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Propaganda: How You are Being Tricked pt. 1 · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: gullible host Abraham.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: And I am your Ministry of Truth host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: that humans and non human animals do, and sometimes we
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: talk about the ways that we interact with each other
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: that are not so above board.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so today we're going to talk about propaganda.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: That's how you say it.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, propaganda. Even so we before the episode, we just
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  Speaker 2: brought it. You just brought up propagandhi and that's where
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: that was stuck in my head. And so there's that.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: So we've got that now that Propagandhi will show up
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: multiple times in this episode as a result of our misspeaking.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: But yeah, today we're talking about propaganda.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so welcome that you enjoy would you hear today?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: If you are a first time listener, then we are
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: so excited to have you here and stick with us
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: because we get a lot to cover, but hopefully this
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: will be illuminating and useful to you. And if you're
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a returning listener, then welcome back. We're so glad that
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you keep coming back to check out what we have
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to offer and hope that this is of value to
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you as well and continues to be that thing. And
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: if you are in either of those camps and you
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  Speaker 1: would like to support us, and you aren't already, then
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  Speaker 1: there are many ways you can do that, including liking, subscribing, sharing,
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  Speaker 1: telling a friend, downloading, leaving a rating, and review, joining
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  Speaker 1: us on Patreon. I'll talk more about those things at
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the end of this entire discussion. But this episode is
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: going to publish on September seventeenth, and therefore we wish
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to wish you all a happy Citizenship Day.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I thought you're going to do doctor sus thing. We
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: wish to wish you a very fine fish or something
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: like that, whatever rhyme is there. It's also Constitution Day.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Goodbye Constitution.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: See uh.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It is International Country Music Day.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's funny to think of like country music as
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: we know it as like an international thing.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, good on you for those who celebrates.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Sure. It is National Apple Dumpling Day.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Oh fun yep. National Monte Cristo Day. Oh you know what.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: The Count of Monte Cristo was one of my favorite
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: books for a long time.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: The Sandwich of Monte Cristo is also one of my favorite.
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  Speaker 1: Things of all time.
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  Speaker 2: So I think both of those things are great.
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  Speaker 1: Perfect just a name that is applied to good things.
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  Speaker 1: That's so far hopefully hopefully.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully that doesn't come back to bite us. It
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: is National Professional House Cleaner's Day.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Very nice, love that for all the people involved. Yeah,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: National Rehabilitation Day, very important.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. It's National School Backpack Awareness Day. Hey, school backpacks
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: are a thing.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Be aware.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: It's National Table shuffle Board Day. Shuffle Board's fun. I
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: wouldn't mind having a shuffle board table.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's actually a lot of fun. It's just very sandy.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: It's Times Up Day.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Indeed. It is VFW Lady's Auxiliary Day. Wow.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Sure. It is World Patient Safety.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Day, very important. Adopt a Less Adoptable Pet Week, love
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  Speaker 1: that for those pets I do.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I do. It is Balance Awareness Week something I do
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  Speaker 2: not have.
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  Speaker 1: Walk with balance but without rhythm otherwise you'll trust form.
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  Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, yeah, watch out for shilute.
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  Speaker 1: It is also Constitution Week, which I guess makes some
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  Speaker 1: amount of sense if it's Constitution Day and again rip.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week, which apparently
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  Speaker 2: RFK knows how to spot these from a mile away.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, it's the brain, the worm in the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: brain that does it. It's like takes one to no one.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I guess sure. National Drive Electric Week. Oh I love that.
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  Speaker 1: That's fun.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's an interesting week of things.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but anyway, we don't just read weeks about things,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: or we don't just read weeks or days or the
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  Speaker 1: calendar holiday things. It's just a quippi fun thing that
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  Speaker 1: we enjoy doing. I don't know if it's quippy, it's
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  Speaker 1: just a fun thing we enjoy doing. Yeah, it's fine though,
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  Speaker 1: so many qualifiers anyway. Yeah, we are not talking about
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  Speaker 1: those things. Instead, as we mentioned, we are talking about propaganda.
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  Speaker 1: And I think we're good to dive into our topic.
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  Speaker 1: This one is fairly long. It is very possible that
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  Speaker 1: this is going to be a multi part episode, possibly two,
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  Speaker 1: unless we're very fast, and then it will be possibly one.
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  Speaker 1: But I don't know how to predict that just yet.
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  Speaker 1: I just know that relative to other amounts of content
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: we have assembled for a discussion, this is fairly long.
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  Speaker 1: So it does feel like it's probably going to run
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: beyond the time we would normally allot for an episode,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: speaking of which these are full length episodes. They're usually
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: around an hour long or so. And then on Mondays,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and these publish on Wednesdays, and then on Mondays we
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: release short dive episodes that are like fifteen minutes or
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  Speaker 1: less most of the time. Sure, some of the time
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  Speaker 1: that are meant to be a quick dive into a topic,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: just for a brief overview of that thing, and then
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: we get out of there. But this is the long one,
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  Speaker 1: and that means that we're going to really spend the
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  Speaker 1: time to dissect and interact with and understand our topic
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  Speaker 1: at hand, so that you, dear listener, may also understand
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  Speaker 1: this topic at hand. And I will start by telling
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  Speaker 1: you that you, you listener, you are being tricked, hopefully
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  Speaker 1: not by us, not at least on purpose. But you
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  Speaker 1: may not believe me. You may think that you are
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  Speaker 1: immune to propaganda, that you can spot it, that you
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  Speaker 1: can avoid it, that you know what it is and
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  Speaker 1: where it is. But I'm here to tell you are not.
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  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 1: Indeed, some of us are better than others at spotting it.
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  Speaker 1: Some of us are able to recognize it more easily,
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  Speaker 1: but it comes for us like they. It is arranged
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  Speaker 1: to influence us. And the agents of propaganda they work
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: tirelessly to manipulate you and to stay ahead of whatever
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: is trying to slow them down. So as soon as
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  Speaker 1: one piece of technology comes along to stop them from
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  Speaker 1: doing what they're doing, they are in an arms race
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  Speaker 1: to beat that technology and keep doing what they're doing.
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  Speaker 1: So I am unwittingly influenced by propaganda sometimes, and you
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  Speaker 1: are unwittingly influenced by propaganda sometimes. Some people are heavily
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  Speaker 1: influenced by it all the time. Yeah, it gets us
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  Speaker 1: hooks in right away and it just never lets go,
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  Speaker 1: and they never are they're none the wiser most of
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  Speaker 1: the time. So we're going to unpack that today.
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  Speaker 2: We certainly are. Let's go ahead and dive into it.
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  Speaker 2: So they're just saying, when playing poker, if you can't
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  Speaker 2: find the sucker at the table, it's you. As doctor
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  Speaker 2: Noam Spencer pointed out in an article about propaganda, we
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: can apply this to propaganda. If you don't hear much
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  Speaker 2: about propaganda, that's what you're hearing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it is all around us. It is constantly
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  Speaker 1: affecting us and We've said it before, we will say
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: it again, but it's worth understanding here as we're talking
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  Speaker 1: about human behavior. I argue I think we take the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: position on this podcast a language is one of, if
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: not the thing that makes humans truly unique among animals.
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  Speaker 1: It allows us to understand symbolic meaning, express and recognize subtlety,
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  Speaker 1: and allows us to cooperate, to do science, to do religion,
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  Speaker 1: to educate one another, and of course to trick one
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  Speaker 1: another m hm.
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  Speaker 2: And human beings, we are a tricksy bunch. Yes, as
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  Speaker 2: a gollum would say, you know, we're tricksy. We're like
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  Speaker 2: Trixie Hobbits, is you know now? Military strategist Sun Sue
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  Speaker 2: wrote the famous, or you could argue infamous book The
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Art of War, over two thousand years ago. In it,
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  Speaker 2: he instructs strategies that are still used to this day.
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  Speaker 2: A not insignificant amount of the text itself is dedicated
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  Speaker 2: is actually dedicated to the importance of information. And this
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  Speaker 2: is something that you are going to hear a lot
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  Speaker 2: anytime there is a conflict, anytime there is As kind
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  Speaker 2: of technologies evolve and kind of like grow and develop
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  Speaker 2: and meet the needs of humans today, always going to
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  Speaker 2: find that information, misinformation and disinformation are powerful tools to
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  Speaker 2: influence in shape entire populations of people, not just individuals.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and so in the art of war, as you
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  Speaker 1: were just saying, like information is held at a premium,
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  Speaker 1: it's extremely important in warlike activities. And there are sections
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  Speaker 1: in the book on various types of spies and spy activities.
