WEBVTT - Mind Control, Part 1 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.080 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:15.040 Forward Thinking, Taylor, and welcome to Forward Thinking, a podcast 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.079 that looks at the future and says it's a long 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:22.040 way to Tipperary. I'm Lauren Bocaba and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:26.680 and today we're going to be starting the first part 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.600 of a two part episode. Yeah, this is a topic 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.880 so big it could not be contained within a single show. 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.880 And really we just kept finding notes, Like right before 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:37.919 we came in here and sat down, we were like, 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.199 oh no, there's more, There's so much more. Well, it 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.960 is a somewhat mind bending topic, quite quite epic and 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.560 scope it turns out. But so to set the scene 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.240 for what we're going to talk about today, I want 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.560 to have a little, a little mind experiment. All right, Okay, 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.720 think of yourself easy. I know it's easy for you 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.520 on that, but who I mean, think about what you 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.440 think When you think of yourself. There's sort of like 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.399 a thing you have in your mind. It's your personality, 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.920 your traits, the things that the ways you would describe 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.280 yourself in your Okay Cupid profile. If you're being honest, 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.080 I guess and if I'm no longer afraid of my wife. 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:26.040 Okay um, But there's sort of a problem with playing 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.440 this game because we like to think of ourselves as 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.040 sort of dependable and unchanging, like we are who we are, 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.399 and we think each of our personalities is sort of 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:42.560 one fixed, eternal feature of the universe. There's there's Jonathan, 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.880 and he's who Jonathan is. But deep down we sort 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.840 of all know it's not really like that, right, I mean, 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:56.560 human thought and behavior is sometimes disturbingly malleable. Yeah, So 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.720 to some extent, we can change what kinds of people 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.440 we are. You can form new habits and break old ones, 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:06.840 and experiences you know, can change the way you would 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.240 react in any given situation. We can take steps to 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:15.040 change ourselves, and it's easy to see how since we 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.480 can change ourselves, we could probably also take steps to 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:23.240 change other people or have other people change us. Exactly right, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.359 And so, like most other measurable phenomena in the world, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.640 deliberate methods of changing human thought and behavior are things 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.399 that can be studied scientifically, and right now we might 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.200 not know a whole lot about this field, but we 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.919 will probably know more and more as time goes on. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:47.639 So that brings me to today's topic, mind control. Yeah, 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.880 will it be a thing in the future? Is now 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:56.200 how reliable will the science of controlling human thought and 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.840 behavior become? Is this a thing that's good or bad 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.840 for humanity? I mean, obviously the sort of implication is 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.600 that it's bad. But what what are all the ways 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.040 we could look at it? Um? And how's it going 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:16.040 to play out? Yeah? And this is something that I 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.639 really enjoy reading about in science fiction because obviously, you know, 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.600 so many novels that warn us against this kind of stuff, right, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.520 and a lot of them are that really good dystopian 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.560 sort of novel that's just so much fun to read. Yeah. Well, right, 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.520 because that's the ultimate type of oppression that's imagined in 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.960 in these dystopian futures. Right, It's not just that you 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.119 are sort of physically constrained and imprisoned and threatened. It's 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.720 that your very sense of self is through. Yeah, it's 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.960 the state. The state changes who you are, right, Right, 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.960 It's it's that you're physically constrained and you're happy about it. Yeah, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.960 And you don't know not to be happy about it, 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.240 or why you would ever be unhappy about it. Yeah, 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.400 So says some examples as obviously anyone who has delved 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.200 into science fiction would be aware of these, but Orwell's 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:08.760 is a great example. Oh yeah, yeah, And this is 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.440 said in a society that is so steeped in propaganda 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:16.839 that that its citizens are trained in the art of 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:21.719 double things, holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time, 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.040 also double belie and believing them both. And double think 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.720 actually has a couple of different um um uses in 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:33.080 the book. But for example, you might be told, uh that, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:38.520 let's say that war means peace. Let's that's a simple example. 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.280 And in the classic sense of double thing, not only 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.719 would you think that war means peace, but that eventually 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.840 the concept of war would completely change, so that when 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.040 you think the word war, you're thinking what of the 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.800 concept piece that that takes on the brand new meaning, 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.320 and that it becomes the reality from that point for word. 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:06.360 So really it's about how this uh, this this despotic 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:12.160 government really is defining reality and enforcing that reality among citizens. 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.120 And if you don't play along, you get in trouble. 