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The playbook : how to deny science, sell lies, and make a killing in the corporate world / Jennifer Jacquet.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Pantheon Books, [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Description: xviii, 216 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781101871010
  • 1101871016
Other title:
  • Play book
Subject(s):
Contents:
Executive summary -- Denial: a fiduciary duty -- The arsenal -- Recruiting university experts -- Strategic communication -- Challenge the problem -- Challenge causation -- Challenge the messenger -- Challenge the policy -- Outside opportunities -- Near-term threats.
Summary: "Science is so powerful that the powerful want to control it. From the author of Is Shame Necessary?, comes a biting satire of the techniques used by the corporate world to obfuscate and deny scientific truths. Taking the form of a corporate meeting agenda, The Playbook highlights the tactics used by the business elite to contradict climate change, ignore health risks, and undermine worker safety. The Playbook is a caustic handbook for tobacco, oil, and pharmaceutical company executives-epistolary non-fiction-advising whom to hire, how to recruit experts, how to obfuscate, and how to relentlessly and effectively challenge the threat of science, policy, reporters, and activists. Jacquet likens the machinery of deception and delays to a casino, with its deliberative architecture and design-the dimmed chandeliers, the comfortable furniture, the dealers, the drinks-to keep the customers inside comfortable and gambling as long as possible. The Playbook will help any business buy time if it is threatened by science, the most reliable form of knowledge the world has ever known. Part strategy, part social history, part resistance, part lampoonery, The Playbook illuminates the methods and motives of many successful scientific denial campaigns, and the social forces that may outwit them"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 658.45 J19 Available 33111010862973
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From an astute observer of business behavior and expert in climate denial comes a thought-provoking explanation of how corporations delay, distract, and deflect blame and spread disinformation surrounding health issues, pollution, and climate change.

"Brilliantly subversive and witty. If you want to be a vile, greedy capitalist, this how-to book will be a great help. And if you want to identify vile, greedy capitalists, it will show you how to recognize them. A landmark book." --Brian Eno

Are you a corporation out to make your fortune at any cost? Are you worried about "facts" and "experts" getting in the way of your profits? Do you wish you could make scientists, journalists, and anyone who asks questions about your suspect business practices disappear? Now you can.

Whether you are selling tobacco, dealing in oil, or pushing pharmaceuticals, denying climate change or exploiting workers, The Playbook is here to help you obfuscate your way to what you want.

Including how to: Massage the statistics to suit your needs. Or, even better, fund studies to make up some new ones Attract and cultivate university professors who have an axe to grind and are short of cash Make your problem somebody else's problem--ideally the government's Remember: Tame journalists, PR firms, think tanks, lawyers, and threats of physical violence are your friends!
Follow these rules and you are guaranteed to make a killing. It's economic sense, after all.

Executive summary -- Denial: a fiduciary duty -- The arsenal -- Recruiting university experts -- Strategic communication -- Challenge the problem -- Challenge causation -- Challenge the messenger -- Challenge the policy -- Outside opportunities -- Near-term threats.

"Science is so powerful that the powerful want to control it. From the author of Is Shame Necessary?, comes a biting satire of the techniques used by the corporate world to obfuscate and deny scientific truths. Taking the form of a corporate meeting agenda, The Playbook highlights the tactics used by the business elite to contradict climate change, ignore health risks, and undermine worker safety. The Playbook is a caustic handbook for tobacco, oil, and pharmaceutical company executives-epistolary non-fiction-advising whom to hire, how to recruit experts, how to obfuscate, and how to relentlessly and effectively challenge the threat of science, policy, reporters, and activists. Jacquet likens the machinery of deception and delays to a casino, with its deliberative architecture and design-the dimmed chandeliers, the comfortable furniture, the dealers, the drinks-to keep the customers inside comfortable and gambling as long as possible. The Playbook will help any business buy time if it is threatened by science, the most reliable form of knowledge the world has ever known. Part strategy, part social history, part resistance, part lampoonery, The Playbook illuminates the methods and motives of many successful scientific denial campaigns, and the social forces that may outwit them"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-216).

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