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  Speaker 1: Now I didn't read the whole thing in preparation for this,
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  Speaker 1: but I looked up some of these excerpts because I'm
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  Speaker 1: somewhat familiar with them. I've heard about them, and so
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  Speaker 1: I was kind of looking into them. And they are
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  Speaker 1: like different types of these these spy roles that exist.
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  Speaker 1: Some spies are as you might think, they're just intended
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  Speaker 1: to collect information. They infiltrate a space, they will grab documents,
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  Speaker 1: they'll listen to people talk, they'll like eavesdrop and whatnot.
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  Speaker 1: But there are some other roles that you might not
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  Speaker 1: know about. So some are intended to actually stop information
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  Speaker 1: from spreading. So they might try and just stop a
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  Speaker 1: mess from getting a message out, or to alter or
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  Speaker 1: destroy some kind of I guess memo or piece of
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  Speaker 1: literature or propaganda or whatever that's supposed to be spread,
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  Speaker 1: but some are actually specifically intended to Their role is
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  Speaker 1: to sow disinformation, dissent, and discord. They will go into
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  Speaker 1: a communal space and they will just tell people incorrect
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  Speaker 1: things very subtly. They'll do it like in conversation, in passing.
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  Speaker 1: They'll make little comments, and it's like they're just trying
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  Speaker 1: to get people doubting and riled up and confused because
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  Speaker 1: they'll have incorrect information, or they'll start to form some
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: like beliefs about things that are not necessarily true, but
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  Speaker 1: give them sort of a angry zeal I guess against
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  Speaker 1: some idea or a group of people. And even in
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  Speaker 1: some cases there were spies who were given incorrect information
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  Speaker 1: because the intention for those spots, who I think are
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  Speaker 1: not supposed to know this was the case for them.
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  Speaker 1: But the intention was that those spies would be captured
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  Speaker 1: and that when they were caught and whatever was done
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  Speaker 1: to them, what they would confess would actually give incorrect,
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  Speaker 1: erroneous details to the people who captured them and were
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  Speaker 1: extracting information from them. So like they specifically set these
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  Speaker 1: people up to be caught so that under duress they
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  Speaker 1: would confess things that were false. Because even though they
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  Speaker 1: believed them to be true, Like that was an actual
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: way that they might use people in this space. So
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: it's kind of messed up, but like they understood how
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  Speaker 1: important it was to control the narrative and to have
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: as much information as possible on your side, and so
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: they this was over two thousand years ago that they
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: were orchestrating these things.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this makes me think of like how
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: interesting it would be to talk about the psychology of
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: spies and spy work, because I feel like there's got
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: to be some like cognitive dissonance that goes along with that,
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  Speaker 2: where you know, like you are kind of like causing problems,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: but like you're also loyal to your country or loyal
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: to your government, and then what happens when you find
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: out that your government is not loyal to you and
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: all the things that go on, Like like you're listening
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: to the show, right, like you're listening to the podcast,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: and you think that we're going to continue to do
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: content and then we just drop in an ad and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: then you feel betrayed that we throw ads at you,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: and then like the cognitive dissonance that goes along with
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: having to hear ads in the middle of a thing,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: like I imagine that's probably a unique experience for you listener. Okay,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: so now that we've captured your attention as a spy
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: has been captured to confess erroneous details, we're going to
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: go back into the art of war and kind of
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: talk about this. Right. So, the tactics that are used
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to orchestrate disinformation and misinformation campaigns are now sometimes called propaganda,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: which is the topic that we're covering today, and versions
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: of the strategy are even called psychological warfare operations or
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: psyops for short, like Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift being a
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: syop for folks. Now, that's like one of my favorite
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theories right now, is that Taylor Swift is a
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: sie up. Wow, it's a whole thing. Now. They used
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: fairly basic tricks to hijack the vulnerabilities in our language,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: and in doing so, they influence our behavior in a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: way or in a direction that is more favorable to
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the organizing group. And that's kind of the thing, right, Like,
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  Speaker 2: these tactics are designed to move behavior in a certain direction, and.
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  Speaker 1: It is really it is moving at such a high
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  Speaker 1: pace now given the rise of I mean, essentially photorealistic
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: AI generated content and the activities of like long running,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: well established think tanks whose only job, whose only obscenely
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: lucrative job is to spread disinformation and influence people. We
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: may be in the most danger of being persuaded than
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  Speaker 1: ever before. Maybe, but you can also make the case
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that we are not right.
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  Speaker 2: And although our awareness of it has also enables us
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: to be the most guarded against it that we have
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: ever been. That's another thing to think about, right, Like,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: we are aware enough to be very guarded against it. However,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: very few people know when they're being manipulated, and part
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: of the psyop strategy is to keep people uninformed and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: ignorant and therefore prevent people from recognizing that they have
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: been manipulated.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very much the general tactic. And so it's
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: worth then digging into attempting to understand propaganda and like
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: start to unpack how it works. And fortunately we as
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a species, the people who have done the science and
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: research on this and whatnot, we actually understand fairly well
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: how the different techniques that propaganda use sort of work
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and what those techniques are. And because of this we
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: can also understand to a point how to at least minimize,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: if not avoid, being sort of tricked and manipulated by
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: propaganda campaigns. The problem is that propaganda FFI is dirty,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It fights fast. It basically all it has to do
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: is appeal to emotion. It has no obligation to and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: in fact, I would argue, is the enemy of critical
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: thinking and truth. So all it has to do is explode.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: It's like it's just a grenade. It just goes off
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and it explodes. Whereas fighting the explosion, cleaning up its mess,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that takes time. It takes time, it takes effort, it
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: takes a willingness to engage. Propaganda does not have those obligations.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: All it has to do is explode. It's like a grenade,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and it's like it's a lot faster and more destructive
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to blow up a grenade than it is to build
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the things that the grenade destroyed and to clean up
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the mess that it leaves behind.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like propaganda has no obligation to the truth.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And I think that that is so critically important to understand.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, like a perfect example, this happens like it
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: came out like this week, is that now there's some
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: language around the idea that Donald Trump was an FBI
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: informant trying to take down Jeffrey Epstein, like he wasn't
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: a friend, he was in listen instead, is an FBI informant.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: That's the current propaganda that's going out right now, and
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: people are buying it. Like all it takes is for
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: somebody to go, this is what it is, and they go, Okay, yeah, man, unbelievable,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: right an FBI informant like that is just it's just
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: it's just wild. So here's the thing. Propaganda can be fun, funny, scary,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: inviting or all of those things, right like that, like
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of like movements and like a lot of
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: different like revolutionary movements will enlist some levels of propaganda
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: too to move people towards their side. But like the
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: thing is is, it's like you mentioned before, it moves quickly.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Whereas being educated can feel boring, complicated, confusing, accusatory. People
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: feel guilt when they learn about their histories and the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: histories of their peoples, like that can be really uncomfortable
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: to kind of sit through. And further, we can't just
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: use tools of the propagandast because their strategies are part
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: of the problem. Right They are using rapid emotional misinformation
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: to get people riled up, to not think critically, to
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: buy into or hook into some idea and then run
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: with and share that information. That's like a virus.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: You know, you're you're sorry about the Epstein thing. South
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Park did this joke many many years ago where there
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: was like a cop who went undercover to bust sex workers,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and he so went undercover as a sex worker, and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: then he would like follow through with and go through
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: like the whole thing of having sex with the john, yeah,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and then arrest them afterward after he'd done like all
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: this stuff, like completely fulfilled out his part of the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: bargain for sex work. And one of them even goes
