Truth Unrestricted: Recent Episodes
Spencer
Confirmation bias, commonplace assumptions, and the zeitgeist itself are disassembled, examined, and reassembled in a detailed autopsy on our current ideaspace. Everyday concepts you probably take for granted are examined in a new light.
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Violence is not the answer to our political situation. Showing restraint in the face of belligerence and insult is the best way to prevent the manipulations of fascists.
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Pseudoconspiracies are situations that appear to be conspiracies from the outside but often aren't once we look closer. This episode was recorded live on twitter using Spaces and featured an open discussion with listeners at the end of the podcast. That twitter space can be accessed here:
https://x.com/spencergwatson/status/1963046227320439021
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Jim Stewartson is a twitter influencer who engages in conspiratorial ideas about Mike Flynn being Q of Qanon, Russian mind control mass media influence campaigns, and about Donald Trump being either the mastermind of a conspiracy to bring a new dark age of fascism or a rube that’s being used by Russia to bring about a dark age of fascism. Whichever happens to fit the mood of the day. His influence is slowly warping the ability for the left wing of the American political spectrum to see reality.
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Bill Cosby's fall from fame represents a complete change of our collective view of him. An inversion of our shared reality. How should we look at people who once attempted to associate themselves with his image? In this episode, Eric the Deep State Operative joins me to discuss an edge case whereby a group of people might need to be exonerated of the crime of liking Bill Cosby but not of their other crimes.
Links
https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-cosby-suite-1847378762
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/bill-cosby-trial-complete-timeline-happened-2004/story?id=47799458
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honorary_degrees_awarded_to_Bill_Cosby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain_Prize_for_American_Humor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Constand_v._Bill_Cosby
https://www.concertarchives.org/bands/bill-cosby
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Links
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/plandemic-judy-mikovits-and-the-mother-of-all-covid-19-conspiracy-theories/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6255117/
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Is the US at war with Iran? Should anyone believe anything Trump says? How will the Iranian response affect world markets? Are we slow walking past mere nuclear brinksmanship? Can the US prevent Iran from ever becoming a nuclear nation or can it simply delay? Does violent intervention prevent further diplomatic opportunities from being useful? Mike Rains (aka @PokerPolitics on Twitter) joins me for ep 115 of Truth Unrestricted to make sense of Operation Midnight Hammer.
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The Throne Speech is usually not newsworthy. Until the response to it is a direct shot across the bow from the heart of Alberta Separatism. We also discuss deficit spending and the economic sleight of hand of Mark Carney.
Shoutout to:
https://www.youtube.com/@TLDRnewsGLOBAL
Other links:
David Bexte's response to the throne speech
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?mibextid=wwXIfr&v=1233800394758308&rdid=kPj5Qa8nzTUo2Vwl
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Is playing nice in politics the same as playing nice in a competitive game? Do the same rules apply? Should we look at these things similarly? Are some of us doing so already?
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The Western Canadian separatist movement emanates outward from Alberta. And within Alberta the movement finds its roots in the oil and gas sector. Making this economic engine run is the primary goal of every Alberta government and it has progressed to the point where this goal foresakes all others. That's where we are now. Make the oil flow, or they leave.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Over the next year many arguments will be had on shop floors and dinner tables about why people should want to separate. And if you don't want that but aren't looking forward to dealing with these conversations then maybe you need a little primer on the reasons why Alberta should stay.
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Pascal's Wager is about how to make an existential decision. Should we or shouldn't we change our behavior now in case something turns out to be true? This isn't so useful for converting people to Christianity but it does apply directly to climate change.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
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The idea that Western Canada should separate from the rest of Canada is now rising in popularity so I thought we should go over it.
Links
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal-transfers/equalization.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Canada
https://enr.elections.ca/National.aspx?lang=e
https://x.com/TheBreakdownAB/status/1919906263485329823
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys80Xc-esrU
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What would Pierre Poilievre do as Prime Minister? How could Poilievre resolve his Trump-like rhetoric with a political need to oppose an expansionist Trump agenda? And what will Poilievre's most enthusiastic supporters do if he loses?
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Blendr News is a Canadian online alternate media outlet striving to become the next major interpreter of the world for those dissatisfied with the Liberal Party of Canada. In this episode, I check in with one of their videos to see how it compares with reality.
Links
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1371346464021477
Fried Kemper's Obituary
https://beechwoodottawa.ca/en/services/john-joachim-kemper
Verlie Kemper's marrige announcement
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-province-verlie-margaret-kemper-marr/64281628/
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Is the left creating their own populist movement to counter the right? Is it possible that it's happening by happenstance rather than by design? Do we need to be aware of the shape of our resistance lest it create bigger problems?
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Do you want Canada to join the US? If so, why? And if you won't say, why not?
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Poker as Life: Bluffing
There can exist a situation in information logic where a person knows something (usually that they themselves are lying) that they imagine no one else could possibly know. And in this way they manufacture a high level of confidence when asserting that a specific thing is true. It might be very interesting to examine this situation as a direct comparison to the "bluff" as used as a strategy in poker.
Bluffing might be the single best known part of the game of poker. Everyone knows it happens there a lot but I wonder if we imagine it happening there to a larger degree than in practice. The images people get about poker are often from some Hollywood movie in which a tense moment has an uncertain outcome and when the conclusion happens it comes out in the hero's favor. In this way we will be very likely to assume that bluffing is the entirety of poker when in actuality this is merely the part that is easiest to tell a visual story about.
Humans lie to each other all the time. Humans also tend to know that other people are lying to them and attempt to discover other people's lies. We do this on an intuitive level and attempts to describe this process with words very often leads to people being very visibly wrong. But when you don't know that other people have at least some skill in this, have temporarily forgotten, or have convinced yourself that you have covered it up in some way, this can greatly increase the likelihood of someone finding an opportunity to lie. Usually this is done for some imagined gain (which doesn't have to be monetary).
Pam Hemphill Lying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWlaW3aOl2Y
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Is AI conscious? How could we tell? Is AI dangerous? Can we trust AI? Could AI come to trust us?
Stephen Mather is the co-host of the Matter Over Mind podcast which discusses quantum physics and psychology by turns.
https://open.spotify.com/show/3MfsQEbW0lvHic5UHYOREt
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matter-over-mind/id1788940184
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What level of political compromise should politicians on the left be comfortable with when attempting to curb the excesses of the right? Can the less extreme participants trust the more extreme and, if so, to what extent?
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Can football be rigged? Could the Super Bowl have been rigged? Why? Why not? What would it take for it to have been rigged? What would it take for someone to believe it had been rigged?
This episode was made for youtube and contains video clips that are described verbally in the episode. For the full visual experience you can find the YouTube version of this episode here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OKP1wzkWvg
Follow me on:
YouTube @spencergwatson
Twitter @spencergwatson
Bluesky @spencerwatson@bsky.social
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Does science slowly "eat away" at spiritual ideas? Does the exactness and thoroughness of modern science stifle spiritual belief? Do people attempt to re-engage with spiritual beliefs by first casting themselves and their ideas against science?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchantment
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Truth Unrestricted
Building language for the Disinformation Age.
Evidence Aversion is about the propensity or likelihood that a person who engages with unreal beliefs will work to avoid being exposed to evidence and ideas that would contradict their beliefs. But the fact that they know what to avoid tells us something about where they think reality divides. They aren't simply discovering the world. They are actively working to manufacture it in their minds and they consciously avoid ideas that could shatter their illusions.
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You may have heard it said that "every accusation is a confession." But what does that really mean? Why do we think it's true? Are we looking at it in the world right now?
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The USA has been pushing its culture outward past its borders for a very long time. This is the beginning of a series of episodes dedicated to looking at what that cultural aggression looks like from the perspective of people that experience it. Joel Hill is on of the hosts of the Conditional Release Program podcast and he joins me to discuss the effects of American Cultural Aggression on Australia.
Links
https://torontosun.com/news/national/convoy-plans-to-replace-canadas-elected-government-the-stuff-of-fantasy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-conditional-release-program/id1535321136
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The Gish gallop is a technique employed to skip away from the current topic and toward other supposedly related topics so as to confuse and overcomplicate a discussion and make it much more difficult to debunk or oppose. Finding ways to dismantle or circumvent the Gish gallop is one of several primary concerns among people who want to find ways to reach the people who are lost in conspiracy thinking. Proof By Association is one logical fallacy that can be pointed to as a resource for doing exactly that.
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Jim Stewartson is an online influencer who pushes disinformation to people on the left. He espouses extreme views which work to radicalize those who pay attention. In this episode, I speak to Robin Eriksson about the nature of the problem with Stewartson and how Stewartson's content compares to Joseph McCarthy.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Flynn
Stewartson claims that he is fighting a "mind war."
Source: https://www.mind-war.com/p/cdf?utm_source=publication-search
Stewartson intends to use disinformation to push his agenda.
Source: https://x.com/Ankh_Morporkian/status/1725631884959363425
Stewartson claims that mind control is real.
Source: https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1683225770041438208
An actual resource for convincing people to give up an unreal set of ideas:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/45159246
Stewartson claims that Qanon was a psy op perpetrated on the world and that it was lead by Mike Flynn.
Source: https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1733647234066244038
Jim Stewartson held Shayan Sardarizadeh in high regard on Aug 29, 2020.
Source: https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1299513405485662210
Jim Stewartson turned on Shayan later after being fact checked on Oct 3, 2023.
Source: https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1709298214065860959
And again on Sep 16, 2024.
Source: https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1835751803377635729
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This episode is long. We also swear a lot. Enjoy.
