Information and Disinformation — How Carrots Helped Win World War II

Where does human behavior come from? Behavior comes from our perception of an event or a situation. Where does perception come from? Perception comes from information received, be it from personal experience, newspaper or media. If our behaviors are influenced by information, how can we be sure that what we receive is information or disinformation?

Controlling Perception

It is possible to control human perception, the best way to do this would be to filter or censor the type of information that the public receive, or by using deceptive tactics such as subterfuge, propaganda or misinformation to make the public believe something that is not true.

The “Carrot Myth”

According to conventional wisdom eating, lots of carrots will magically enhance your vision?! While there is a little bit of truth in this, the ‘Carrot Myth‘ was engineered by British Intelligence and popularized and reinforced by the British Ministry of Information — the government department responsible for publicity and propaganda — during WWII.

During the 1940 Blitzkrieg, the Luftwaffe often struck and bombarded London under the cover of darkness. In order to make it more difficult for the German planes to hit targets, the British…