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: so far as to like he marries the john, has
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: like a whole life with them, and then at some
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: point deep into their marriage he like reveals as a
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: cop is like freeze, you're under arrest. That's like that
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: seems to be like what they're espousing here. It's like
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: like Trump's like I had to have sex with those
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: underage girls because I'm I'm under I'm like an infronment
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: or something like no, no, no, there are lines that
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: where you're not suppose to cross and there, Yeah, like
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: you're just a bad person. Also, that's not happened, so,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: like you know, propaganda and whatnot. Anyway, Right, the other
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: problem we're getting to here because one of the things
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: you may have noticed we have not done is define
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: our terms, which is usually where we start. But the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: problem is how to define what propaganda even is. So
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of sources that are primary sources you might
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: look at, like the dictionary offer something like quote the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: end quote. And so propaganda, in other words, is manipulative
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: persuasion in the service of an agenda. The word itself
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't imply truth or falsehood in the content or past
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: judgment on the agenda. So that's sort of the the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: whole thing in terms of the various definitions there. Right,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that feels broad and maybe more inclusive than we might
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: want it to be. For like what we believe and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: understand about what propaganda is and is trying to do.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Others specifically say instead that it is the dissemination of
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: ideas that are half truths, heavily biased, outright lies, or
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: incomplete information that are presented as real, whole information with
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the intention to influence your opinions and actions. So that's
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that I think takes a more direct approach that like
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: this is functionally lies that are just designed to get
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you to believe and act in a particular way. That's
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what it is.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say, and I think that's it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: I think there's an important maybe thing to unpack inside
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: of that where this is different than bias. Right, Yes,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: propaganda is biased, but bias does not necessarily indicate that
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: you are engaging in propaganda, right, Yeah, So like having
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: a bias is like a particular like idea, you're leaning
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: towards a certain idea, a thought, a belief, you value,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: whatever it might be. Like, that's a bias. That doesn't
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: necessarily mean that you are intentionally trying to influence somebody else.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Like you're not trying to dismantle a system, You're not
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: trying to do any of those things. You're just kind
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: of like you know that that's where you lean, and
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: like it's important to kind of like understand that and
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: check your biases. Propaganda goes, yes, this is a bias
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: and here's how we weaponize bias to change or influence people.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Well, the fact that it's bias can be is often
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: very deliberately hidden, right, And I think there are those
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that will state outright what their bias is and like
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that they have a bias, because we pretty much
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: cannot talk about anything without taking an angle about which
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: you that we use to have that discussion, which means
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that we come from a position of bias all the time. Sure,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Like pretty much everything we say about a thing could
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: be interpreted qualitatively as us suggesting good or bad qualities
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of that thing, and so like, bias is kind of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: just baked into the language a lot of the time.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: But as you said, it's whether or not that is
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: being used to specifically try and influence a behavior and action,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and if it is being done in a way that
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: it's like trying to pass itself off as not biased.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, that makes sense. So even identifying what is
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: considered propaganda can be difficult or biased or even part
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: of the propaganda syop strategy. So some include advertising as
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: a type of propaganda or persuasion as a type of propaganda,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: whereas others make a clear distinction between advertising, persuasion, and propaganda.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: So the first definition offered by the definition could conceptually
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: include literally any attempt to spread any kind of information whatsoever,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: even including stating basic observable facts. So you can see
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: kind of where this gets a little bit muddy.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you can imagine that, like an astronomer
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: has an agenda that we want to get you excited
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: about astronomy so that we can have people who like
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: go to school to study astronomy and get jobs in
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: astronomy and advocate for funding for astronomy. And so they
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: like come with this agenda that's like, I want to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: show you how cool the work that we do. Is
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: this awesome science. It's really neat. We really love it.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: We think you'll love it too. And like, based on
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: that first definition, that's all propaganda. Sure, and maybe that's
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a useful way to think about it, But for the
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: purposes of this discussion, I think we maybe would find
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it more useful to focus our language about this on
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the kind of strategies that use incomplete or false information
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: with the intention to influence behavior, specifically in a way
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that is beneficial to the designer of the propaganda and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: in conflict with the best interest of the audience. That's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: kind of where I think is a more useful way
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: to think about propaganda, as I think actually most people
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: kind of tend to understand it. And I think one
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: thing that even stands out to me is trying to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: even define propaganda that is so inclusive that any type
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of information could be considered propaganda. Is a propaganda technique
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: in and of itself. If you just say everything is propaganda,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the effect of that is that you can sort of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: start to influence and persuade people that A Propaganda is
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: everywhere and can't be avoided, therefore they shouldn't care. B
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: they can only trust the author of the propaganda because
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: propaganda is everywhere. C is not something that they should
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: worry about, and D it's some combination of all of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: those things. So they kind of set the groundwork for
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: like A, I'm right or B you're wrong, Like those
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: are those are the options here, because if propaganda's everywhere,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: then I can now use propaganda even more effectively because
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you're no longer on the lookout for it as much,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and I can convince you that it's everyone else who's propaganda,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: but I'm trustworthy. That's part of my propaganda, right, so
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you can see sort of how insidious it can be.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's so insidious that, like you just
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: went through this list, right, so like you gave us
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: four options. It starts with A through D, which leads
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: me to believe that this is leading to an ad
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: So we're back and we're talking about definitions of propaganda,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: and I think one of the things that we need
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: to understand is that whatever definition is used, what is
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: clear is that propagandists have an agenda, have a target audience,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: and have a carefully curated message. The overwhelming majority of
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the time, the delivery is obviouscated, so that you don't
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: know that it's intended to persuade, and often don't know
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: who is trying to do the persuading. It's basically just
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: you don't know that you're getting influenced, you don't know
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: who is doing the influencing, and then surprise, you have
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: been influenced, and by the time you realize you've been influenced, it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: May be too late. Yeah. The analogy I think of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: is it's almost like you're being fed a low dose
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: of a drug that makes you more pliable and more
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: like compliant. Yeah, you don't really know that you're being
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: this drug. It's happening over and over and over again,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and this way they can sort of influence you. Ironically,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I think that's maybe what the conspiracy theorist say about fluoride.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: That's not how fluoride works. Florida is very safe and
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: healthy and is good for your teeth and helps reduce
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: constances of cavities and gum disease. But sure, like that's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a conspiracy people take. But and the idea here being
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the like, that's kind of how propaganda works is that
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: they will try and flood the space without you noticing
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: that they're flooding the space if you will. Sure, And yeah, now,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: fortunately many people have written about how propaganda works, and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: there's actually pretty strong consensus on the goals and strategies
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of propagandas so we'll start with like the sort of
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: core components.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so first there are four core tenants of propaganda
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: and then many specific strategies that we'll get into. The
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: four core tenants, which were authored by psychologist William Biddle
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty one, are one avoid argument and appeal
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: to emotion. Do not use full facts arguments or information
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: really easy to get people riled up, not thinking if
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: they're emotional, right, yep. Two establish a clear us versus
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: a clear them. Where them is or are the enemies?
