We talk about beliefs as if we chose them. As if we evaluated evidence, weighed arguments, and arrived at conclusions through the exercise of individual reason.
Some beliefs work this way. Most don't.
Most beliefs arrive through infrastructure: funding flows that determine which research gets conducted, editorial decisions that determine which findings get amplified, algorithmic systems that determine which ideas reach which audiences, and repetition—endless repetition—until a claim becomes "common sense" and its origins become invisible.
The Injection makes this infrastructure visible.
The piece asks visitors what they believe about six topics, then traces the documented supply chains behind those beliefs. A 1998 memo from the American Petroleum Institute, explicitly strategizing to "install uncertainty" about climate science. A 1965 payment from the Sugar Research Foundation to Harvard researchers, shaping fifty years of dietary guidelines. A 1947 advertising campaign that manufactured the "tradition" of diamond engagement rings. A single academic article that launched a moral panic, changed laws in 48 states, and was later recanted by its own author.
These are not conspiracy theories. They are documented history—exposed through leaked memos, FOIA requests, academic investigations, and Congressional testimony. The infrastructure exists. It just isn't usually shown.
The piece does not argue that visitors are wrong about any particular belief. It argues that the process by which beliefs arrive is largely invisible, and that this invisibility is not accidental. Industries, institutions, and ideological projects invest heavily in making their influence disappear—in transforming manufactured claims into "things everyone knows."
The Injection is not exempt from this critique. It, too, is designed to shape belief. It selects which supply chains to reveal. It frames them in particular ways. It has its own infrastructure, its own funding, its own editorial choices about what to include and what to omit.
The piece ends by acknowledging this. It cannot stand outside the system it describes. It can only make the system briefly visible—including itself.
-Aaron Vick
2026