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Is it possible to brainwash someone? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I'm about to brainwash Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. You can't brainwash me? Yes, I can? You
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Speaker 1: capitalist pig dog. That's not working. Oh, it will believe me.
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Speaker 1: I haven't even gotten started, buddy. I'm so confident in
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Speaker 1: my abilities that brainwats you that I can even tell
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Speaker 1: you how I'm doing it. While I'm doing it. You're
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Speaker 1: gonna come out on the other end exactly what I wanted,
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Speaker 1: which is a chicken. You do seem kind of, you know, confident.
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Speaker 1: Stare into my belly, Chuck. That's not brainwashed, it's hypnotized. Hey,
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Speaker 1: have you ever known anybody who's brainwashed? Do you ever
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Speaker 1: known a cult member? No? But why do I have
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Speaker 1: a feeling that you have. I've met cult members before.
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Speaker 1: What you have I have in your drum circles? They
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Speaker 1: were part of the Kashi Yoga cult. Really wow, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: totally nice, harmless people, but they were part of a
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Speaker 1: cult and they didn't do a Heaven's Gate deal. No,
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Speaker 1: uh no, actually they do quite the opposite. They make
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Speaker 1: like sandwiches for homeless people and stuff like that. And
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Speaker 1: they don't wear nikes. No, no, they were loosely fitting
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Speaker 1: clothing and all the Heavens Gate people when that one
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Speaker 1: of the hallmarks. And they were all um, all the
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Speaker 1: males were castrated. They were basically a sexual slick as
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Speaker 1: a can do all down there. Yeah, have fun with that. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but uh chuck. You know, there's kind of a hysteria
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Speaker 1: associated with cults, like you know, if you're a member
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Speaker 1: of a colt or even tossing that word around kind of.
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Speaker 1: But in the seventies, big time, remember all that, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the Moonies, the Unification Church. Brainwashing was a big deal.
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Speaker 1: Jim Jones's church. I don't remember what he called it. Yeah, right,
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Speaker 1: did you know though, that um, what everybody considered brain washing.
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Speaker 1: It's just it's just rubbish. Well, what like torture? No, no, okay,
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Speaker 1: there's actually a distinction. I found out. Well there's two camps. Right. Well,
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Speaker 1: here's the thing. You've got actual brainwashing, which has been
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Speaker 1: empirically demonstrated to work on a person if it's carried
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Speaker 1: out in conjunction with torture, right, there's another thing called
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Speaker 1: coercive persuasion, yes, and that's basically brainwashing without without torture,
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Speaker 1: which is why everybody, you know, is that's what they
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Speaker 1: think that you know, the Moonies did, or Jim Jones did,
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Speaker 1: or David Koresh did. Yeah, there's usually not violence involved
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Speaker 1: in cults, to be honest. No, No, there's not a
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Speaker 1: thread of violence. Perhaps, nor is their brainwashing, or at
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Speaker 1: the very least it's never been empirically demonstrated that that
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Speaker 1: actually works. I think the willingness of the participants is
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Speaker 1: often overlooked, especially by family members. So basically what I'm
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Speaker 1: saying is that the whole concept of cults is like
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Speaker 1: these these uh, these brain washing machines. It's not correct
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Speaker 1: brain washing machines or brainwashing machines, same thing. Yeah, it's
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Speaker 1: good stuff, thought reformed, Josh. Yeah. But all of this
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Speaker 1: can be traced back. This whole hysteria over brainwashing can
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Speaker 1: be traced back to a British journalist by the name
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Speaker 1: of Edward Hunter. This extra research look at you. Well,
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Speaker 1: he was mentioned briefly in the article. Okay, well, but
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Speaker 1: he was in a fervent anti communist He wrote a
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Speaker 1: book um called I Think Brainwashing Techniques of Red China
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Speaker 1: uh and it was published in nineteen fifty three, and
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Speaker 1: he later testified in front of the McCarthy um Committee,
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Speaker 1: the Senate can Senate Un American Activities Committee. Yah. Um,
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Speaker 1: I don't think it's quite right, but yeah, it's close.