Links
https://www.nbcwashington.com/decision-2024/2024-voter-turnout-election-demographics-trump-harris/3762138/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/after-victory-the-path-ahead-trump-legal-cases_n_672540ade4b00acf55d9d96a?5zj
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535043/percent-change-number-young-voters-state-us/
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Fascism attempts to weaponize human selfishness and hatred. It encourages the worst parts of people on a grand scale. How can we recognize it? How can we counter it? What can we, as individuals, do against something that subverts entire nations?
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Truth and Reconciliation Day is a relatively new Canadian holiday that recognizes the struggle of indigenous peoples in Canada and the world while also working on healing rifts and countering racial hate. Len Morissette is a co-founder of C.I.A. Solutions, a majority Indigenous owned film and advertising company, and a former president of the Alberta Native Friendship Centre Association. This conversation was done in recognition and in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation to appropriately honour the day.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/@CIASOLUTIONS1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=NgvG_QEbWqM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_for_Truth_and_Reconciliation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Broncos_bus_crash
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It is obvious that Trump plans to use fear about immigrant crime as a wedge issue in the upcoming election. The current focal point for this effort is on Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH. Is anything about this factual?
Links
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/video/sotu-bash-vance-haitian-immigrants-full-interview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield,_Ohio,_cat-eating_hoax
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/10/politics/jd-vance-haitian-immigrants/index.html
https://www.fairus.org/news/congress/angel-moms-detail-horrific-consequences-open-borders-congress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate#Homicide_rates_by_year._CDC
https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/canton/ohio-woman-eat-cat-canton-police-bodycam-footage-arrest-springfield/95-204df879-5de1-4a07-9aab-10d19aca3ba4
https://reason.com/2021/09/02/jd-vance-surrenders-to-the-politics-of-hate/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat
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The first (and likely only) debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is over. All of Trump's pending legal issues and have been delayed until after the election. And Taylor Swift has given her endorsement. Are we almost out of election stuff to talk about?
Links
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/walzs-military-record-vances-accusations-stolen-valor/story?id=112618991
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/03/07/lawmaker-who-claims-to-be-a-retired-rear-admiral-was-actually-demoted/
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/jd-vance-school-shootings-fact-of-life/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-sundown-town-rally-racism-b2605946.html
https://azluminaria.org/2024/09/13/standing-ovation-from-tucsons-trump-supporters-a-do-or-die-election/
https://www.tiktok.com/@geekynerdbitchcarmen/video/7413550942223666462
https://apnews.com/article/trump-vance-north-carolina-60de08931c1a964e8e1fb21d3778d35e
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When a lone gunman attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th, we saw online the birth of a new conspiracy belief. It has heavily influenced a large number of people on the left to participate in conspiracism. In this episode we take a closer look at the events with an eye to examine some of the ways people engaged poorly with the facts in order to support conspiracy beliefs that have become damaging to the prospect of a shared reality.
Links
Peter Gabriel Family Picture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0y23xlMSw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/can-doug-mills-photo-of-a-bullet-and-president-trump-be-real-yes-heres-how
Jeff Ostroff July 20 in-depth explanation video (good)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7PdhHC2zr0
Jeff Ostroff follow-up video. Corrects a few mistakes, more info (good)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRKpMxtW6A
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/10/politics/trump-campaign-rallies-outstanding-invoices/index.html
Trump's wrestling experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NsrwH9I9vE
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/23/obama-chef-died-drowned-accident-marthas-vineyard
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/sicily-ship-investigation-lynch-1.7304159
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Notes
Daniel Loxton is an author and science communicator. He has published books about skepticism and was previously the editor of Junior Skeptic magazine. Daniel, David Bloomberg and I discuss skepticism, its importance, and how we can promote its presence in our information world in this episode.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Loxton
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/roundup-lawsuit-update/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hotez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West
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Topics covered in brief:
Democrats
Walz is VP. How is that going?
Harris and Walz have been doing rallies that are packed and very high energy.
Polls: many polls now show Harris as climbing and leading, though still by a small margin.
Even now almost 4 full weeks after Biden dropped out of the race there are still left-leaning influencers who threaten each other semi-casually over their stance on whether Biden should have or shouldn't have dropped out of the race.
Republicans
Trump has had very few events. Almost no live events since the RNC.
For those concerned about a Trump presidency the influence of TikTok must not be under reported.
Conspiracy beliefs continue to abound in the wake of the shooting in Pennsylvania on July 13.
Among the speculation about Trump's smaller number of appearances is a lot of conspiracy talk about how maybe Trump doesn't feel the need to try so hard because he's already planning to cheat in Nov.
JD Vance has continued to underwhelm in both the polls and at rallies.
We're not doing a full recap of all the court cases against Trump this time around. Just the one: the hush money trial.
RFK Jr
RFK Jr is not a serious candidate.
Links
https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/brief-project-2025-bloodless-coup
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald-trump-joins-tiktok-video-platform-he-once-sought-ban-2024-06-02/
https://apnews.com/article/kennedy-rfk-jr-ballot-new-york-residency-states-f96d46318524fad967271fed292aa212
Zealotry in a single person is characterized as the amplification of the importance of one single subject to the point that all other subjects have little or no relative importance. Anyone can engage in zealotry and it can lead to many negative consequences for the zealot. How this manifests in social scenarios is discussed in this episode.
Links
https://www.newsweek.com/los-angeles-synagogue-attack-everything-we-know-1916345
No notes for this episode. David and I sat down to record on a completely different topic and then decided very suddenly to do this conversation instead. Was it the right decision? Would this impulsiveness be good in other situations?
Jordan Peterson is a right wing polemicist who shouldn't have any measure of celebrity. The fact he does is due to some deeply flawed ideas that were not properly debunked in the moment when he was gaining popularity. I say better late than never.
Links
Previous Truth Unrestricted episodes mentioned in this episode:
The Two Selves
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1947369/10973742-the-two-selves
Gender Yin-Yangism
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1947369/13315113-gender-yin-yangism-with-lydia-greene
Schrodinger’s Meaning
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1947369/15033732-schrodinger-s-meaning
Content directly mentioned in this episode:
Decoding the Gurus ep 19 - Bret Weinstein & Jordan Peterson: Two Gargantuan intellects stare into the abyss
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/two-gargantuan-intellects-stare-into-the-abyss
British GQ Helen Lewis Oct 30, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYQpge1W5s
Some Dare Call It Conspiracy ep 2 - Cultural Marxism & Great Replacement Theories (Brian Kurvie)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/466Ye8QTwZqpyZQNZj9F8S
Waking Up ep 62 - What is True? (with Jordan B Peterson)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lO6WJ9rfs4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_elk
Cathy Newman Channel 4 Interview - Jan 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54
The Google Memo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber
Vice Interview re makeup in the workplace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9dZSlUjVls
Twitter credits
@jordanbpeterson
@GurusPod
@somedarepodcast
Game theory gives us terminology to understand the fundamentals of the games we play. How inforation is hidden and/or discovered is a big part of how we play games and why we think some of them are fun. David Bloomberg and I explore how it is that information affects the strategies used in the games we play and watch.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information
Content warning: this episode of the Truth Unrestricted podcast contains graphic descriptions of drug addiction and some of the ways that people suffer from drug addiction. Listener discretion is advised.
Conspiracism as compared directly to drug addiction. What does it mean to be so pulled into the idea that conspiracies surround us that giving it up would take an intervention or rehab? The habits that make us feel good encourage us to do them again but what about the habits and situations that make us feel bad? How do those factor into how we choose to shape our lives?
These questions and more are explored in this episode of Truth Unrestricted.
Links
https://www.healthline.com/health/dopamine-addiction
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11939075/Zombieland-continues-Philadelphia-dealers-addicts-seen-sleepwalking-street.html
https://www.phs.ca/the-insite-story/
https://twitter.com/Ankh_Morporkian/status/1795555393029931093
David and Spencer breakdown the current state of the 2024 Us election. This is recorded one day after the Manhattan verdict of 34 guilty counts involving hush money payments made by Trump to hide affairs.
Links
Timeline
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/trump-stormy-daniels-hush-money-payments-timeline-of-events/5462838/
List of witnesses
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-hush-money-trial-05-21-24/h_15e34ea2c68ae046a5738937ff53dd94
Crowdsourcing is the process of using a lot of different people all adding a little bit of effort to accomplish a large task. Crowdsourced Storytelling is about the way in which we tell stories online in an attempt to understand the world but also in a way that can go terribly wrong.
All feedback for this episode can be sent to truthunrestricted@gmail.com.
Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment which is meant to illustrate some of the absurdity of what is happening with Quantum Mechanics. In the thought experiment the life of a cat is directly related to the state of a particle. Quantum Mechanics says that without observing the state of the particle it could be in either state. Erwin Schrodinger was attempting to show how ridiculous this was by attaching the particle state to a mechanism inside a box which would kill a cat trapped inside. The state of the particle then would have a non-quantum event that was consequential and non-reversible. The cat obviously could not be both dead and alive at the same time and therefore we should question why we think that a particle might be in two separate states simultaneously.
This experiment works fine for an attempt to understand one of the many nonintuitive findings in Quantum Mechanics but we often use the story of Schrodinger's Cat in other contexts when something has contradictory states. This episode is about Schrodinger's Meaning. Some people attempt willfully to obtain two separate (and often opposite) meanings from the things they say. This goes beyond simple double entendre and into fully realized and conflicting narratives which cannot coexist or both be correct at the same time.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/990274685/how-extremists-weaponize-irony-to-spread-hate
Reality Inversion is a psychological concept seen among conspiracists wherein evidence that should show them the truth instead reinforces their fantasies. Stephanie Kemmerer joins me for a discussion about the topic with many relevant examples.
Links
The Collapse of World Trade Center - The Complete Physics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NkBfLBov5Q
Robbie Parker (Sandy Hook parent) press conference (full)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fr1-YejnY4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World
https://www.wired.com/author/david-gilbert/
https://twitter.com/Shayan86
https://twitter.com/jaredlholt
https://twitter.com/PokerPolitics/status/1511535745252708355
Audience Capture has a second meaning! It describes when a person is stuck having to perform for their audience. David Bloomberg and Spencer discuss this aspect in an addendum to the previous episode about Audience Capture.