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Would you hear these You're gonna be like, oh my god,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: this is so clear.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Three reach out to social groups as well as individuals
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: for the greatest impact. And four hide the propagandist as
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: much as possible. Do not let the audience know that
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: what you are doing is propaganda. So just the recap,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: real quick appeal to emotion, don't use facts, establishing us
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: versus them mentality, create an enemy essentially, is what you're doing.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Reach out to social groups so you can get to
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: more people, and then hide whoever is behind all the mechanations. Yeah.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And we are going to get into several examples of
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: instances where propaganda it was very clearly used, like you
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: could look at and be like, yep, that was propaganda.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: But one that I did not list as an example
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: is that there are anti vaccine groups who specifically went
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: out and targeted new mothers on Facebook and would start
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to flood their feed with anti vaccine disinformation because they
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: were they considered a vulnerable target population they had an
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: agenda prevent people from getting vaccines. They had an audience
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: who they believed would be receptive to their messaging, and
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: so they tailor their messaging to fears around the well
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: being of babies and then put that in the space
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: only of new mothers who are likely to see that
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and start to form doubts about the safety and efficacy
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of those things. And now we now measles as back
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: yep against a little bit more of that. Anyway, there
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: are a few primary sources for this discussion. One helpful
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: website that we use is called Disinformation Nation. They provided
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: their own take on this idea of the four sort
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: of core tendants of propaganda using the acronym seed SED
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and that stands for simplification, exaggeration, exploitation, and division seed simplification, exaggeration,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: exploitation and division. So I'll quickly go through what each
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of those sort of means, but you'll see how they
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: line up up with the basic temples tenants, nut temples
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: tenants that were listed before. So simplification refers to keeping
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the messaging easy to understand. This might look like catch
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: it quotes, slogans, insulting nicknames, or epithets or name calling,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: simplifying a complex topic into what seems to be an easy,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: black and white, bad versus good type of messaging. So
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: that's simplification.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Exaggerating means over or understating information to make it seem
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: more or less important than it actually may be to
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: the recipient audience. So basically just kind of like taking
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: some small nugget of information and blowing it up. Like
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a really good example would be right now, radioactive shrimp
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: at Walmart. Right, Like, there were shrimp that were shipped
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: to Walmart that like had traces of radioactive material. But
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: now it's turned into like when you see news headlines
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: radioactive shrimp, don't eat shrimp. And it's like kind of
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: like one of those things where it's a small bit
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: of information that is exaggerated or conflated into something that
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: is actually not as important but like it's not as
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: big as what it sounds like.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: And they trying to the opposite too, you know, in
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the whole case with the Epstein files, like Trump's rosen
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like nobody cares about that. It's dumb. You're dumb if
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: you care about that. Like it went from this being
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a campaign issue that got people motivated to get out
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and vote to like nothing to see here, look away,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: So like there's also the downplay aspect cutting is included
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: in the exaggeration piece.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Sure exactly.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: The next part is exploitation, and this means specifically appealing
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: to your biggest hopes and dreams and sort of speaking
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to like, you too can be rich and wealthy and powerful,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: just like me who was born into rich and wealth
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and power and never going to work for anything. Alternatively,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: or I guess, in addition to emphasizing and appealing to
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: your hopes and dreams, they will also focus on and
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: emphasize your greatest fears and concerns, so specifically alluding to like,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: these are things you should be afraid of, and they're
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: gonna get worse. They're just so terrible.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then you got division, right, which means establishing
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: a clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: With the good guys are obviously the side you were
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: on and should want to be on, and the bad
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: guys are the enemies who want to hurt you or
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: undo the work that you've done. Like I just finished
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: this book where you know the group there were multiple
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: groups that were there were like the lower levels, the mids,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: and then the up levels, and there was like even
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: a little bit of division among those different status classes. Right,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: the people who lived at the top of the silo
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: were like the well off folks, the ones that were
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: the mids, with the middle class, the ones that were
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: the lower class, like the lower class folks quote unquote,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: they were working and doing like the hard labor jobs.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: So like there is like even some of that division.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Once you do that, now you've created separation, and now
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: you've created us versus them mentalities, which really is effective
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: for getting people on your side.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. So those are a couple of different takes
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on the basic for principles of propaganda and how it works.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: So I guess is a quick summary. Then propaganda works
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: essentially by engaging our emotions, keeping the messaging simple, establishing
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: a clear enemy who is or should be your enemy,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: who's definitely the enemy of the propagandist, appealing to members
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: of groups you belong to and individuals, and making it
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: seem like all this information is just out there, not
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a specific campaign, not a person necessarily, it's just out there.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: It's just how people feel. It's just what's going on.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: It's kind of how it's more or less floated out
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: because again, you want to hide the source of the propaganda,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the fact that it's propaganda. You just want it to
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: sort of exist in a little ecosystem that pervades people's
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: sort of daily consciousness, if you will.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that sounds like it makes sense.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: But I do think it's important to point out specific
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: behaviors or specific things that people do so that you
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: can know what to look for in the event that
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: you're worried about propaganda. Right, Like, these are things that
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: you can start noticing that are part of like propagandist strategies.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: And the first one is name calling. Like, name calling
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: is super easy. It's one of those things that exaggerates
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: and over simplifize messaging. It creates an out group versus
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: an in group. It's really easy to create enemies in
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: this space. Right, And name calling is exactly what it
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: sounds like. The Nazis specifically referred to Jewish people as
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: rats to create a negative association and dehumanize them. Trump
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: called immigrants verbin and name calls literally everyone he doesn't like.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: So number one in the Book of Propagandists is name
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: calling and calling. For those of you who are going, well,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Trump's not a Nazi. He's using literally in the same language. Yes, literally,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: He's not even hiding it. He's not even hiding it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a crazy amount of overlap there. So
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: that's the thing. The next strategy is transfer. There's actually
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: a couple that are similar in the idea here, but
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: transfer is the idea of trying to transfer a positive
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: association you have about something to the person or idea
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: that you want people to feel positively about. So it's
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: trying to create a positive association with the targeted idea
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: or person by putting them next to someone or something
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: else that already has sort of a positive connotation built in.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: This can include a celebrity endorsement, or you might fly
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: an American flag or whatever flag is the one you're
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: trying to fly next to or behind an image of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: this person that creates that sense of patriotism or whatever
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: flag message that that flag is supposed to communicate or represent.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: But that's the idea of transfer as a strategy, is
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: just trying to create that positive association by putting them
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: next to things that you already have some kind of
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: positive association.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Uh. An example of that would be like Uncle Sam, Like,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeah, Uncle Sam is like one of the
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: best examples of this where you've got a dude who
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: is dressed in like literally the American flag from head
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: to toe, true, and he isn't listing your help. He
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: thinks you specifically are going to be the most helpful
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: thing to support your country. So he is. Now Now
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: every time you see the flag, you think of Uncle Sam,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: you think of the associations, you think, I feel needed
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: and I'm here and I can help, I can be helpful. Yeah,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: And to me, that's like one of the like one
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: of the most clear examples of propaganda, especially in wartime,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: like Uncle Sam wants you to join the war to
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: support your nation, right, and that is that is to me,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: like just a really clear example of.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: That, Yeah, very much so. And a total counter example
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to that was like putting something with a negative association
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: in like ads in a podcast, All right, we are back.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: We're walking through and illustrating the various specific techniques that
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: propagandists use to influence your thinking and behavior. We've talked
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: about name calling, which is what it sounds like, and
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: then transfer just creating that sort of positive association and
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: making that thing have juxtaposition to the idea of person
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that you are trying the propagandist wants to have create
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that association with.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, another one is called glittering generalities. So it sounds
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite things in the world is when
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: like a term just means what it says in the term. Like,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I think that's why I like behavior analysis so much,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: because every term is like just what the definition like
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: it's it's it says it in there. So imagine what
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: glittering generalities means. It means that like you're putting a
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: sheene or a shine or like general like using some
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: term to generalize, and like it doesn't really mean anything.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: So like these are vague phrases that have positive, appealing
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: sounding words. Glittering is one of those things, but it
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: lacks any specificity or meaning generalities right, so things like
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: make America great again, hope change if we want to
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: have like multiple examples of this. Yeah, these are all cheap,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: simple words or phrases that don't mean anything but sound
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: really good. They're mottos, they're enticing, they're like, you know,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: the thing that actually doesn't have any substance. Make America
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: great again has no substance. Yeah, And saying the word
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: hope in no context has no substance.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's just it's vague, it's general. It sounds
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: nice that yeah, so yeah, glittering generality is absolutely. The
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: next one is called bandwagon being on the bandwagon. Sure,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you could think of this effectively as peer pressure. It's
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: arguing that you ought to do what the propagandist wants
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you to do because everyone else is doing it too.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: They might not be, but they want you to believe that.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: At least they'll tell you quote, everyone is voting for me,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: so you should too. End quote. That's sort of the
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: idea here. It's appealing to your sense of community and inclusion,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: your participation in whatever group you have already identified with,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and say that like, this is how that group behaves,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: and so it's how you should also behave. And it's
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: again a strategy to persuade you to do something or
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: vote in some particular way, or take some particular action,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: or form some particularly strong belief. And again it doesn't
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: matter whether or not the group actually thinks or believes
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that way. They want to use your identified as soation
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: with that group to say like, this is what the
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: group that you belong to thinks and does, therefore you
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: should think and do it. And again doesn't have to
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: be true. In matter of fact, it probably isn't sure,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: but you might then sort of see it as like, well,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: these are people that I know and trust and then
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: my group, and therefore like if this is how they feel,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: then this must be somewhat accurate at least, and so
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you sort of accept that.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now there's also scare tactics. This is basically it's
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: what it sounds like. This is telling you all the
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: bad things that will happen if you don't adopt the
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: propaganda's position or do as they ask. So things like
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: if you don't vote, a criminal will be elected. If
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: you vote for my opponent, there will be no more Christmas,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: no more gas powered stoves, no more religion, and we
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: will be overrun by immigrants. End quote, Like does that
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: sound familiar? That's yeah, I would imagine that you've probably
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: heard something similar to that. Now it is telling you.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Scare tactics is telling you that there is something terrible
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: that will happen, but the propagandas can save you from
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: it if you give them what they want, which is
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: your vote, your money, your support, spread their message, et cetera,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So, and this is actually extremely common.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: All sides use this. This is used in politics, This
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: is used in religion, This is used in cults, This
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: is used in across a lot of different spaces, and
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: it gets used so much. It's actually probably like one
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: of the number one tactics that people like to employ.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: And some groups use it more than others. And you
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: can probably guess which ones are Republicans. And I wouldn't
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: even go that far. I'd say like like like lots
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: of like ultra conservatives. This is really this is like
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: the go to, Like it's coercion at its finest right,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Like it's coercion through language.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you were to just ask people about
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the specific policy issues in that agenda, the overwhelming majority
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: disagree with them fundamentally, from top to bottom, obscured or
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: plain as day, they disagree with them, and they are
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: often counter to the best interest of those people in
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways. But they frame it up as
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: this being like just absolutely a necessity for those people.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: They trick them into believing that they want to be
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: engaged with, that with those policies that are counter to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: their interests, that are counter to all of humanity in
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: many cases really and only serve the interests of the
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: few who are doing them promoting. And it works, It
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely works. They use these scare tactics, and like I said,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: one side, that's the cut. All they have. They don't
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: have anything real or substantive to offer. All they have
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: is fear about something that's not real, and they can
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: exploit that fear. So yes, one of the most common
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: is scare tactics. Name calling can be very common, but
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I think scare tactics might be the most common.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's got one of the most emotionally
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: appealing responses. It is like, you're scared, you're you're fearful,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: and so you're gonna respond to avoid whatever is causing
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: that fear. Like you're gonna you're gonna you want a savior,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: you want somebody who's gonna protect you, right, And like
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: it's very easy to elicit that response out of people.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: And fear leads to anger, Anger leads to hate, Hate
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: leads to the dark side.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: That's what I've been saying this entire time.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: And the Betty Jesuits. The fear is the mind killer.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fear is the mind fear, fears of mind killer.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying, Guys, like, don't we know it is?