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Speaker 1: I think I got all the words in there. This
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Speaker 1: is not in the right order. And he basically scared
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Speaker 1: the Bejesus out of everybody, saying that the Communists have
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Speaker 1: brainwashing down to a science, will do anything. They're gonna
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Speaker 1: brainwash this hall not well know. I mean, it's not
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Speaker 1: like the Communists didn't try and specifically they tried um
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Speaker 1: most actively in Korea during the Korean War. Right Korean
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Speaker 1: and Chinese captors did this too. American soldiers that were POWs,
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Speaker 1: to some varying degrees of success. I think they said
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Speaker 1: that twenty one soldiers refused to come back to the
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Speaker 1: United States when they were set free. And there's some
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Speaker 1: a little bit of discrepancy because it's twenty one out
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Speaker 1: of twenty thou prisoners. So some people say these guys
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Speaker 1: weren't brainwashed, they just you know, coming to come back. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: maybe they you know, Doug Korean chicks or something. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: maybe so, yeah we're Korean dudes or yeah, we're wide
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Speaker 1: open here at stuff. You should know. You know, whatever
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Speaker 1: you want to do, as long as you're not hurting
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Speaker 1: anybody else, we're cool with that. But yeah, the the
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Speaker 1: Korean and Chinese captors of these POWs did in fact
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Speaker 1: have a systematic process of brainwashing in place, and they
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Speaker 1: did it in conjunction with tortures, so it could have
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Speaker 1: actually worked. It could have. And I I think this
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Speaker 1: article is great. Just let me go ahead and say,
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Speaker 1: Julia Layton has got the goods. Bro. She does. She's
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Speaker 1: a great writer. And I love it when we do
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Speaker 1: podcasts on her articles. Yeah, because they're just chock full
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Speaker 1: of good stuff. Way to go, Layton. And so when
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Speaker 1: I read this article, I thought it all made sense
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Speaker 1: to me. When I when we're gonna break it down
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Speaker 1: here in a minute of how you brainwatch someone, and
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Speaker 1: it all added up, I was like, wow, that I
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Speaker 1: could see how that would work. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so let's let's talk about it. That there was a
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Speaker 1: psychologist named Lifton, Robert J. Lifton, right, and he was
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Speaker 1: the one who started studying um returning POWs from the
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Speaker 1: Korean conflict. Um, and he basically by cobbling together their
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Speaker 1: information and their reports. Yeah. Uh, he figured out the
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Speaker 1: process of brainwashing. As you know, the Communists did it,
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Speaker 1: and actually it wasn't anything new. It's a twentieth century phenomenon.
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Speaker 1: It appears. Yeah, Chairman Mao Um actually about it as
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Speaker 1: far back as ninety nine and his little Red Book,
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Speaker 1: which wasn't published until nineteen sixty four. Yeah, what did
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Speaker 1: he call it? Are you ready for this? Yeah? Go ahead?
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Speaker 1: He called it see chang jang with with apologies to
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Speaker 1: Sauceu over in Keia who tried to teach me that pronunciation.
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Speaker 1: She took a lot of time out of her day
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Speaker 1: for that one and her candy bowl. I sat there
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Speaker 1: in eight candy the whole time. She's helping me. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So that means thought thought struggle, yeah, which which makes
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Speaker 1: sense because what you're doing is you're creating a conflict
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Speaker 1: in the person. That's one way to look at it.
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Speaker 1: But you're also there's a struggle between the person who's
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Speaker 1: being brainwashed, which is called the target, right, and the
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Speaker 1: person who's doing the brainwashing, which will heretofore be referred
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Speaker 1: to as the agent, kind of creepy agent and target. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: So should we talk about should we just go ahead
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Speaker 1: and and go over the steps of how you do it? Well,
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Speaker 1: let's talk about what brainwashing is based on. It's actually
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Speaker 1: based on real psychology, right, Okay, called social influence, yeah,
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Speaker 1: which is everywhere, it's all around, and there's three different
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Speaker 1: little zones here. Compliance, which is just do it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's a good way to say it, Josh. And then
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Speaker 1: there's persuasion, which is do it because you feel better,
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Speaker 1: more successful, more more happy, do it because it feels good.
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Speaker 1: Do it because it feels good. And then the education method,
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Speaker 1: which is do it because it's the right thing to do, right,
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Speaker 1: which is also called the propaganda method, because if you don't,
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Speaker 1: if you don't believe what you're being taught. And we've
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Speaker 1: talked about propaganda, yeah, good stuff, it was. So basically
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Speaker 1: brainwashing is all of these things combine persuasion, compliance, and
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Speaker 1: education and taken to the nth degree. Right, But it's
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Speaker 1: it's generally carried out, like I said, in conjunction with
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Speaker 1: torture and um using techniques like sleep deprivation, isolation. Isolation
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Speaker 1: should be you can't brainwash someone if the the paper
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Speaker 1: every day, right, or if you send them out and
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Speaker 1: say all right, that's enough for now. You can just
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Speaker 1: go back home. Ye watch Jeffards go to the library
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Speaker 1: for a while. Cool your heels. Yeah, it's not gonna happen.
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Speaker 1: So you need to isolate somebody. That's the first thing.
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Speaker 1: That's the first thing that needs happened. Okay, So let's
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Speaker 1: talk about it. Basically, there's three main phases in that
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Speaker 1: that Lifton figured out, the Communists carried out. Can I
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Speaker 1: Sam do it? It's breaking down the self step one,
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Speaker 1: introducing the possibility of salvation part two, and rebuilding the
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Speaker 1: self part three. Yeah, and I'm not going to make
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Speaker 1: any comments about my Baptist upbringing in relation to brainwatching,
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Speaker 1: I swear, because I would not want to get listener mail.
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Speaker 1: Yeah you might just from that one, but we won't
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Speaker 1: go there. Um. So check. Let's talk about breaking down
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Speaker 1: the self. What's the first step. Well, it's it's basically
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Speaker 1: just a constant attack. And we're going to talk about
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Speaker 1: this in terms of just for the sake of ease
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Speaker 1: um of a military type situation, like you've got a
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Speaker 1: swetcher that you've captured. Yeah, this the one that's been
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Speaker 1: proven to actually work in you're not a military prisoner
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Speaker 1: of war torture. So basically that's when it's you know,
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Speaker 1: you're you're not defending your freedom, you're not doing anything good,
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Speaker 1: You're not a man, you're not a soldier. It's just
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Speaker 1: a constant verbal assault on the senses, breaking you down right,
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Speaker 1: and you're actually saying you're not what you think you are.
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Speaker 1: Like Chuck, if I wanted to brainwash you, I would
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Speaker 1: start with Chuck, you're not a hipster. You are not
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Speaker 1: a hipster. Chuck, I am not a hipster. G exactly.
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Speaker 1: Now we're getting started. Now. What I would also do
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Speaker 1: right now would be to isolate you. As we mentioned,
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Speaker 1: I would probably perform Filenga on you, which is what
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Speaker 1: do you think it is? I would perform Philenga on you.
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Speaker 1: It sounds like something involving beads and sticks in oils
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Speaker 1: and stuff. No, actually it does involve sticks bamboo canes.
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Speaker 1: It's actually beating the the soles of the feet with
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Speaker 1: bamboo canes. Hurts like you would not believe bet believe me. Um.
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Speaker 1: And actually, also this this isolation thing, one of my
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Speaker 1: friends told me um about. I guess he's found it
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Speaker 1: in like the Kubark Manual, which I've yet to see it. Um.
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Speaker 1: But it's called birthday party. And if you're trying to
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Speaker 1: disorient somebody or or break their their grip on reality,
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Speaker 1: one of the things you could do is, you know,
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Speaker 1: you're you're assaulting them. Verbally, you're attacking them, and then
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Speaker 1: all of a sudden in the middle, everybody comes in
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Speaker 1: wearing birthday hats with a cake, and you celebrate this
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Speaker 1: guy's birthday and everybody's hanging out talking, eating cake, you know,
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Speaker 1: kind of fraternizing with the with the target and um.
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Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden, everybody leaves the parties over
10:38
Speaker 1: and then you get back to business of torturing them.
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Speaker 1: And it completely throws them off. Yeah, because they're you're
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Speaker 1: you're assaulting them. And then the next thing they know
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Speaker 1: that you're like, they're celebrating your birthday and it's not
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Speaker 1: even your birthday, so like you have no idea what's
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Speaker 1: going on any longer. What you're trying to do is
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Speaker 1: disorient the person. So once you start to become disoriented,
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Speaker 1: you are start you begin to lose your grip on reality, right,
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Speaker 1: And once that happens, you move in with the guilt,
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Speaker 1: telling him that what they're doing is actually very bad
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Speaker 1: and uh, their mission is bad and they're evil, and
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Speaker 1: you send that kind of thing like I would tell you, Chuck, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: you are not a hipster and you should feel poorly
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Speaker 1: about the state of your goateee. How long have you
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Speaker 1: worked on this? This is off the cuff, Okay. So
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Speaker 1: now I'm beginning to slip further into your the palm
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Speaker 1: of your hand, Josh, And now you are going to
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Speaker 1: move in at me with self betrayal. And that's basically
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Speaker 1: when I need to agree that I'm bad. So I'm
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Speaker 1: starting to lose it to the point where I'm starting
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Speaker 1: to say, yes, I am bad. So you you you
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Speaker 1: do feel your goatee is shoddy, right, and you would
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Speaker 1: force me to say that, and you may force me
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Speaker 1: to denounce my my friends and their goatees and my
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Speaker 1: family and their goateees. Right. Yeah. Once you start denouncing
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Speaker 1: things that that you hold dear, all of a sudden,
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Speaker 1: you're en these on the brink of crisis, which brings
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Speaker 1: us to the breaking point, right, And that's when you're
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Speaker 1: totally at their whim. Who am I where am I?
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Speaker 1: What should I do? Right? And and you're you're just
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Speaker 1: completely lost any faith that you've ever had in your gotee.
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Speaker 1: You may be sobbing uncontrollably. You've reached what we would
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Speaker 1: call a nervous breakdown. You become unhinged, and you have
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Speaker 1: lost your grip on reality, which, as Laton put it,
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Speaker 1: your identity is up for grabs. You're you're literally a
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Speaker 1: man without an identity. You have nothing that you attach
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Speaker 1: yourself to any longer. So now that I'm broken down, dude,
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Speaker 1: that's the breakdown of the cell. You have broken me
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Speaker 1: down to the point where I don't even know which
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Speaker 1: way is up. That then you come in with a
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Speaker 1: little good cop bad cop and you offer a little
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Speaker 1: bit of leniency. I might give you some water, you're
12:45
Speaker 1: some water, I can help you out, or you're feeling
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Speaker 1: even a breaking the torture and me saying I don't
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Speaker 1: want to hurt you or something like that. Small, small
12:54
Speaker 1: gestures just become amplified in this situation. So now you
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Speaker 1: have offered me sip of your energy, inc And Josh,
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Speaker 1: I'm that's the most kind gesture anyone's ever paid to me.
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Speaker 1: To give me that energy drink. I'm indebted to you
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Speaker 1: for showing mercy on me. Sure. Yeah, well, you know
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Speaker 1: that's leniency, Chuck, And um, it's the first step of
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Speaker 1: the possibility of salvation phase, right, and that leads us
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Speaker 1: into compulsion. So what I'm gonna do now, Chuck, is
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Speaker 1: uh tell you that by confessing that you were wrong
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Speaker 1: and wanting to be a hipster, thinking that you were
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Speaker 1: a hipster, you were wrong in liking your goatee. Um,
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Speaker 1: you can stop feeling the psychological and physical pain, right,
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Speaker 1: you can stop feeling this guilt and the shame that
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Speaker 1: I've cultivated in you. I have a razor right over here, right, yeah, yeah, right,
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Speaker 1: so which leads us to the channeling of guilt. Right. So,
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Speaker 1: You've got this guilt and the shame that I've created,
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Speaker 1: and you, by this point, you because you've entered the
13:55
Speaker 1: nervous breakdown phase, you have no idea what you're really
13:58
Speaker 1: feeling guilty or shameful about and meaning behind it, but
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Speaker 1: you feel it constantly and overwhelmingly. Right. So I'm now
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Speaker 1: going to give you that that way to get rid
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Speaker 1: of your guilt, right, you attach it to something which
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Speaker 1: is your old belief system, my old belief system, which
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Speaker 1: is my goatee and my hipster presence. Now I'm actually thinking,
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Speaker 1: you know what that is? Where why I'm at where
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Speaker 1: I'm at today? It was because of that goatee and
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Speaker 1: me thinking I'm a hipster, right, and in your family's
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Speaker 1: goatees and all that stuff. Everything problem, Josh, sure, now
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Speaker 1: here is a razor and Chuck, it's time for the
14:33
Speaker 1: releasing of guilt. You shave your goateee, well, because you
14:37
Speaker 1: tell me it's not it's not my fault. Essentially, It's like,
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Speaker 1: it's not you, Chuck, it's it's your belief set. Hey,
14:44
Speaker 1: who's doing the brainwashing here? Maybe I'm doing a reverse
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Speaker 1: brainwashed twist. No you're not, okay, okay, So Chuck, um,
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Speaker 1: you're gonna denounce your goatee. You're gonna denounce your hipster
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Speaker 1: past and your family. You have to actually say it.
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Speaker 1: This is how you and gain control of your life again.
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Speaker 1: I hate my goatee. It's a stupid thing on my face,
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Speaker 1: and I don't know why I grew it to begin with,
15:07
Speaker 1: because it's not it's it's not even a quarter of
15:09
Speaker 1: a beard. I feel like an idiot for having this gotee.
15:14
Speaker 1: Chuck is stupid music I listened to and those dumb tattoos.
15:18
Speaker 1: I know. It's okay, Okay, Sorry, we've reached the end
15:21
Speaker 1: of the possibility of salvation and now, Chuck, we've actually
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Speaker 1: entered salvation. We've entered the rebuilding of the self phase. Okay,
15:28
Speaker 1: you are broken down, you're nothing now, and now it's
15:31
Speaker 1: time for me to build you back up into what
15:33
Speaker 1: I want you to be, which is a preppy. Okay, okay, okay, So, Chuck, um,
15:39
Speaker 1: I want you to say, now that you've consciously abandoned
15:42
Speaker 1: your old belief system, that you realize that this new
15:46
Speaker 1: belief system, being a preppy is the greatest thing on
15:49
Speaker 1: the planet. It's what you're meant to do. Well, Josh,
15:52
Speaker 1: it is what I was meant to do, because being
15:54
Speaker 1: a preppy is clearly the style and fashion sense that
15:58
Speaker 1: I've always craved. Had no idea, and Chuck, because that
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Speaker 1: this is what you're supposed to be. You really didn't
16:04
Speaker 1: betray anybody else right in your old belief system and
16:08
Speaker 1: by denouncing your family, because that was wrong all along. Okay,
16:11
Speaker 1: do you promise, I do promise, Chuck. Now Here, Chuck,
16:15
Speaker 1: I want you to take this Argyll sweater. You know,
16:17
Speaker 1: don't put it on. Don't put it on. I want
16:19
Speaker 1: you to drape the arms over your shoulders and I
16:21
Speaker 1: rub my face on it. In a minute, okay, I
16:24
Speaker 1: want you to take the cuffs of the sweater and
16:28
Speaker 1: roll them together so that now you have this sweater
16:31
Speaker 1: over your shoulders and it won't fall off because the
16:34
Speaker 1: sleeves are attached. Now, are you trying to make me
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Speaker 1: a preppy? Or are you trying to send me back
16:39
Speaker 1: in time to Chuck? I'm I'm in control here, okay.
16:42
Speaker 1: So I've been isolated for months. You don't, You're You're
16:44
Speaker 1: just grateful I have an Argyle sweater for you. I
16:46
Speaker 1: am thank you for the sweater. It warms my chest,
16:49
Speaker 1: all right? So, Chuck um, are you consciously choosing this
16:52
Speaker 1: new belief system prepputom? I do choose prepputom. Are you
16:55
Speaker 1: prepared to eat an alligator? I am prepared to eat
16:57
Speaker 1: an alligator? Do you want penny loafers more more than
17:00
Speaker 1: you've ever wanted anything in your life with pennies in them?
