Your Undivided Attention · The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin
Weaponizing Uncertainty: How Tech is Recycling Big Tobacco’s Playbook
March 20, 2025·51 min·5 clips
Why did famous physicists secretly align with the tobacco industry to fight regulation?
As heard by us
A clear, grounded look at how doubt can be used to delay action.
The piece argues that uncertainty stops doing useful work once it is turned into a stall tactic. Tobacco, pesticides, social media, and AI are folded into the same pattern: if people can be made to feel they do not know enough, action keeps getting pushed off.
Why you'd press play
When uncertainty gets weaponized, your instinct to wait can become the trap.
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