Speaker 1: I did have friends in the truth or community that
Speaker 1: were all musicians, and we had supported each other and
Speaker 1: supported each other's art in this like fringe element of society,
Speaker 1: and I built relationships with some of these people for
Speaker 1: a good ten years, and to have some of them
Speaker 1: really turn their back on me, it did hurt. They
Speaker 1: don't want to talk to me because I loved them
Speaker 1: like they were my brothers. But it's gone.
Speaker 2: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry o'she.
Speaker 3: I served in the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years,
Speaker 3: living undercover all around the.
Speaker 4: World, and in my thirty three years with the CIA,
Speaker 4: I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Although we don't usually look at it this way, we
Speaker 3: created conspiracies.
Speaker 4: In our operations. We got people to believe things that
Speaker 4: weren't true.
Speaker 3: Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the
Speaker 3: news almost every day.
Speaker 4: Will break them down for you to determine whether they
Speaker 4: could be real or whether we're being manipulated.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Mission implausible.
Speaker 5: We talk about conspiracy theorists as if it's just a
Speaker 5: fixed thing, but there's something that brings them in and
Speaker 5: then every once in a while there's something that brings
Speaker 5: them out.
Speaker 4: How eventually you climb out and what's the psychological process
Speaker 4: neurological process that goes along with that.
Speaker 3: Falling down a rabbit hole is easy. Getting out as hard.
Speaker 3: And so I give credit to people like our guest
Speaker 3: today who battle with this issue. Yeah, so today's guest
Speaker 3: is Brent Lee. Brent is a form of conspiracy theory addict,
Speaker 3: I think you would say, who now works to help
Speaker 3: others who've gotten lost in conspiracy rabbit holes. He writes
Speaker 3: and speaks on the issues of conspiracy and hosts a
Speaker 3: regular podcast called Some Dare Call It Conspiracy.
Speaker 1: So welcome Brett, Thank you, thanks for having me so.
Speaker 3: Brent, First, I would like to praise you for what
Speaker 3: you're doing. It cannot have been easy to examine your
Speaker 3: beliefs and change your life, and more importantly, your willingness
Speaker 3: to share and help others is really laudable. So I
Speaker 3: guess my first question is the simplest one. Can you
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit about your journey and how
Speaker 3: you ended up here.
Speaker 1: Sure, in two thousand and three we were on the
Speaker 1: verge of war with Iraq. The press and the government
Speaker 1: in the UK was spinning like the workmans of mass
Speaker 1: destruction eventually turned out to be a lie, and the
Speaker 1: UN voted against going to Iraq, and all this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff was going on, and I somehow came across
Speaker 1: nine to eleven Truther documentaries, which basically we're pointing out
Speaker 1: that nine to eleven was an inside job by the
Speaker 1: government and it was all to go to war in
Speaker 1: the Middle East and take over resources. And I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: because of the lies that I was seeing in the
Speaker 1: media spread by our government and your government at the time,
Speaker 1: the Bush administration, I fell, hook line and sinker for
Speaker 1: it because the arguments were so put together. And with
Speaker 1: that I started going down a rabbit hole and to
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, well, who are these people who
Speaker 1: did this? Oh, George Bush is a member of Skull
Speaker 1: and Bones. Oh so was Senator Kerry at the time. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, Maybe I should look into these create society links.
Speaker 1: And then I start coming across freemasonry and all that
Speaker 1: sort of grand conspiracy myth and it just made sense,
Speaker 1: It really just made sense. And from there I just
Speaker 1: descended further and further into the rabbit hole.
Speaker 4: Fascinating by the way, and I had a sort of
Speaker 4: similar journey with the Iraq War as well, that even
Speaker 4: though I was inside CIA and I knew some people
Speaker 4: who were involved in the analysis, I believe that it
Speaker 4: was true, and I'll have to say that a lot
Speaker 4: of them did too. Now, how much is a lie
Speaker 4: in a conspiracy to tell that lie, and how much
Speaker 4: of it is quite frankly, just human error. Give us
Speaker 4: your thoughts on the difference between lying with mailis a
Speaker 4: forethought to achieve something, to create a conspiracy, and then
Speaker 4: just like simple fuck ups and randomness in the world.
Speaker 1: So disinformation is deliberately like misinforming people, So disinforming people,
Speaker 1: and anyone who picks that disinformation up and spreads it
Speaker 1: without knowing that it's a lie is spreading misinformation. And
Speaker 1: I think that's definitely what happened with the Weapons of
Speaker 1: mass destruction lie.
Speaker 3: Can you explain a little bit why you think the
Speaker 3: Truther view of the world is so powerful?
Speaker 1: I think because it does give us an answer. It's
Speaker 1: really good to bring it back to nine to eleven
Speaker 1: because that was such a chaotic moment, such a traumatic
Speaker 1: moment for everyone, Like pretty much everyone around the world
Speaker 1: watched three thousand people die within an hour of the
Speaker 1: two towers falling. We all needed to work out how
Speaker 1: this happened, and these conspiracies that conspiracy pushers were pushing, essentially,
Speaker 1: like everyone knows Alex Jones, and at the time it
Speaker 1: was William Cooper was one of the big ones, Like
Speaker 1: he was on air at the time saying this was
Speaker 1: a conspiracy. But yeah, it gives us that order out
Speaker 1: of chaos. To use another conspiracy term, like how could
Speaker 1: America with all of its power, with all of its intelligence,
Speaker 1: with everything that they have, Like, how did they let
Speaker 1: this slip? How did they let nineteen high jackers take
Speaker 1: four planes in one day? That just that shouldn't happen.
Speaker 3: What is it about you you think made you susceptible
Speaker 3: to going down this path? Why you? What is it
Speaker 3: about your background, or your personality, or your feelings or
Speaker 3: what have you that got you there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you seem like a really thoughtful, reasonable guy. You
Speaker 4: generally do.