17:03
Speaker 1: We'll get you pennies later, but first, do you want
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Speaker 1: these penny loafers? I want the penny loafer. Shosh, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: you are reborn. You are now a preppy. I have
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Speaker 1: broken you down from a hipster and rebuilt you into
17:14
Speaker 1: a preppy and you're better off because of it. Wow,
17:16
Speaker 1: where did my goot go? Yeah? You look good, Chuck,
17:19
Speaker 1: My face is all fat. No, it looks good. I mean,
17:22
Speaker 1: we'll work on that a little bit. Sure, but we
17:24
Speaker 1: gotta get your tan first. Nice little bit of role playing,
17:26
Speaker 1: your josh. So it all makes sense to me when
17:29
Speaker 1: you look at those steps, you break someone down and
17:32
Speaker 1: then you offer him a grain of bread, you know,
17:34
Speaker 1: a morsel, and then you gain their trust and then
17:37
Speaker 1: you rebuild them. And when you look at these cults
17:40
Speaker 1: and uh not not the prison of Ward in this case,
17:43
Speaker 1: but when you go the cults and some of these
17:45
Speaker 1: people that may be involved, they may be to that
17:48
Speaker 1: breakdown stage you know already. Yeah, I went to Actually
17:53
Speaker 1: I hate this. This is like if I could cut
17:55
Speaker 1: parts of my brain out, I would cut this memory out.
17:57
Speaker 1: What you do? I went to a weekend long New
17:59
Speaker 1: Way Age convention and dude, it was rough. I was
18:04
Speaker 1: walking around just like you. People will buy into anything,
18:09
Speaker 1: and it wasn't that. It wasn't like I just scoffed
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Speaker 1: at their beliefs or or you know, the people who
18:15
Speaker 1: are peddling these beliefs. I just thought it was said
18:17
Speaker 1: that these people were walking around looking for anything to
18:20
Speaker 1: attach themselves to, anything that they could define themselves with.
18:23
Speaker 1: And we're completely abandoning any thought of creating their own identity, right,
18:28
Speaker 1: they had to attach it to something else. And it's
18:30
Speaker 1: it's clearly it's not just New Age people. You can
18:32
Speaker 1: make the case that it's anybody who uses something as
18:34
Speaker 1: a crutch, whether it's you know, church or whatever. Right. Um,
18:40
Speaker 1: but yeah, this this one particularly stuck out in my head,
18:43
Speaker 1: this new age convention. So um apparently and check this
18:46
Speaker 1: is why I could never actually brainwash you. Uh. It
18:50
Speaker 1: works better on some people than on others. People who
18:53
Speaker 1: have a weak sense of identity, um, which you definitely
18:56
Speaker 1: do not. If you have a tendency to show to
18:59
Speaker 1: be guilty as or feel guilty, which you definitely do not.
19:02
Speaker 1: And absolutism black and white thinking, which and self doubt
19:05
Speaker 1: and self doubt. Yeah you've got none of those, dude.
19:08
Speaker 1: No one could brainwash me. I know you. You get
19:10
Speaker 1: a thick skull. Not not you, not anyone here watching
19:14
Speaker 1: I definitely tend toward guilt and slash your face. How
19:19
Speaker 1: how I just committed violence? Yeah you did, Chuck, So,
19:23
Speaker 1: Josh can't they can't study brainwashing, clearly, they can't actually
19:29
Speaker 1: perform this in a laboratory on someone because that would
19:31
Speaker 1: be wrong. Right, But thanks to lift In, we have this,
19:34
Speaker 1: we know how it works, and actually soldiers are still
19:37
Speaker 1: to this day trained to yeah, how to recognize the
19:41
Speaker 1: steps in brainwashing, which immediately takes away most of the
19:44
Speaker 1: power of the brainwasher, and also how to detach themselves
19:48
Speaker 1: from the situation. Yeah, I would think in meditative techniques
19:52
Speaker 1: and things like that. Just me personally, if I was
19:54
Speaker 1: in the Korean War, let's say back then, and I
19:56
Speaker 1: had a Korean captor yelling at me and probably broken
20:00
Speaker 1: English breaking me down, I would I don't. I mean,
20:03
Speaker 1: I guess when there's torture involved, it's a different story.
20:05
Speaker 1: But I would be like, dude, you're not brainwashing me
20:08
Speaker 1: with that acts any kidding, right, you know? And I
20:11
Speaker 1: wouldn't on the poorly conjugated verbs and things like that. Yeah,
20:15
Speaker 1: well that's what one of the techniques to avoid it is.
20:17
Speaker 1: They teach you to focus on on certain details and
20:21
Speaker 1: things like that or details of home and to not
20:24
Speaker 1: buy into all this stuff. Yeah, and they said people who, um,
20:27
Speaker 1: who believe in the higher power apparently are much harder
20:31
Speaker 1: to brainwash, which strikes me that yeah interesting. Yeah, so, um,
20:36
Speaker 1: I've got another thing for you. You're ready, I'm ready.
