The Mental Forecast tracks how economic, digital, and political systems shape mental health, beliefs, societies, and global disorder. An independent epistemic commons for scientific watchdogs, critical essays, and books.

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LATEST

SCIENTIFIC WATCHDOG

Dictatorship Through Freedom and the Synapses

Liviu Poenaru, Dark Machinic Epistemology (forthcoming) This regime has no flag, no single party and no leader required to appear on a balcony. It has an interface. The word dictatorship may seem excessive if understood only in its constitutional sense: elections still take place, speech still circulates and no digital apparatus holds a monopoly on violence. Yet the term becomes precise when it names a structure of command that progressively narrows the possibility of disobed

Books

Digital Identities, AI Ethics, and Mental Health. Impacts of Technology on Cyber Behaviors and Personality Traits

Sept. 2026 This highly topical book provides an integrated framework for understanding how artificial intelligence, personality traits, gender, and cultural contexts shape youth digital engagement and mental health outcomes. Grounded in cyberpsychology and extensive empirical research, AI ethics, and developmental psychology, this book addresses the urgent need for evidence-based approaches to supporting young people's well-being in an increasingly AI-mediated digital world.

Books

Political News Avoidance, Selective Exposure, and Misinformation

Sept. 2026 Drawing on primary empirical research, this book considers the democratic outcomes of political news avoidance, selective news exposure, and misinformation. Political information environments across democracies are in flux, fundamentally changing the way citizens gain political information and leading to widespread concerns about consequences for democracy. From selective media use leading to increased attitudinal polarisation, to declining trust in legacy media an

Books

Science in the Face of the Post-Truth The Challenge of Steve Fuller’s Social Epistemology

Sept. 2026 This book examines and critiques Steve Fuller’s social epistemology on his study of four ways to understand the nature of post-truth: way one’s understanding is an epistemic crisis in which emotion has taken over and facts are irrelevant; way two’s understanding is a legitimation crisis of cognitive authority of science on the legitimation and delegitimation of knowledge claims; way three’s understanding is the Internet and social media have led to the democratiza

Books

The Aesthetics of Machine. Vision Critical Terms and Ideas

Edited by Kathrin Maurer, Rikke Munck Petersen, Dominique Routhier, Kassandra Wellendorf and Kristin Veel Sept. 2026 An interdisciplinary glossary on machine vision and aesthetics within the humanities and beyond. The Aesthetics of Machine Vision brings together scholars, researchers, and artists who explore machine vision from various academic and nonacademic perspectives. Edited by Kathrin Maurer, Rikke Munck Petersen, Dominique Routhier, Kassandra Wellendorf, and Kristin V

Books

THE STATE HAS NOT DISAPPEARED. ITS FUNCTIONS HAVE BEEN PRIVATISED

What if artificial intelligence is not replacing the state, but concealing who already governs? Jill Lepore’s The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State is not principally a history of AI. It is a history of political substitution. Functions once associated with constitutional government—organising public discourse, representing populations, producing knowledge and shaping collective decisions—have migrated towards private technological systems. Citizens become data; deliberat

Books

The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, by Gil Durán

Aug. 2026 What if Silicon Valley’s authoritarian turn is not a betrayal of its culture, but one of its political conclusions? Gil Durán’s The Nerd Reich rejects the comforting story that a few eccentric billionaires suddenly drifted to the right. It reconstructs an ideological lineage: from The Sovereign Individual and Curtis Yarvin’s neo-reactionary writings to Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, Elon Musk and JD Vance. What was marketed as technological emancip

Books

SCIENTIFIC WATCHDOG: WHO GOVERNS THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL LIFE?

Aug. 27, 2026 Liviu Poenaru This Scientific Watchdog brings together significant scientific findings published over the past three months and examines what they reveal when read as components of the same transforming mental environment. What if the mental-health crisis is not primarily a failure of individuals to cope, but evidence that environments have become better at acting on nervous systems than institutions are at protecting them? Recent studies do not demonstrate a si

SCIENTIFIC WATCHDOG Synthesis

The need to be seen: social approval and evaluative fears as psychological pathways to FOMO

Sinem Evin Akbay Ali Ammar Kurt Bilge Bakir Aygar Şaziye Yaman Front. Psychol., 16 June 2026 Sec. Personality and Social Psychology Abstract Introduction: Fear of missing out (FOMO) has been increasingly linked to social-evaluative concerns and approval-seeking motivations, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying these associations remain insufficiently modeled. The present study examined the mediating role of need for social approval in the relationships between fear of

Social Media

The unattainable other: a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective on digital laborers’ traffic anxiety

Qiuyu Fan Front. Psychol., 29 July 2026 Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology “Traffic anxiety” has become a collective psychic condition among digital content producers. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis as its theoretical framework, this article conceptualizes “traffic” (viewership metrics) as objet petit a, arguing that it is constructed under the gaze of the algorithmic “big Other” as an ever-escaping object-cause of desire. After clarifying the functional divisi

Critical Studies

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Whether you are an academic, journalist, practitioner, or simply a curious individual seeking to make sense of the forces shaping the modern world, THE MENTAL FORECAST offers an inclusive platform for inquiry and exchange. By uncovering the unseen dynamics of cybercapitalism, the platform inspires critical awareness and collective agency, encouraging transformative solutions to the challenges of our time.

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ANNUAL PUBLICATION INITIATIVE: CURATING CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

In its commitment to fostering rigorous interdisciplinary inquiry and making cutting-edge research accessible to a broader audience, THE MENTAL FORECAST is proud to launch an annual publication initiative. This project will result in the publication of a book each year, compiling a selection of the most insightful and thought-provoking articles contributed to the platform. By consolidating these works into a single volume, THE MENTAL FORECAST seeks to deepen the global dialogue on cybercapitalism, mental health, and the economic unconscious, offering readers a comprehensive resource that captures the evolving landscape of these critical issues.

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epistemic

commons

Dictatorship Through Freedom and the Synapses

Digital Identities, AI Ethics, and Mental Health. Impacts of Technology on Cyber Behaviors and Personality Traits

Political News Avoidance, Selective Exposure, and Misinformation

Science in the Face of the Post-Truth The Challenge of Steve Fuller’s Social Epistemology

The Aesthetics of Machine. Vision Critical Terms and Ideas

THE STATE HAS NOT DISAPPEARED. ITS FUNCTIONS HAVE BEEN PRIVATISED

The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, by Gil Durán

SCIENTIFIC WATCHDOG: WHO GOVERNS THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL LIFE?

The need to be seen: social approval and evaluative fears as psychological pathways to FOMO

The unattainable other: a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective on digital laborers’ traffic anxiety

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