Speaker 1: I think creativity does play a role. Creativity and intelligence
Speaker 1: does play a role. It helps you imagine a situation
Speaker 1: and then logic yourself into believing it. I think that
Speaker 1: plays a big part in say, my personality. However, I
Speaker 1: think the thing that brought me into the conspiracism in
Speaker 1: the way that it did for nine to eleven, through
Speaker 1: the anti war sentiment I had for going to Iraq.
Speaker 1: I think that definitely ties into my background, and it
Speaker 1: ties into being brought up in the military. My first stepfather,
Speaker 1: he was in Vietnam. He was a Marine, he was
Speaker 1: drafted and he went to Vietnam, and I didn't really
Speaker 1: know very much about what happened until like later on,
Speaker 1: but I can just say my childhood was not a
Speaker 1: happy childhood with him. While he was in our life,
Speaker 1: he had PTSD from a terrible experience in Vietnam. He drank,
Speaker 1: he was abusive, He half beat my mother to death
Speaker 1: one night, and then they discharged him from the military.
Speaker 1: And that left quite a big scar on me. And
Speaker 1: none of that really bubbled to the surface until the
Speaker 1: First Gulf War happens in the nineties. At that time,
Speaker 1: my mother is remarried to a man in the US
Speaker 1: Air Force, and my friend's dads were starting to get
Speaker 1: called to go to Iraq, and I remember being terrified
Speaker 1: of my stepfather going there because of what had happened before.
Speaker 1: Because this guy was sorry, not was is like the loveliest,
Speaker 1: kindest person. He was such an amazing role model growing
Speaker 1: up that I was terrified if he went to war
Speaker 1: in Iraq, He's either going to die or is going
Speaker 1: to come back and be like my first step father.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that idea of war and what
Speaker 1: it does to people I really shaped my sentiment, especially
Speaker 1: when it came to again Iraq war, the second one,
Speaker 1: Like I was so dead against that. I did not
Speaker 1: want our citizens going to war over there and coming
Speaker 1: back basically like my first step father with all these
Speaker 1: troubles PTSD, alcoholism.
Speaker 4: What were the benefits to being inside a conspiray theorist mindset.
Speaker 1: I think at the beginning it was more to do
Speaker 1: with having an answer, just oh, I know what happened,
Speaker 1: then I know what's going on. I didn't really feel
Speaker 1: empowered by it. I know that's a common thing that
Speaker 1: has said, like people feel empowered by having this secret knowledge,
Speaker 1: but I never genuinely had that. It's just that I
Speaker 1: had a weird sort of comfort in knowing what was
Speaker 1: going on, even though it was absolutely terrible.
Speaker 4: Did you feel a missionary zeal to spread that word
Speaker 4: as well? I'm going to like bring this to everyone.
Speaker 1: Else I considered myself an activist. I was a truth activist.
Speaker 1: I was a musician, I was a spoken word artist.
Speaker 1: I was a rapper, and I've always been like putting
Speaker 1: politics and my activism in music. So having that, I
Speaker 1: had this other whole topic of stuff to talk about.
Speaker 3: But can you help me understand or explain why the issue,
Speaker 3: for example, a pedophilia crops up so often in these conspiracies.
Speaker 3: It returns, it seems, again and again nowadays.
Speaker 1: Well, so the most evil thing to do is the
Speaker 1: most evil thing on this planet, basically being a pedophile
Speaker 1: or a murderer or just like sacrificing children and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it really paints people like as the worst,
Speaker 1: so it drives your hate towards them.
Speaker 4: A bit of a historian and the Roman Empire in
Speaker 4: the Two Punic Wars, what was their charge against the
Speaker 4: Phoenicians the Carthaginians? Was it they sacrificed their children? And
Speaker 4: this is like a two five hundred year old conspiracy theory,
Speaker 4: and modern archaeology has shown that when babies died early,
Speaker 4: which a lot of in those days, a lot of
Speaker 4: babies did, twenty to thirty percent never made it to
Speaker 4: their first year. The babies were then cremated rather than buried,
Speaker 4: and the Romans then turned that into their baby killers.
Speaker 4: And this allows us to wage war and not to
Speaker 4: just defeat them, but to exterminate Carthage. So yeah, exactly
Speaker 4: that thing, even two thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: Go even further back in the Old Testament, the Hebrews
Speaker 1: are talking about the Canaanites serving their babies to molic
Speaker 1: That's right, and that's probably propaganda as well, for at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: The Canaanites were Phoenicians. So yeah, it's the same civilization.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly emotive, and that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: If you want to manipulate people, that's what you do.
Speaker 4: Brend I'd like to talk to you more about the
Speaker 4: destructive impact of conspiracy theories on both the society and
Speaker 4: on people and on families.
Speaker 1: I got to be honest, like, when I was in it,
Speaker 1: I didn't understand how dangerous it was because I didn't
Speaker 1: really see it as a tool being used to manipulate
Speaker 1: me by people that wanted to manipulate me or have
Speaker 1: me on their side. I just thought it was people
Speaker 1: trying to expose the truth, expose what was really going on.
Speaker 1: But I have now being out of it, especially since
Speaker 1: say twenty fifteen, watching political figures embrace conspiracism and push it,
Speaker 1: and watching people who I'd never thought would They didn't
Speaker 1: listen to a word I had to say when I
Speaker 1: was a conspiracy theorist. Now like listening to them and
Speaker 1: pushing the conspiracies that I used to believe in. That
Speaker 1: was a real wake up call.