This episode might upset some people. If what is said here offends you, I want to hear about it. Send all feedback to truthunrestricted@gmail.com. If you agree with what I've said I also want to hear from you, even if it's only a score out of ten.
These US Election Update episodes are an attempt to chronicle the twisting tale of history as it is happening for an event that we are certain will affect the future. We discuss each of the major candidates and what is currently affecting their progress toward the title of president.
Links
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/28/marianne-williamson-presidential-campaign
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4544764-robert-f-kennedy-jr-rfk-jr-aaron-rodgers-nicole-shanahan-andrew-yang-jesse-ventura/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/the-trump-docket-the-very-puzzling-problem-in-florida-and-the-strange-possibility-of-a-trial-and-election-all-at-once/
Why are there people who believe the Earth is flat? How is it possible to get so far turned around about something so basic? I sit down with Reds Rhetoric, a person who has been pushing back against Flatearthers for a very long time, to discuss it.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/@RedsRhetoric
1998 Space Shuttle Endeavour launch video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNdaUMND_Yw
How do we talk about transgenderism? Why should we talk about transgenderism? What is going on with pronouns? Are there really 52 new pronouns that we need to learn? How do we have these conversations without insulting trans people or their experiences? Grace Leder joins me for a meta conversation about how to have the Transgender Conversation.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/
Neil deGrasse Tyson and Shapiro talking transgender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w89etN8QqNQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF_(acronym)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_sports
https://www.twitch.tv/dmfilly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Judgement_of_Paris_(Rubens)
Audience Capture is the process of mimicking another influencer's strategy and messaging so as to gain some or all of their audience share. What does this mean for the US political situation and how should this shape our decisions?
Links
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/26/ron-desantis-texas-border-mexico/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
https://newrepublic.com/post/177373/watch-vivek-ramaswamy-embrace-every-disgusting-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-can-think
In what ways are conspiracy beliefs psychologically addictive? Can a person get a "good feeling" from a turn down the rabbit hole that they would want to experience a second time?
Links
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scientists-studied-brains-more-800-prisoners-heres-what-they-found
https://www.jta.org/2020/04/07/ny/memory-plays-tricks-about-mengele
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/amanda-moore-undercover-far-right/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory#Frazzledrip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis
https://culteducation.com/group/1289-general-information/35734-anti-trump-cult-expert-mistakes-porn-for-highly-sophisticated-mind-control.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
Stephanie Kemmerer's List of Links
DOUBTIsTheWayOut@proton.me
American Information Integrity Alliance
Podcasts:
Escaping the Rabbit Hole podcast: “How a Former Conspiracy Theorist Escaped the Rabbit Hole.”
Conspirituality podcast: “Recovering from Conspiracy Theories”
The Q Dropped podcast: “I Escaped the Rabbit Hole”
Pursuing Truth podcast: Ep 29 “Conspiracy Theories”
Recovering from Religion: Ep 146: “Exiting the Rabbit Hole: From Red Pill to Recovery”
True Crimespiracy podcast
The Doug Stanhope podcast Ep. 440: “Tim Dillon's Underpants and Other Conspiracy Theories”
Point of Inquiry: “Behind The Mind of a Conspiracy Theorist”
Adventures In HellWQrld Ep 43: “Cuba, Tuck, France and Audits with Existential Dread Locks”
"Found Money" Poker & Politics and Steph's series debunking, "Loose Change."
D.O.U.B.T. - Discussing Our Unusual Beliefs Together - video podcast with former QAnon follower, Jitarth Jadeja and former conspiracy theorist Brent Lee
Articles:
Chatting "Even the Podcast Is Afraid" with Jared Ordis - Rue Morgue
The Unexplained Files - Wikipedia
Steph's Patreon articles
Steph's AIPT Comics author page and articles
Steph's Free Inquiry author page and article
Steph's Skeptical Inquirer author page, articles and presentation
“I’m a Former Sandy Hook Truther, Believe Me When I Say Alex Jones is Dangerous”
IMDB
Presentations and Panels:
Presentation for the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix: "What Conspiracy Theories Steal from Us."
Panel: Secular AZ - Secular Summit 2022: “When Reason Prevails”
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
A Very QAnon Christmas - New York City Skeptics
Links
Dr Dan Wilson - Is there DNA contamination in COVID vaccines? No.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q61OPhZ3eO8
https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2024/01/20240103-halt-use-covid19-mrna-vaccines.pr.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/24/florida-surgeon-general-covid-vaccine-00093510
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-jr-hires-del-bigtree-anti-vaccine-activist-communications-director-rcna131859
RFK Jr gets confronted about antivax claims in interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4vP4GdHhoA
The human mind creates models and symbols to represent everything that it "knows". When these are models of tangible items it is clear what the mind is doing. But when it comes time to represent intangible things it is a little less clear. Very often we use comparisons between tangible and intangible things to assist in communicating to each other what we think of the intangible things. In this way, it is possible that there is a bridge that can be built in the mind between the tangible and intangible. I call this Pseudotangibility. In this episode I discuss with Stephen Mather the possibility that pseudotangibility might be assisting people to believe in unreal things. This is a continuation of our previous conversation from episode 66 of this podcast.
What does it mean to be a zealot? How do we measure a person's zealotry? Do we exaggerate ideas when they support the things we are zealous about? Do some of us openly and knowingly lie about things simply because it supports our ideas?
What is Magical Thinking? Why do humans think magical things are real? How does this occur? Why is it that a person who leaves behind a magical belief is often more likely to start believing a new one? Is a soul an intangible vessel for your life essence? Or is a soul merely an illusion of consciousness?
Do we want to live in a world where politicians can freely fake images and videos without regard for consequences? If we don't, what could we possibly do about it? The American Information Integrity Alliance (AIIA) is attempting to create a set of social norms for how public officials should treat the ability to create fake video content. The "No Fakes" Pledge is an initial step that could help avoid some of the worst outcomes available to us in the foreseeable future.
Links
https://infointegrity.us/
https://infointegrity.us/the-%E2%80%9Cno-fakes%E2%80%9D-pledge
https://prismmetanews.substack.com/
https://www.bellingcat.com/
https://www.axios.com/2023/05/25/desantis-super-pac-adds-fake-fighter-jets-launch-video
Some people in our world have adopted a system for navigating the world that is less related to which concepts or rules they wish to live by and more related to which people they wish to support or oppose. The absolute enemy is usually a political figure which a person opposes in all things. The AE cannot, by definition, ever do anything correct and, again by definition, everything the AE does is bad. The absolute ally has the opposite properties. Everything the absolute ally does is good and right and nothing they've ever done is wrong. In the past 15 years or so, every leader of both Canada and the US has, at one time or another, been cast by someone as "attempting to destroy the country." I don't actually think any of them have wanted this specific goal, though some may have been somewhat indifferent to the outcome of their country.
In other situations, people use absolutism to manufacture an answer. This is done with the assistance of a logical fallacy called "bifurcation". By speaking about a topic in absolute terms it can lead a person to think there are only two choices: either they have to be absolutely for the thing or absolutely against the thing. Bifurcation is the idea that a problem or decision point has only two viable outcomes. Usually a grifter will introduce both and then attempt to make one unpalatable so as to push people toward the decision they prefer.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXEvjRt8uRg
Why are credit cards marketed to students who have no jobs? Why do student loans survive bankruptcy? Why are payday loan offices open so late? Why doesn't paying rent positively affect your credit rating? Is our system of credit and debt negatively affecting upward financial mobility? We discuss all of these questions while we openly fight about how the banking system works.
Notes
Charles Eisenstein is an author of New Age nonfiction. His ideas about nonduality are influential in New Age circles but conflict heavily with reality. I examine one of his core beliefs about science being a religion in this episode.
Links
https://charleseisenstein.org/videos/video/is-science-a-religion/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
Episode 61 Notes
Logic is the study of the building blocks of knowledge. Logic seeks to answer the question: how do we know what we know?
Fear is a powerful instinctive response that is meant to keep us alive. But it overpowers and blocks out more rational thinking. Can the two coexist? How do we deal with both? Also, how is Ben Johnson, the disgraced Olympic sprinter, related to Adolf Hitler? These are the kinds of questions you'll only find answered here.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzBvA2uEjUI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Johnson_(Canadian_sprinter)
Notes
Confirmation bias is the process of starting from the conclusion and working backwards toward the things that will support that conclusion. Scientism is the idea that science is more like a religion than a system to study reality. It is the idea that scientists are completely captured in confirmation bias such that scientific principles are dogmatically followed rather than replicatable observations.
So how do we know that scientism isn't happening in the scientific community? What makes us believe that science isn't captured by the confortable mental trappings of confirmation bias? Dr Dan Wilson (Debunk The Funk) talks with me about these questions.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/@DebunktheFunkwithDrWilson
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-invention-of-air_steven-johnson/279238/?resultid=8aa1b383-ea54-4fb7-9df9-3e73a813ad88#edition=5276847&idiq=2339186
Episode 59 - Math
Why are we good at some mathematical concepts and bad at others? Why is it that we can intuitively know how to throw a baseball to another person but we can't figure out how many cups of water fill a vase? David and I discuss these questions and others as we make a case for math education.
We also get sidetracked for a bit about ivermectin and how grifters misuse real information. Because that's the sort of thing that happens around here.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_value
https://sciencesaves.org/
Episode 58 - PsyOps
PsyOps are Psychological Operations. They are instances wherein an organized institutional entity (like a government) attempts to influence public opinion via a false event. PsyOps have been used among conspiracists as a catchall explanation for any evidence that would otherwise counter their worldview.