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, y'all, please read Dune. Like, go go read Dune,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: because I feel like, if you really want to understand
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: the complexities that are propaganda and how it works to
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: influence major things, Dune is a really good example of
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: how like language and religion are used as propaganda's tools.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It's good, it is very good. And I I also
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I just love so much. I'm like, that is such
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: a great way describing it. Fear as the mind killer. Yeah,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and and propaganda's depend on it, particularly those who that's
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: their only messaging. Bet you didn't think we're gonna end
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: up a Dune, did you, Folks, we kind of constantly doacitating.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: By the way, this is a Dune podcast.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Now surprise if you if you've been listening for a while, Dune.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: We'll call it the We're the Shaiha dudes.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Oh man, if you have, if you haven't read do
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and we're seeing the movie, then that that is a
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: reference you will not get. Yeah, it's the name. It's
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: a name from the book. But anyway, all right, next,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: next strategy we're getting into here because there's still quite
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: a few more to unpacked. There's so many, and this
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: is called the plane folk folk plaine folk strategy. The
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: idea here is that you want to get support for
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: an idea, product, or candidate by getting the endorsement from
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: sort of regular or at least regular appearing people. Sure
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the idea is sort of embedded here, is like, if
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you're sort of everyday person endorses this, then if it's
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: good for that everyday person, it's good for you too,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: because that's most of us. Most of us are not
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: in these elevated positions of power, who have obscene amounts
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of wealth, who can drastically control the narrative and in
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: many ways that they want. It's just you sort of
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: find a grassroots person. Now, whether or not that person
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: is your sort of regular every day folk debatable. Might
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: be a hired actor, might be a someone who's just
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: posing as that. But there is a more there's an
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: increasingly common strategy to sort of dress like, appeal to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: and select the endorsements from the sort of if what
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: you might call plane folk because, as we said, is
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: the name of this because it's a propaganda technique that
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: they use that can be effective.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Sure. Sure, there's also something called card stacking, and this
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: is only representing information that shows the person, product or
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: idea in a positive light. And this is essentially looking
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: at Yelp reviews and only looking at the five star
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: reviews and never looking at anything else. Yeah, let me
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: say it like this. It's not necessarily just looking at it.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: It's that that person is putting that information first and
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: foremost and not any other information. Correct. Yeah, So this
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: is only posting those positive reviews, only sharing positive statements,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: only including statements that favorably represent whatever is the agenda
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: of the propagandist. I mean, I think this is really
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: clear in political campaigns, definitely, but specifically in those campaigns
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: that are not necessarily saying that the other candidate is bad.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: It's just saying that the candidate that you're watching or
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: learning about is good. Like it's like, this is my policy,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: this is what I'm doing, Here's what I've done to
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: help the people. Here's what dadada da like. That's usually
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: where you see card stacking like. And then also you've
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: got cardstacking, and then you include some name calling like
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: I do good, this guy's a joker, and like you
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: kind of have those things and you'll see those combinations.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: But cards acking is really kind of like just like
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: really making it sound like you're pouring it on, you're
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: really glazing the person you know.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: And to kind of sidestep this from the political angle
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: we've been taking, I've had this idea of like I
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: would love to run advertisements about insurance companies where the
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: advertisements are honest. Yeah, the advertisement would go something like here,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: at insert name of insurance company, we won't actually refund
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: any of your claims. We will not answer the phone
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: when you call. We will gladly take your money and
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: do nothing for you. Join us, won't you like? Join
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: us today?
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: We'll tie you up in a series of phone calls
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: in unnecessary bureaucracy so that you can't get your benefits.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as you pay a fee that is
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: equal to the amount you're trying to get covered by us,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: then sure we'll do the work for you. Maybe we
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: probably won't answer the phone, but will also probably just
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: deny your claim. And like that's how the ad would
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: actually go. Is something like that as like because they
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: always say like all they're like, oh, every one of
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: us can save you money. I'm like, well that's mathematically
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: impossible for one thing, sure, but also like as like
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: insurance is ruining the world. I actually think maybe we
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: should do a entire episode on insurance. I think it
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: is one of the worst things we have ever created
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: as a species. It is destroying everything, partially because it
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: is a for profit entity. I think there are ways
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: that could be done well that would protect and support people,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and it is not being done that way pretty much
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: in any space that it exists. It is done just
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to suck the life out of people and destroy their
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: lives and their livelihoods and make them suffer. Yeah, but anyway,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: they very much portray themselves in this card stacking way,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I would love to see the honest
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: commercial about ssurance companies.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of astounding that we have not
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: made more enemies on this show. Like I feel like,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: like with the amount of being outspoken that we are, like,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: we haven't had like insurance companies come after us or scientologists. Yeah,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: like somebody somewhere like somehow, we I'm sure I'm surprised
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: we haven't pissed enough people off. I mean, we've pissed
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: off a couple of people. Yeah, you know, and like
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: even our advertisers, Like, we talked trash about all of
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: our ads all the time, and nobody's ever been like, hey,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: like at least as far as we know, as far
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: as we know, you know, speaking of speaking of which,
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: here's that.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, back back from that, from that, whatever the ad
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: was about, I'm sure that they appreciate everything we had
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: to say about them. Sure, maybe it was for insurance,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I hopefully all right, we still have several strategies to
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: unpack here. The next one is called testimonials. This is
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: fairly similar to the transfer idea we listed before, and
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it's specifically soliciting endorsements from popular or famous people or organizations.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: It's meant to elicit a favorable emotion and make the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: agenda of the propagandist seem more legitimate. Right, you'd get
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: someone to say, like this is the best thing ever,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Like it's so great you should love it because this
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: person says you should love it, or you know, product
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: or person or idea. It is just getting that sort
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: of fame endorsement as if you will, and having people
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: sort of give their testimonial about why that thing is
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: so good. It's kind of one of the reasons I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: actually tend to not really look at the five star reviews.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I kind of try to shoot for, like the negative ones,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: because sometimes those are very informative and like, sometimes they'll
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: say things that are like to me, it helps underscore
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: how good of a product it like actually is. Like
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: let's say I'm looking at like an Amazon review. I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: remember seeing one though was like did not come at
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: the like one star, did not come in as many
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: color varieties as I would have liked. I was like, yeah,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: that's I don't care about that, right, Like So it's
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: actually it's kind of helpful for me to see a
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: review like that and think like, okay, so this is
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: like this person doesn't actually have something to say about
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the product itself. They just didn't like the options that
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: weren't available to them as far as like customization, Right,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: that doesn't bother me as much as the thing not
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: working or being of poor quality or you know, not
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: being as described Like those are the reviews where they're
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: like tried this thing, didn't work, couldn't get ahold of
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: customer service. That's the sort of thing is where I
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: get more worried about negative reviews. Yeah, but anyway, the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: idea of testimonials the five stars is a common strategy.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. You've also got stereotyping, and this means that
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: we are oversimplifying or greatly exaggerating a person or an idea.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: It is meant to create a simple fear anger, discussed
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: emotion from you, often against an entire group of people,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: set of ideas or types of products, like things like
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, which is
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: a new sentence that nobody's ever said out loud, right,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: nobody would say that. Seriously, I couldn't imagine. But that's
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: a stereotyping propaganda strategy, right, Like you're isolating a group
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: of people, you're over generalizing some type of you know,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: negative trait about that group or people that belong to
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: that group, and now you've kind of created an enemy
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: as a result of stereotyping. So this is happening a
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: lot with immigration, This is happening a lot with you know,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: assuming that people from certain countries that are adjacent to
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: the United States maybe belong to gangs and they certainly,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: don't you know, it's like that that's really what it is.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Or if like one person had an allergic reaction to vaccines,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you know, an anti vaxxer, like I don't know, I'm
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: gonna just say three random letters, like maybe with the
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: initials of R, F, and K. They might claim that
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: all vaccines are therefore unsafe for everyone, and that vaccines
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: are dangerous, and that people that administer vaccines are also dangerous.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: But ultimately it's simple, a simple way to get people
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: against an idea. It's stupid, it's wrong, it's prejudiced, it's.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Biased, and it's stupid and it's stupid.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in case that wasn't clear, Yeah.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: So that's stereotyping. That one actually is. Also I think
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: among the most common techniques that's very frequently used. One