Speaker 3: How did you come out of it? Was it a
Speaker 3: slow process of coming out or was it one or
Speaker 3: two key things that pushed you along there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a very slow process which kind of
Speaker 1: gained momentum. It took six years. Sandy Hook happens December
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and throughout all of twenty thirteen, the crisis
Speaker 1: actor and hoax narrative becomes very prevalent in the truth movement,
Speaker 1: and that went against everything that I was believing at
Speaker 1: the time. At the time, I was believing that all
Speaker 1: of these mass shootings, terrorist attacks, etc. Were essentially ritual sacrifices,
Speaker 1: and so real people die in these things. And when
Speaker 1: Alex Jones and many other people in the truth community
Speaker 1: were pushing that these events were hoaxes and that the
Speaker 1: people involved were crisis actors, so nobody dies. I had
Speaker 1: a real problem with that because no, I really believed
Speaker 1: these people were being murdered by them, the Illuminati, the
Speaker 1: New World Order, the cult, whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 1: And just to clarify, I wasn't the Jews. I was
Speaker 1: never like a Jew World Order guy. I was always like,
Speaker 1: it's them, all of them. The Queen was involved, and
Speaker 1: Barack Obama was involved. But through twenty thirteen, this hoax
Speaker 1: crisis actor narrative just became applied cut and paste every
Speaker 1: time something happened. We had the Pulse nightclub shooting, the
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon bombing, all leading up through twenty fourteen fifteen
Speaker 1: up into the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the Paris Batic
Speaker 1: clan and Nie attacks. Every single time something happened, my
Speaker 1: Facebook would just light up with the whole community. He's
Speaker 1: talking about, Oh, this is hoax, it's not real.
Speaker 4: Look at this.
Speaker 1: Crisis sector, that chrisis sector, and they'd show these pictures
Speaker 1: and all throughout that time it was pulling me away
Speaker 1: from the community and like making me isolate myself further
Speaker 1: into my belief but not vibing with what they were saying.
Speaker 1: And then between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen, so much
Speaker 1: stuff happened on the world stage that just made me question, like,
Speaker 1: is the New World Order actually in charge here? Because
Speaker 1: there was three massive things. To me. First, it was
Speaker 1: the election of Trump. It wasn't just because it was Trump,
Speaker 1: but the idea was like Hillary Clinton had been primed
Speaker 1: for this job for years, so she was supposed to
Speaker 1: be the person who took over because she was a
Speaker 1: New World Order. But Trump won and I could see
Speaker 1: him Alex Jones on Info Wars and all these other things,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what, how is this guy getting
Speaker 1: into the highest office in America? That doesn't make sense,
Speaker 1: especially when he's popular amongst the conspiracy theorists. So this
Speaker 1: is really strange. So we had that, and then here
Speaker 1: in England we had the Brexit vote, and the Brexit
Speaker 1: vote pulled us away from the European Union, and that
Speaker 1: was just it just did not make sense in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things of the New World Order's goal
Speaker 1: is a one world government, a police state around the
Speaker 1: entire world. But we had a guy called Jeremy Corbyn
Speaker 1: take over the Labor Party and Corbyn was like a
Speaker 1: left wing populist so him being able to take over
Speaker 1: the Labor Party, which is basically if Bernie Sanders took
Speaker 1: over the Democrats. It wasn't going to be allowed, was he.
Speaker 1: And I had always thought every single vote, every single
Speaker 1: election was a see election, it was nothing to do
Speaker 1: with us. Leaders were selected, not elected. However, those three
Speaker 1: votes and watching it all happen on social media, watching
Speaker 1: people move, it just made almost everything fall apart for
Speaker 1: me at that time. So I had to log off
Speaker 1: and that's when I did. I just lugged off of Facebook.
Speaker 1: And yeah, just over that twenty eighteen to twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: even more things started to happen, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: I think I've been wrong the whole time, and I
Speaker 1: need to go figure out why.
Speaker 4: QAnon famously said trust the plan. So you didn't trust
Speaker 4: the plan, there's your mistake.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break.
Speaker 6: We'll be right back.
Speaker 4: And Rebecca, it's funny you cite two things that I
Speaker 4: think it's plausible and I'm open to actual there being
Speaker 4: a conspiracy. One being that Russian disinformation attempted to or
Speaker 4: did have some impact on the Brexit vote, or at
Speaker 4: least they tried to. And it's clear that the US
Speaker 4: intelligence community did say that Russia did conspire and did
Speaker 4: attempt to impact the US election to get Trump elected.
Speaker 4: So it's funny that the two things that you that
Speaker 4: broke your sense of conspiracy theories may have had elements
Speaker 4: of a genuine conspiracy attached. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, this is what I've learned after. Oh so
Speaker 1: they were conspiracies, just not the conspiracy I thought, because
Speaker 1: that's my problem is it was a big, grand conspiracy.
Speaker 4: What was the impact on your family and your relationships
Speaker 4: when you went down the rabbit hole? Were you ostracized
Speaker 4: or nobody wanted your round anymore? Did they still put
Speaker 4: up with you, did they try to reason with you?
Speaker 4: And what was the impact? Did you lose friends? Family?
Speaker 1: So the first few years while I was descending down
Speaker 1: that hole with my family, they were like quite understanding
Speaker 1: because I was always into very fringe topics and my
Speaker 1: mum just said, it's a phase, like just let him
Speaker 1: go through this, whatever he's going through. But I came
Speaker 1: to realize they didn't want to talk about it, so
Speaker 1: no one really pushed me away. But I did isolate
Speaker 1: myself because they didn't want to talk about it, especially
Speaker 1: when it came to my friends. I was in a band,
Speaker 1: and I would stop going to the after parties at
Speaker 1: the gig. So I turn up to the gig, do
Speaker 1: our set, and then I go home. I pulled myself
Speaker 1: away from my social circle.
Speaker 3: Nowadays, obviously to your credit, you're trying to help people.
Speaker 3: And as part of what your podcast is about and
Speaker 3: what you speak about, what is the hardest thing about
Speaker 3: trying to do that, What kind of success do you have,
Speaker 3: and what is the biggest challenges You try to talk
Speaker 3: about your experience and to help others so that they
Speaker 3: don't go down the same rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: The things I face now are that I'm part of
Speaker 1: the conspiracy. This is now my favorite conspiracy theory that
Speaker 1: I'm a part of it.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the club man, good audience.