Examples of events that conspiracists have claimed are psy ops include: The violent parts of the Jan 6th insurrection at the Us Capitol building are said to be either antifa and/or instigated by FBI agents "riling up the crowd". The unseemly parts of the Trucker Convoy protest in Ottawa in February of 2022 are said to be antifa and/or the RCMP in disguise doing bad things to make the protestors look bad. The bizarre and obvious denials of reality seen in the flat earth community are said to be a psy op to make "legitimate" conspiracists look bad. All mass shooting events are, at some point, said to be false flag attacks by conspiracists who don't want to face the effects of gun violence.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlin_drone_attack
Episode 57 - Critical Thinking with Jon Guy
Jon Guy is an author of the book Straight Thinking: An Owner's Manual for the Mind. We discuss the concept of Critical Thinking, how it relates to our everyday lives, and where it sits in relation to other related things like "thinking outside the box." Some other topics that are brought up are: ghosts, UFOs, how to discuss reality conflicts with people, and metaphors.
Links
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1633887979?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_BEV8RQFWFWKGA55N0W6J
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1032195045?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_CQE3PDPSNZDKA90FJC44
https://thinkingispower.com/
https://noehill.com/placer/poi_iowa_hill_bridge.asp
Episode 56 - Currency
How does fiat currency work? Should I buy gold as a "backup" in case the dollar fails? Should I invest in crypto? Some people will say that you should definitely invest in gold and crypto. When the idea that you shouldn't comes up, they often lean on the unknowable as a looming specter of uncertainty to push you to "play it safe" and invest in those things anyway. The utility of investing in gold and/or crypto is not unknowable and shouldn't be coupled with doomsday predictions. Fiat currency isn't perfect and it has flaws. Those flaws are not avoided by buying gold or crypto. Listen to this episode to find out why I say this.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-child_policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Episode 55 - Gender Yin-Yangism
If you asked a person to make a list of all the words that would describe a "man" and then I asked them to make a separate list of all the words that would describe a "woman" what do you think are the chances that you would end up with a list of antonyms? Do we see "masculine" and "feminine" as opposites? Should we? Not only is it not actually true that men and women are opposites but the concept that they have opposite traits will tend to put all the positive traits in the men's column and all the negative traits in the women's column.
In Eastern philosophy there is a concept called the yin and the yang. These are represented artistically by the pair of swirly black and white teardrops. It is meant to represent a pair of "opposite but interconnected forces" in Chinese cosmology. The way we talk about men and women we often pair them up as opposites, like the yin and the yang. We use a lot of language and terminology that helps create this largely unspoken illusion.
I think I know how society got to this point. For many (MANY) years the only people of note or importance were men. The stories we tell are ways of communicating our society across generations and for a very long time stories were told by men, for men, and about men. Whenever it came time for the men telling these stories to describe women it was most likely as something "different" than men. And the easiest way to portray someone as different is to make them opposite.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tate
Episode 54 - Consciousness and Memory with Prof Xeno Rasmusson
Consciousness is a difficult concept to both explain and understand. In the simplest sense the word is synonymous with "wakefulness" or maybe "awareness" but it is so much more than that. It is an enduring mystery of neuroscience and how exactly consciousness occurs from the firing of many neuronal connections in the brain is as yet a mystery.
When I attempt to focus in on the experiences of consciousness I'm almost immediately distracted by something else: time. Our perception of time is based on our experiences of consciousness. In each moment of "the present" what we think of as "ourselves" is informed by past moments conjured from our memories. We know that what is the present will eventually be a moment that we think of as the past. We know there will become a future moment that we live inside as the present only because it has happened so many times before. The only way we know about there being a future is because we have experienced things in the past and we believe that we will again. When thinking about this, I have to ask a question: is it possible to conceive of a conscious being that does not record its own experiences?
One definition I once conjured for consciousness was that it's the feeling of memory being written inside the brain. This is probably not entirely true but, in the way that we don't fully understand how consciousness truly works, it's likely not entirely false either.
A person's sense of "self" is also wrapped up in this consciousness burrito. Who you are as a person is tightly tied to who you have been in the past. Your experiences form some direction for where you're headed next. With this in mind it becomes even more difficult to imagine a conscious being that has no memories of its own experiences. How could such a creature form a sense of self? How could it ever know that its current self was in any way tied to its past self? Without memories of the past, would such a creature even know about the passage of time?
All of this brings me back to a (now old) movie called Total Recall. Arnold Schwarzenegger is living an average life on Earth (being married to Sharon Stone is average? anyways) when he discovers that some of his memories are missing. He sets out to find them and, on the journey, discovers additional things that "he" has done. Spoiler alert In the end he rejects his former self and the memories attached to them. Could it have been possible for anyone to be comfortable enough with themselves and their lives (being married to Sharon Stone) to not be distracted by the idea that there is something about their "self" that's being hidden from them?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersubjectivity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_canvassing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_(1990_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(film)
Episode 53 - Grift Tactics
Hijacking Occam's Razor: Escalate the level of complexity about a topic until it reaches a level which is unknown by the other party, then declare that the other party doesn't know what they're talking about. In the confusion, insert your own narrative that is always much simpler. The simpler narrative almost always fails to account for all knowable observations but to most people it is good enough. The trick attempts to hijack Occam's Razor to make it appear as though the inserted, simpler narrative is more correct. It fails because for Occam's Razor to apply all observations must be accounted for in both explanations.
Gishgallop is a method of speaking in which someone makes a large number of claims in a very short time. Usually the large number of claims cannot possibly be debunked quickly enough and it looks like some are undebunkable to the casual listener. This is also known by other names: Firehose facts. The most effective counter to this is the Miyagi Defense: don't let it happen at all (best defense not be there).
Word salad is a collection of large, unwieldy words that are usually spoken in a smooth stream very quickly and become inaccessible to most audiences. It is used by the pretentious to sound more intelligent than anyone else in the room. Jordan Peterson is the third degree black belt in this style of debate.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/steve-kirsch-and-brandolinis-law/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_A._Hill
Episode 52 - Fame (Fandom II)
Does fame give society the right to the famous?
Peter Hotez is harassed at his home.
Eminem is followed to the bathroom for an autograph when he's having dinner with his family. From a song, The Way I Am. This particular song seems to really hit the nail on the head for this topic. Eminem basically says "I appreciate the support from the fans but there are times when I don't want to be a celebrity and I don't owe my fans anything other than music."
Artists are often seen as wanting fame or wanting to be famous. This is certainly true for some of them but this isn't easy to be certain of. Commercial art is now part of an industrial promotion machine that they are very likely unable to avoid if they want their music to be heard. And even if they wanted to be famous, would that mean that we have the right to bother them during moments when they aren't actively producing their art?
If we say that artists deserve a private life does that make us hypocrites if we want to judge them for immoral things they do in their personal lives? What about politicians and scientists who aren't 100% wholesome? Are there any logical inconsistencies when we look at this?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hotez
Eminem - The Way I Am (with lyrics)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWmG0ZsUAag
Rush - Limelight (with lyric)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l63eixpYRWk
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/q-and-a/a60015/paparazzo-explains-staged-celebrity-photos/
Juxtaposition is the placement of two ideas in very close proximity so as to imply a direct connection between them. At no point is it required that they be actually connected in meaning. Any conclusion that is false falls squarely on the audience and gives the person doing the juxtaposition an automatic out (I didn't explicitly say that).
Some examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvia_Grossman
https://thecjn.ca/news/international/activists-distribute-thousands-of-fake-anti-israel-new-york-times-papers/
Internet memes are usually a very good example of this form of expression. More and more, people think that memes are actual logical arguments for or against something when usually they are just indications of which biases they hold.
Music is often used for juxtapositional purposes in movies. We should always be wary of internet videos that are attempting to use music to enhance themes being spoken. This is an appeal to emotion and should always be regarded with suspicion.
Juxtaposition is very commonly used in the spread of disinformation. A picture or video is shown with words appearing on the screen. The words are assumed to be describing the picture or video but there are a lot of examples of this not being the case. This technique is often now coupled with false images to further distort and alarm people for clicks and outrage harvesting.
I notice juxtaposition a lot when it is just used with words. This happens a lot with misinformation online when two ideas are meant to be linked in the minds of the audience.
Links
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/juxtaposition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Countering_Digital_Hate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briahna_Joy_Gray
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-all-time-child-mortality-rate/
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-cdc-covid-vaccine-deaths-910677348223
Viki Male on Covid-19 vaccines and Fertility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFudXb8l7H8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Samoa_measles_outbreak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed
Bad Faith Ep 271
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOvSLCEwXw
Bad Faith Ep 270
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oENSYXWdUC4
Decisions you make will consider the interests of some people but not other people. The people whose interests you wish to protect with your decisions are people in your community. The people whose interests you don't care to protect are not in your community. This definition makes it more clear that you can be in a community with people you don't know and you can be in a community with people who are only connected to you virtually.
This definition also becomes its own practical test. You should trust other people if they consider you to be part of *their community. How could you possibly know this? By watching their decisions. If their decisions include the advancement, maintenance or, at the very least, the lack of disdain for your interests then they consider you to be part of their community (at least within that context).
Does Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism fit with this definition of community?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_and_libertarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_oil_and_gas_industry
We have evolved as social creatures and for most of that evolution our social interactions were person to person. This is why we absorb the news better when it's a person we can see that's telling it to us. Our current world of mass media (this probably started with radio but television has been the biggest player for this) distorts these effects. We see people on screen and sometimes we imagine what it would be like to be around them or talk to them. But those people don't know us at all. This social relationship is unidirectional.