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: that I think we have seen versions of four but
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: is now at the enjoying like the highest amount of
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: employment that it has ever enjoyed is unrealistic promises. Sure,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: this one's in the name, like this is exactly what
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: it says. It is. When a person promises to end poverty,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: end drug use and inequality, end war, these are unkeepable promises.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: They sound great, but they cannot realistically happen, so they'll
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: make all kinds of promises. I'm gonna get those prices
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: down on day one, he said, sure, still up and
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: rising faster than yeah, than we thought they were going
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: to and we knew, you know, the strategy that was
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: laid out like that. We predicted this in our first
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I think many where we were sort of prognosticating that
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: prices were not going to go down because he basically said,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: as part of his campaign, i will just in so
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: many words, he said, I'm going to destroy this country,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: and everyone said I vote yes, yeah, and so like
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: that was essentially a camp promise and where things are at.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: So anyway, let's think all politicians and all you know,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: organizations and companies. They will often make these unrealistic promises
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and they'll just say things are like they just couldn't
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: possibly they just couldn't possibly be true, and people sort
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: of just accept that that's just the nature of the
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: game anymore. I guess right.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: There's also manipulating information. This is basically just lying, and
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: it can include saying things that are kind of true
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: or completely false, claiming that there is waste and fraud
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: in the government, is almost certainly accurate that by itself
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: is I'm sure true, claiming that it is so rampant
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: that it is justifiable to cut everything in everyone's job,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: wildly overstating and overreacting to the actual nature of the problem,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: and then going and building something like I don't know,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: I'm going to make up another term like alligator Alcatraz,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: which is costing you know, anywhere upwards of four hundred
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: to five hundred million dollars of tax payer money, and
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: we're talking about rampant fraud like and waste. Yeah, I
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: could imagine that maybe manipulating that information and kind of
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: twisting it around is a problem. And so that's just
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: one of those examples like you just claiming that things
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: are happening half truth and then finding the opposite of
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: the problem, or even creating a problem in a different way.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they like they went in and cut
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: all of USAID. Millions of lives are now being lost,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: and that that represented less than one percent of the budget,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: and the government is still spending more right now than
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: it has ever spent at any point ever before. So
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: like the idea that this was cutting waste and then
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: like it's less than a percent of the budget and
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: then they spend even more than they were spending insane
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Like it's just utter nonsense lies. So yeah, that's where
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: It's ridiculous.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: The next one is called snob appeal. It's kind of
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the opposite of the plain folk idea in a way,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: not exactly, but kind of. It's making something sound particularly deluxe,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: luxury or special and available to only you. It's claiming
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: some sort of exclusivity to make you feel special. It
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: can include things that are like exclusive information that only
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: someone's smart, like you can understand and appreciate. It's intended
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: to make you feel good and smart and special and
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: makes you think that because you are the one who
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: has all this information, everyone else is dumb, like they
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: don't know what you know because you did your own research,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: because you listen to the guy who's trying to sell
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: you boner pills and who like clearly has a very
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: very clear bias and their position, and who was trying
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: to milk you for cash, and like that's the guy
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: you're gonna trust now, I guess, because he tells you
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: you're smart and tells you that you now get to
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: know things that only people who trust him, get to know.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Wizard of Oz is jealous with rage
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: that he cannot pull off that level of charlatan sure
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: and his man behind the curtain nonsense. But anyway, you
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: might even be wondering, like how can it be both
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: snob appeal and plain folk appeal? And like that's kind
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: of the thing about propaganda is it doesn't need to
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: make sense. You can do counter like things that would
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: you would expect to run counter to one another, side
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: by side, and they'll still work. Yeah, Like they'll still
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: work on the same people. So like you tell someone that,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: like they should believe it because they're playing folk, just
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: like this guy who believes it. But also they should
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: believe it because they're special and smart and snobby and
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: this is only for them. Yeah, and there's like all
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of those things sound great. I feel wonderful. I accept.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about plain folk in snob appeal together and
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: how it might work. Like, let's say with an organization
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: that allegedly uses this, which would be scientology. And I
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: say allegedly because you know they're loggious, so allegedly, so
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: what they might do is this they create a hierarchy
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: that you have to pay more money into, more money
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: into so that you can get clear, right, And then
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: they'll have somebody who is playing folk who has worked
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: their way up and said this was good for me.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: I was an everyday Joe, and so I work through
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: all this. You are an everyday Joe, and this will
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: be good for you too. And as you move through this,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: you'll get more information and you'll get clothes sort of
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: being clear, and you'll do this like they kind of
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: like you can see how they can employ both of
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: those together to make that like this like package of
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: I'm a normal person. I'm a regular person and I
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: could benefit from having more information, and you could see
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: how they could collaborate to create this space where now
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: you're moving up levels and getting clearer and clearer and
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: clearer every day, allegedly.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Allegedly, that is an exquisite example of what they allegedly
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: do over there.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: All right, So let's talk about repetition as another example.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: So research shows that the more often we hear contacts
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: some piece of information, the more we believe, and even
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: when we know it's unreliable, we start to recognize it
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: as familiar, which makes us start to accept it as true.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Are partially true. Sometimes it's just a matter of just
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: saying the same thing over and over and over and
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: over again, in clear enough language and with enough emotion
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: that it elicits enough emotion in you that you could
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: eventually buy into it, and specifically good buy into it
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: knowing that it's not true.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they go in saying like, crime is the worst
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: it's ever been. We have to deal with this. All
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: available data, however you want to slice it and measure it,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: show that crime is down the lowest levels it's ever been.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: But they come in and they just keep saying over
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and over again, crime is terrible, the worst it's ever been.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: And eventually you just start to accept that narrative, Like
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: even if you know the data show that that's wrong,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: you just start to accept, like crime must be they
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: must be bad. It must at least be worse than
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: they're saying, you know, yeah, and therefore it like the
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: repetition piece is extremely important and like partially you know,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: really subtle messages very much depend on repetition, and just
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: have you hear bits and pieces over and over again.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And I think like another one is like the nicknames
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: thing falls into this. It's like constantly using that nickname,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: constantly using those those yeah, those name calling things just
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: helps it stay in the consciousness. It just helps it
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: like reiterate and establish itself as the way to think
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: about it. It's like when you have to talk about
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: someone and start by discussing seeing their race if they're
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: not a white person, Like that doesn't have anything to
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: do with their identity in terms of like who they
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: are as a person or what they bring to the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: table behaviorally, or their skills or anything. But for some
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: reason we feel the need to specify someone's race or
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: ethnicity when talking about them if they're a non white person.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: This happens so much in like various discussions, and it's
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: just sort of like that is a kind of technique
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that I think that white supremacists have long leaned on
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: as a way to other those groups of people by saying,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: like you are either white and we don't have to
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: say that you're white because that is the default, or
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: you are wrong and therefore you belong to some group
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: that we need to specify is not the correct one, right,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: And so like that repetition is like sneaky and subtle,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: but they it depends on it to be effective.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: All right, there are a couple more to go over
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: here that we're going to get into, and they're fairly quick,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: and then we still have a boatload of content after that.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: So let's first play some ads and then we'll get
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: to those things and then discuss where we're going from here.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So the last two sort of
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: strategies that I think are commonly employed in the not
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: I think these are strategies that are commonly employed by
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: people who are using propaganda to try and influence you.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: One of them is called loaded language, and this is
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: just using specific words in the names of things to
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: make them sound more appealing. And it's not the same
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: as like stacking the deck in. It's more like choosing
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: words that have the intended effect. So you take terms
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: like pro life or pro choice. Both of those are
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: loaded with emotional meaning and implications for morality, right Like,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: one of them is not anti life, one of them
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: is not anti choice. They're both pro and they're both
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: things that are pro good things, right like, those are
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the way that they're framed. And you know, again trying
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: to sort of espouse here than the fact that this