Speaker 4: People who are listening, who are conspiracy curious, who maybe
Speaker 4: dabbling ways that they could extradite themselves or explore things
Speaker 4: in a way that doesn't bring them deeper in like
Speaker 4: what happened to you Initially.
Speaker 1: All I would say is if you are inquisitive, if
Speaker 1: you are really questioning everything due, please question everything. Question
Speaker 1: all sides of the argument, because there's not two sides.
Speaker 1: That's a bit of a false dichotomy. There's many sides
Speaker 1: to these. Just because something disagrees with you doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's government propaganda or it's them or something. Just look
Speaker 1: at everything. Honestly, I encourage people to actually go down
Speaker 1: and look at this stuff. But you have to look
Speaker 1: at everything because sometimes a conspiracy can be true. But
Speaker 1: try not to get wrapped up in too many of them.
Speaker 1: We're taught that to be fair by the big conspiracists
Speaker 1: like Alex Jones, like David Ake, and they would always say,
Speaker 1: in those first hours of chaos, the truth comes out
Speaker 1: and then the official story comes out later. So we
Speaker 1: were looking for that, and this is what they do.
Speaker 1: They pick out all these little inconsistencies where people have
Speaker 1: just got things wrong. Essentially, then jump the gun. That's
Speaker 1: what we dig into, and we use that to paint
Speaker 1: the rest of it as lies.
Speaker 3: I find that fascinating because in our world, I know
Speaker 3: where you're going. When we were overseas or be a crisis,
Speaker 3: our instinct and what we're taught is the first things
Speaker 3: that come out are going to probably be wrong.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, especially in a crisis. I was in a
Speaker 4: rock when ISIS was taking over part of the country,
Speaker 4: and whenever something would happen, there'd be a battle. It
Speaker 4: would take us a day or two to figure out
Speaker 4: statistically what's going on, because, especially when you're in a
Speaker 4: crisis situation, people reporting things very quickly, and very often
Speaker 4: you get them wrong. So, Brent, was there a Damna
Speaker 4: scene moment? Was there a specific moment in your background
Speaker 4: where you really started to question where it clicked?
Speaker 1: So in twenty eighteen, I was scrolling through Facebook and
Speaker 1: I kept seeing people posting about crisis actors or Qan
Speaker 1: on Israel, flat Earth clones, all these different things. I
Speaker 1: just I didn't agree with it, and it was just
Speaker 1: my community just pushing it, and I remember thinking, I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear this anymore. I don't want to
Speaker 1: see this on my feed anymore. And that was the
Speaker 1: day I logged out of it. It wasn't until later
Speaker 1: that year I was writing lyrics. I was trying to
Speaker 1: make a new album and I was going through the
Speaker 1: writing process and it just clicked all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: I don't think I believe this. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: just repeating tropes, falling back on ideas that I've had.
Speaker 1: But I'm writing this and it doesn't actually feel genuine anymore.
Speaker 1: And those were like the moments where I was just thought,
Speaker 1: I need to really reevaluate everything here because what's just
Speaker 1: been going on for the last three years and the
Speaker 1: political scene doesn't make sense. So I need to take
Speaker 1: some time off and try and figure this out. And
Speaker 1: the best thing about it is me and my partner.
Speaker 1: We got together in twenty ten and we're still together today,
Speaker 1: and we went through this process together because we were
Speaker 1: watching things, we were seeing it all happen, and we
Speaker 1: were able to bounce these ideas off each other, like
Speaker 1: when one of us had a doubt, we were able
Speaker 1: to question it with the other person. And to be fair, like,
Speaker 1: it wasn't super shattering until I realized that I was out,
Speaker 1: and then it just fell apart, like leaving a religion
Speaker 1: or leaving a cult or something like that. It's the
Speaker 1: only thing I can compare it to.
Speaker 3: As you came out of this and started to change,
Speaker 3: did you maintain the same friend network? How did your
Speaker 3: relationships change from before to after?
Speaker 1: When I went down, I isolated myself. When I came out,
Speaker 1: I isolated myself from the new group of friends. And
Speaker 1: when I came back to tell people that I was out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a bit of backlash for that. Like at
Speaker 1: that point, I wasn't isolating myself. I was being kicked
Speaker 1: out of the community. They just blocked me, unfriended me,
Speaker 1: just everyone just completely left, and again I just had
Speaker 1: to rebuild. It does suck, though, to be fair, I
Speaker 1: did have friends in the truth Or community that were
Speaker 1: all musicians, and we had supported each other and supported
Speaker 1: each other's art in this like fringe element of society,
Speaker 1: and I built relationships with some of these people for
Speaker 1: a good ten years. And to have some of them
Speaker 1: really turn their back on me like it did hurt.
Speaker 1: There's about four people that I'm really gutted that they
Speaker 1: don't want to be my friend, they don't want to
Speaker 1: talk to me because I loved them like they were
Speaker 1: my brothers. But it's gone.
Speaker 4: There's a few.
Speaker 1: Others though, that kept me kept along and they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: whatever do you believe I don't understand how you've done it.
Speaker 1: I can't understand how you don't see it still, but hey,
Speaker 1: I know you're not a shill. I know you're not
Speaker 1: bought off or an ething and we're all on our
Speaker 1: own paths and they still respect me for walking my path.
Speaker 1: So yeah, sometimes it's hard, other times it's whatever.
Speaker 4: And when you came out, were people ready to accept
Speaker 4: you back again? If you were defriended you illicially left
Speaker 4: when you came back six years later.
Speaker 1: Now, when I came back as not a conspiracist anymore
Speaker 1: in the previous few years, those same people have sent
Speaker 1: me messages and been like, Wow, I'm so surprised that
Speaker 1: you turned yourself around after all of this. They were
Speaker 1: my really good friends, and they completely welcomed me with
Speaker 1: open arms. There's glad that I'm back, and glad that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking critically now not so wrapped up in and
Speaker 1: all this stuff that I was wrapped up in. And
Speaker 1: they're proud. They're really proud of what I'm doing today.