If we only saw people playing various characters on screen this might not even be as big a thing as it is now. Forcing everyone to watch every Audrey Hepburn movie would undoubtedly still create some Audrey Hepburn fans. Some of us would want to see more of the beautiful and talented woman we had seen before. But fandom gets bigger when we interview actors. When someone tries to get to know them and display a portion of that real person's real character on the screen for us.
Neuroscientifically, when we see an interview of an actor whose work we have appreciated we create a model of that person in our minds. It is then possible (though it isn't always done) to use that model to create imaginary scenarios in which that person appears. Essentially these are fantasies. Is it useful to engage in these fantasy scenarios?
Reality TV gives this a whole new twist. The people being shown on reality TV shows aren't playing a character that has been carefully crafted for them with an accompanying script. Some are playing a character, though. But we get a much stronger notion that we know those people based on the interactions we are seeing on the screen. Again, neuroscientifically, this is the model of them formed in our minds that allows us to do things like make predictions of what moves they might make next.
Overall, is the experience of fandom a distortion of our social evolution? Is it healthy to engage in fantasies about the people we see in our media?
Episode 47 - Explicit Paradox
I see a thing that happens with communication. When someone tries to make a point their point is less effective rather than more effective once they try "too hard" to make it. An attempt to more explicitly state a thing can sometimes make it less solid, real, or believed by the intended audience. If you had a person who was attractive but who attempted to explicitly tell you about how they were attractive they would become less attractive. If a person tried to explicitly state that they were witty (rather than just being witty) people would naturally wonder if that person is really as witty as they claim. I notice this in all sorts of things that people say. If I felt the need to tell people that I'm intelligent people would immediately worry that I wasn't. There is an aspect of this which is potentially a cultural distaste for bragging. This is why I can't say for certain whether this is universal or cultural.
Compare to the "Uncanny Valley" effect: wherein an attempt to artistically portray a human face gives a viewer an offputting effect as the face becomes almost, but not quite, perfect.
We can also compare/contrast this with the Streisand Effect where attempts to deny or otherwise limit an idea only makes it more real and talked about.
In screenwriting, it is sometimes said of dialogue that it is "exposition". This is dialogue that is meant to tell the audience what is happening. This is often seen as poor screenwriting.
This phenomenon is used in comedy very often to make the audience understand what is the butt of the joke.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_(narrative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z36OznHFIt4
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/politics/state-elections-board-examining-dan-profts-people-who-play-rules-pac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
Limited time offers are sales techniques that are meant to give the person choosing whether or not to purchase something less time to consider their decision. This is a calculated sales technique and should be approached with caution rather than with glee.
Many conspiracy hypotheses include a set of dire consequences that are meant to make fear and override logic in their audience. People who believe the world is going to end (or just significantly change) will make a different set of decisions than people who don't. This is, generally, bad for all of society. The longevity of society is affected as that society has an increasing number of people who are not planning for its continued future. Conspiracy thinking degrades all of society and is a problem for everyone, not merely the people who believe in the unreality of the conspiracy.
The trolley problem and variants
The War of the Worlds question and its variants. Choose between annihilation of the species and:
Peace on the understanding that we are now vassals of the aliens
Peace on a land reserve without tech
Slavery to our new alien masters
Life as a food source for the aliens
How-low-would-you-go-ism
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-freeland-demands-2b-to-buy-shares-in-a-company-that-doesnt-exist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
I have a principle about rules: you only ever make a rule for something that you don't think people will do/follow if you didn't state the rule. This means that every rule says something about the people who are meant to operate by them. By explicitly stating the rule you betray something about the level of expectation of those meant to follow the rule. For this reason, we don't have rules about "obvious things" that we don't think people would really do.
Every so often someone drags out a list of really strange and obscure rules like "it's illegal to ride a cow while drunk in Scotland" and such like.
How we write rules makes a big difference to how they are implemented. We learn very early about wiggle room around the wording of rules. Some people seem to specialize in the practice of twisting away from the obviously intended meaning of a rule and toward an obscure interpretation that gives them an advantage. I call this practice "kindergarten bullshit" because it reminds me of the practice of kindergarteners learning the rules of the playground at school.
What is platforming? Why do we talk about it and why is it considered a good or bad thing? How does this interact with misinformation? How can we interact with bad information actors while still being careful about issues of platforming?
These questions and several others are explored in Part 3 of our extended conversation about Free Speech.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels
Free Speech: Why would we limit it?
First and foremost, you can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. This example is widely used mostly because it is both so succinctly put and illustrative of the point.
Second, hate speech can inspire violent acts and is very often targeted against marginalized people for populist gain. We need to limit hate speech. If you don't want overt rules against it then make an effort to limit hate speech socially in your everyday lives. If a person isn't working to limit hate speech socially (in everyday conversations) and is also against having overt rules against such speech then we often think this person is advocating not for free speech for merely for that particular ideological hatred.
Third (and the one that we should probably spend the most time discussing), technology can greatly overwhelm legitimate efforts to tell the truth. It takes a lot of energy and resources to fully debunk a fictional claim that is masquerading as reality. When technology can broadcast every poor idea at scale and avoid most (or all) of the challenges that should be happening this creates the reality denying ideologies we have now. Free speech allows flateartherism, antivaxxers, climate deniers, Qanon, creationists, and incel to survive. Our technology allows them to thrive.
Fourth, this is a protection for the individual and society at large from the tendency of leadership to become tyrannical and overbearing. This isn't a thing that gives one person the right to make another person listen to them. Following the idea and the principles of free speech does not require anyone to avoid blocking someone on social media. It is not a requirement to have to listen to every obscene thing ever spoken.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53755067
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/media/twitter-musk-journalists-hnk-intl/index.html
What is free speech? Why would we even want it? Free speech is about free expression of ideas. Ideas are the most important thing humans produce. They are what has allowed us to evolve past the other species into what we are now. The appropriate treatment of ideas has allowed us to create a structure for their creation. Ideas in a vacuum all seem good, therefore we need to weed out the bad ideas by challenging them. Ideas are useless until after they have survived an appropriate level of challenge (not any level of challenge will do).
The government and the powerful need to have their ideas challenged. Having a press corps that is actively working against the government to uncover and identify irregularities, inconsistencies, and wrongful acts is the most efficient way to get this done. When we see politicians only agreeing to interviews with the "friendly" journalists they are actively avoiding the act of having their ideas appropriately challenged.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
https://www.montclair.edu/newscenter/2022/10/31/study-finds-hate-speech-on-twitter-increased-following-elon-musk-takeover/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/business/sacha-baron-cohen-speech-social-media-propaganda-trnd/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Payne
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-starlink-internet-service-ukraine-b2202633.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kanye-west-alex-jones-i-like-hitler-1234639617/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHl2PqwRcY0
Thought experiment: if you lived in a world without mirrors (no reflective surfaces, no cameras for playback, no way to see your own face) would you be more self conscious of the way you appear? Or less self conscious of the way you appear? Would you eventually get to a point where you might be able to discover how attractive you were by comparing other people's reactions to you against those same people's reactions to other people?
We can look at some human properties as only having meaning when they are placed in relationship with human interaction. These could be called "social mirror" properties. They have no numerical measurement associated with them but are instead measured by comparison against another thing. Beauty is one such property and this is why the thought experiment eventually leads to this conclusion.
Power is another social mirror property. We might re-introduce the "Persian Emperor" thought experiment here, whereby a person is asked what they would do if they woke up one morning and everyone started agreeing with everything they said. As soon as one gets to the point of trying to "see how far they can take this" newfound ability they begin to see how cult leaders and totalitarian dictators might start with an idea for doing good in the world but are corrupted by their own power.
Perception is the act of observing and understanding a thing. This is a subjective understanding and can (and often is) inaccurate compared with objective reality but it is true to the perceiver. We can view perception as observations that are being subsequently interpreted. The "observation to interpretation" process is a common part of the human experience and is almost always happening without anyone consciously thinking about it.
Observations can be inaccurate in that they are almost always incomplete. If you're viewing something with your eyes you have a particular vantage point from which to observe the thing and this negates the ability to also see it from the other side. Note that this is sometimes still possible in situations with multiple camera angles such as what happens in sporting events.
Most inaccuracies of perception occur with the interpretation of the observations. When two people view the same event from more or less the same vantage point but don't compare notes with each other or confer with each other about what they saw they can sometimes come up with drastically different interpretations. Humans often talk about things they simultaneously observe and often come to the same understanding of what has occurred. This occurs because of social influences.
One additional piece of this puzzle is the existing ideas in a person's mind. Biases, prejudices, generalizations, assumptions of similarity to other experiences all heavily shape the "interpretation" part of this that each person does. This is a thing that makes it so difficult. One could even divide this into "observational perspective" and "experiential perspective" aspects of this.
In the human experience, perceptions are a virtual phenomenon that occurs only in the software of your meat computer. They play a key role in decision making. If you can understand how a person perceives a thing you are much closer to understanding their future decisions in relation to that thing.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice
Building a conspiracy is just like building a teddy bear. It will be unique, just like all the others. It will have all the same types of distinct features. We build a brand new conspiracy from a base set of principles that anyone could follow to make one of their own.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build-A-Bear_Workshop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration
In this episode we discuss how swapping two common metaphors could potentially improve how we see two common things: science and deceptive practices. The episode then dovetails into a discussion about science in which I get something wrong and then Jeff gets something wrong. We find the path to the correct answers in the end, though.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force
How does confidence affect the decisions of people around us?
Are we regularly mistaking confidence for competence?
Are we trusting people more when they are confident and are some people taking advantage of that?
Is this whole thing being further skewed as more of our social interactions occur online without the regular set of social cues?
With enough data points it is possible to find patterns which do not exist. This is often done by picking certain data points that fit a pattern and arbitrarily ignoring the rest of the dataset.
Outliers are a part of statistical analysis. They are data artifacts that don't appear to fit the rest of the dataset. Outliers can always tell us something important about the dataset, sometimes it's just something about the reliability of the measurement system involved. But sometimes it's something more specific about the circumstances surrounding that particular data point.
I think people (who have no formal training in statistics) hear about outliers and they think this is a way to fix or shape datasets. They can conjure an image of statistical analyses having useful data points removed as outliers and therefore skewing the entire analysis. This definitely does happen but the dishonesty is easily found in the actual data that was measured. Any other statistician can expose this dishonesty very easily. In real statistical analysis, the removal of every outlier must be justified. If a large amount of data must be ignored to produce a wanted result it's a certainty that mathematical fraud is at play.
Some examples of situations in which people have found definitive patterns that weren't intended and don't mean anything at all (and attempting to use them to build some larger narrative will undoubtedly fail)
White Static on old analog televisions (almost any shape can be identified if you focus long enough)
Faces in clouds (Our brain is alctually engineered to recognize faces so the fact that cloud shapes appear so often as faces shouldn't be surprising to anyone at all)
Anagrams of children's books with demonic expressions (I need to find some more specific examples of this but it's a clear example of how looking for an unintended thing can lead to hilarious results)
Qanon message links always had a series of numbers and letters in them. Qanon analysts would attempt to find patterns in these sequences. The types of conclusions they drew were always linked to what they awere looking for (confirmation bias). More neutral analyses showed other things.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
https://www.straightdope.com/21342381/do-anagrams-in-lewis-carroll-s-poems-prove-he-was-jack-the-ripper
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/qanons-coded-conspiracy-messages-look-like-random-typing-says-analyst/
Manipulation is the use of social power by one person over another person. It can be seen as "social cause and effect." We think of some people as "manipulative" but this is a messy thing, actually. Everyone manipulates in that everyone (generally) understands that, as individuals, we need the cooperation of other people to accomplish our individual goals and convincing other people to participate in that manner is a form of manipulation. Most of this manipulation is of the form "quid pro quo" when both parties get something of use. A person is "manipulative" when the relationship is one-sided and only to the manipulative person's benefit. But labelling some among us as "manipulative" leads to the false idea that the rest of us aren't also manipulating.
Meta-thinking is: to give up on some level of social authenticity in the moment and engage directly with strategic manipulation. Things like reverse psychology are examples of meta-thinking. We can see in our world meta-thinking used as a reactionary measure to the manipulations of the powerful among us. When people decide that there is a "they" is not a sign of meta-thinking. However, when people decide that everything "they" say needs to be opposed, this is a sign of meta-thinking and it is very dangerous to our world. It has lead to people dismissing entire sources of good information because it is "mainstream media", for example.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Hart
Links
Cults vs Religions
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/bs-xpm-2011-10-13-bs-ed-mormons-20111013-story.html
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-religions-and-cults
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/30269417-terror-love-and-brainwashing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory
12:43
Cult of Personality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Raven%27s_bases_of_power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius
31:42
Digital Cults
36:00
Abusive relationships
Alexandra Stein - Terror Love and Brainwashing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory
41:38 Soldiers and Identity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/11/08/for-many-injured-veterans-a-lifetime-of-consequences/
Episode 33 - Cults
Creating a definition of what exactly is a cult is very difficult because they have so many incarnations in the world. But there is a way to define some of their properties. Four of these properties are present in all cults and there are some additional properties are only present in some cults.
1) The primary property of a cult is that of an additional influence on the social hierarchy in that the leaders of the cult are always elevated in relation to the followers. This property is always present (but is difficult to distinguish from other social hierarchies).
2) There is always a set of rules that is not being instituted by the society/community that the cult members live in. Sometimes these rules are well defined and sometimes they are somewhat ambiguous or shifting. These rules generally are used to elevate the leaders of the cult and gain/maintain control over the followers.
3) The leaders of a cult will always make a claim to knowledge that is unavailable to the followers. Sometimes this takes the form of having access to a higher being, sometimes it is more mundane knowledge. This property always works to elevate the importance of the leaders.
4) There is always an act of blocking or discrediting outside sources of information. This is primarily done to gain or maintain a greater control over the followers.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldview
Episode 32 - Belief
Belief: confidence in the truth of an idea without the need for evidence
Fundamental question: can we believe in something with enough force to cause it to be manifest in our world? At first those who are rational must say that of course we can't and that thinking that way is ridiculous. But we must remember that many people do believe that they can influence events with beliefs. We might well ask Christians if God would still exist if everyone on the planet stopped believing in Him and forgot that anyone ever once did believe in Him.
Can flat earthers believe hard enough to make the earth become a new shape? Can Qanon supporters believe hard enough to post-facto create election fraud in the 2020 US election? Can antivaxxers believe hard enough to create new health problems with vaccines? Is that really what these groups are up to or can their behaviour be explained another way?
Links
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/belief
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(Byrne_book)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_McCarthy
We can think of individual communities as though they are individuals. The characteristics of the community would be their culture (what we might reasonably expect them to be doing or acting).
A community can decide among themselves to have any culture at all, any set of rules to live by and any level of tolerance or strictness of behaviour. But when you have competing communities, this dynamic changes. If another group has a different culture and that culture allows the competing community to: live better, be more productive, reproduce to become more numerous, use a greater portion of the nearby resources, etc; then there is a danger of one community overwhelming the other.
In prehistory this undoubtedly happened countless times. A culture that is being outcompeted has a choice: change their culture to become more competitive in the current environment, or leave the environment to an area that has less competition from other communities with differing cultures. This is how humans came to populate every area of the planet, by overpopulating a region, competing with each other for resources, then driving some of us out to a new area to start anew.
In all this, some ideas made us more competitive than others. Some general notions are held by all (or nearly all) cultures across the globe, even the ones that have been separated by continents and oceans for thousands of generations. It is likely that these common ideas were either part of the first community of humans or were ideas that spread to other cultures to make them viable competitors against those who already held them.
Marriage is one such principle. It is possible that stated rules about coupling in longterm partnerships allowed communities of humans to be larger than they could if early humans were promiscuous rather than monogamous. The explanation here is that a community that partnered in marriages (that were honored by ostensibly everyone in that community) were able to work together better due to less sexual jealousy issues. Working together better would have allowed for a larger and more numerous community and therefore be better able to dominate the resources of a region. This is one instance in which a cultural change (from promiscuity to monogamy) could have changed the fate of the world by allowing an entire community to become more competitive against its neighbouring communities.
One can then see how it is that making conscious choices about one's culture and how one shapes one's community can make that community better and more capable. One doesn't anymore have to dominate a neighbouring community to show that their cultural ideas are better. If the way we live makes us stronger as communities and as nations then these are the right choices for us as this time. One could look at WW2 in this same light (two competing cultures looking to dominate and/or defend against).
Brent Lee is a former conspiracist who has since rejected the collection of conspiracy notions he once believed and now talks about the dangers of such beliefs. He has a podcast with Neil Sanders called "Some Dare Call It A Conspiracy" wherein they describe what each conspiracy is and why it is untrue.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_William_Cooper
David Bloomberg has a podcast called Why Blank Lost which methodically examines why contestants on Survivor and Big Brother have lost. His latest episode is available here: https://robhasawebsite.com/survivor43-episode5-why-lost/
Define dishonesty. Consciously withholding information. Sometimes substituting the withheld information with other information (lies by omission vs spoken lies).
Why do people lie? It is an attempt to affect the decisions of others. You might want another person to make a different decision other than the decision they would have made had you said nothing or told them the truth.
Survivor and Big Brother are about gradually restricting the resources in a community. The "resources" are essentially the "spots" or "seats" in the community. Players must regularly contend with having their interests directly conflict with the interests of other players and therefore are forced to be dishonest. They make for an interesting view of these scenarios because we (the audience) can see when they are being dishonest and what they are being dishonest about. We can judge for ourselves whether or not we think their attempts at dishonesty might succeed.
Players are very often found out when they attempt to openly lie but sometimes they get away with lying.
Links
https://robhasawebsite.com/survivor43-episode5-why-lost/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_(American_TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(American_TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishonesty
Episode 28 - Trust
Define Trust - Trust is a two-gate process. First, a belief that you know something about the decisions of the person being trusted. Second, that the decisions of the person being trusted will be useful for you.
Trust imbalance. Two entities that trust each other but to differing degrees. This describes all pairs of entities that trust each other, in fact. Some entities are easier to trust than others. Imbalances in other properties (power, knowledge) directly affect trust imbalance.
Trusting the powerful (the gov't, or the 1%). It is very easy for the powerful to trust the powerless. It is much harder for the powerless to trust the powerful. As soon as an entity is capable of things that you cannot defend against the need for trust increases but the likelihood of trust decreases.
Is this a situation that can describe some of the conspiracy thinking we see today? Is the popularity of conspiracism due to a rise in mistrust of gov't and the powerful in general? Or is it that mistrust of the powerful merely due to the powerful demonstrating a history of poor decisions?
Links
https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-how-poverty-can-drive-down-intelligence
Free will is the idea that you might be able to make a decision that is not determined by your genetics, biology and situation. Determinism is the idea that all decisions are determined by the current physical state of the body and therefore we don't have the freedom to decide things any way other than the way we decided (i.e. free will is an illusion).
Free Choice is the ability when you know what the right thing to do is to do the wrong thing anyway. But what is "right and wrong"? In this context it is instincts. Non-human animals seem to have a constraint on their collection of decisions that humans do not. Or, at least, humans have less of. We are still partly constrained by our instincts. Animals are simply far more so constrained.