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: is a double sided coin, like everybody's doing this. I'm
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: both on all sides of the issue that as they're
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: described and enlisted, and I do think like this is
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: so so common in the current administration to try and
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: downplayer brush things off, to say like this is a
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: tremendous victory. No one has seen anything like it ever before.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of the exaggeration piece. That's a little
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: bit different. But like calling something the great, big beautiful bill,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the great Yeah, there you go, the great big beautiful bill,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: that's a really good example. Is like there's so many
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: words in there that are intended to sort of evoke
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: a positive emotion. Essentially, it's just a huge ominimus spending
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: package that, like the government funds regularly as part of
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: their job in Congress. Usually it has a lot of
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: decision making and choice that went into it. In this
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: particular case, it was just Project twenty twenty five that
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: was green lit by the people who were like, yes,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: let's have a king. There was a really common phrase
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: that was being tossed around a lot, particularly during the campaign.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Is still being used, but just not as much. That
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: was like migrant crime. That's not a thing, but it's
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: just specifically designed to evoke this idea of associating those
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: things together, like migrant being essentially in this case a
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: bad word, crime obviously being a word that we don't like.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: And there's like common, constantly, constantly these allusions to immigrants
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: as criminals. And they even went so far as to
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: say things like they campaigned on We're going to get
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: rid of the violent criminal immigrants. There's so many violent
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: criminal immigrants. And then they get in and they start
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: just supporting everybody, and they say, like their existence in
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: this country is illegal, therefore the criminals. So now the
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: violent part is gone, but they've left criminal. And like,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what you have done, it is just
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: you are here as a person who is non white,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: therefore criminal. Therefore get out sure or jailed in a
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: giant swamp in Florida or like since to a country
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: you've never been to. Then just left right, right, So,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: like those are the kinds of like language that that
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: is used to try and gussie it up and make
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: it look good.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the last tactic that we're going to talk
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: about today is something called weasel words, which is just
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: I think a really great label for this, right, and
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: this is a strategy for kind of like saying the
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: thing that you mean while saying you don't mean it.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: Al Franken actually, many years ago, Senator al Franken I
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: had written this book and he used this phrase also
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: called kidding on the square, which was like the idea
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: that you're joking, but you're saying something that you really mean,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: but you're saying it as a joke. Like so you're like,
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: you know, you're saying like, oh, you know, oh my god,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: that baby is so ugly. You know what I'm saying
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: the like you actually mean the baby's ugly, but you're
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: pretending like you don't mean the baby's ugly because you're
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: just sure. And so like that's kind of this. It's
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: kind of a similar thing. So like weazel words would
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: be like if I were to say something like I'm
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: not saying Trump is a racist, sexist, incompetent Nazi and
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: a rapist, but you know, it's a way for me
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: to say the exact thing while claiming I'm not saying it.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: The words are in your mind now Trump is a racist, sexist,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: incompetent Nazi, and rapist. Oh I guess maybe it worked,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Like that's what it is, right, Well, I just use
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: weasel words or that's fact, but like that's you could
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: see how somebody could use that and turn that into
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: like how people can kind of like get away with
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: saying things. And actually, like weasel words are often used
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: in like legal spaces.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, very much.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: So like people will go, they'll go like, oh, I
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: didn't say that, I said that they weren't blah blah
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: blah blah blah. But you're creating these relations between these
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: words and this person by kind of using it and
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: kind of like weaseling your way into saying the thing
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: that you didn't that you're not actually saying.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I'm not saying that all this whole group
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: of people are horrible, terrible people. I'm like that is
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: those are the words that just left your mouth, though
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: that is exactly like you're saying the thing. Yeah, by
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: saying you're not saying the thing. So it's it is
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: just to get those words out there and have people
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: hear them and and you know, have that be part
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: of the narrative and part of the description. But as
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: you said, sort of remove your self from the legal
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: liability of that statement, if you will. Yeah, exactly, all right,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: we have so much to get into here lake we
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: need to, I think, unpack some of the examples of
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: where this has happened, and we also need to start
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: getting into the strategies of what can be done about it.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: So I think it makes sense to go ahead and
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: separate here into a part two, and then we will
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: talk about those specific examples and the actions that we
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: can take to try and at least prevent ourselves from
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: being sucked into as many of these traps as exist.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: I do think there is a way to mostly avoid propaganda,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: but it is kind of an arms race, like the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: propagandists are trying to find the ways that we're trying
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: to avoid them so that they can overcome those obstacles
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and then be persuasive again. So we'll do what we
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: can now. This will probably be something we'll have to
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: revisit in a few years and give updated information on,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: but I think it makes sense to go ahead and
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: split this up here, otherwise this will be a very
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: very very very long discussion.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think this will give some folks
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: to think about to as we go into what we
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: can do about it, so that maybe, like you know,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: some homework that we can give folks as they leave.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: This is just thinking about how you can start identifying
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: some of those strategies that we mentioned, yeah, and start
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: paying attention to see if you start noticing them at
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: the very least, because I mean that might be a
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: fun little activity as we go forward.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I think be on the lookout for those
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: things that we just mentioned, like see where you see
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: this happening, because it's kind of all around you. Like,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: as I said, I think it's useful to draw a
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: distinction between like advertising and propaganda. I think you will
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: see elements of this in some advertising, sure, and I
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: think you'll definitely be able to see this in politics
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: and really any kind of sort of social movement campaign
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: one way or another. And I think, as we'll get
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: into it can be used for both good and ill
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: when we'll explain that more later, but the point being that,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: like just because this propaganda doesn't necessarily mean that it's
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: doing harm. But I do think the tactics of propaganda
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: are specific designed to be disingenuous, to hook you and
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: to work against your interest. And that's kind of like,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: in my mind, the definition of what propaganda is just
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: to convince you to behave in a way that is
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: against your own interests. Yeah, and so I think that's
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: where I'm sort of coming from on it. But I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: think you could take a broader view and say that
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: there are versions of it where it actually does work
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: in your favor. It's just like you wouldn't have done
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: this voluntarily, but now you're sort of being convinced to
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: do it. It's for your own good, Like you do
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: actually benefit from this, but you wouldn't have otherwise conceded
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: to it if it hadn't been sort of sold to
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: you in that way, if you will.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: Right exactly.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I think that's already getting too far into
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: the next part of the topic that we wanted to
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: save for next time, So we will probably just go
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: ahead and wrap this one up here, which means we
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: are going to end this episode of the way that
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: we end our episodes. We have a piece of listener mail,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: we have some recommendations, and we have some credits to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: get through. Listener mails are super fun. We enjoy reading them,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: we enjoy you sending them to us. We think you
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: enjoy hearing them. And then recommendations, in case you are
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: not familar with that term, are where we say things
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: that we think that you could or would want to
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: check out or just things that we found joy in
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: and we think maybe if you like the things we like,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: you'll like this too. And if not, then don't. That's fine.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: It's just a recommendation, So take it or leave it.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: That's fine, but perfect. So first let's get into the credits. First,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: I would like to thank you all for listening. We
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: hope that you enjoyed what you heard in this episode
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: today and that you took the time to join us
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: and hear what is going on in the sort of
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: space of psychological warfare that we seem to find ourselves
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, and if you do enjoy what
• 1:04:33
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• 1:04:35
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• 1:06:13
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  Speaker 1: fact checking from Shane and myself, thank you for recording
• 1:06:21
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  Speaker 1: of cool reels and stuff like this. She's out there
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: doing the social media thing, which is very helpful. And
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: then the person who puts all of this noise together
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: and makes it turn into a podcast is Justin, who
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: is just endlessly talented at this and is so so
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: good and so handsome and so handsome. Indeed, hard to
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: tell through an audio medium, but you just have to
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: take our word on it.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: If you heard his voice, you go, oh yeah.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, quite quite the guy buttery voice and all the things.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: I think that is what I have to say about
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the credits before we get into our listener mail. Is
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: there anything that I am missing or that you would
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: like to add before we get to the sort of