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.839 And most people play along because you know, that's that's 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.279 what they're told to do. They're they're kind of you know, 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:23.960 they're kind of just just cogs and a wheel at 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.359 that point. And in fact there's also a UM and 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.880 a manufactured disparity between the highest of the highs and 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.000 the lowest of the lows, where they're very small percentage 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.720 of people are very very small percentage of people in 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:41.479 the upper class, a slightly larger but still pretty small 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.560 percentage of people in the middle class, and then everyone 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.480 else and the main characters in UM sort of the 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.880 the the upper class in a sense like kind of 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.400 the in the middle class slash upper class area UM. 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.839 And things do not go well for him. But then 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:01.200 we also have Anthony Burgess's clockwork R. Right, So there 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:05.120 you've got this kind of sense of at least seemingly 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:12.839 benevolent mind control. Right. It's implemented as a crime reduction initiative. Essentially, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.000 they take a young man who is by all accounts 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.599 not a nice guy, so he is truly reprehensible. Yeah, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.320 but they do some techniques on him. I think it's 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.600 a combination of of drugs and then behavioral conditioning. It's 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.680 a version therapy to force him to have a very 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:35.200 visceral negative reaction to any form of violence. Yeah, Essentially, 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.680 all the things that he absolutely adored when he was 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.880 on his own, uh, and could be the free, willing 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.039 sociopath that he was have now turned into triggers to 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.839 make him feel feel violently ill, even so, going so 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.000 far as the music that he used to love, which 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.200 is actually that's kind of the breaking point for him 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.159 is not so much the violence as his inability to 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.279 choose to be violent, but the music has been taken 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:06.680 from him as well. And Uh, what's interesting to me 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.800 about this book is that the American version, for the 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.400 longest time, left off the final chapter um chapter one, 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.480 so it into a chapter twenty where the main character, 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:23.240 Alex regains his ability to make choices to be a terrible, 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.960 terrible person. And so it's kind of left up to 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.400 the reader to one wonder whether or not it was 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.360 better to remove his ability to choose to be evil, thus, 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.200 you know, kind of removing part of his humanity. Uh. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.640 And no, or and that way he could not commit wrong, 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.760 Or was it better to allow him the ability to 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.800 commit wrong, knowing that that was a potential outcome. Uh? Yeah, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:51.200 that that old question of whether without the capacity to 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.000 to do evil, anyone can ever truly be good? Yeah, 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:59.240 And so chapter one negates that question. Chapter twenty one, 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.000 Alex grow was up and essentially Burgess at this point 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.000 was kind of like, you know, people grow out of it. 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:06.880 You know, you can be a sociopathic teenager, but eventually 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:08.560 you mature and then you realize, oh, I was kind 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.760 of a jerk, and so I don't know if you 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.320 grow out of just driving around murdering people. That's what 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:21.280 that's what chapter one says. Well, that's that's why I 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.880 kind of prefer chapter the one that does not have 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.320 chapter twenty one in it um And because of that reason, 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.800 and uh so then we've got Altis Huxley's Brave New World. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.240 And the reason I group these three togethers all three 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.960 deal with a world in which the government is trying 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:42.240 to impose a particular order in the world. And in 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.679 this case, you've got a government that I'm actually an 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.080 entire society that's evolved to the point where everything is 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:53.640 predetermined for everybody. So as soon as as you have 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:59.199 a fertilized egg, then genetic test determined where that fertilized 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.040 egg is going to end up within that society, whether 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:07.120 it will be a uh in their cast system, whether 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.240 it will be in the upper casts or lower casts. 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.040 Lower casts are actually genetically and chemically altered so that 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.120 they have a limit to the amount of intelligence that 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.960 they can have. Their their physical capabilities are limited as well, 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.440 and so it's a very restrictive world. And uh and 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.600 again we the the character's journey is one of discovery 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:34.280 about how the world that they didn't know was oppressive, 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.439 how oppressive it actually was. Yeah. So yeah, the main 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.920 characters in Brave New World that they might live a 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.400 very sort of like placid and comfortable existence in a way, 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.360 but that it could be seen as without having the 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.760 true vitality of life. And they sort of discover the 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.160 romantic worldview, right right, the passion of being able to 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.240 completely mess yourself up. Yeah. Yeah, but of course we 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.959 don't have systems like this in the real world. I mean, 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.439 you might get some people out there saying, like, no, man, 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:09.160 we're living in nineteen eight four. Come on, open your eyes, people. Well, 