The rise of digital pandemics, with James Ball

London Futurists

Our guest in this episode is the journalist and author James Ball. James has worked for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The Guardian, WikiLeaks, BuzzFeed, The New European, and The Washington Post, among other organisations. As special projects editor at The Guardian, James played a key role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden.
Books that James has written include “Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World”, “Bluffocracy”, which makes the claim that Britain is run by bluffers, “The System: Who Owns the Internet, and How It Owns Us”, and, most recently, “The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World”.
That all adds up to enough content to fill at least four of our episodes, but we mainly focus on the ideas in the last of these books, about digital pandemics.
Selected follow-ups:

• James Ball (personal website)
• The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World - book by James Ball
• Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations
• Meme - as described by Richard Dawkins
• Dreyfus affair
• Blood libel
• Future Shock - book by Alvin and Heidi Toffler
• How The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident Sparked The Vietnam War
• Why Narcissists Love Conspiracy Theories
• Nigel Farage - UK politician
• WarGames - 1983 movie
• Gish gallop - rhetorical technique
• Dominic Cummings has admitted the Leave campaign won by lying
• Reality check: how do Farage’s claims on immigration, economy and crime hold up?
• Facts don’t change minds – and there’s data to prove it

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration