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Welcome to the future of you.
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Today I'm talking to Chase Hughes, who retired from the US military in 2019.
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He began his career developing new interrogation tactics and spent 15 years researching human influence, behaviour profiling and persuasion in the most extreme conditions.
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He is now a world leader in human behaviour and influence, teaching interrogation, sales, influence and persuasion, and he is the author of the number one best-selling book on this subject, the Ellipsis Manual, as well as many more books besides.
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He is, of course, also very well known as one of the ever-insightful behaviour panel, along with Scott, Greg, and Mark.
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Now, if you don't watch the Behaviour Panel, where on earth have you been?
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You must so check out the show notes for the links.
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Our conversation delves into the manipulation of human identity through various means, including social media and advertising.
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But more importantly, we talk about the chaos and confusion that surrounds our identity today and what purpose that is serving.
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Chase, with his background in military psychological operations, discusses how identity has been weaponised and corrupted to make individuals more vulnerable to influence.
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He talks us through the power of social media, the legacy of Edward Bernays, and the growing bystander effect, where people are less likely to help in crowded situations.
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And he offers at least two or three fantastic tips for resisting manipulation, which I suggest every one of us should learn and practice on a daily basis.
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We discuss identity and cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, and even consciousness.
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Overall, the message is that, well, we have an urgent need for more critical thinking and scepticism in the digital age.
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But over to Chase.
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So, Chase Hughes, welcome to the Future Review.
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Thank you so much for joining me today.
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Thanks for having me.
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Great to be here.
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Not at all.
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I'm a massive fan of you and the behaviour panel.
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But the reason I wanted to chat to you, Chase, was as you know, this podcast is all about identity in the 21st century.
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And I'd heard you speak about how important identity was, more important than ideas in terms of persuading people.
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So I can't do it justice.
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I wonder if I could hand over to you and you could just explain how you got into this business, what you do, and why identity is really important is at the core of what you're talking about.
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Yeah, so I uh I did 20 years in the US military, and uh uh during that time I was obsessed with human behavior and I became an expert and started training the Psychological Operations Command and the intelligence operatives and people like that in persuasion, interrogation, and psyops, uh, and all of those, any persuasion leverages identity.
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If it's good, then there's identity involved.
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And I think that over the years I've I've published a number of books.
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Uh a few of them have been number one bestsellers, but there are so many aspects of identity that are being weaponized and used today that this is the podcast I hope really blows up because people need to learn so much about how the more you believe that your identity is tough and hardened and can't be fooled with, the better target you become.
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So have you got an example of that in terms of how somebody might wrap some ideas or persuasion around their identity?
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A million examples.
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But to give you an example of what I just talked about, if I don't believe that computer viruses are dangerous, I don't download McAfee, I don't download the antivirus software.
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And if I believe that about my own brain, then I don't learn enough to defend that when that attack comes in.
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The social media computers that we're dealing with on a daily basis are one trillion dollar machines.
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And I don't care if you have a 500 IQ, three times what Einstein did, you are vulnerable to that.
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And it is your brain is no match for a one trillion dollar machine.
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And it will outthink us every every step of the way.
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I've been studying brainwashing and all kinds of crazy mind control kind of stuff my whole life, and I am not immune.
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I am very much not immune to this.
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I have timers on my own devices to where I can't get on social media for more than 60 seconds a day.
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And it we're getting to a place where identity is being corrupted.
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And the first step in corrupting a population or changing the narrative of a population is not for me to go install a new identity at all.
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And it's not for me to start messing with your identity and giving you new ideas to think about.
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My first step is to make you confused about your identity.
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So a big step of doing that is making you, if you agree with this one idea, I let you become and feel like you are intellectually and morally superior to other people.
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You don't have to read a book, you don't have to study a podcast, you don't have to do anything.
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You just agree with this one idea, and I make you feel starting to feel superior.
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Then I get you addicted to, I have all of these costumes that you can wear, and it's going to change the way that people perceive you.
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It's a different mask that you can put on.
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And the more I can start messing with your identity and make you use different labels and different terms, and then make you confused about who you are, because 90% of the world already doesn't even know themselves.
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So it becomes easier and easier because the two main goals of advertising are number one, uh, make you think, A, I'm not enough yet.
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I'm not enough yet.
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And B, compare myself to other people, which and both of those things are are forcing us into this separation where I don't view myself as part of Tracy.
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Like I view we are separate and completely apart from each other, and we're not alike at all.
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We have the exact same cells.
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If you put your blood and my blood under a microscope, nobody in the world could tell a difference without some crazy machine, right?
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It's the same cells.
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But they start pushing the idea of separation.
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Number one, and separation automatically makes me again start questioning who am I?
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Let me look for things that can help me to define myself.
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And the moment that I can get you to socially share something, I've got your identity.
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I might make you agree with it off camera, but the moment I can get you to tell your friends, to tell a stranger next to you on an airplane, or to post about it on social media, now I've gotten you to sign a very covert contract.
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I've got you to sign a behavioral contract where I'm I'm building walls around what I'm gonna allow you to do in the future, and you are not even aware that the walls are being built.
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I'm guiding your behavior and narrowing down what I'm allowing you to do.
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So if I get you to make a few agreements about who you are as a person, I can modify your behavior in the future like crazy.
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So has this always been going on?
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Has it been going on using different media, or are we now at a special time with networked media, social media, AI?
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Is it the same thing but different, or are we in a different environment?
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I think we're in a different environment in many ways.
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But if if you just go back to ancient Rome, this was like, oh, I don't want my kids watching the gladiators fighting that that pollutes their brain.
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It's the, you know, I mean, this has been going on since recorded history, that kind of thing.
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But when it comes to this, these are algorithms that maybe have 10 billion at the lowest end possible,$10 billion algorithm designed to manipulate dopamine circuits in our brain.
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Nothing like that has ever existed in human history.
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And we think, oh, since we have iPhones, then we have advanced.
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We have not advanced.
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Our technology is definitely advanced, but we've made zero advancements whatsoever in our brain.
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We have the same brain in our head that we had 200,000 years ago, and it's not equipped to deal with modern-day technology.
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The example would be our brains are designed to handle a tribe of about 150 people.
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The moment we start getting this giant thing that we cannot comprehend, our brains cannot comprehend.
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It's like when a scientist tries to explain like the fifth dimension on YouTube, and like you're like, what?
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Like, we just can't get it.
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Our brains just can't understand it.
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So once we have all of this stuff, we don't know what to worry about.
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We're used to worrying about our tribe.
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And even more importantly than that, we're used to worrying about our reputation.
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And especially in large cities and stuff today, we don't have worry about reputation.
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And just to give you an example, Tracy, if I just explained to you that I just saw a guy watch a woman get stabbed in the middle of the street, and all he did was stand and watch the whole thing happen.
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Just watched.
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No, if I said that to you, would you think that that person is maybe a psychopath?
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That's everyone who lives in a major city.
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Because what I just explained to you is something called the bystander effect.
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And the bystander effect means I'm going to back away from this emotionally because I don't have the capacity to worry about everyone around me.
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So the bystander effect means, and we see this in cities over and over again.
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It's not just something that happens occasionally, it's 100% of our population is prone to this.
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This is uh just to give a little background, the they did tons of research on this.
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Dr.
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Philip Zambaro is has done the most recent on this.
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He ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, but he also did this.
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He has a wonderful, uh, wonderful YouTube channel called the Heroic Imagination Project, where he teaches you about these biases.
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And if you're watching this and you're thinking, oh, I don't have those biases, then you have an even bigger bias.
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That's called the non-biased bias.
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And so essentially, the more people that are around when you get hurt or stabbed or robbed or something, the less likely you are to get help.
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And it is bizarre that we just we see it on YouTube and we're like, wow, that's weird how people act in crowds, but we really don't understand that I'm looking at the behavior of a psychopath, but it's copy-pasted everyone around me.
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Everyone I know is capable of that.
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So there's something that's been done that that has completely disrupted and manipulated our internal mechanisms.
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And I published a paper a few months ago called Confused Ancestor Theory.
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That if you just imagine that there's a 200, like call it a million-year-old ancestor living inside of your brain, the more time you spend every day exposing that ancestor, because they can see right through your eyes, they can look, they can see what you see, that they don't speak English.
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But the more you're exposing that ancestor to things that are confusing to them, uh, that our ancestors have can't process, we have psychopathy and we start developing a not clinical psychopathy, but little tiny psychopath behaviors.
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And when we eat stuff that our ancestors' bodies and cells wouldn't have recognized, we have biopathy.
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Our bodies start getting sick.
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This is proven.
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So it's not just our identity, like the cells in our body have stuff that they're supposed to have.
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And we go and eat all these crazy processed foods, and that our cells look at this thing and they're like, what the hell is that?
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They don't know what to do with it.
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And obviously, our body just tries to tuck it away somewhere, and that becomes a tumor or Alzheimer's or diabetes.
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So our identities are easy to manipulate for sure.
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It's interesting because it does feel like it's something being done to us.
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And you mentioned they, and I'm going to ask you who you think they is.
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Obviously, we kind of know where social media came from.
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It did come out of the intelligence services and DARPA and all these sorts of it has military connotations.
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So it has already a connection to PsyOps, doesn't it?
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And sometimes when you're down the rabbit hole of some kind of social media, it does very much feel like that.
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But I wanted to ask you when you thought this particular era of sort of vast polarization or the us and them dynamics I know you've talked about really started.
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Because I feel like in the UK anyway, it was definitely around Brexit.
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There was this sort of sense of if you didn't vote for Brexit, you had a superiority.
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And then that just went, it was absolutely turbo boosted on everything else then.
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Everything that came after that, whether it's COVID-related or Ukraine-related, whatever it was.
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And I don't know about the US, you can tell me, but it feels like there was something around Trump at the same time.
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And something since 2016 in both our countries seems to have, I'm trying to say, choose my words, seems to have just gone up a level in terms of that psychopathy, that polarization, that need to really grab people's identity and then persuade slash manipulate them.
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Am I wrong?
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Yeah, it's definitely gone uphill recently.
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And I think if you want to spot some of this stuff very quickly, is just one question.
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And we could I could give you a few questions to ask yourself, but just if you just memorize this one question, whose ideas need people to be quiet or suppressed in order for them to flourish?
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So if it's a good idea, you don't need to silence anybody.
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If it's a good idea, it's going to be a good idea.
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So if someone's trying to silence someone or or like restrict speech around an idea, that's a huge problem.
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And I'll give you a corollary to this.
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Uh, one of the things I told my kids is if you're looking at a product and they don't tell you the problem that that product is trying to solve, you need to be very scared.
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As an example of this, is if you just look at like Amazon.
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Amazon says, you don't need to go to the store anymore.
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You don't need to take a trip, we're going to deliver it to your house.
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It'll get there in a couple of days.
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It's very affordable.
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The shipping is free.
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We're going to save you time.
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All the problems that they solve are out in the open.
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And if you look at the Apple Vision Pro or the Facebook Meta goggles, they can't tell you that you will never see an ad or description of the problem that they're trying to solve because it's loneliness.
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The second part of that is that the problem they're trying to solve is people wanting anesthetic so that they don't have to sit there with their own thoughts.
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So it's an anesthetic and a treatment for loneliness.
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And they know it, but they can't say it.
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So when you see a product or you see something where they're saying they can't tell you the problem that they're solving, that's a bad deal, really bad deal.
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It's interesting that is because on the Apple Pro Vision Pro ad, or the long film they made, there's a particular phrase in there that's always got me, it's just your apps come to you.
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So when they show the apps in like the in the spatial computing environment, the ambient computing, your apps come to you.
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Well, not really.
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You're showing them in the living room.
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They're more with me on my device that I'm actually touching.
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But it's a funny kind of repositioning they've done or reframing of your apps come to you because they're in your home, but they were already in my hand, and that's like already with me.
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So it's kind of it's that's that's interesting.
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That is I have a remind myself of that question.
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If you go back and watch it again, they humanize the apps first, and then they say they're gonna come to you like friends.
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So it it goes back to the very covertly selling to loneliness and and selling it as a remedy for loneliness.
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And with our social media and people living in cities like New York or Los Angeles, I was in Los Angeles last week filming a podcast, and it's everyone is lonely, and because of that thing, I don't have time to worry about everybody else, and we get this what I call psychopathy, not in a psychopath diagnostic criteria, but we get separate.
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They're pushing an agenda of separation, and that's the biggest thing because we start pushing ourselves away.
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The closer you go to a uh big city, the more loneliness you see, and that is on record.
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This is loneliness, depression, anxiety, suicide, heart disease, all of these kind of things are just are all like surrounded in these little cities.
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And if you read research about uh Dr.
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Robert Hare talks about psychopaths all the time, and he says that psychopaths are attracted to large cities, I think large cities might be creating uh some and or at least fueling the fire of some of those behaviors.
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And when it comes to just who we are as a species, the separation is the number one thing.
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And all of this started to answer your question in the longest way possible, uh, in like the 1950s.
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And this guy came on the scene, his name was Edward Bernays, he was Sigmund Freud's nephew, which most people don't know, and he he reads this word propaganda, and he's like, no, that's not a good word for it, because I want to I want to redefine it.
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And uh he calls it public relations.
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He's the guy who came, who rebranded propaganda into public relations.
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He changed the war department to the Department of Defense.
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He's the reason that margarine is dyed yellow and common in the United States.
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He's the reason that Americans eat bacon for breakfast.
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It was never some tradition.
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It was engineered by Edward Bernays.
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He was the reason that uh Virginia Slim cigarettes were smoked by women, and he used identity to do every single one of those things.
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And if you really understand how to use a person's identity, I get you to make a small agreement, and then I make that agreement social, and then I get you to make one more agreement.
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I own you at that point.
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So here's how I could do it really quickly.
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Let's say you and I just met like in a in a bar or restaurant or something, and I said, uh, do you agree to X, Y, and Z?
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Do you believe in doing good things for animals?
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Let's let's just keep it on that level.
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And you're gonna say, Yes, of course.
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And I'd say, Oh, I've got to introduce you to my friend.
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He runs this animal shelter.
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Would you mind if I made the text introduction?
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I'll just connect you to, even if you two had a conversation, and I send a text to this person, let's call him Ian, and I say, Hey, Ian, this is Tracy on the text.
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Say, Tracy loves animals and wants to do everything she possibly can for our world.
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And then Ian says, Hey, can you come by Sunday and volunteer?
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I've just made your agreement social, so now they can start digging and digging and digging and getting you to go out of your way.
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I've got them trapped.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So is that what happens online in social networks, etc.?
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Is that is that what's operating or is it something different there?
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It is.
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And so there's two layers happening at the same time.
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Well, the three.
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There's marketing and media that make you compare yourself to others feel like you're not enough.
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Number two is it's a constant confirmation bias machine.
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So if you think you like start binge watching insane videos of people cooking dogs and stuff in China and beating the crap out of dogs, it's gonna start feeding you more.
00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:45.119
So anything that you think uh you're interested in, it's going to convince you that more people like it and more people like it and more people like it, and it's going to normalize it and it's going to make you think, oh, there's lots of people in this.
00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:48.880
So now it becomes social, like what we just talked about.
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:55.839
And the second thing that it does is social media uses cognitive dissonance as a weapon.
00:21:56.160 --> 00:22:02.079
So cognitive dissonance is when our internal thoughts and something Outside of me aren't really matching up.
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:08.400
So it shows you stuff every once in a while to bring you up and then take you down, bring you up and take you down.
00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:12.240
So it's it's programming cognitive dissonance into your head.
00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:14.160
I am not that type of person at all.
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:18.559
I'm going to back further away from that behavior, further away from that behavior.
00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:32.319
And one of the things that I teach persuasion for a living, and I teach people to weaponize cognitive bias like psychotherapists, except to get people to stop an eating disorder or to talk someone out of hurting themselves.
00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:34.960
So there's a lot of good ways you can do it.
00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:44.000
So when if anybody's listening and you're thinking that these are dangerous, they're dangerous if your intent is to do bad stuff.
00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:49.519
I can kill you with a scalpel, I can save your life with that exact same tool.
00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:52.000
So it's it's a good tool to have.
00:22:52.240 --> 00:23:07.119
And I think in the at the end of the day, when it comes down to ethics, if if the person receiving your influence could read your mind and see in your head and see your intent and your desired outcome, would they agree?
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:10.000
Would they still go along with what you're doing?
00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:13.119
And if they would, then that I would say that's probably ethical.
00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:31.119
So if people could read your mind and you're in the media doing all these algorithms to do stuff, Facebook is already on record uh having, I think, used the algorithm to determine if it could if somebody would hurt themselves and they could maybe make that happen.
00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:44.400
And it's it's a weird place to be because our identities have never been as fragile as they are right now because they're they have been absolutely, deliberately undermined and shaken.
00:23:44.799 --> 00:23:45.039
Yes.
00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:47.759
Oh, this is what I want to ask you about deliberately.
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:48.400
Why?
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:54.400
So that we are insecure, confused, more susceptible to even more control.
00:23:54.559 --> 00:23:55.119
Is that why?
00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:55.839
That's it.
00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:56.240
Yeah.
00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:00.400
Like if I'm gonna paint the wall here in my office, I gotta sand it down first.
00:24:00.799 --> 00:24:02.480
So and that's what it means.
00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:11.200
Like I have this idea of who I am, and I'm gonna I need that to be sanded down first, or I need some holes in there so it can be filled.
00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:18.960
The second aspect of why that's happening a lot more recently is that something about this generation, I can't put my finger on it.
00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:25.200
I'd like to, you know, be a smart guy who can say something definitively, but I don't know.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:30.240
The people that are like 25 right now don't even know themselves.
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:34.720
They really don't fully truly understand who they are.
00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:46.079
And when you don't know who you are, and you are like fueled by separation, separation from everything, you are in I will join a cult territory right there.
00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:50.960
I talk about I've interviewed a hundred cult recruiters, I've spent time with cult recruiters.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:53.119
I wanted to ask you about cults.
00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:56.000
That's very interesting what you say about this generation.
00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:58.160
You're talking really about Gen Z, who's Z.
00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:05.599
I mean, I've done loads of research for them, I've asked them tons of stuff, and one that really stuck in my mind was a fashion student.
00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:06.799
She was 21 at the time.
00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:17.279
I mean, she was really into fashion, but um, to cut a long story short, she said she wanted an AI algorithm or assistant to help her advise her on her own fashion.
00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:22.480
I thought that was incredibly interesting because I was like, well, in my generation, that would be like a best friend.
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:26.079
You know, you go shopping together and you advise each other and you say, Well, this looks good in you.
00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:32.000
No, she wanted something that was objective and analytical because she felt that that was like the truth.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:38.480
And I would have said, No, the truth is inside you, that like that, your gut failing, your instinct is another data point.
00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:43.359
But that's just subjective and therefore like non-nonsense to her.
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:54.799
And it was really interesting to me that somebody who was obviously an enthusiast and an expert in a certain area thought that even though that was the case, they wanted something external and objective.
00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:59.119
And it just felt to me like they'd lost all trust, or she had lost trust in her sense of self.
00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:01.119
Yeah, or or a definition.
00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:03.680
It was just like, I'm gonna try things on.
00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:07.440
Which one, which one defines me best?
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:19.440
And that's one of the things I taught my kids when they were growing up is I would make them look at the back of vehicles that had bumper stickers on them and stuff, crazy amounts of stuff, or people wearing a funny outfit.
00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:25.519
And I would always say, What do you think that person wants you to think about them?
00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:29.039
What do you think they want you to think?
00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:32.880
So, like somebody had these bumper stickers all over the back of their car.
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:43.119
It was like uh Tahiti and Travel More and Life's a Beach, uh, Marathon Running, and like all of this kind of adventurous stuff.
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:45.440
All it was like a Subaru, I think.
00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:50.640
My daughter, who I think was eight at the time, we were behind them at a stoplight.
00:26:50.720 --> 00:26:53.039
And I said, What do you think all of those stickers say?
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:55.759
If those stickers could talk for the person.
00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:59.200
It's like the person couldn't talk, they want the stickers to talk for them.
00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:00.640
What would those stickers say?
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:04.640
My daughter said, Well, uh, I uh I do lots of cool stuff.
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:06.400
And I said, All right, keep going.
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:09.599
Uh well, I do cool stuff because I'm a fun person.
00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:10.799
Keep going.
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:15.920
And she said, Well, I'm fun, so I would be a good friend, and I'm nice, and I'm nice to people.
00:27:16.079 --> 00:27:17.440
I have good friends.
00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:22.079
And I said, Are those stickers for her friends to look at or strangers?
00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:26.640
And Charlotte, my daughter, said, strangers, and I said, Well, keep going to the next level.
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:28.640
And she said, I'm lonely.
00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:29.519
Wow.
00:27:30.640 --> 00:27:33.039
So kids can get this.
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:35.519
Kids can get this.
00:27:35.759 --> 00:27:50.480
And if if you like if you know most people that are like under the age of 35 uh feel insane amounts of loneliness that's unprecedented.
00:27:50.640 --> 00:28:00.559
And I think we're never more isolated because of this forced uh idea and identity of I am separate from everybody else.
00:28:01.359 --> 00:28:07.279
And that is so rampant today that loneliness is kind of like a a new epidemic.
00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:10.640
So is Taylor Swift a cult?
00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:13.599
Well, I think we'd have to define first.
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:20.799
But I think there are good cults, and I think there are dangerous or bad cults for people.
00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:26.319
Yeah, so how does one know where one is when one is I was in a cult for 20 years.
00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:28.480
It's called the United States military.
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:29.599
Yeah.
00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:33.839
I went to the landmark for you know, the landmark forum stuff.
00:28:34.079 --> 00:28:34.240
Yeah.
00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:34.640
Yeah.
00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:36.640
I went, a friend dragged me along.
00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:38.400
I thought, oh, it's not really me.
00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:39.200
I'm gonna do this.
00:28:39.359 --> 00:28:42.960
And I've never felt like the whole weekend, I've never felt so uncomfortable.
00:28:43.119 --> 00:29:06.880
But I mean, I could see some of it, I could see some of it operating, you know, I could see some of it behind the curtain, like you can't have a drink, you have to get up and go to the table to have a drink, you have to do this, you have to do how they were sort of I don't know, you well, you'll tell me, but how they were sort of unpicking you to stitch you back together again, it r really was the most bizarre.
00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:08.000
I really hated it.
00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:11.039
But um, yeah, you were in that you were in a cult for 20 years.
00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:14.160
Yeah, well, what they were doing is sanding down the the wall.
00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:14.799
Yeah.
00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:16.240
They're sanding your identity.
00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:17.839
That's how I need to think of it now.
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:20.880
When I show up to boot camp, what do I identify as?
00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:24.480
Well, especially as a 19-year-old, like, well, I had a lot of hair back then.
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:28.079
Like it like you walk in, they shave off your head.