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:13.400 we don't really have like like full mind control methods 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.560 bearing down on us, especially not ones that are deliberately 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:23.800 controlled and studied. We we have culture, and one could 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:28.040 in fact look at culture as an elaborate mind control method, 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.199 but it's something that arose naturally out of you know, 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.800 just human behavior over hundreds of years, not not a 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.080 deliberate and scientifically informed attempt to control how people in 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.959 various regions of the world would think. That's what our 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.720 vampire overlords want you to think. Well, there's also, of course, 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:53.760 the the the attempts to manipulate that culture, to actually 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.880 leverage elements of that culture in order to get public 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.960 opinion thinking one thing or an other. So it's it's 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.880 while it's true that the uh, the cultural element is 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.320 is certainly more prevalent than any kind of science fiction 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:13.640 attempt to control people on individual basis, that cultural element 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:15.760 is something that not only are we aware of, but 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.400 we try to exploit and by we I mean various 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:24.360 various humans, not just not not just me. Now, there 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.800 are whole fields of study outside of Jonathan Strickland that 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.079 are devoted to figuring out, you know, how to influence 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.760 actions and decisions, either to to make the stuff that 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.120 we have more efficient for us to use, or to 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.440 you know, profit businesses that want to sell us stuff yep, 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.240 or profit governments that want to sell us ideas well. 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.640 Exactly right. I think that's one of the reasons that 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.560 if you're looking at the most old fashioned forms of 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.239 mind control and sort of the science of influencing behavior 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.200 and thought and emotion and opinion, one of the first 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:05.800 places to look is advertising and propaganda. And really the 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.520 two are so hand in hand related, I mean in 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.840 many many ways. So propaganda will will start with that, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:18.880 and that's defined as usually biased or misleading information used 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.599 to sway public opinion on a matter. It's not necessarily misleading, 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.480 like could it be propaganda if it if it doesn't 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:27.920 say any facts that aren't true, it could certainly be 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.880 propaganda by presenting true facts but not presenting all the facts, 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:36.240 I mean propaganda misleading It can't You could argue it's misleading, yes, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.839 And you could argue also that biased doesn't necessarily mean nefarious, 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.440 but it does mean that there is. You don't use 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.240 propaganda for an unbiased reason. That the bias is why 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.640 the propaganda exists in the first place. Right, you're selling 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.760 an idea, and in order to do that, that means 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.240 that you have a side already. Right, You're not like 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.560 war might or might not be good. You decide that's 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.960 not propaganda or least not effective propaganda. Wouldn't that be 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.600 great if that was like how all the campaign commercials 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.319 worked as it was, like, you know, here are some candidates, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.160 I don't know, make up your own mind now I 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.760 want apparently beautiful. It could be great to have a 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.200 parallel universe where everything, like everything when it comes to 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.079 public relations and and propaganda and all that sort of 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:23.319 stuff is just incredibly unbiased and mediocre. Just see how 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.040 far that world gets along at any rate. Uh, this, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.200 this idea has been around for a while, guys. It's 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.480 not the word propaganda really got got going in the 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.720 early twentieth century, but the concept of using this means 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.520 of communicating to a people that have a common base 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.520 of knowledge and a common set of interests dates back 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:48.080 to ancient times. Yeah. Well, I mean, look at any 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:54.480 ancient Mesopotamian carving or something you know, like or depicting 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.400 like one of the rulers of ancient Egypt or something 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.680 like that. It's propaganda. It's there to show you how 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:06.120 powerful and glorious this leader is, sure and not necessarily 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.160 there to give you an accurate recounting of the facts 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.720 of history. Well, and to be fair, also, you know 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:13.240 you're not going to find this on a lot of 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.280 civilizations that didn't have that common set of knowledge. If 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.120 the peoples were scattered so much, then it just the 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.320 communication to the people was something that was necessary for 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.480 propaganda to work. Right, Well, you don't need propaganda if 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.280 you don't have a centralized body of government. That's that's true. 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.520 But you also don't need propaganda if I mean, you 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.320 can't have propaganda if you can't directly, in some way 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.560 communicate with your people. So ancient Greece is a great example. 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:44.200 The Athenians were subjected to propaganda and things like theatrical 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.840 productions or religious festivities. Also even just athletic games, the 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.920 things like the Olympics could become propaganda for Greece. But 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.680 beyond the ancient world, you know, we get into kind 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.280 of a more oh, I don't know, deliberate a aproach 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.440 to propaganda then simply hey, we're great, and those other 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:05.720 guys over the hill over there, they're not so great. 