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: more fun things that we do.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it for now.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Let's have some fun. Let's start with some listener mail.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: This comes from someone who I hope I don't butch this.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I did not see a pronunciation guide, but
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: it looks like Kadija, they write regarding fast fashion. Sorry,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: before I get into what they said, we hadn't mentioned
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: during the holidays. It was some holiday it was like
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Welsh rare Bit day and I didn't know what that was,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: so they wrote in to let us know. They said,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Welsh rarebit is super yummy, sharp cheese mustard sauce you
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: put on toast.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: HM.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Very helpful. Thank you for that. Yeah, I would not
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: have guessed that, but that's awesome And.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: There are no clues in that statement like that would
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: have told me that that was it was a spread
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: or sauce or cheesy or mustardy, but.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: That all sounds good. Those are all things I like anyway. Yeah,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: so Welsh rarebit go out and celebrate. They went on
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: to say, PS took my children to see the Gaslight
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Anthem a few weeks back, and the band gave my
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: daughter a super sweet I'm head signed by the band
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: with teenage mutant ninja turtles eating pizza. So I was.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very fun. I think that was probably somewhat in
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: response to the episode we did on the history of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: punk music, The Very Fun. I actually had not heard
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: of Gaslight Anthem, but Shane had. I went and checked
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: them out and they're very good. So a great recommendation
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, love love, love, love love that band, love all
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: their output. For those of you who've never listened to
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: on bonus recommendation, go listen to literally anything they put out.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: But fifty nine Sound is a good place to start,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: and so is American slang if you want to give
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: those a listen.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for writing in Kadija, and
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: I really hope that I got your name somewhat right.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: But that is a thing that we like to do
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: is have people write into us and then we share
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: the fun things that they have to say. And if
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: you would like to write into us, you can do
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: so you emails directly at info at WWDWWD podcast dot com.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: You can also reach out to us on the social
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: media platforms and engage with us. We totally love constructive criticism.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: We also love people sharing their personal stories or adding
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: pieces of information to topics. Where we forgot something or
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: left something out, either intentionally or unintentionally. We're happy to
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: share that. So please feel for you to reach out
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: to us. But we're actually not done because the thing
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: that we always do at the end of episodes, listener
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: mill is here and there. We do it. Sometimes it
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: can be fun. We enjoy it. But the thing we
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: always do is recommend some stuff.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: So that's true.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Cue the music.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: We recommendations. So I'm gonna recommend a book. I love books.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: If you didn't know that, I am a Stephen King
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: will call me a constant reader. True, I started a
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: series that was recommended to me. You know, I'm always
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: hesitant to start a series because I'm always worried that
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna get sucked in or I'm gonna hate the
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: first book and then I'm not gonna get sucked in.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: I gotta say though, this one totally pulled me in.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: And the book is called Wool by Hugh Howie. Wool
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: is part of the Silo series. It's a three book
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: series trilogy, if you will, pretty incredible. So I I'm
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: not gonna spoil too much, but I will say that
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: the book, it takes place in an underground silo full
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: of humans and kind of like, uh like the experiences
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: of those folks inside of an underground silo who have
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: never been outside. And I think that's probably the best
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: way to lead you into it, because I don't if
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: I tell you more, it's gonna it's gonna. It's just
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: because I'll talk about it all day. I just absolutely
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: loved it.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: There's too much great stuff to discover in there, it
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: really is.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: And it's fast paced. It's it's like one of those
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: things where it like a lot of things happen really rapidly. Uh.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: Just really great commentary on the human condition and systems
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: at large, and just a really really great read. So
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: strong recommend Wool by Hugh Howie.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of us could generally think of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: like books that feel like or stories or movies or
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: TV shows where it's like it feels like they padded
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: out content to make it longer. This feels like it
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: maybe could have been padded out because it moves so quickly,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: like yeah, it is at a very very rapid pace
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: the entire book, like just one thing to the next.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: There is no downtime, is just churning through the action
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: really truly. Yeah, super engaging. I recommended this, I think
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: a while back, or at least I know I've recommended
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: it to several people. But yeah, I'm on the second
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: book in this, in the trilogy, and there's a TV
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: show corresponding to this on Apple TV Plus. It's called Silo,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: and it also is absolutely fantastic, just truly spectacular TV
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: and a very faithful adaptation of the book. And actually
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: it kind of does elaborate on aspects of the book
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: that are not in the book, putting in sort of
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: elongated versions of scenes that's how, which actually plays really well.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: So it is a spectacularly well done show.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: Cool, all right, that's well. The first book in a
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: trilogy called the Silent Trilogy by author Hugh Howie, I'm
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: recommending a TV show. I've recommended this TV show before,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: but they just at the time of this recording released
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: their fourth and final season of the series. The TV
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: show is called Upload. This is an Amazon Prime TV show.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: The basic premise is that people when they are about
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: to die or are dying, can have their consciousness uploaded
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: to a digital world. And that is largely a commentary
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: on sort of capitalism, because they have to pay for
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: regular data fees to continue to engage in that world,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: and they like, there are some people who only have
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: like two gigs of data or something like that, and
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: so they can't even experience strong emotions or they'll use
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: up all their data. They like can't read or that
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: uses up data. So they just kind of move around
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: it's slow paced to try and avoid using up their data.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Otherwise they freeze until the next month and they get
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: their two gig allotment back. But there's all kinds of
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: upgrade packages and you can spend all this money while
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: you're in this dead space to buy extra perks and
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: benefits like simulated foods you've never tried before, experiences you've
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: never done, and so you kind of get just to
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: live in this virtual digital world. But they do have
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: to completely destroy your head to bring you into this world.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: This all happens like episode one, like the fifteen minutes
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: an episode one, by the way, So they basically cut
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: your head off. Well, it disintegrates your head and that
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: uploads your mind to this server, where then you can
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: only exist as a version of yourself in the server.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Anyway, yeah, wild premise. The fourth season is really short.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: It's only four episodes. Each of them are only like
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes long or less, and it does have
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: a It does not necessarily end on a super happy note,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: but I think it ends in a way that feels
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: complete and I guess satisfine.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway, that's upload season four. If you haven't
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: watched any of it, I recommend the whole show is
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: really really good. Same creator as one of the creators
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: of the US version of the Office, Greg Daniels. Okay, yeah,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: so there are quite a bit. There are several moments
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: of humor. There are several moments of like just commentary
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: that is very close to home and kind of sad.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: One thing they introduced that's just sort of a side
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: gag that I'm just gonna spoil here. They introduce something
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: called Gerbil cabs, I think the dribbles. These are cabs
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: that are driven by trained rodents and they have like
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: a squeak to speech feature where you can talk to
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: them as they're driving, but they drive the cars for you,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and they work for like food.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: It's a very funny side gag because they're like briefly
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: in it for a moment, but there it's very cute
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: and very funny that there are these Durbils that are
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: driving cabs around. So I love that.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: That brings me such joy.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, and I think it's supposed to take place
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: like forty or fifty years in the future of like
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: from now or something, but it's like the not too
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: distant future. Technology is sure evolved a bit. So anyway,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: So that's an upload season four on Amazon Prime and
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: then the book trilogy Wool by Hugh Howie. And that
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: was a long time for us. Did you recommendations? I
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: feelink we spent some time on that. We're really dug into.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: Hey, that's okay, we're allowed to.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: It's our podcast, it is it is. I hope that
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed what you heard today. I think we've said
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: all the things we need to say, so come back
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: for part two of this because that's why we're really
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: going to dig into the examples and again get into
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: the like what can we actually do about this? How
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: can you guard against those techniques that are used by
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: propagandasts to influence you? And although you can sort of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: also your homework today is also to use the descriptions
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: that we gave you about those techniques to try and
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: identify them more they're out there, That alone will help that. Like,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: that's part of the strategy of guarding against it, is
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: just knowing what to look for. Yeah, all right, I
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: think that's what I have to say. Is there anything
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: you like to add before we wrap up today?
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: Then no, I think that covers it for this one.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: Perfect see you next time. This is Abraham and this
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: is Shane.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: We're out.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do what we do.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day.