Instinct governs three main areas of life: short term survival (from predation), long term survival (food/shelter behaviour), and procreation. When animals find excess time away from the first two of these, they devote more time and attention to the third. This is seen in situations where an abundance of rabbits in an area will lead to an abundance of foxes in the following season, for example. Think back to early humans, however. At some point we started making decisions to do things with our extra time other than merely making more babies. We started making art and (probably) music. The process of making the first real art was probably very time consuming. How did we come to make the choice to do that rather than making more babies with our spare time?
Voter Suppression is done by political engineers to try to win elections. It depends on highly refined demographics and an assumption that they know how people of certain demographics will decide when given certain information. We have the freedom to reject these attempts to influence our voting patterns.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagmeet_Singh
Episode 26 - The model in the brain
All the things you experience appear to be feeding directly into your brain. What is actually happening is that the brain is receiving all the signals and then interpreting them into a model of the world, then projecting an image of that model into the conscious part of your mind. This is why you are conscious of some sensations and not others.
We do not know that anyone else is conscious but we tend to believe that they are if they act in a way that we recognize as a way in which we ourselves act. That is, the closer their responses to the world are to our own responses to the world the more we feel that we "relate" to them. This is just as true of animals and computers as it is of humans.
Rene Descartes was working on this problem when he essentially gave up attempting to determine whether anyone aside from himself was a real, conscious person and said "Cogito ergo sum", or "I think therefore I am".
What does this mean for our interpretation of our world? Each person has a limited number of people they can "know". For each of the people you "know" you have a model in your brain of what sorts of decisions/actions you believe they would take. You can imagine yourself in a situation with them because of this model.
Your model of each other person is necessarily incomplete. The tendency is to fill in the unknown gaps in the model of another person with things about yourself. This is (probably) the root of the thing known as "projection".
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Episode 25 - Are people naturally good?
We would like to think of humans as being at some sort of moral pinnacle. This assumption generally underlies a LOT of conversations that are being had in a LOT of spaces (though almost no one mentions it). We might well ask: is this really true? Are humans naturally "good"?
The area of our brain (frontal lobe) that contributes most to our moral decisions isn't fully developed until late in our development. Sources vary about the exact age at which this development is complete but they pretty much all agree that it is finished at some point between ages 20-25. Greater disagreement is found for how much empathy one should expect to find in a child of various ages. I dare you to google search for "how much empathy does a 6 year old have?"
Children need to be taught to be good. Children can (and have, in the past) develop a very strange set of ideas about what is "right" and what is "wrong". This is part of the problem with developing an objective set of "good" moral values in philosophy.
Thought experiment: if we "reset the world" (performed the inhuman experiment of raising children via robots and having them learn everything again all on their own with no role models to copy), what would the new humans do or not do. Would they talk? Would they create art? Would they still become bullies? Would they be kind? Would they be selfish? Would they cooperate and, if so, under what conditions?
Related question: are dogs useful for determining which humans are "good"? (spoiler alert: they are NOT)
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_nativism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innatism
Lydia Greene describes her journey to become an antivaxer and her subsequent journey back to science-based decisions. Along the way she describes moments of unreality brought on by cognitive dissonance and some of the emotional decisions that lead her to begin making the wrong decisions.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DPT_vaccine#Combination_vaccines_with_acellular_pertussis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Economic_Forum
https://backtothevax.com/f/the-hydra-with-many-heads
What is this episode about? Listen and find out!
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecos_Bill
What is propaganda? An organized effort to distort reality or the accepted truth of society at large. The idea of propaganda carries with it the idea that the set of things that the public generally believes both exists and matters to the entity producing the propaganda. For some, this set of ideas is the "zeitgeist". The spirit of the age. In this context, propaganda is then an attempt to engineer the spirit of the age.
Is propaganda different than what happens in current day political campaigns? Do we consider this as "legitimate political discourse" or do we consider it to be an unearned lever on society?
Is there a difference between institutional propaganda (like what a nation or a political party would do) and organic propaganda (that which happens as a result of an ideological movement)? Can groups that make a sustained effort to change the accepted truth (like flat earthers and anti-vaxxers) be considered "organic propagandists"?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
Excerpt
Many people feel that the world is entirely fake. That the things we believe are true are only true because of our perception and that if we can change the perception of what is true then we can change the world.
Callback to most recent episode about "the two selves".
Vladimir Putin has his "finger on the button" right now. He wants to be seen as a leader of a powerful nation. If the current excursion in the Ukraine doesn't support that image he holds of himself this will cause (in my prediction) the worst version of Vladimir Putin to be shown to us. He may take more extreme measures to make the world see him the way he wants to be seen. We have not seen any sign of humility in Putin before so we cannot but hope that he still has some to balance out his psychological situation.
Some people who might be seen as "apologists" are making these sorts of arguments. I understand their concern but this amounts to appeasement and would be a failure of courage. Bullies must be opposed. If they cannot be prevented from getting what they want then at the very, very least they must be made to understand that the price they must pay is higher rather than lower.
Suicide is a strange thing. Its existence would seem to contradict everything we know about the instinct to survive. But knowing that there is a powerful instinct to continue that is overcome by something inside real humans should tell us about the strength of the thing that overcomes it.
Suicide has more than one single cause. The greater cause is hopelessness. One form of hopelessness is the belief that a person may never be able to be seen as the person they want to be known as. If the image we would want to create in other people is shattered then we are at risk of making terrible and desperate decisions. One of the times in a person's life when they are highly likely to feel like they won't be seen the way they want to be seen is during the time when they are still forming the idea of what it means to be seen this way at all: the teenage years.
Teen suicide is one of the darker aspects of our world and to shy away from it is to have a failure of courage on a local level. To look away to satisfy your own uncomfortability is to be okay with the consequences of looking away and we must do a better job of confronting this. We must find a way to talk about what is actually happening in a way that makes sense and gets to the root of the problem
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_warfare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canadians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide
What is the meaning of death? Can we come to understand it in a way that makes grief easier to manage? Why do we attach ourselves to otherwise unimportant things once someone dies?
These are the sorts of questions I ponder when I think about death.
Episode X - The Two Selves
We each have two versions of ourselves. The first is the one known only to oneself. It is on the inside and it can only really be known by oneself. The second is the version of us that we want the world to see. It is based on our inner self but it is modified by our social influences.
Is this the "ego and superego" that is taught in psychology?
As to our "outer self", do we have separate versions of this with different social spaces we enter? For example, are we different with our families than we are with our coworkers? Are we different with our old high school friends than we are with new acquaintances?
Is the collection of actions that our inner self would allow but that doesn't fit the outer self we want to project actually the collection of things that would embarrass us or make us feel shame?
What happens when the outer self we want to project changes with time (I'm not that person anymore)? Are we then embarrassed by actions now that we weren't embarrassed by when we did them?
We are more psychologically healthy when our inner self is very close to our outer self. Think about people who are forced to hide their sexuality because of society's expectations.
The dangers of "piercing the veil" between the inner and outer self. Does it feel like an intrusion when you come to know something about someone that they didn't intend for you to know about them? Is it a common tactic for bullies to purposely try to pierce this veil to make their victims more vulnerable?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame#Comparison_with_embarrassment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closeted
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_issue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Notes
Why do we consider corruption to be a byproduct of being powerful?
Is it possible that most people would become corrupt if we achieved positions of power?
Would the process of becoming powerful change us in such a way that we began to appear (or become) corrupt?
Are all powerful people corrupt or are some powerful people using their positions to benefit society?
If you were among the powerful, would you be any different than them?
What is the social force that prevents the less powerful from making the world a better place?
Is apathy a source of corruption in our world that ensnares the less powerful into suffering at the whim of society's elite?
Excerpt: Before any success can be had, one must first make some attempt. But before one will ever make an attempt, one must first form a belief that making the attempt could have some positive outcome. Manufacturing in yourself this belief should be your chief concern if you want to have a better world.
Excerpt: If this world changes it will be because I worked to change it. Slowly. Little by little. With words and ideas. Join me.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion
Our daydreams are often unrealistic but usually not so fantastical as to be outside the realm of possibility. They usually include situations we might actually find ourselves in and they probably include us doing things we wouldn't normally do. They will definitely include other people reacting to us in an unrealistic way.
Are daydreams part of our mental software that is meant to prepare us for future moments?
Fantasies are meant to be unrealistic. If we ever reach a place where we achieve outcomes we have fantasized about then our brains conjure new and more extreme fantasies.
Are fantasies a part of our mental software that drives us to achieve?
Is there really any difference between daydreams and fantasies?
Should we worry about violent fantasies (of murder, etc)?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daydream
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_(psychology)
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/violent-fantasies-rumination/580858/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1990/06/13/violent-fantasies-common-among-serial-killers/2884a9ca-bc70-4903-b193-ce9d0aa58c48/
http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/20/violent_fantasies_not_uncommon/
https://wildabouttrial.com/trial-coverage/gilberto-valle-cannibal-cop-case/
Were the Nazis really fanatics? Can you change the minds of people through violence? Should you if you could?
Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMgctAIeL8c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials
https://www.historyhit.com/hitlers-inner-circle/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_G%C3%B6ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_of_the_Islamic_State
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60
Excerpt:
Game theory scenarios are structured around "rational agents". We assume that humans in these scenarios will act rationally, that they will act in a manner consistent with continuing their own life unimpeded by injury and with as much gain as possible. But as soon as they are irrational everything about the mathematics is worthless.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robb_Elementary_School_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2022
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/peace-and-war/202012/the-prisoners-dilemma-americas-gun-dilemma
Excerpt - There is a popular lie being told to us: that compassion and logic are incompatible. It is usually said that being logical (or "too logical") means that you're not being compassionate or compassionate enough. The corollary to that is often not said out loud but is carried on those same shoulders: in order to be compassionate you must abandon all logic.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
Do we (as humans) have a predilection for things that are unknowable? Do we lose some interest in a thing once we find out how it works? Is it "fascinating" when its workings are mysterious and is it "mundane" when its workings are well known to us?