Speaker 1: They're proud that I'm able to talk about this thing
Speaker 1: that basically happened, and they're proud that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: help bring more people out and also letting everyone understand
Speaker 1: what it's like to be a conspiracist, what it's like
Speaker 1: being isolated in all of this. That's what they're very
Speaker 1: proud of that I've been able to explain that all right, Well, Brat.
Speaker 2: It's been fantastic to get to know you.
Speaker 3: You know, are very excited about your podcast and what
Speaker 3: you're trying to do when we give you a hell
Speaker 3: of a lot of credit for doing that, and thank
Speaker 3: you so much for spending some time with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you, guys both for inviting me, thanks for speaking
Speaker 1: to me. It's been absolutely pleasure.
Speaker 4: That was great. We have a second guest. We're really
Speaker 4: pleased today to have Sandra Fenderlin. He's a professor of
Speaker 4: social psychology Cambridge University and a research affiliate at Yale.
Speaker 4: He's a leading academic expert in the field of social influencing, risk,
Speaker 4: human judgment, and decision making. He's also the author of
Speaker 4: a really great book, Foolproof, Why Misinformation infects Our Minds
Speaker 4: and How to Build Immunity. The Financial Times voted this
Speaker 4: the best nonfiction book of twenty twenty three. So, Sandra,
Speaker 4: welcome today. It's really good, heaven y On, thanks so
Speaker 4: much for having me on. So said, let's begin with
Speaker 4: kool aid. Okay, So the expression drinking the kool aid
Speaker 4: comes from when a cult Jim Jones people temple and
Speaker 4: acting on a conspiracy theory that they were about to
Speaker 4: be attacked by the US military, CINAID blased great kool aid.
Speaker 4: What can you tell us about the overlap between cults
Speaker 4: and conspiracy theories and why is it that people choose
Speaker 4: to drink the kool aid?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question. I think to some extent,
Speaker 6: we like to differentiate belief in everyday conspiracy theories from
Speaker 6: the cult psychology. I think cults take it to the
Speaker 6: next level in terms that they're often what we refer
Speaker 6: to as high control groups. Let's say you believe in
Speaker 6: one conspiracy theory and that's the end of it, and
Speaker 6: you live your life and you're free to do whatever.
Speaker 6: But when you're in a cult, you're really under a
Speaker 6: high amount of social pressure to conform to the norms
Speaker 6: of the cult and not just buy into their theory,
Speaker 6: but also perform in a way follow the actions of
Speaker 6: the leaders, and you get punished mentally, physically sometimes for
Speaker 6: not following those rules. And so one of the things
Speaker 6: we monitor often is the transition from when somebody believes
Speaker 6: in the conspiracy to believing in multiple conspiracies that are
Speaker 6: potentially joining a cult. QAnon has, as you guys know,
Speaker 6: evolved from a single conspiracy to almost cult status that
Speaker 6: is I think a good example where a conspiracy actually
Speaker 6: transforms into a cult. It has a following, and members
Speaker 6: become more extreme within that following, really endorse the rules
Speaker 6: as if it's a godlike written script, and it's very
Speaker 6: difficult to pull people away from that. You can argue
Speaker 6: with people about conspiracy theory, but getting people out of
Speaker 6: a cult is a whole different story because as cults
Speaker 6: have a playbook and we can get into that, but
Speaker 6: conspiracy theories often use parts of that playbook but are
Speaker 6: not as extreme.
Speaker 3: So Andra explaining why why is this so hard to
Speaker 3: debunk conspiracies and pull people out of the rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: It seems like it's easier to sow, dealt and resolved out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, So I have this bad dad joke that kind
Speaker 6: of explains the psychology of it. Are you ready it's
Speaker 6: a perfect place for life? Yeah, okay, it's the perfect place.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 6: So there's this guy, right, conspiracy theorist, and unfortunately he
Speaker 6: dies and goes to heaven, and then God him or
Speaker 6: herself is waiting at the pearly gates, and this conspiracy
Speaker 6: theorist says, look, God, I gotta tell you this whole
Speaker 6: earth thing. You have to admit, right, the Earth is flat.
Speaker 6: You know you can't see the horizon. I have all
Speaker 6: these facts right the earth. The earth is flat. I mean,
Speaker 6: you supposedly created it, so you tell me. And so
Speaker 6: God kind of frowns and looks the conspiracist in the
Speaker 6: eye and says, I hate to break it to you,
Speaker 6: but I can tell you for sure the Earth is round.
Speaker 6: It is not flat like a pancake. It is round.
Speaker 6: And so the conspiracy theorist goes, damn, this thing goes
Speaker 6: higher up than I thought. And that's the psychology of
Speaker 6: trying to debunk conspiracy theorists. On a more serious note,
Speaker 6: there's this thing we call the conspiratorial worldview, which is
Speaker 6: what we call monological belief system, which is a fancy
Speaker 6: word for saying that belief in one conspiracy serves as
Speaker 6: evidence for the existence of other conspiracy theories. And so
Speaker 6: when you try to debunk conspiracy theories, debunking one is
Speaker 6: often unsuccessful because they'll just jump to a higher order
Speaker 6: conspiracy that sort of explains it all. And so typically
Speaker 6: what you get is that if you try to create
Speaker 6: this what we call local incoherence, so you point out
Speaker 6: about oh, oh, maybe Obama's birth certificate was fake. Then
Speaker 6: they come up with a higher order conspiracy. If you
Speaker 6: try to debunk, that sort of explains the inconsistency. And
Speaker 6: there's been interesting studies on that. For example, Osama bin Laden.
