The book that inspired Think First Institute.
Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.
Why do sincere people looking at the same evidence arrive at completely different conclusions?
Before disagreement becomes political, scientific, religious, or cultural, it first becomes perceptual. The stories we inherit, the institutions we trust, and the language we adopt all shape how we interpret reality.
Distorted explores those influences—not to tell readers what to think, but to strengthen how they think.
Five enduring ideas explored in Distorted.
Gaslighting
How manipulation reshapes perception long before it changes opinion.
Memory
Why preserving memory becomes the first act of resisting distortion.
Institutions
How systems shape public understanding through language, process, and authority.
Technology
How accelerating information reshapes attention, trust, and judgment.
Discernment
Why clearer judgment has become one of the defining disciplines of an accelerated age.
The Question Became an Institution
As the manuscript grew, its inquiry moved beyond gaslighting.
It expanded into memory, language, institutions, technology, authority, and the conditions that shape human judgment.
That broader inquiry eventually inspired the creation of Think First Institute—a learned institution devoted to strengthening human discernment through research, publishing, education, and public inquiry.
Continue the Inquiry
Continue exploring the Charter, Fields of Inquiry, publications, research, and Fellowship that carry the Institute's work