As we learn about something, it loses its mystique. As we come to see new things that we don't know about they again have a sense of mystery about them in our minds. Could it be that this sense of mystery can become like a fantasy that we don't want to lose by learning more about a thing?
In the other direction: if we know something to be true, but then slowly remove from our knowledge facts about how they work do they regain that sense of mystery?
When we know how something works, its appearance in our minds is limited to just that: the way it works. If we don't know how something works its appearance in our minds is not limited to anything but our imagination. If we know less about a thing it can take on a new and more fantastical existence in our minds.
Ignorance doesn't have to be a lack of knowledge. It can be an embrace of the wrong knowledge. A substitution of objective reality with highly detailed fantasy. In this way, you can have the best of both worlds. You can be extremely knowledgeable (even if it is about fiction) and still have anything be possible.
Episode 10 - Technology and Current Benevolent Overlords
The state of our current social media technology.
What is Artificial Intelligence? A computer that mimics the pattern recognition features of a human. Early types of this attempted to do this by rote.
What is a machine learning computer? A machine that takes AI to another level. It is capable of writing its own code based on patterns that it sees in large sets of data. The datasets usually stretch across entire platforms of information. Imagine all interactions on Facebook or all interactions on Twitter.
Machine learning AI is given goals to put eyeballs on screens and increase "engagement". This is called the "attention economy".
What are the purposes of these machines? Why does anyone build them?
These technologies are learning more every year about how to influence us. Is this healthy?
What are Current Benevolent Overlords? Our current social media technologies (and the resulting invasion of privacy that comes with them) are being used to distort the electorate and sell more shoes. There is a bigger danger that these technologies could be used for far worse invasions of privacy. They could be used by the CBOs to learn potentially embarrassing personal details about important individuals. They could be used to do the same to silence any single dissenting voice about any topic.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaFold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk
Intuition is the ability of the brain to recognize processes and patterns without consciously studying them.
It is a very powerful tool but cannot be relied upon. It is the source of many false conclusions.
We commonly mistake intuition for instinct. Both are happening outside our conscious perception.
Instinct is the collection of decisions granted by genetics that are meant to guide self-aware creatures to better survivability. These decisions generally lead to: more food, more protection, more babies. Everything else is intuition.
Putting on an aggressive front to intimidate other people is a product of instinct. Having a knack for picking stocks on the stock market is not an instinct, it is intuition.
Common sense is the collection of common thoughts, concepts or ideas that are assumed to be held by two or more parties who are all part of a conversation.
We need common sense to make our social lives bearable. Try having a conversation without the collection of assumptions we usually use and it would sound like the EULA of everything on the internet.
Common sense is a consistent source of miscommunication in our lives and should not be used for logical arguments. If "it's common sense" is the answer this really means that the person giving the answer does not want to bother properly forming the answer or logical argument. They are, instead, hoping the listener understands on their own.
Almost everything the layperson knows about physics comes to them by way of "intuition" and "common sense". Everyone knows that they must plug in the coffee maker to make it work. This is "common sense".
Some of the questions that are answered in this episode:
How did we change from a world without Covid to a world with Covid?
What was that experience like from the perspective of an epidemiologist?
How well is our vaccine coverage (both in North America and worldwide)?
What is the future of covid in our world?
How do mRNA vaccines work?
Why are some covid variants more prevalent than others?
How did the covid pandemic interact with other epidemiological concerns? Which other diseases became a bigger problem because of covid?
Why don't we just hurry up and infect everyone with covid to get it over with as quickly as possible?
What is "Long Covid"?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2020/12/16/coronavirus-expert-mark-denison-shares-covid-19-research-and-insights/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_S._Graham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Crowe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles
Episode 7 - Virtue Signaling and Tribalism
What is virtue signalling? The overt or conscious effort to portray a property that we know will be seen positively by our audience. In this context, our "audience" is anyone we are speaking to. We signal our virtues to signal our conformity to the beliefs of others and encourage them to trust us.
Virtue signalling is very often seen as something people on the left do. It is definitely something everyone does (not just people on the left).
Virtue signalling is often used as a perjorative.
Political Correctness happens when we try very, very hard to signal our virtues.
Being surrounded by people who casually hold a different set of beliefs can cause a set of new normal virtues for yourself. They might be adopted for the time you are with those people.
What is Tribalism? The adoption of a set of beliefs that are collectively held by people you wish to be identified with. This definition is best understood in the modern context in which we can select our own tribes (rather than have our tribe chosen for us by our geography).
How does virtue signalling relate to Tribalism? We are social creatures and we are strongly influenced by our need to conform to the collection of beliefs held by people whose trust we want. The best way to earn and keep that trust is to continually display for those people our virtues. In essence, we are teaching everyone around us about what sorts of decisions we would make about the things that are important to them (virtues).
Callback to Episode 2 - Trust, conformity and Social Expectation. All 3 of those (and their interlocking aspects) are heavily active in maintaining tribal lines.
Political tribes usually form around the loudest voices. The political climate is not merely a single line (but it's hard to see that in a social climate that pulls everyone to two corners).
Tribalism and virtue signalling surround us. They are everpresent in our thoughts and they influence many of our decisions. You will not be able to properly make decisions absent their effects without realizing this.
Episode 6 - Power and Freedom
Disclaimer: Jeff's sound quality is lower this week. It won't be for future podcasts.
What is power? The ability to influence the decisions of others.
What is freedom? The ability to make a decision for yourself absent of influence from others. Also the condition of having a large number of available choices.
Two social forces that oppose each other.
Power vs Freedom: Why don't I list this as "Security vs Freedom" as the classical view?
Do we want anyone to have power? Would such a society really achieve maximum individual freedom?
Without giving anyone power we wouldn't be able to accomplish larger goals (cooperation)
We would also be in danger from opposing groups that were able to give up some power to cooperate as larger groups
Do we want anyone to have freedom?
Do leaders of groups that have a large amount of individual freedom benefit by having greater power? If so, is this a paradox? People with high degrees of freedom tend to have a larger number of choices and a greater ability to affect the world and therefore being the leader of such a group might make one a more powerful leader.
The strange word "autocracy"
Fact Check: At 15:42 of this podcast I incorrectly list the year of the publication of Einstein's "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (special relativity) as 1898. The actual year of its publication was 1905. Sue me.
Link to things mentioned in the podcast:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-un
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/autocracy
Defining conspiracy. Information kept in a "bubble". The information must be something that would affect (or support an agenda that runs counter to the interests of) people outside the bubble.
Perfect conspiracies vs imperfect conspiracies.
How do conspiracies succeed/fail? The two rules: info inside must have a force keeping it inside, people outside must not be trying to look inside (or just be ineffective at looking inside).
Common examples of things that don't we don't call conspiracies but function just like them (football huddles, government cabinet meetings, corporations).
The problem with single event observations (9/11 is not a repeatable event).
Conspiracy thinking is encouraged by the rich/poor gap and amplified by the internet
The rich are engaged in a conspiracy, just not the conspiracy they are being accused of engaging in.
The special case of Robert Anton Wilson and the Illuminati.
Links to things mentioned in the episode
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Brien_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson
Episode 4 - Politics and Science
If you hear anything in this podcast that you would like to comment about, please send it to truthunrestricted@gmail.com
The scientific model: data/observation -> theory/explanation -> hypothesis/prediction -> test/new observation/data
Theories are not guesses but explanations of collections of observations. Good theories explain a large number of observations and are contradicted by very few (preferably none).
Science is about making observations, then finding explanations and conclusions based on those observations
Politics versus Politicking: Do we see one as bad and the other as benign?
Politics is the reverse of science, find the conclusion you want, then work to point out things that justify or manufacture those conclusions
Can science and politics co-exist?
Fact check: @18:48 of this episode I mention that a 14 year old Finnish girl was protested by people in Alberta. This was inaccurate. In fact it was a 16 year old Swedish girl who was protested.
Episode 3 - Bullying
Define bullying. Is it simply social intimidation or is there more to it? Is it a tactic for upward social traction?
Why aren't bullies ever alone? Why do they seem to be at the top of their respective social hierachies?
Bullying is very common. Is it natural?
The comparison of bullying to lightning (it will always be there, just don't be the one bullied)
The critical question: bullying is always seen as a negative thing, is it ever a positive thing?
Bullies must be opposed
Relevant research on the topic: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26160858/
Trust
The Two-gate definition. Trust is a subjective experience. Part 1) know something, and 2) benefit from it
Why a two-gated definition? It defines exactly why we don't trust in all instances
It also helps to see why others don't trust us
The need to evoke trust in other people. The role of mimicry
Conformity
Trust and Conformity. When you need more trust from others you work harder to conform to them (mimic them).
Will a perceived lack of trust from others cause more conformity in an individual?
Social Expectation
What is social expectation? What do you expect from others and what do they expect from you?
Mowing lawns and broken window theory
All 3 together: The need for trust causes conformity. Conformity sets a level of social expectation. Setting a new level of social expectation will only work if your peers trust you.
Rules of Engagement
No hyperbole
No name-calling, no insults
Nothing is sacrosanct, everything can be questioned
The "natural" is not revered
Ideas are more important than the person who communicates them. No one is inherently wrong. No one is stupid.
Avoid mentions of Hitler or Nazi Germany. Avoid Godwin's Law.
Goals
Unravelling confirmation bias!
Debunking deeply held assumptions. Sometimes rebuilding them, other times tearing them down.
Anti-adversarial discussion. Disagree amicably
Willingness to call out falsehoods that support my own personal beliefs.
Anti-absolutist stance. You can be against my ideas but still be with me.
Develop proper and useful definitions of seemingly everyday terms (trust, intuition, racism, leadership, all "code words" in society)
Encourage "ordinary people" to think deeply about pretty much everything
No swearing (we'll try!)