Speaker 6: So one of the studies asked people, oh, do you
Speaker 6: think he was already dead when the troops arrived? And
Speaker 6: then people say yes, And then how about this other
Speaker 6: theory that suggests that he's still alive somewhere, and people
Speaker 6: say yes. And so the idea is that you know
Speaker 6: that somehow when you point out this contradiction, it's not
Speaker 6: strange for people because local contradictions are allowed because there's
Speaker 6: this higher order conspiracy that connects both accounts into this
Speaker 6: higher order conspiracy that it's the government's behind things, that's
Speaker 6: the overarching concern for this particular example, and that can
Speaker 6: explain away any consistencies. Yeah, So coming back to the
Speaker 6: cult's ideology, it's a system of beliefs that's shaped very
Speaker 6: much like what you experience in cults. Sometimes that people
Speaker 6: just jumped to the next level on the next level,
Speaker 6: and that's why I often don't try to debunk conspiracy.
Speaker 6: It's a good example is Neil the Grass Pyson trying
Speaker 6: to debunk the wrapper Bob's belief in a flat Earth conspiracy.
Speaker 6: So basically he tries to repeatedly point out why to
Speaker 6: the celebrity, why the Earth using physics, why the Earth
Speaker 6: really isn't flat, and it just falls on deaf ears
Speaker 6: and Bob still joined the Flat Earth Society. Neil the
Speaker 6: Grass even made a track called flat the Fact to
Speaker 6: try to convince him, but unsuccessfully.
Speaker 7: You say the Earth is flattened, and you try to
Speaker 7: disrespect him. I'll bringing facts to the badest silly theory
Speaker 7: because Bob has got to know the planet is a spait.
Speaker 2: G Wolves, let's sec break co right back.
Speaker 7: You say that Nils vesus what he needs to loosen
Speaker 7: numb the Brothers getting stayed when the ignorance you're spinning
Speaker 7: helps to keep people enslaved.
Speaker 4: I mean, and we're back, you go me. Once people
Speaker 4: are in and they're down the rabbit hole, it's really
Speaker 4: hard to deprogram and pull them out. But you're doing
Speaker 4: a lot of research I understand on what to do
Speaker 4: to vet people from falling in in the first place. Right,
Speaker 4: some really groundbreaking stuff. Could you maybe take us to
Speaker 4: real briefly, what inoculation theory is.
Speaker 6: We start to use that we'd pre bunking because it's
Speaker 6: easier for people to understand, and as you said, it's
Speaker 6: very difficult to try to give people the radicalized. It
Speaker 6: takes a long time, it's very hard to do. Even
Speaker 6: debunking can be difficult to do. I've switched my attention
Speaker 6: to the idea of prevention, and it follows the medical analogy.
Speaker 6: So the idea is that your body produces antibodies to
Speaker 6: help for resistance against future infection. But it turns out
Speaker 6: you can do the same with the mind. And in fact,
Speaker 6: this whole idea emerged because the US government at that
Speaker 6: time was thinking, hey, we need to double down on
Speaker 6: instilling American values in American soldiers because they don't seem
Speaker 6: prepared to answer questions like whi's capitalism good? Or why
Speaker 6: are you fighting this war? And so on, and they
Speaker 6: didn't have what we call mental defenses against the types
Speaker 6: of counter arguments that were being raised by foreign troops.
Speaker 6: But the government's response was, we need to give people
Speaker 6: more facts about why the US is great, whereas the
Speaker 6: psychologists at the time said, maybe we shouldn't give people
Speaker 6: more facts. We should expose them in simulation form to
Speaker 6: what it's like to being attacked on your belief system,
Speaker 6: and then help them resist and refute these attempts so
Speaker 6: that that become more immune when it actually happens. And
Speaker 6: that's really the core idea of inoculation. Of course, you
Speaker 6: always get into the discussion. If it's your country, we
Speaker 6: call it education. If it's another country, it's called propaganda.
Speaker 6: Irrespective of the content of what we're talking about, the
Speaker 6: technique is just the neutral device, and we're using it
Speaker 6: to help people identify misinformation.
Speaker 2: I think it's true.
Speaker 3: You will see the fact checking after the fact and
Speaker 3: debunking doesn't seem to be enough.
Speaker 6: Part of the spread of misinformation online is leading people
Speaker 6: to quote unquote alternative facts, alternative knowledge, and alternative claims,
Speaker 6: which creates the sense of distrust around official narratives and
Speaker 6: around experts. And I think that has to do with
Speaker 6: the more fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. And we
Speaker 6: know that from experiments that when you tell people something
Speaker 6: and then the science changes, and then you tell people
Speaker 6: that it's now different, the conclusion is often that, hence
Speaker 6: scientists are in competent, and of course the consensus amongst
Speaker 6: government agencies is different from what scientists are saying, and
Speaker 6: that's confusing to people.
Speaker 4: Well, the best way to fix science is more and
Speaker 4: better science, right, Although I could say the best way
Speaker 4: to fix a conspiracy theory is just more and better
Speaker 4: conspiracy theories.
Speaker 6: I love that idea.
Speaker 4: There is actually an interesting historical parallel to this. So
Speaker 4: the Thirty Years War in Europe, arguably one of the
Speaker 4: reasons that it happened was because of the printing press. Suddenly,
Speaker 4: for the first time, there wasn't one entity that had
Speaker 4: a monopoly on truth. People were printing whatever they wanted
Speaker 4: about religion, and all of a sudden, you had different
Speaker 4: theories about all sorts of bits about religion and Christianity,
Speaker 4: and people went to war for thirty years and tore
Speaker 4: Europe apart trying to figure out what is truth? Who
Speaker 4: decides what are facts? And people lived in those days
Speaker 4: in their own micro information bubbles by deciding what you read,
Speaker 4: and so I think this is a problem that we're
Speaker 4: going to have for a long time. I did want
Speaker 4: to ask you about the Pineapple Pizza game, which you're
Speaker 4: famous for, right.
Speaker 6: We did this game with homeland security, specifically SISA Cyber
Speaker 6: Infrastructure Security Agency, and Chris Krebs, who at the time
Speaker 6: was heading CASA, came up with this pineapple pizza idea
Speaker 6: and the goal was, can we inoculate Americans against foreign
Speaker 6: influence techniques that are used by bad actors during elections?
