Someone's prediction just failed in public and instead of revising it they invent a saboteur, a rigged system, or a last-minute switch. You are watching the Friston move in real time.

This is the engine of the whole book and the purest specimen of motivated reasoning in literature. The belief is never tested against the evidence; the evidence is explained away by a new entity whose only job is to protect the belief. Conspiracy thinking, sunk-cost enterprises, and failed predictions all run this exact subroutine.