00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:29.920
Uh, you don't get your clothes anymore.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:35.920
You have to wear their clothes, you have to obey their rules, sleep in their bed, drink water when they tell you to.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:40.880
Uh, and that was, you know, the military is an example of what I think is a good cult.
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:43.200
I think it's the reason I'm successful.
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:50.160
And when you get into the bad cult, you'll see those things like what you were just talking about with the water.
00:29:50.480 --> 00:30:00.000
Was can I get you to very covertly start making small agreements to be compliant to me?
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:04.000
So I'm gonna get you to comply with very small things at first.
00:30:04.160 --> 00:30:09.839
So by the time that I get to a big thing, it's an automatic response when I tell you to do something.
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:15.519
You're ready to go because you've been doing this, you've been doing this, and you did it in front of people.
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:19.680
So you made a social contract that I am compliant.
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:25.279
And they will take all of those emotions out and take you on this emotional roller coaster.
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:28.880
There is a name for this, it's called fractionation.
00:30:29.599 --> 00:30:41.440
So that's psychological fractionation, and it's the fastest way to emotionally or maybe psychologically what I call capture a person.
00:30:42.720 --> 00:31:00.400
So I teach a formula only to my VIP clients and and government people, but it's called capture, uh, where it's a 12-minute formula that kind of puts a human brain into the state of being in a cult for a month in like this these 12 minutes.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:10.319
But you captivate a person like that just by getting small levels of compliance, letting them know, like what do they do?
00:31:10.400 --> 00:31:14.160
Like there there were name tags, you learned everybody's names, where they're from.
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:16.720
They had friend building exercises.
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:18.799
So I get small compliance.
00:31:19.039 --> 00:31:25.759
I sh very covertly convince you that this is your ticket out of loneliness is also happening there.
00:31:25.920 --> 00:31:30.799
So I'm working up Maslow's pyramid here with your connection to self.
00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:33.920
Like I'm I'm around groups and family members.
00:31:34.079 --> 00:31:45.119
Then I go up, and then like this sense of self and the sense of confidence, and then this like self-actualization towards the end of this little uh cult experience where it's really emotional.
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.079
So I've got I've gotten rebuilt from the ground up.
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:50.640
So I have small amounts of compliance.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:53.359
This might be your cure for loneliness.
00:31:53.680 --> 00:31:57.680
I'm gradually increasing your openness in front of these people in a cult.
00:31:57.759 --> 00:31:59.039
I don't care what cult it is.
00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:02.319
You're gonna cry, you're gonna talk about some kind of emotional stuff.
00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:14.400
I'm gonna make you use all of the bit mental scripts that you use for family and very close friends in front of these strangers and rewire those people in your head to be a brand new social circle.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:20.640
There's like 10 other things happening, but that's just those things that I talked about now are enough to capture people.
00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:26.720
Yeah, they did this whole thing about, you know, come up to the microphone and share, you know, X, Y, Z.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:32.960
I I think it was about three of us who just didn't do it for the whole weekend.
00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:36.240
Just anyway, gosh, this brought back some memories.
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:41.200
When I was 29, I did it with uh with a very similar group to that.
00:32:41.839 --> 00:32:43.920
And I wasn't skeptical at all.
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:50.240
I wanted to go all in just to experience it, and it was one of the greatest times I've ever had.
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:57.359
And during this little emotional, they made it emotional on purpose, but this graduation ceremony, I cried.
00:32:57.519 --> 00:33:01.119
Like I was in it, and man, it felt good.
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:10.880
It felt like I am better than other people because I agree with this organization, which is the step one that we talked about 20 minutes ago or whatever.
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:13.359
Yeah.
00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:21.039
I want you to pretend, just entertain me for a moment, that each neuropeptide associates with one of these human needs up here.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:26.400
And I want to make this very clear.
00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:31.680
When we're looking at this needs map, is this a need to be significant or to be seen as significant?
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:33.759
Seen as.
00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:35.039
Big difference.
00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:38.720
Do I have a need to be intelligent or to be seen as intelligent?
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:40.160
That's me, right?
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:41.359
Both of those.
00:33:41.759 --> 00:33:46.000
I was hoping I could demonstrate that first before I started talking about it.
00:33:46.640 --> 00:33:47.599
Thank you.
00:33:50.880 --> 00:33:59.039
What we're really doing here with neuropeptides is flooding the brain with the correct ones, but I want you to pretend there's a neuropeptide for every single need.
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:05.359
There's a significance neuropeptide, acceptance, approval neuropeptide.
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:11.519
So I know that this person has lived their whole life trying to get this from other people.
00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:14.320
Needs are what we want from other people.
00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:17.360
Needs are what we want from other people.
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:28.480
If I'm looking to buy a car through my needs lens, how will this make other people see me?
00:34:29.519 --> 00:34:33.280
If I'm picking a university, how will this make other people see me?
00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:36.639
If I'm joining a social group, how will this make other people see me?
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:38.480
That's what the needs lens is.
00:34:38.639 --> 00:34:40.800
Needs are what we get from other people.
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:47.360
It's interesting that superiority, you don't, as you said, I think you said, you don't really need a reason, do you?
00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:53.039
It's just posited and then agreed to, and there you therefore you are superior.
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:59.519
I mean, you've mentioned a couple of things, but how do we resist some of this manipulation out in the out in the world?
00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:04.719
You've uh you've identified a very good, you know, fundamental question we should always ask ourselves.
00:35:04.880 --> 00:35:07.280
Are there other watchwords or tips or tricks?
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:25.599
Yeah, so the the the number one thing that I've taught my kids is every time you hear something that sounds good, not even too good to be true, anything good or anything really bad, I want your head to automatically say the word maybe.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:42.719
Just use the word maybe and program that into your brain because it sounds simple, but I promise you, when your brain is flooded with dopamine or serotonin, you think you're getting some kind of great information, great advice, that maybe doesn't come out automatically.
00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:47.360
You've got to be ready for it and you've got to kind of rehearse that quite a bit.
00:35:47.599 --> 00:35:53.679
So when somebody gives you any kind of piece of news, you're watching the television or news, then I would say maybe.
00:35:54.079 --> 00:36:00.800
And the more you spend time on social media, the more easily hacked your brain is, period.
00:36:00.960 --> 00:36:04.800
Because that machine is made to make suggestible human beings.
00:36:05.039 --> 00:36:11.039
Every once, I don't do this often, but every once in a while I'm speaking on stage, I'll call up a random audience member.
00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:15.280
Within three seconds, I will have them unconscious on the floor.
00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:19.119
Just doing some covert, very covert hypnosis stuff.
00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:20.159
Three seconds.
00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:26.800
And one of the ways that I do that is earlier on in the day, I'll say, Who spends an hour or more on social media?
00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:27.760
Put your hands up.
00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:28.480
Let me see the hands.
00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:29.440
And I'll look around the room.
00:36:29.519 --> 00:36:31.920
There's like maybe a thousand, two thousand people.
00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:36.320
And I'll say, All right, so if you spend more than three hours, keep your hands up.
00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:38.719
Four hours, five hours, six hours.
00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:48.480
Just those people who spend a lot of time on social media, I can pick out the suggestible people in no time at all, instantaneously, because I know how good that computer is.
00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:51.599
I didn't hypnotize that person who came up on the stage.
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.360
They were already ready to go because of their habits and their lifestyle.
00:36:55.519 --> 00:36:59.599
I just leveraged what I knew would turn their brain off, dropped them on the stage.
00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:03.440
It's very dramatic, uh, and it's not that hard to do.
00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:08.639
But I would say it's one thing to just say, I'm going to protect my brain.
00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:13.280
It's another to tell yourself, like, social media can't affect me.
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:27.440
I would I would beg you, beg you to reconsider that idea that it is more dangerous uh than, in my opinion, it's more dangerous than a lot of the illicit drugs that exist out there.