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.640 You get to the time of Philip the second of 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.240 Spain and Queen Elizabeth of England. They had a little 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:16.280 propaganda war about thing called the Spanish Armada. Spain was like, 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.120 look how awesome our armada is, and never actually said 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.520 by the way, we were completely defeated in that totally, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.200 you know they were. They never acknowledged it in Spain 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.480 at the time anyway, whereas in England, in fact, I 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:35.080 think it was Sir Walter Raleigh who later on wrote 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.720 that he was disgusted by how Spain had presented the 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.720 Spanish Armada to the Spanish population as if the defeat 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.200 and had never happened. Whereas I'm thinking, like, you know, 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.960 come on, Queen Elizabeth, she was pretty savvy on the 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.520 ways of communicating to the English public as well, so 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.960 gone the other way, I'm pretty sure the England would 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.920 be like, oh, we totally whatever, he has a little tiff, 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.240 would you? Would you argue that at some point like 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:06.240 like Shakespeare was a propagandist, you know, he certainly was 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:10.000 in a way because the reason he wrote the Scottish 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.080 play was we're not in theater you can you can say, 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.480 all right, all right? When he wrote the Thane of 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:24.360 Cawdor's play, um, when he wrote Macbeth, he he made 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:26.080 sure to do a couple of things. First of all, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.880 that's when James the First was now King of England. 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.560 He wanted to make his line look good. Yeah, So 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.000 in the line of King's presentation in Macbeth. The Last 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.440 King was thought, at least in scholarship, to have held 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.800 up a mirror and pointed it toward King James, to 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.360 suggest that James himself is the descendant on this line 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.680 that ends up taking over for Macbeth. Also, the play 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.160 was very short compared to most of Shakespeare's plays, partly, 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.080 at least according to scholarship, due to the fact Shakespeare 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.880 had heard that James the First had a short attention span, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:02.560 and also it had which isn't it which James the 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.439 First was really interested in? So in many ways it 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.320 was probably or I can't tell if you're kidding, Is 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:11.639 this a known thing? James the First was into witches. 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.240 He was into which is probably the wrong way of 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:18.680 putting it. He was very much against them, fascinated by them. 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.200 Perhaps you could say terrified. Perhaps it's another way. I mean, 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.159 of course, this is a very early part of James 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.960 the First reign. And he wasn't into witches like I'm into, 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.959 which now he was. He wasn't watching the craft at 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.840 two am every night. Okay, it's not like you, Joe, Okay, sorry, man, 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.800 I almost thought that James and I had something going there. Yeah. Well, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:44.240 so when we think of propaganda these days, obviously our 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.399 our opinions are very much influenced by what that meant 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.160 in the first half of the twentieth century. World War 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.600 one and two in Europe. Yeah, great in Britain in particular, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.760 forged to the modern idea of propaganda during the early 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:58.840 months of the Great War as it was called then, 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:00.879 or World War One as we know, the war to 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.800 end all wars accepted totally didn't accept it, did not 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.600 at all. Yeah. The Uh, the British government first cut 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.200 off Germany's oceanic communication cables, meaning that they would lag 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.679 behind in in getting news and and to press and 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.120 supporters over in the United States, which was huge. Um. 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.040 And then in September of nineteen fourteen, remember that war 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.120 had only broken out in July of that year. Uh, 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.040 the British government set up Wellington House, which was the 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.920 secret organization that called upon journalists to write things that 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.479 were sympathetic to the British cause and also published its 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:37.679 own newspapers, eventually in eleven different languages, with a circulation 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.000 of like five hundred thousand copies per issue. Crazy amounts 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.600 of stuff being put out there. The Chinese language version 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.120 is credited by some historians as influencing public thought enough 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.280 that that China was able to declare war against Germany 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.880 and not have a revolt on its hands. And the 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:59.480 general idea of Wellington House was was to create publications 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:04.359 that seemed like they were grassroots not governmental, um Like 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.119 they were published by local commercial publishers instead of government 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.360 owned presses, and and the materials were circulated not by 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.560 government officials but by like local opinion makers. Yeah, we 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.920 see this come up again and again, not just in 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:22.040 in government propaganda, but in other means of trying to 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.840 sway public opinion. And one of the big ones is 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:27.480 let's try and make sure it looks like it's coming 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.879 from quote unquote real people and not not a voice 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.520 of authority. That way, it doesn't seem authoritarian. It