Review of “CONEtrolled” by Nava Israel, PhD

​Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)

CONEtrolled by Nava Israel (PhD) is one of the most interesting reads of the whole year!
This book discusses the systems of control that societies, cultures, religions, cults, governments, and people use to keep us serving them (rather than the other way around).

This book says a lot and shares a lot of fascinating case-studies (which we'll talk about). However, if there's one big, huge takeaway we had from this book, it's that you shouldn't allow yourself to be conned by these systems of control. Do your own due diligence. Do your own research. Don't be ignorant about these systems. Don't close your mind off and believe everything you hear. Don't fall for their lies, tricks, manipulation, plots, schemes, and machinations.

This book is a reminder that no one should tell you WHO you are and what your purpose/role in life is except for YOU.

It's also a reminder that human beings shouldn't be pigeon holed into one role, one type, or one “kind.” No one is always lazy or always hard working. You're more than a citizen of one country or a member of one community. You're more than an employee of one company or a soldier in one army. As a human being, you're a member of human kind—every human on Earth.

This book invites readers to think about the bigger picture.

Seeing the big picture is important because when you mistake the symptoms of a problem for the problem, you may end up making the real problem bigger (or creating a new one altogether). Perhaps the best example of this is when Mao declared sparrows an enemy that needed to be killed (because they supposedly ate all the seeds). However, this caused the locust population to grow out of control, destroying all the crops and causing a famine that starved and killed millions of people.

This is a book about gaining (regaining) freedom, sovereignty, independence, and self-governance from these “cones”—these systems of control.

Oppressors and manipulators like tyrants and cult leaders use these cones to keep us caged. Cones have two agendas: well-intended agendas (like serving or helping society) and self-serving ones (like accumulating power and wealth).

Even seemingly benevolent, well-intended agendas can have a dark side or ill effects. In fact, the author often discusses how this happened during the COVID-19 pandemic including the suppression of information that was contrary to the established narrative. The book uses the example of Dr. Martin Kulldorff who attempted to share legitimate data that seemed to be contrary to what the CDC, FDA, and governments around the world were promoting at the time. He attempted to share data from Sweden that suggested ending lockdowns, particularly for young people who were significantly less affected by the virus. He was even supported by Sunetra Gupta from Oxford and Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford who published these findings alongside him. However, Kulldorff was suppressed. CNN English refused to run his story, though CNN Espanol did. He was also fired from Harvard for challenging the established narrative.

Scientific and medical dogma is still dogma—it's a cone, a system of control. Interestingly, we just read Cancer Culture by Jacqueline Acho, a PhD in Chemistry from MIT, who basically championed that same stance after surviving ovarian cancer by going against medical advice.

This book encourages you to always question and to never accept something as absolutely true or unquestionable. Part of the author's motivation for writing all this was growing up in the former Soviet Union, constantly being controlled and lied to by the government. The author describes how the state-controlled government would constantly run PSA about how great the crop yields were doing, yet the grocery store shelves were constantly empty—indicating that the reality was far different from what the people were being told.

This book is also about using questioning and inquisitive thinking to get to the root of problems. For example, you might take Tylenol to feel better from a headache, but that ignores why the headaches happen to begin with. Maybe you're dehydrated. Maybe you've eaten too much or too little sodium. Maybe you have a tumor. If you never ask questions, you'll never get to the root of the problem.

Cones often take advantage of the concept of needs—either natural/basic or manufactured. Basic/natural needs include air, food, water, shelter, warmth, rest, and clothing. However, manufactured needs are ones that are created or invented to get something from you (primarily money). These include purified/filtered/ionized/”pure” oxygen, brand-named foods, designer bottled water, mansions, branded cooling and/or heating systems, expensive vacations, brand-named clothing, and an abundance of sex to prove status.

As you might have guessed, this book is against the evils of consumerism and capitalism, especially when they become exploitative.

This book constantly points out ways in which we are either blatantly, subtly, or subliminally manipulated by companies, corporations, and businesses to buy from them or subscribe to their services. They dangle carrots over our noses. They sell ideals like beauty, convenience, and comfort.

They make us addicted to them and take advantage of us through underhanded tactics like planned obsolescence, which Apple was caught doing by slowing down their older devices to get people to buy new ones.

According to this book, they bring fantasy worlds for the middle class to aspire to. They sell dreams and the idea of true fulfillment. Of course, true fulfillment never comes from a box or container.

The author argues that even ideas like family values and traditional families are cones that are sold to us. They don't represent all or even most families. They simply promote what society wants.

Cones are created and controlled by people designated as “cone builders” and “cone masters” according to the author. These include people like Hugo Chavez, Joseph Stalin, Bill Cosby, Jim Jones, and many others throughout our long, dark history have used manipulation tactics to become cone masters.

There are some great quotes from this book. For example:

“The trees kept voting for the ax because its handle was made of wood and they thought it was one of them”

“Oh, you don’t need to fight them—you just need to convince the pitchfork people that the torch people want to take away their pitchforks.”

“The sheep will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd.”

"Genghis Khan didn’t want to be a zookeeper with a zoo full of disgruntled animals, so he ordered everyone to be content or be executed."

There's an especially interesting thought experiment in this book in which the author describes encountering multiple disturbing or troubling scenarios (a struggling homeless man, the burning of a nation's flag during a protest, and a woman battling cancer who chooses to forego modern treatments for alternative medicine). The author then challenges you to choose which of these bothers you the most, which reveals what your values and cones may be.

Look, we didn't agree with every single little thing in this book, and that's perhaps the point. Don't accept everything you read and hear. Always challenge and question what you're being told.

Check it out on Amazon!