace; the second thing he sees is Jake’s contemptuous frown as he stares at the sign.

“That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve read all week. And I’m on Facebook.”

Arturo raises an eyebrow. “I guess you only care about certain genocides.”

“I guess you support genocides if they’re aimed at the right people.”

Jake storms away; Arturo shoots him the finger as he walks past, but Jake doesn’t turn around to see it. Each is now convinced the other is not just wrong but morally depraved. Both are wrong.

These three sentences are emblematic of most social media political discussions. Two reasonable, likable people are standing up for causes they believe in. Each believes they are fighting against evil. Their conversation ends after three sentences with each believing the other evil. There is neither room for nor interest in dialogue.

When you see the world as a Manichaean struggle against light and darkness, you’re going to find an awful lot of darkness. One of the great attractions of conspiracy theory is it provides you with a map and gives you the feeling you understand the monsters lurking in the shadows. The fact that powerful forces are working for your personal destruction is scary, but it also means you are important enough to attract attention from powerful forces. Gangstalkers are less painful than loneliness.

If I found out tomorrow that the CIA and Mossad collaborated with Osama bin Laden in the 9/11 attacks, I would be outraged. Most Americans would. But after the initial emotional shock, my life would return to normal. If I discovered the actual Holocaust death toll was 600,000 or 12 million, I would take a hard look at how the claimant arrived at those numbers. If they proved compelling, I would change my worldview.

No change in the historical record will bring back the dead. The families kneeling in front of a ditch waiting for the bullets are dead. The workers who died when the towers collapsed are dead. Finding out precisely who was behind their murder, or renumbering their death tolls, will bring no resurrection.

Conspiracy theories give us stories, but they rarely suggest solutions. The Satanic pedophiles remain at large; the Elders of Zion maintain their stranglehold on world finance; the alien reptiles continue to rule over us. They give us the semblance of knowledge, but that knowledge does nothing to change your world. Thought without action is powerless; so is knowing without doing.

Jake and Arturo are not entirely wrong in their convictions. There are pro-Zionists who would happily see every Palestinian killed; there are pro-Palestinians who would happily see every Israeli slaughtered. Both men know such monsters exist. Their mistake is assuming they just met one. Conspiracy theories tell you those monsters rule over you, and anyone who says differently is either misguided or complicit. They give you a world with more villains than neighbors.

The opposite of conspiracy theory is not blind trust in the media, the science, or the government. It is the willingness to admit that we may be wrong and our enemies may be right. It is understanding that most people are neither saints nor monsters. It is neither certainty nor cynicism; it is humility.