Name: Nothing is true and everything is possible
ISBN: 9781610396004

Nothing is true and everything is possible

"Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible is a journey into the glittering, surreal heart of 21st century Russia: into the lives of oligarchs convinced they are messiahs, professional killers with the souls of artists, Bohemian theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, supermodel sects, post-modern dictators, and playboy revolutionaries. This is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, where life is seen as a whirling, glamorous masquerade where identities can be switched and all values are changeable. It is a completely new type of society where nothing is true and everything is possible--yet it is also home to a new form of authoritarianism, built not on oppression but avarice and temptation. Peter Pomerantsev, ethnically Russian but raised in England, came to Moscow work in the fast-growing television and film industry. The job took him into every nook and corrupt cranny of the country: from meetings in smoky rooms with propaganda gurus through to distant mafia-towns in Siberia. As he becomes more successful in his career, he gets invited to the best parties, becomes friend to oligarchs and strippers alike, and grows increasingly uneasy as he is drawn into the mechanics of Putin's post-modern dictatorship.

What Hacker News says

janalsncmFeb 2026

There is a book “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible” which you might want to consider before deciding truth doesn’t matter anymore. It describes an explicit strategy by the Kremlin to poison the information landscape with lies, half truths, and conspiracies. And amplify conflicting narratives.

Eventually people stop caring about what is true anymore.

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lunatunaFeb 2022

>People just don't trust authorities anymore, because authorities time and time again have misled them.

In some cases this is intentional. Less credibility/belief in experts allows for authoritarian governments to more easily ignore the truth.

I found the book "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible" [0] was an entertaining read that did a good job showing how information jamming is working. Though this is about the Russian experience it is a global issue.

>Astroturfing and fake grassroots campaigns further undermine people's trust in what they hear and read.

One of the more fascinating approaches was how opposition groups are funded secretly and then later intentionally exposed to create a credibility crisis.

[0] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21413849-nothing-is-true...

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charlyslOct 2020

No, it is very easy to spot. The fake news and comments in social media are consistently identical to what is published in state controlled Russian and Chinese media. At the very least, this is highly suspicious.

But of course, they do it skilfully, plausible deniability is the name of the game.

I recommend reading "The Red Web", "Nothing is True and Everything is Possible", and "This is Not Propaganda" to learn more about this phenomenon.

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freetangaAug 2020

This. I strongly recommend a book called “Nothing is true and everything is possible”. It describes how State media operates in Russia (and you could make a point many other countries have learned a thing or two from the book).

Basically there needs to be an opposition, in order to be a triumphant democracy. But you need to keep it weak and under control. Seeing an opposition gives hope to people. Then they loose elections, and hope deflates. Do this a few times over and you have the country under your control for the long run...

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cafardJul 2018

I'm pretty sure this piece found its way into Pomerantsev's Nothing is True and Everything is Possible. The book is interesting, and quickly read.

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vertexFarmJun 2018

People are starting to see a lot of parallels between the US today and the Soviet Union when it fell. I recommend the book Nothing is True and Everything is Possible to get a good feel for that heady, depressing-yet-exciting fall of Rome zeitgeist.

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