seems 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.359 like a genuine ups you know, upwelling support for whatever 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.960 idea it happens to be. It's like, why, you know, 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.600 an advertiser might want to give some of their stuff 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.639 to a celebrity to where instead of like having a 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.440 spokesperson say you should wear our product, Yeah, if you give, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.040 if you give Michael Jordan's your shoes. Then suddenly kids 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.640 like the shoes. Well, it looks like he's just authentically 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.359 enjoying these shoes, which maybe he is. Maybe he's holding 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.359 the shoes up to his face and going, I really 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.160 enjoy these. Yeah, you know, but that certainly is exploiting 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.760 something that they perceived about the way we form opinions 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.840 like that, that they picked up on the fact that 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.560 people are less likely to have their mind influenced by 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.040 something that they recognize as coming from a government source. Right, 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.120 And and you would still get information from government sources 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.399 as well, and like posters, things and songs, all this 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.879 kind of stuff that would be either uh sponsored by 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.080 the government or promoted through the government. And that wasn't 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.640 just in the u. K. Over in the United States. 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.480 On we had our own version of the Wellington House. 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.600 On April thirteen, nineteen seventeen, President Woodrow Wilson formed the 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:46.080 Committee on Public Information. That sounds so innocuous and boring. 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.000 Its to be like it sounds like it it almost 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.000 is like two steps away from one of the departments 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.960 in Yeah, it really does. The Committee on Public Information 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.040 that would be called like the Committee for Public Truth. Yeah, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.000 which I said two steps away right. Uh. So he 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:05.959 put George Creel in charge. And Creel was a journalist. 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.199 Some called him a muckreaker. Um, he was also a 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.439 proponent of free speech. He said, you know, free speech 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:17.200 was really important, and obviously censorship from public uh sources 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.760 like government sources was completely wrong, and he did he 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:23.080 disagreed with it. However, since he was then put in 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.439 charge of this department, it became kind of his job 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.080 to at least filter stuff, if not outright censor it. 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:32.919 In effect, there were quite a few times where they 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.119 would tell people like, you should really not publish this story. 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:38.680 It would look bad, and they were trying to drum 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.440 up the government was trying to drum up support from 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:43.920 the American public to get involved in World War One, 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:46.879 which was not a popular idea at the time, to 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:51.040 send people overseas to fight someone else's war, which would 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.040 become another issue went during World War Two. So part 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.680 of it was this idea of let's publish the stories 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:03.120 that are going to help support public opinion to get 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.320 involved and downplay the ones that would not support it. 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.280 And one of the things that came out about this 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.240 is kind of the idea that we see over and 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.800 over again with propaganda, which is, if you can control 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.640 the flow of information to a people so that they 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:19.840 only get one side of the story, then obviously it's 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.320 going to be easier for you to sway a public 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.880 opinion in support of that. If they're not, if not 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.840 getting the full story, then any decision they make is 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.600 going to be based upon a limited set of information. Sure, 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.240 that's ostensibly why countries like like China don't allow full 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:38.840 access to the Internet, or North Korea, which is probably 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:43.040 I would say North Korea has got this down pat 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.040 with with as far as propaganda goes. Yeah, But one 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.720 thing we can say about propaganda in this period, and 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:52.760 even a lot of propaganda today, is that a lot 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:55.400 of it is still not what I would call necessarily 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.359 scientifically informed. It's in a lot of cases, I don't 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.200 think that they researched, like what would be the most 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:06.040 effective way to get people to think the way I 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.960 want them to think that they just kind of intuitively sense, 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.360 like you don't want people hearing bad things about the leadership. 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:15.640 What's funny is that a lot of research actually has 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:20.480 gone into this, although from sources that would seem unusual. 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:23.160 For example, one of the people who was working at 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:25.720 the cp I was a guy by the name of 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:31.480 Edward Burnet's. Yeah he was. He was really good people 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.920 thinking what he wanted them to think. Well, I guess 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:37.440 we should transition then to talking a little bit about 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:42.080 Edward Burnet's and maybe the the overlap between propaganda and advertising, 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:46.600 how how that creates this mass mind control effect. Yeah, 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:49.720 so he was not just someone who worked in propaganda. 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:53.520 He worked in public relations. You could argue that it's advertising, 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:56.880 but really it was pr He his job. He saw 0:23:56.920 --> 0:23:59.120 it as he would be hired by companies to help 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:03.080