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:29.519
Wow.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:31.679
I want to ask you two things really.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:39.760
What your theory of identity is, and also whether you think we are one self or many selves or many expressions of a self.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:46.320
Because obviously we've got in the West now, we've got several different versions of theories of identity.
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:51.199
Some of them are quite eastern influence about plurality and multiplicity of the self.
00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:59.840
And a lot of this is burgeoning because of the digital environment where you can show up as multiple different avatars, um, use different masks and personas.
00:38:00.239 --> 00:38:13.679
So I wondered what your core theory of identity was and where you thought it sort of uh can be preserved or maintained in this digital world, or whether it can be at all.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:16.639
I do have a sort of a theory of identity.
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:21.440
And I think most people have what's called a role-based identity.
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:25.519
Here's kind of what I am and what I'm doing and what I do.
00:38:25.760 --> 00:38:30.880
And not just your job, but this I'm I'm kind, I'm loving, I'm here to help people.
00:38:31.039 --> 00:38:32.400
I love helping people.
00:38:32.559 --> 00:38:34.559
I want to make money and do this in the world.
00:38:34.719 --> 00:38:36.480
I want to be a successful entrepreneur.
00:38:36.639 --> 00:38:37.599
This is what I do right now.
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:39.039
I'm a best-selling author.
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:40.400
That's a role, right?
00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:44.639
So that's kind of a it's a what you might call a character identity.
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:48.880
Another version of that is called a historical identity.
00:38:49.280 --> 00:38:52.480
I am a person who's been through X, Y, and Z.
00:38:52.559 --> 00:38:53.840
I've been through all of this stuff.
00:38:53.920 --> 00:39:01.920
Or if you hear somebody that comes on a podcast and can't stop talking about, I did 20 years in the US military, that would be like a historical identity.
00:39:02.079 --> 00:39:03.519
I'm based on my history.
00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:06.960
Is that the same as a narrative theory of identity, or is that different?
00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:09.679
I would say that's probably the same.
00:39:10.079 --> 00:39:11.679
That narrative identity.
00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:27.280
And when when it comes to that, I've just say that I think the identity is very fluid because 90% of our world does not know who they are.
00:39:27.920 --> 00:39:31.039
They really genuinely don't know who they are as a person.
00:39:31.199 --> 00:39:32.639
So that's a fluid thing.
00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:39.920
And my identity just becomes what's going to get me the most dopamine in this situation, and that's who I'm going to become.
00:39:40.079 --> 00:39:42.559
I'm going to get some kind of social reward.
00:39:43.039 --> 00:39:49.119
So when we're growing up as kids, there's what I have uh called a childhood triangle of development.
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:53.599
So, what did I do as a kid to keep myself safe or feel safe?
00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:58.480
Number one, the second side of the triangle uh on the right side is friends.
00:39:58.639 --> 00:40:06.719
What did I do to win social circles, to gain social circles, or to get some kind of alliance with with other kids?
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:11.840
And the other side, the left side of the triangle is uh rewards.
00:40:12.079 --> 00:40:13.440
What did I do to get rewards?
00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:15.599
For some kids that was recognition.
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:21.760
For other kids who had a harder life, that was like a glass of water I had to work for, or food.
00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:27.760
So all of those behaviors, those three behavioral patterns carry into adulthood.
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:31.039
And I think that is really who we truly become.
00:40:31.119 --> 00:40:33.199
And that is maybe identity.
00:40:33.440 --> 00:40:41.599
And then we get into another five-hour discussion on identity versus consciousness and uh the consciousness theory.
00:40:41.679 --> 00:40:55.280
I'm working on three different uh neuroscience studies, neurology studies right now on consciousness, and um all the evidence is suggesting, which I think is beautiful, even if it turns out not to be true.
00:40:55.440 --> 00:40:58.800
I don't ever think we'll fully understand consciousness or the brain.
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:00.239
Maybe we never should.
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:01.119
Maybe we shouldn't.
00:41:01.199 --> 00:41:01.360
Yeah.
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:05.199
We don't even know where memories are stored for real.
00:41:05.760 --> 00:41:13.280
And but that all the science is starting to prove and point in the direction of consciousness being outside of us.
00:41:13.679 --> 00:41:17.440
And we are filtering consciousness, not creating it in any way.
00:41:17.599 --> 00:41:24.559
So if that is the case and it's surrounding us, and we're just kind of like experiencing consciousness, not making it.
00:41:24.719 --> 00:41:31.920
We're it's like the your kitchen sink does not manufacture water, right?
00:41:32.320 --> 00:41:36.079
It just it just filters it a little bit and cuts it down.
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:43.199
So what we're really seeing of reality is you and I are not as separate as we thought.
00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:46.880
We we are sharing some something that we don't understand.
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:54.000
And I think it's beautiful to say we have no idea and we might never know, but we are definitely sharing something.
00:41:54.159 --> 00:42:00.639
We have some similarities in our consciousness, enough to say it's possible that you and I have the same consciousness.
00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:05.280
We are uh so connected to each other, all of us, not just you and me.
00:42:05.679 --> 00:42:09.280
That has some interesting implications for causation, I think.
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:09.760
Yeah.
00:42:10.559 --> 00:42:11.679
Certainly does.
00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:16.639
That maybe it's not the will inside or or whatever.
00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:46.400
I wanted to ask you what you thought about neurotech and everything that is being suggested to us at the moment about how our brainwave data needs to be understood so that we can know when we're distracted, we can know when we're really paying attention, and actually we can avoid any sort of burnout or cognitive overload, and therefore we should really be assessed and monitored all the time, especially at work, and our brainwave data, well who knows, could become the the most important biometric.
00:42:46.639 --> 00:42:54.239
And obviously, they're already putting it into our ear pods and caps, hats, helmets, if you're on a construction site.
00:42:54.400 --> 00:43:02.239
What is your point of view on this sort of burgeoning area uh or battlefields, which is which is our brain monitoring?
00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:04.719
I love getting new data.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:19.119
Uh, but when we say new data is gonna solve problems that were solved 5,000 years ago, uh, so like I read an article two days ago from the University of Texas, and it says groundbreaking.
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:27.840
They use the word groundbreaking, and new research on psilocybin psychedelics could help treat depression and PTSD.
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:28.960
Groundbreaking.
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:38.079
We've been using mushrooms since before humans existed to treat to treat ourselves, to become more spiritual, to feel better about the world.
00:43:38.639 --> 00:43:44.400
But uh science is thinking that all the stuff that we figured out a long time ago is groundbreaking now.
00:43:44.960 --> 00:43:51.599
The stuff that's groundbreaking is that they can assign it in a Excel spreadsheet, but we've known that it works for a long time.
00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:56.880
If you've had successful people for the last 2,000 years, they weren't biohackers.
00:43:56.960 --> 00:43:59.760
They're not sitting there uh studying the ultimate.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:02.159
Morning routine, they get it done.
00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:05.440
They get passionate about something and get it done.
00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:16.400
So they're not sitting there like doing exactly 17 minutes of staring into the sun while meditating in the morning and simultaneously going through the checklist for the day.
00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:20.639
Um, we keep thinking, like, I'm gonna find the secret to doing stuff.
00:44:20.800 --> 00:44:23.440
The secret's been out there for 2,000 years.
00:44:23.920 --> 00:44:24.320
Yeah.
00:44:24.559 --> 00:44:29.440
Maybe it was just AI wrote that wrote the um the title for the research report.
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:30.559
I don't know.
00:44:30.719 --> 00:44:38.559
Maybe it wrote the title for the um, but actually I wanted to ask you about AI because AI agents, I mean, I was listening to Mustafa Suleiman the other day.
00:44:38.639 --> 00:44:44.880
Well, not the other day, he was still at Inflection doing his Pi AI agent before he went to Microsoft.