20:39
Speaker 1: Meant a side? No idea? Another word for brainwashing? Oh
20:43
Speaker 1: is it interesting? And that? What's the route there? Ment
20:47
Speaker 1: it's minty fresh aside, it's good, I guess mental mentality.
20:52
Speaker 1: It's the breakdown of the person's identity or belief system,
20:55
Speaker 1: which you know is lodged happily in this little camp
20:59
Speaker 1: ground in your brain. And so the side part, you know,
21:03
Speaker 1: murder brainwashing. You took a lot out of me, chuck,
21:06
Speaker 1: did it? I'm sorry. You look like you're you're whipped.
21:09
Speaker 1: Like you look like you're whipped like Lee Boyd malvo
21:15
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Well, there's just a couple of famous
21:17
Speaker 1: incidences of brainwashing. One was Patty Hurst in the seventies
21:20
Speaker 1: when she was of the famous First Family was kidnapped
21:24
Speaker 1: by the Sibionese Liberation Army and she claimed to be
21:29
Speaker 1: brainwashed when she was robbing banks and that you set
21:32
Speaker 1: in her defense and she actually was convicted. She was
21:35
Speaker 1: in seventy six. Her sentence was commuted by Carter. She
21:40
Speaker 1: was pardoned by Jimmy Carter in seventy nine and then
21:43
Speaker 1: cast by John Waters in many films. Yeah, that's right,
21:46
Speaker 1: wasn't she. Yeah, she's in movies. I forgot about that.
21:48
Speaker 1: Do you know who one of her greatest proponents was
21:52
Speaker 1: that John Wayne? Oh? Yeah, And actually that's one of
21:55
Speaker 1: the reasons why her sentence was commuted by by Carter
21:58
Speaker 1: was because John Wayne was such a a vocal advocate
22:01
Speaker 1: on her behalf and because of the Jonestown tragedy. After
22:06
Speaker 1: that happened, people were like, oh wow, brainwashing really does exist,
22:09
Speaker 1: although the courts have always been skeptical of it. Yeah,
22:11
Speaker 1: my name is John Wayne. John Wayne named after John Wayne.
22:15
Speaker 1: Did you do names? Charles W. Bryant Wayne? Uh? I
22:19
Speaker 1: always figured you were named after Wayne Coyne. That's the
22:22
Speaker 1: flaming lips. Yeah, No, that wouldn't have worked out. Timeline. Well,
22:25
Speaker 1: let's talk about Lee Boyd Malvo. Yes, he famously, as
22:28
Speaker 1: you remember, was a part of the the sniper sniper
22:34
Speaker 1: shootings that happened and he was just a young kid
22:39
Speaker 1: in uh Antigua, when he was plucked away by um
22:44
Speaker 1: John Allen Mohammed and he was brainwashed, or at least
22:48
Speaker 1: that's what his attorneys speculate, right, And that didn't get
22:51
Speaker 1: him off either. He got life in prison without the
22:53
Speaker 1: possibility of parole. Yeah, so as far as the courts
22:55
Speaker 1: are concerned, it's a little dubious. It is, actually and um,
22:59
Speaker 1: it was the whole that UH coercive persuasion I was
23:02
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, the idea that Brainwashington work without violence
23:06
Speaker 1: or the threat of violence. Um, that all kind of
23:09
Speaker 1: went away in nine UH in a case called usb Fishman.
23:13
Speaker 1: Let's here, there was a guy who was being convicted
23:15
Speaker 1: of mail fraud and he entered UH an insanity plea
23:20
Speaker 1: saying that he had been brainwashed by the Church of
23:23
Speaker 1: Scientology and it didn't work. And that one was pretty
23:26
Speaker 1: much the end of the idea of coercive persuasion. Interesting,
23:29
Speaker 1: we're gonna get people asking us now to do one
23:31
Speaker 1: on Scientology. I guarantee I'm not doing it. Heck now, Nope,
23:36
Speaker 1: we gotta wait for anonymous to break them down a
23:38
Speaker 1: little more before we step in Travolta and the cruise
23:41
Speaker 1: will show up at our door with baseball bats, but
23:44
Speaker 1: there's no telling what would happen to us. I don't
23:46
Speaker 1: want to do that. All right, Well that's it. That's
23:49
Speaker 1: actually probably the last time we'll ever mention scientology too. Yes, um,
23:53
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's do listener mail and pretend we never
23:56
Speaker 1: did this. Okay, Josh, I'm gonna call these listener males. Okay.