Speaker 6: And of course, the first part of this process is
Speaker 6: always breaking down if we follow the public health analogy
Speaker 6: with the structure of the viruses in a way, so
Speaker 6: what are the key building blocks? So what's the playbook
Speaker 6: that they use? Can we then break that down for
Speaker 6: people in a way that's fun and digestible so that
Speaker 6: we can then inoculate and create this resistance in a
Speaker 6: simulated environment. And that's really what Harmony Square was. And
Speaker 6: so Harmony Square is a ridiculous game, but it's a
Speaker 6: fake news game. And so you start out in your
Speaker 6: role as chief disinformation officer, and your goal is to
Speaker 6: try to create chaos in this fictional town called Harmony Square.
Speaker 6: And they have an annual swan and also a Pineapple
Speaker 6: Pizza festival, and it kind of starts in this way
Speaker 6: that one of your options is to try to steal
Speaker 6: the swan and then the game narrator says are you crazy,
Speaker 6: that's illegal. You know, you have to come up with
Speaker 6: something that isn't going to get you arrested. This information actors,
Speaker 6: they don't go and steal statues. And so you learn
Speaker 6: that there's an election going on for the local bear patroller,
Speaker 6: even though there's no bears in Harmony Square. But they
Speaker 6: just love elections. They love the idea of democracy, and
Speaker 6: they just love having elections. And your goals is disrupted.
Speaker 6: And the pineapple pizza metaphor comes in is that the
Speaker 6: techniques that are used and we break down for people
Speaker 6: are the following. So you take an innocuous issue, should
Speaker 6: you put pineapple on pizza? Maligne actors, that's the first step, right,
Speaker 6: And then then you start controversy and say the Italians
Speaker 6: they're going to be offended by pineapple and pizza. Right,
Speaker 6: it's a cultural that's just culturally inappropriate. And then other
Speaker 6: people say, nobody's going to tell me what topic to
Speaker 6: put on my pizza. Right, you can't restraint pizza topping freedom,
Speaker 6: pizza amendment rights. And then the next step, after you
Speaker 6: stir up debates on both sides, is a false amplification.
Speaker 6: So now you're going to have to buy bots there's
Speaker 6: a whole market for this bots through fake SMS, phones
Speaker 6: and lots of accounts, and then you blow it up
Speaker 6: on both sides. So it's meant to be a bit sarcastic, right,
Speaker 6: But you go through these techniques and then we test
Speaker 6: people though with real social media content that use these
Speaker 6: techniques from past events and as well stuff people might
Speaker 6: come across, and yeah, we find people are now better
Speaker 6: able to recognize and resist these techniques. You know, one
Speaker 6: of the more general theories is that conspiracy theories are
Speaker 6: for losers. And so what we mean by that is
Speaker 6: when you're out of power, the party or the group
Speaker 6: that's out of power that was more likely to think
Speaker 6: that the group who is currently in power is conspiring
Speaker 6: against them, and that switches depending on who's in power.
Speaker 6: And that's why we like to say conspiracies are for losers,
Speaker 6: because the people in power are never coming up with
Speaker 6: the conspiracy that those out of power are plotting against them.
Speaker 6: And the funny thing is that we create this new
Speaker 6: game called cat Park and it's about educating people conspiracy
Speaker 6: theories and the idea is that you arrive in your
Speaker 6: new apartment, do your noodles, and it's messy, and so
Speaker 6: the bad news is that you have a new apartment,
Speaker 6: new city, and the bad news is you don't have
Speaker 6: any friends. And so you get this ping from a
Speaker 6: shady actor down at the local bar who has a
Speaker 6: story to tell you. You want friends, and you feel marginalized.
Speaker 6: So you go to the bar and they say, look,
Speaker 6: all these elitists are trying to erect this new cat park. However,
Speaker 6: there are no cats in the city, and so it
Speaker 6: turns into a big conspiracy and it's called cat Park.
Speaker 6: Is it's supposed to be fun. But then this whole
Speaker 6: conspiracy website now says that he's going to try to
Speaker 6: convince you that this is a game about cats. However,
Speaker 6: really it's an attempt to brainwash you and so on
Speaker 6: and the cats and their symbols about the cats, and
Speaker 6: it's a classic symbol that was used in so and
Speaker 6: so history. And there's all these hidden messages in the
Speaker 6: game that haven't linked it yet to satanic pedofiles. But
Speaker 6: I'm sure give it time. It just.
Speaker 4: And I think it's important to say that really smart
Speaker 4: people can fall into this. So I would just like
Speaker 4: to throw in that, Sir Isaac Newton, arguably one of
Speaker 4: the most brilliant people ever on this planet, invented physics,
Speaker 4: invented optics. The other thing is he spent years reading
Speaker 4: the Bible to find hidden messages in it, and at
Speaker 4: the end he determined that the world was going to
Speaker 4: end in the year two thousand and sixty. Right, he
Speaker 4: came up with this figure. So even one of the
Speaker 4: most brilliant people in the world might be true. We
Speaker 4: still got a few years. But yeah, it's not people
Speaker 4: who are dumb.
Speaker 3: So Sendra, is there anything you're learning of the best
Speaker 3: practices of trying to get people to slowly pull themselves
Speaker 3: out of the rabbit hole?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I think there's a few lessons. And in the book,
Speaker 6: I interviewed people who were former conspiracy theorists and extremists
Speaker 6: and people are part of cults and so on, and
Speaker 6: often the story that I would get is that there
Speaker 6: were some inflection, you know, there was some point at
Speaker 6: which there was a counter narrative that was convincing enough
Speaker 6: for them to take a small step outside of their
Speaker 6: regular circle and start digging. And I think Brent Lee's
Speaker 6: story is not altogether this similar, but it was that
Speaker 6: the theories started getting more and more implausible to the
Speaker 6: point where they started questioning you, is this real? You
Speaker 6: know how plausible is This is starting to sound a
Speaker 6: little too kooky, which led them to spend less time online.
