El dominio mental by Pedro Baños: The Geopolitics of the Mind and How Power Tries to Control Our Thoughts
Whoever controls our minds controls power. In El dominio mental (Mental Domination), Pedro Baños turns his attention to the techniques that power uses to control our emotions, and to a disturbing future that, in many ways, is already here.
Author: Pedro Baños
Title: El dominio mental: La geopolítica de la mente (2020)
Format: Spanish hardcover (Editorial Ariel), 544 pages
Language: Spanish (no English edition found)
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/8434433095 (ASIN 8434433095)
The Battle for the Mind
With his familiar readability and clarity, Baños approaches the subject from many angles: cultural and psychological manipulation, the distortion of personal will, and the control of information.
Neurotechnology and AI
He also looks at the possibilities opened up by the development of neurotechnologies and artificial intelligence in every field, including the military. The book combines accessible explanation with a large amount of up-to-date information.
A Warning
The book presents itself as a clear warning. In the author’s words, the aim is "to open our eyes so that we stay alert": only if we know what this perfect form of mental domination consists of, and how it is achieved, can we offer some resistance to it and preserve our freedoms.
Pedro Baños
Pedro Baños is a Spanish army colonel, now in the reserve, who specialised in strategy, intelligence and geopolitics, and who served as head of counter-intelligence and security at the Eurocorps headquarters in Strasbourg. He became widely known to the Spanish public through his books and his frequent appearances on radio, television and social media, where he discusses international affairs in a direct, accessible style.
A Trilogy on Power
El dominio mental completes a trilogy that began with Así se domina el mundo (2017), a bestseller about the strategies great powers use to impose their will, and continued with El dominio mundial (2018), on the elements that give a country power. In this third book, Baños turns from territory, economics and armies to what he regards as the decisive battlefield of the twenty-first century: the human mind.
From Propaganda to Neurotechnology
The book covers a wide range of subjects: the history of propaganda, advertising and persuasion, the attention economy of social media and smartphones, the use of data to predict and shape behaviour, and research into technologies that interact directly with the brain. Baños also discusses "cognitive warfare", a term used in military circles for attempts to influence how populations perceive reality.
Reading It Critically
Some of the scenarios Baños describes are well documented; others are more speculative, and readers should weigh his warnings with the same critical spirit he recommends. That, in fact, is the book’s main lesson: in a world full of attempts to influence us, the best defence is to stay informed, compare sources and think for ourselves.
Who Will Find It Useful
At more than five hundred pages, the book is substantial, but it is divided into short sections and written in clear language, so it can be read in stages. It will interest readers concerned about the influence of social media and advertising, parents worried about their children’s screen use, and anyone curious about how governments and companies try to shape public opinion. Readers who enjoyed Baños’s earlier books will find the same mix of examples, warnings and practical advice.
It is available only in Spanish.
Recommended.
Readers can then follow up whichever topics interest them most.
Thinking for Ourselves
The closing message is hopeful: all of us, children, teenagers and adults, still have time to detox and unhook ourselves from mental domination, using the most powerful weapon we have, which is to think for ourselves. A book for readers interested in geopolitics, media and the psychology of persuasion.
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