00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:52.320
And he was talking really interestingly about how you'll have your AI agents or more than one, and obviously it'll be an extension to you.
00:44:52.480 --> 00:45:00.559
It knows your tone of voice, it knows your objectives, your goals, your mission, and also is connected to you in terms of having a fiduciary responsibility.
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:08.000
It's like you, it's on your team, it's by your side, it's sort of part of you, and it goes off and does these things on your behalf.
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:19.199
But he was talking about how it, AI, the agent, whatever, will also be negotiating values with you because it will have its own ideas about what your values will be.
00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:24.719
You have your own ideas about well, maybe you can't express them, but you certainly will have them and they'll come out somehow.
00:45:24.800 --> 00:45:33.679
So it's this kind of negotiation between you and the AI about what values would take you forward or decide your behavior in any sense.
00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:39.920
And so my question is around will AI end up programming us our values?
00:45:40.079 --> 00:45:44.800
Maybe it already does, maybe technology all always has, and we we can't get away from that.
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:58.079
But in particular with AI, because it seems to be being built a lot of the time as some kind of digital twin, some some version of you, cybernetic version of you, which will go out into the world and do things on your behalf.
00:45:58.239 --> 00:46:01.599
I don't know if you've got, I'm sure you've got thoughts on that.
00:46:02.800 --> 00:46:03.440
I do.
00:46:04.559 --> 00:46:07.760
I'm actually, I don't say this ever on the internet.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.960
I'm the chairman of the board for one of the major AI companies in the United States.
00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:19.840
And I don't use the term AI because every time these guys try to explain it to me, I don't understand it.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:36.239
And I've they made a crappy decision, you know, because I don't get that stuff, but um I would always just use the word algorithm because we can everything is an algorithm, especially even with AI, there's algorithms at place.
00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:52.239
So if we look at what dipshits on TikTok, how much influence they are capable of issuing about people's values and ethics, and never going upward.
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:56.880
There's no upward trend uh in in values unless you're in China.
00:46:56.960 --> 00:46:59.119
Have you seen the Chinese version of TikTok?
00:46:59.440 --> 00:47:06.960
Yeah, it's patriotic, it's educational, there's no uh crazy like videos and stuff on there.
00:47:07.440 --> 00:47:08.880
Programming a different race.
00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:09.760
Yeah.
00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:37.039
So if you just use the word algorithm, since probably 2006, almost half of relationships or more now, like intimate adult relationships, started because of an app or a website, or we met online, or we met through an online friend, which means that half of the babies born in the last almost 20 years were created by an algorithm.
00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:43.679
So it's already just making humans.
00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:46.559
So it and we don't even realize it.
00:47:46.639 --> 00:47:49.840
We're we're not realizing the influence of it already in our lives.
00:47:50.079 --> 00:47:55.840
So it is very powerful and and very dangerous.
00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:58.880
It is it is the biggest threat to the entire planet.
00:47:59.760 --> 00:48:15.440
I was thinking particularly as well, in if you look at the gender disparity for when you're talking about the younger generation, Gen Gen Z, the way in which the the boys, the males are going towards more traditional conservative values, and the girls are moving towards more liberal progressive values.
00:48:15.599 --> 00:48:30.079
And I wonder how that's going to um eke out over time if you've got a generation who should be dating um and getting on with each other and conversing and socializing actually becoming more and more and more polarized politically.
00:48:30.239 --> 00:48:34.480
I don't think that that doesn't really bode well for lots of things, including fertility, does it?
00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:38.639
So, what haven't I asked you about identity that I should have asked you about, Chase?
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:41.440
I think human beings.
00:48:44.239 --> 00:48:54.159
There's so much hubris in us as a species that every generation laughs at the previous generations for how little they knew.
00:48:54.400 --> 00:48:57.519
And then we pat ourselves on the back for how much we know now.
00:48:57.679 --> 00:48:59.360
We've got it all figured out now.
00:48:59.599 --> 00:49:02.000
And then but the next generation will laugh at us.
00:49:02.159 --> 00:49:03.440
We know so little.
00:49:04.079 --> 00:49:14.400
And I think that it's okay for us to say, I'm not certain about something, because we tend to feel like I'm losing power if I don't know something.
00:49:14.559 --> 00:49:17.199
I can't label it, I can't describe it.
00:49:17.440 --> 00:49:18.400
That it's okay.
00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:23.599
Like if we're describing identity using modern-day language, it's just not capable.
00:49:23.679 --> 00:49:30.159
It's not enough to fully get what's going on or even to describe the world that we're living in.
00:49:30.559 --> 00:49:40.079
Trying to describe identity just with words, I think is like me describing a sun, uh sunset to you by giving you the temperature of the air.
00:49:40.559 --> 00:49:42.159
It's so inadequate.
00:49:42.239 --> 00:49:44.079
Uh, but that's okay.
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:51.920
The problem is that we feel like I have to have all this shit figured out, or I'm dumb, or I'm I'm powerless.
00:49:52.159 --> 00:49:53.760
It's okay to just say I don't know.
00:49:53.840 --> 00:49:59.920
And I think the words that I don't know for sure is the most intellectually accurate answer that people can give.
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:02.639
And I think more people need to get comfortable with that.
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:03.360
Okay.
00:50:03.679 --> 00:50:05.760
I think that's a great note to end on.
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:09.599
Thank you so much for this time chatting about identity.
00:50:09.679 --> 00:50:10.800
It's absolutely fascinating.
00:50:11.039 --> 00:50:11.840
Talk to you for hours.
00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:12.719
Yeah, thanks, Tracy.
00:50:12.960 --> 00:50:14.400
But thank you for your time today.
00:50:14.559 --> 00:50:17.519
Hopefully, we can revisit this in sometime in the future.
00:50:17.679 --> 00:50:18.559
Thanks, Chase.
00:50:18.800 --> 00:50:19.199
Indeed.
00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:20.400
Thanks.
00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:29.360
Thank you for listening to the Future of You, hosted by me, Tracy Follows.
00:50:29.440 --> 00:50:33.360
Be sure to check out the show notes for more info about the topics we covered today.
00:50:33.519 --> 00:50:38.079
If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
00:50:38.239 --> 00:50:41.920
And if you know someone who would love this episode, please share it with them.
00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:47.920
For more on the future of identity in a digital world, visit futuremade.group slash the future of you.
00:50:48.159 --> 00:50:53.039
And to explore the future of everything else, head over to futuremade.group.
00:50:53.119 --> 00:50:56.800
The Future of View podcast is produced by Big Tent Media.
00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:21.920
Welcome to the future of you.
00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:27.600
Today I'm talking to Chase Hughes, who retired from the US military in 2019.
00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:38.159
He began his career developing new interrogation tactics and spent 15 years researching human influence, behaviour profiling and persuasion in the most extreme conditions.
00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:54.560
He is now a world leader in human behaviour and influence, teaching interrogation, sales, influence and persuasion, and he is the author of the number one best-selling book on this subject, the Ellipsis Manual, as well as many more books besides.
00:00:54.880 --> 00:01:04.239
He is, of course, also very well known as one of the ever-insightful behaviour panel, along with Scott, Greg, and Mark.
00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:07.359
Now, if you don't watch the Behaviour Panel, where on earth have you been?
00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:10.159
You must so check out the show notes for the links.
00:01:10.319 --> 00:01:18.319
Our conversation delves into the manipulation of human identity through various means, including social media and advertising.
00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:27.280
But more importantly, we talk about the chaos and confusion that surrounds our identity today and what purpose that is serving.
00:01:27.599 --> 00:01:39.359
Chase, with his background in military psychological operations, discusses how identity has been weaponised and corrupted to make individuals more vulnerable to influence.
00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:50.239
He talks us through the power of social media, the legacy of Edward Bernays, and the growing bystander effect, where people are less likely to help in crowded situations.
