Theory of Mass Media Social Control

This is the classic "manufacturing consent" model. It analyzes how large-scale, centralized media outlets (TV networks, major newspapers) act as a control system by selecting, framing, and repeating narratives that shape public perception on a massive scale. Control works through agenda-setting (telling you what to think about), priming (telling you how to think about it), and cultivating a shared, often simplified, reality that serves established political and economic interests.

Theory of Mass Media Social Control Example: During the lead-up to a war, every major news network endlessly repeats government talking points about "imminent threats" and "national security," while giving minimal airtime to anti-war experts or diplomatic alternatives. This mass media control creates a overwhelming consensus narrative that manufactures public consent for military action, marginalizing dissent by making it seem fringe and unpatriotic.

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 7, 2026

Mass Confirmation Bias

The society-wide synchronization of confirmation bias, typically driven by centralized media, educational curricula, and state propaganda. When billions of people consume the same filtered information, apply the same interpretive frameworks, and are rewarded for expressing the same conclusions, their individual confirmation biases align into a single, massive, self-reinforcing system. Mass confirmation bias produces the phenomenon of "obvious truths" that are, in fact, contingent upon an enormous, invisible infrastructure of bias maintenance.

Mass Confirmation Bias Example: During wartime, a nation's citizens confirm the righteousness of their cause through newspapers, films, school lessons, and patriotic songs. They see enemy atrocities and ignore their own. This isn't conspiracy; it's Mass Confirmation Bias operating at scale. The information environment is so thoroughly structured to confirm a single narrative that perceiving alternatives requires heroic epistemic independence—a resource as rare as it is fragile.

by Dumu The Void February 11, 2026

Mass Social Control Systems Theory

The study of technologies and infrastructures designed to manage the behavior, movement, and communication of entire populations at scale. This theory focuses on the industrial-age and digital-age machinery of control: census bureaus, national identification systems, surveillance networks, predictive policing algorithms, credit scoring, and social credit systems. Unlike localized control (a teacher in a classroom), mass control systems are impersonal, automated, and operate through data. The theory examines how states and corporations shift from disciplining individuals to modulating populations.

Mass Social Control Systems Theory Example: China's Social Credit System is the archetypal Mass Social Control System—a nation-scale behavioral scoring infrastructure. Less dramatic but equally pervasive examples include E-ZPass tracking (your movement is logged), Amazon's predictive ordering (your consumption is anticipated), and health insurance risk algorithms (your future is priced). These systems don't need to arrest you; they simply make non-compliance increasingly inconvenient, expensive, or invisible.

by Dumu The Void February 11, 2026

Negative Mass and Anti-Mass

Hypothetical forms of matter that would respond to forces in reverse—push them, and they accelerate toward you; pull them, and they accelerate away. Negative mass would violate everything we know about physics while enabling reactionless drives, warp bubbles, and perpetual motion machines. Anti-mass is even stranger, potentially canceling out normal mass and creating all sorts of paradoxical effects. Neither has ever been observed, and most physicists suspect they're impossible. But the math allows them, and where math leads, dreamers follow. Negative mass and anti-mass are the ultimate engineering fantasy: materials that would let you build starships, time machines, and devices that make your commute actually enjoyable. They're also the ultimate scientific cautionary tale: just because you can write an equation doesn't mean you can build a thing.

Negative Mass and Anti-Mass Example: "He claimed to have synthesized negative mass in his garage, proving it with a video of something moving the wrong way when pushed. The video was blurry, the methodology was absent, and the object looked suspiciously like a balloon on a string. Negative mass remained in the realm of theory, where it could be as wonderful as imagination allowed."

by Dumu The Void February 16, 2026

Psychology of the Masses in the 21st Century

The study of how large populations think, feel, and behave in an era defined by social media, information overload, and algorithmic curation. Unlike 20th-century mass psychology, which focused on physical crowds and broadcast media, 21st-century mass psychology must account for people who are simultaneously connected and isolated, scrolling alone together, forming tribes without ever meeting. The key insights: attention is the scarce resource, outrage is the most reliable engagement metric, and identity has become a series of performances for invisible audiences. Mass psychology now explains phenomena like viral misinformation (emotion spreads faster than facts), cancel culture (digital mobs with infinite memory), and political polarization (algorithms that show you what you already believe). It's the psychology of people who are more connected than ever and more lonely than ever, which is exactly what the algorithms want.

Example: "She studied the psychology of the masses in the 21st century and realized her phone was designed to exploit every vulnerability—outrage for engagement, fear for attention, belonging for loyalty. She wasn't using social media; social media was using her. She didn't delete it—knowing isn't the same as escaping—but she started noticing when she was being played."

by Dumu The Void February 16, 2026

Psychology of the Masses of the Third Millennium

The emerging study of how mass psychology will evolve in the next thousand years, assuming we make it that far. The third millennium will face challenges that make current mass psychology look simple: artificial intelligences that shape opinion better than any human propagandist, virtual realities that make consensus reality optional, genetic and cybernetic enhancements that fragment human experience into subspecies. Mass psychology will have to account for audiences that aren't entirely human, for truths that are algorithmically generated, for communities that exist only in simulation. The psychology of the masses of the third millennium is speculative now, but the trends are clear: more fragmentation, more mediation, more manipulation. The masses of the future may not even know they're masses, living in personalized bubbles that feel like universes.

Psychology of the Masses of the Third Millennium Example: "He read about the psychology of the masses of the third millennium and realized it was already starting—AI-generated news, personalized realities, communities that never meet in person. The future wasn't coming; it was here, just unevenly distributed. He looked at his phone, curated to show him exactly what he wanted to see, and wondered if he was already living in someone's prediction."

by Dumu The Void February 16, 2026

Psychology of Social Masses

The study of how large populations behave as social entities—not just as collections of individuals but as emergent phenomena with their own dynamics, moods, and logics. Social masses develop their own culture (memes, language, values), their own history (shared memories, founding myths), and their own psychology (collective emotions, shared traumas). Understanding social masses means understanding that the whole is different from the sum of its parts—that a crowd can be angry even if most individuals aren't, that a nation can be hopeful even if most citizens are anxious. The psychology of social masses is the foundation of politics, marketing, and any endeavor that involves moving large groups of people in roughly the same direction.

Example: "She studied the psychology of social masses to understand why her country had become so polarized. It wasn't just individuals with different opinions; it was two masses with different emotions, different memories, different truths. Each mass reinforced itself, excluded the other, and treated the other's existence as a threat. Understanding this didn't bridge the divide, but it explained why bridge-building was so hard."

by Dumu The Void February 16, 2026