24:05
Speaker 1: This first one is from Ben Boland's buddy, our our
24:08
Speaker 1: friend here, Ben that works here, who is the one
24:10
Speaker 1: that turned us onto the Esperanto deal. Apparently Tim, his
24:15
Speaker 1: friend turned him onto Esperanto. Yeah, and Tim says, thanks
24:19
Speaker 1: for your mentioning event Esperanto. I was happy you mentioned
24:23
Speaker 1: learning as well. He says he's a longtime friend of
24:26
Speaker 1: Ben and he introduced him to it, although I'm sure
24:28
Speaker 1: he would have run across it eventually in his own explorations.
24:31
Speaker 1: I love that Ben does like exploring. He does, and
24:35
Speaker 1: he he plugged our podcast. We're gonna plug right back.
24:37
Speaker 1: He has a website. He's actually the vice press of
24:40
Speaker 1: Esperanto Usa, which I thought was pretty cool. So the
24:44
Speaker 1: name of his website is Esperanto dash Usa dot org
24:49
Speaker 1: and uh go check it out. I think it's kind
24:51
Speaker 1: of cool. Yeah, I think it's cool too, Ben said.
24:54
Speaker 1: I talked to Ben this morning. He said that he
24:56
Speaker 1: can read Esperanto but can't really speak it really, so
24:58
Speaker 1: I was like, that's a disappointment and such a cool guy,
25:01
Speaker 1: all right, And this next one is from Rick and
25:04
Speaker 1: Woodstock And I don't know if this is what stock
25:07
Speaker 1: New Yorker Georgia, let's go with New York. I got
25:09
Speaker 1: the impression Georgia. Really, what do I know? So he's
25:12
Speaker 1: got an innovation to tag onto our three innovations I
25:15
Speaker 1: thought was pretty cool. DNA specific killer virus. So basically
25:22
Speaker 1: he says, get our boys in the Pentagon to hook
25:24
Speaker 1: up with the fellows from the c d C. You
25:26
Speaker 1: engineer a virus which is highly contagious, airborne and uh
25:31
Speaker 1: bioengineered to only target one person on Earth, so he
25:37
Speaker 1: the unluckiest person on it. Yeah, well, he he said,
25:40
Speaker 1: Osama bin Laden, like, if we get some of his DNA,
25:43
Speaker 1: make a virus that would only kill him, release it
25:46
Speaker 1: to the masses in the Middle East, It'll be contagious,
25:48
Speaker 1: it'll get around to him eventually and kill only him.
25:51
Speaker 1: I don't generally advocate killing, but that is a fascinating concept. Interesting.
25:55
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, what if you could have taken
25:56
Speaker 1: out Hitler with no bloodshed essentially, or or a Ben Lawton.
26:01
Speaker 1: So I thought it was kind of interesting. He said
26:02
Speaker 1: that it still has one or two kinks, but so
26:05
Speaker 1: does teleportation. So touche to you, Rick, one or two
26:09
Speaker 1: maybe a bit glib. Yeah. I also want to give
26:13
Speaker 1: a shout out about the Innovations podcast. Dylan who emailed
26:17
Speaker 1: us and I engaged in a very um spirited debate
26:20
Speaker 1: over whether or not teleportation was a good thing. Right now,
26:22
Speaker 1: it was good. It was very intelligent, really good point debate.
26:25
Speaker 1: And I was, yeah, now, you guys, it was good.
26:30
Speaker 1: That was a very well thought I'll answer. So, yeah,
26:32
Speaker 1: I smacked him down pretty hard. No, that was a
26:34
Speaker 1: good spirit, that was It was nice. Agreed. So if
26:38
Speaker 1: you want to engage in a spirited debate with Chuck
26:41
Speaker 1: or me, probably not gonna happen. Actually, um. You can
26:46
Speaker 1: send us a come on to Stuff podcast at how
26:50
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
26:58
Speaker 1: of other topics because it how stuff works dot com.
27:01
Speaker 1: Want more house stuff works, check out our blogs on
27:04
Speaker 1: the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
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