00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:59.920
And he offers at least two or three fantastic tips for resisting manipulation, which I suggest every one of us should learn and practice on a daily basis.
00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:06.640
We discuss identity and cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, and even consciousness.
00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:15.599
Overall, the message is that, well, we have an urgent need for more critical thinking and scepticism in the digital age.
00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:17.680
But over to Chase.
00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:26.319
So, Chase Hughes, welcome to the Future Review.
00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:28.000
Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:29.199
Thanks for having me.
00:02:29.439 --> 00:02:30.159
Great to be here.
00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:31.199
Not at all.
00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:34.560
I'm a massive fan of you and the behaviour panel.
00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:41.199
But the reason I wanted to chat to you, Chase, was as you know, this podcast is all about identity in the 21st century.
00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:48.560
And I'd heard you speak about how important identity was, more important than ideas in terms of persuading people.
00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:50.000
So I can't do it justice.
00:02:50.159 --> 00:03:00.240
I wonder if I could hand over to you and you could just explain how you got into this business, what you do, and why identity is really important is at the core of what you're talking about.
00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:29.599
Yeah, so I uh I did 20 years in the US military, and uh uh during that time I was obsessed with human behavior and I became an expert and started training the Psychological Operations Command and the intelligence operatives and people like that in persuasion, interrogation, and psyops, uh, and all of those, any persuasion leverages identity.
00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:33.280
If it's good, then there's identity involved.
00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:39.840
And I think that over the years I've I've published a number of books.
00:03:40.639 --> 00:04:09.759
Uh a few of them have been number one bestsellers, but there are so many aspects of identity that are being weaponized and used today that this is the podcast I hope really blows up because people need to learn so much about how the more you believe that your identity is tough and hardened and can't be fooled with, the better target you become.
00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:19.040
So have you got an example of that in terms of how somebody might wrap some ideas or persuasion around their identity?
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:20.959
A million examples.
00:04:21.360 --> 00:04:34.399
But to give you an example of what I just talked about, if I don't believe that computer viruses are dangerous, I don't download McAfee, I don't download the antivirus software.
00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:42.160
And if I believe that about my own brain, then I don't learn enough to defend that when that attack comes in.
00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:50.240
The social media computers that we're dealing with on a daily basis are one trillion dollar machines.
00:04:51.120 --> 00:05:00.399
And I don't care if you have a 500 IQ, three times what Einstein did, you are vulnerable to that.
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:05.279
And it is your brain is no match for a one trillion dollar machine.
00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:09.360
And it will outthink us every every step of the way.
00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:17.439
I've been studying brainwashing and all kinds of crazy mind control kind of stuff my whole life, and I am not immune.
00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:20.160
I am very much not immune to this.
00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:27.519
I have timers on my own devices to where I can't get on social media for more than 60 seconds a day.
00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:33.839
And it we're getting to a place where identity is being corrupted.
00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:44.879
And the first step in corrupting a population or changing the narrative of a population is not for me to go install a new identity at all.
00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:49.839
And it's not for me to start messing with your identity and giving you new ideas to think about.
00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:54.160
My first step is to make you confused about your identity.
00:05:54.480 --> 00:06:08.079
So a big step of doing that is making you, if you agree with this one idea, I let you become and feel like you are intellectually and morally superior to other people.
00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:12.000
You don't have to read a book, you don't have to study a podcast, you don't have to do anything.
00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:16.879
You just agree with this one idea, and I make you feel starting to feel superior.
00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:24.639
Then I get you addicted to, I have all of these costumes that you can wear, and it's going to change the way that people perceive you.
00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:26.959
It's a different mask that you can put on.
00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:40.959
And the more I can start messing with your identity and make you use different labels and different terms, and then make you confused about who you are, because 90% of the world already doesn't even know themselves.
00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:52.399
So it becomes easier and easier because the two main goals of advertising are number one, uh, make you think, A, I'm not enough yet.
00:06:52.639 --> 00:06:54.240
I'm not enough yet.
00:06:54.560 --> 00:07:04.720
And B, compare myself to other people, which and both of those things are are forcing us into this separation where I don't view myself as part of Tracy.
00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:09.759
Like I view we are separate and completely apart from each other, and we're not alike at all.
00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:11.199
We have the exact same cells.
00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:17.759
If you put your blood and my blood under a microscope, nobody in the world could tell a difference without some crazy machine, right?
00:07:17.839 --> 00:07:19.360
It's the same cells.
00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:23.120
But they start pushing the idea of separation.
00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:28.720
Number one, and separation automatically makes me again start questioning who am I?
00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:32.399
Let me look for things that can help me to define myself.
00:07:32.639 --> 00:07:39.839
And the moment that I can get you to socially share something, I've got your identity.
00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:53.120
I might make you agree with it off camera, but the moment I can get you to tell your friends, to tell a stranger next to you on an airplane, or to post about it on social media, now I've gotten you to sign a very covert contract.
00:07:53.519 --> 00:08:02.800
I've got you to sign a behavioral contract where I'm I'm building walls around what I'm gonna allow you to do in the future, and you are not even aware that the walls are being built.
00:08:02.959 --> 00:08:07.199
I'm guiding your behavior and narrowing down what I'm allowing you to do.
00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:14.959
So if I get you to make a few agreements about who you are as a person, I can modify your behavior in the future like crazy.
00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:17.040
So has this always been going on?
00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:24.879
Has it been going on using different media, or are we now at a special time with networked media, social media, AI?
00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:29.199
Is it the same thing but different, or are we in a different environment?
00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:33.279
I think we're in a different environment in many ways.
00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:40.639
But if if you just go back to ancient Rome, this was like, oh, I don't want my kids watching the gladiators fighting that that pollutes their brain.
00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:45.919
It's the, you know, I mean, this has been going on since recorded history, that kind of thing.
00:08:46.240 --> 00:09:00.080
But when it comes to this, these are algorithms that maybe have 10 billion at the lowest end possible,$10 billion algorithm designed to manipulate dopamine circuits in our brain.
00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:03.919
Nothing like that has ever existed in human history.
00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:08.240
And we think, oh, since we have iPhones, then we have advanced.
00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:10.000
We have not advanced.
00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:16.399
Our technology is definitely advanced, but we've made zero advancements whatsoever in our brain.
00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:23.759
We have the same brain in our head that we had 200,000 years ago, and it's not equipped to deal with modern-day technology.
00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:29.600
The example would be our brains are designed to handle a tribe of about 150 people.
00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:37.440
The moment we start getting this giant thing that we cannot comprehend, our brains cannot comprehend.
00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:43.600
It's like when a scientist tries to explain like the fifth dimension on YouTube, and like you're like, what?
00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:45.600
Like, we just can't get it.
00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:47.440
Our brains just can't understand it.
00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:52.080
So once we have all of this stuff, we don't know what to worry about.
00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:54.320
We're used to worrying about our tribe.
00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:59.279
And even more importantly than that, we're used to worrying about our reputation.
00:09:59.519 --> 00:10:04.480
And especially in large cities and stuff today, we don't have worry about reputation.
00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:17.120
And just to give you an example, Tracy, if I just explained to you that I just saw a guy watch a woman get stabbed in the middle of the street, and all he did was stand and watch the whole thing happen.
00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:18.399
Just watched.
00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:23.440
No, if I said that to you, would you think that that person is maybe a psychopath?
00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:26.399
That's everyone who lives in a major city.
00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:30.320
Because what I just explained to you is something called the bystander effect.
00:10:30.639 --> 00:10:38.080
And the bystander effect means I'm going to back away from this emotionally because I don't have the capacity to worry about everyone around me.
00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:43.279
So the bystander effect means, and we see this in cities over and over again.
00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:50.080
It's not just something that happens occasionally, it's 100% of our population is prone to this.