Speaker 6: And I think these things are key. So we're doing
Speaker 6: big experiments at the moment trying to get people to
Speaker 6: unfollow polarizing accounts, deactivate social media for a while, and
Speaker 6: we find that has a huge impact on people in
Speaker 6: terms of their information consumption, the information environment that surrounds them.
Speaker 6: People spread less misinformation, they feel less polarized. And so
Speaker 6: the challenge with getting people out is that you have
Speaker 6: to provide a new network for people. Right, they're used
Speaker 6: to having the crowd that they affiliate with, but you
Speaker 6: got to have other people that you can turn to. Right,
Speaker 6: You've got to have other narratives, and you need to
Speaker 6: have a new support system. And so the first step
Speaker 6: is to get people engaged with counter content and then
Speaker 6: give them a new support system. Brent was courageous because
Speaker 6: he just logged off and lost all of his friends.
Speaker 6: And that's why most conspiracy theorists don't turn out like Brent,
Speaker 6: because nobody wants to lose their friends. And it's difficult,
Speaker 6: and you have to find your way out on your own.
Speaker 6: So I think it was really brave of him to
Speaker 6: do that and persist. So you can't persuade people coming
Speaker 6: in saying you're wrong, these are the facts. This is
Speaker 6: what most people do, and it just doesn't work. You
Speaker 6: have to have a more indirect approach. I always start
Speaker 6: with what we called worldview validation, which is a technique
Speaker 6: that says, look, some conspiracies have really happened in the past,
Speaker 6: and now they feel like you're validating part of what
Speaker 6: they're saying. And then you pivot and say, look, but
Speaker 6: the specific one that we're talking about, let's agree to disagree.
Speaker 6: But you have to get people inched them away a
Speaker 6: little bit from the story, right, Oh, okay, Okay, I
Speaker 6: still think on this particular issue, Okay, but would you
Speaker 6: read this other article, not saying you have to believe it,
Speaker 6: just read it, right, and then we'll go, okay, let's
Speaker 6: read it, and then we meet somewhere in the middle,
Speaker 6: and then you leave it at that. And I think
Speaker 6: for most people that stuff, they would have convinced someone
Speaker 6: right they're cranky uncle or family member, and I leave
Speaker 6: it at that. The next interaction we move a little
Speaker 6: bit and you invite people come over to my party
Speaker 6: where there's a different narrative happening, meeting different people, and
Speaker 6: you have to do that over and over. It's a
Speaker 6: huge investment, it takes a lot of time, but I
Speaker 6: think that's where the evidence is in terms of the
Speaker 6: de radicalization strategy. And then Cas Sunstein as a technique
Speaker 6: calls cognitive infiltration, which I don't think I could get
Speaker 6: through our ethics committee at the university, but basically, KI
Speaker 6: maybe a method you guys are familiar with, but cognitive
Speaker 6: infiltration is basically you pose as a fellow conspiracy theorist,
Speaker 6: you join their group, and you do subversion from within that.
Speaker 6: You start to try to sort of unravel the narrative
Speaker 6: and start asking questions and getting people skeptical. And you
Speaker 6: can do that at online chat rooms for example, quite easily.
Speaker 6: Conspiracy theories hate being manipulated. They don't want to be
Speaker 6: part of the sheeple. So giving them the idea that
Speaker 6: maybe they're part of a pyramid scheme, all of the
Speaker 6: sudden is I don't want to be part of that,
Speaker 6: and so that's what I try to do. I try
Speaker 6: to uncover the manipulation techniques and not discuss specific facts
Speaker 6: and then leave it at that, and then next time
Speaker 6: maybe we can discuss and so on. And then the
Speaker 6: suggestion that making money off of it Alex Jones sells
Speaker 6: stuff on the show, right, You're contributing money to somebody,
Speaker 6: and I really don't like that, and so that's one
Speaker 6: way to introduce it. We call some friction, Santor.
Speaker 2: That was actually wonderful. Really, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: We're really happy to get a chance to talk to
Speaker 3: you today, and I hope we are able to do
Speaker 3: so again.
Speaker 6: Yeah, my pleasure. And I'm sure people know this was
Speaker 6: all planned and predetermined.
Speaker 4: All stick to the plan.
Speaker 2: I'm too lazy to be planned.
Speaker 3: Now, let's speak with our producer Adam Davidson and try
Speaker 3: to sort this all out together.
Speaker 5: I actually read something the other day that the single
Speaker 5: best intervention found so far is AI slowly methodically convincing
Speaker 5: people to stop having a conspiracy theory. We should get
Speaker 5: the researchers of that on, but this is a reminder
Speaker 5: that joining a conspiracy it's not just accepting some facts.
Speaker 5: It's an entire way of life. It's a community. I
Speaker 5: don't know, do you emerge hopeful podcasts like ours or
Speaker 5: other things could break the hold or is it just
Speaker 5: too few, too little.
Speaker 4: People teetering on the edge. I think shows like this
Speaker 4: can actually help get him to think about it. But
Speaker 4: once you're down there, no, we've all stayed around on
Speaker 4: Thanksgiving with the crazy uncle or cousin who's in a
Speaker 4: conspiracy theory. And even when he sits with people who
Speaker 4: love him at an intervention talking about how this just
Speaker 4: doesn't make sense, still doesn't work. It's about faith, not fax.
Speaker 5: Faith and friends. That was what someone was pointing out
Speaker 5: to me, that you go to a MAGA rally if
Speaker 5: you're lonely and you suddenly have one hundred thousand best friends.
Speaker 4: And I think that's huge, big deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, thank you for today's discussion and we will
Speaker 3: see you next time on Mission Implausible.
Speaker 8: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Cipher,
Speaker 8: and Jonathan Sterner.
Speaker 4: The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 8: Mission Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable
Speaker 8: Pictures for iHeartMedia.