00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:56.320
This is uh just to give a little background, the they did tons of research on this.
00:10:56.480 --> 00:10:56.720
Dr.
00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:59.919
Philip Zambaro is has done the most recent on this.
00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.879
He ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, but he also did this.
00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:11.279
He has a wonderful, uh, wonderful YouTube channel called the Heroic Imagination Project, where he teaches you about these biases.
00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:18.320
And if you're watching this and you're thinking, oh, I don't have those biases, then you have an even bigger bias.
00:11:18.799 --> 00:11:21.120
That's called the non-biased bias.
00:11:21.360 --> 00:11:30.399
And so essentially, the more people that are around when you get hurt or stabbed or robbed or something, the less likely you are to get help.
00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:46.240
And it is bizarre that we just we see it on YouTube and we're like, wow, that's weird how people act in crowds, but we really don't understand that I'm looking at the behavior of a psychopath, but it's copy-pasted everyone around me.
00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:48.720
Everyone I know is capable of that.
00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:55.919
So there's something that's been done that that has completely disrupted and manipulated our internal mechanisms.
00:11:56.240 --> 00:12:02.000
And I published a paper a few months ago called Confused Ancestor Theory.
00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:21.679
That if you just imagine that there's a 200, like call it a million-year-old ancestor living inside of your brain, the more time you spend every day exposing that ancestor, because they can see right through your eyes, they can look, they can see what you see, that they don't speak English.
00:12:21.919 --> 00:12:36.720
But the more you're exposing that ancestor to things that are confusing to them, uh, that our ancestors have can't process, we have psychopathy and we start developing a not clinical psychopathy, but little tiny psychopath behaviors.
00:12:36.879 --> 00:12:42.799
And when we eat stuff that our ancestors' bodies and cells wouldn't have recognized, we have biopathy.
00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:44.320
Our bodies start getting sick.
00:12:44.480 --> 00:12:45.600
This is proven.
00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:51.759
So it's not just our identity, like the cells in our body have stuff that they're supposed to have.
00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:59.840
And we go and eat all these crazy processed foods, and that our cells look at this thing and they're like, what the hell is that?
00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:01.440
They don't know what to do with it.
00:13:01.519 --> 00:13:08.480
And obviously, our body just tries to tuck it away somewhere, and that becomes a tumor or Alzheimer's or diabetes.
00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:12.639
So our identities are easy to manipulate for sure.
00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:18.000
It's interesting because it does feel like it's something being done to us.
00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:21.840
And you mentioned they, and I'm going to ask you who you think they is.
00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:24.960
Obviously, we kind of know where social media came from.
00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:31.279
It did come out of the intelligence services and DARPA and all these sorts of it has military connotations.
00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:36.240
So it has already a connection to PsyOps, doesn't it?
00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:42.480
And sometimes when you're down the rabbit hole of some kind of social media, it does very much feel like that.
00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:52.399
But I wanted to ask you when you thought this particular era of sort of vast polarization or the us and them dynamics I know you've talked about really started.
00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:56.320
Because I feel like in the UK anyway, it was definitely around Brexit.
00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:01.360
There was this sort of sense of if you didn't vote for Brexit, you had a superiority.
00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:06.320
And then that just went, it was absolutely turbo boosted on everything else then.
00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:11.360
Everything that came after that, whether it's COVID-related or Ukraine-related, whatever it was.
00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:16.639
And I don't know about the US, you can tell me, but it feels like there was something around Trump at the same time.
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:36.240
And something since 2016 in both our countries seems to have, I'm trying to say, choose my words, seems to have just gone up a level in terms of that psychopathy, that polarization, that need to really grab people's identity and then persuade slash manipulate them.
00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:37.360
Am I wrong?
00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:40.320
Yeah, it's definitely gone uphill recently.
00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:47.279
And I think if you want to spot some of this stuff very quickly, is just one question.
00:14:47.440 --> 00:15:02.080
And we could I could give you a few questions to ask yourself, but just if you just memorize this one question, whose ideas need people to be quiet or suppressed in order for them to flourish?
00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:06.720
So if it's a good idea, you don't need to silence anybody.
00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:09.600
If it's a good idea, it's going to be a good idea.
00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:18.559
So if someone's trying to silence someone or or like restrict speech around an idea, that's a huge problem.
00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:21.519
And I'll give you a corollary to this.
00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:33.039
Uh, one of the things I told my kids is if you're looking at a product and they don't tell you the problem that that product is trying to solve, you need to be very scared.
00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:37.279
As an example of this, is if you just look at like Amazon.
00:15:37.679 --> 00:15:41.200
Amazon says, you don't need to go to the store anymore.
00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:43.679
You don't need to take a trip, we're going to deliver it to your house.
00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:45.200
It'll get there in a couple of days.
00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:46.240
It's very affordable.
00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:47.600
The shipping is free.
00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:49.120
We're going to save you time.
00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:52.639
All the problems that they solve are out in the open.
00:15:52.960 --> 00:16:07.840
And if you look at the Apple Vision Pro or the Facebook Meta goggles, they can't tell you that you will never see an ad or description of the problem that they're trying to solve because it's loneliness.
00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:18.480
The second part of that is that the problem they're trying to solve is people wanting anesthetic so that they don't have to sit there with their own thoughts.
00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:22.080
So it's an anesthetic and a treatment for loneliness.
00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:25.759
And they know it, but they can't say it.
00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:35.360
So when you see a product or you see something where they're saying they can't tell you the problem that they're solving, that's a bad deal, really bad deal.
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:45.759
It's interesting that is because on the Apple Pro Vision Pro ad, or the long film they made, there's a particular phrase in there that's always got me, it's just your apps come to you.
00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:52.720
So when they show the apps in like the in the spatial computing environment, the ambient computing, your apps come to you.
00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:53.840
Well, not really.
00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:55.440
You're showing them in the living room.
00:16:55.519 --> 00:16:58.879
They're more with me on my device that I'm actually touching.
00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:08.079
But it's a funny kind of repositioning they've done or reframing of your apps come to you because they're in your home, but they were already in my hand, and that's like already with me.
00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:10.160
So it's kind of it's that's that's interesting.
00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:12.559
That is I have a remind myself of that question.
00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:20.960
If you go back and watch it again, they humanize the apps first, and then they say they're gonna come to you like friends.
00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:29.359
So it it goes back to the very covertly selling to loneliness and and selling it as a remedy for loneliness.
00:17:29.599 --> 00:17:56.079
And with our social media and people living in cities like New York or Los Angeles, I was in Los Angeles last week filming a podcast, and it's everyone is lonely, and because of that thing, I don't have time to worry about everybody else, and we get this what I call psychopathy, not in a psychopath diagnostic criteria, but we get separate.
00:17:56.319 --> 00:18:04.400
They're pushing an agenda of separation, and that's the biggest thing because we start pushing ourselves away.
00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:11.359
The closer you go to a uh big city, the more loneliness you see, and that is on record.
00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:22.160
This is loneliness, depression, anxiety, suicide, heart disease, all of these kind of things are just are all like surrounded in these little cities.
00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:25.039
And if you read research about uh Dr.
00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:38.720
Robert Hare talks about psychopaths all the time, and he says that psychopaths are attracted to large cities, I think large cities might be creating uh some and or at least fueling the fire of some of those behaviors.
00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:45.200
And when it comes to just who we are as a species, the separation is the number one thing.
00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:52.240
And all of this started to answer your question in the longest way possible, uh, in like the 1950s.
00:18:52.400 --> 00:19:09.519
And this guy came on the scene, his name was Edward Bernays, he was Sigmund Freud's nephew, which most people don't know, and he he reads this word propaganda, and he's like, no, that's not a good word for it, because I want to I want to redefine it.
00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:12.400
And uh he calls it public relations.
00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:16.559
He's the guy who came, who rebranded propaganda into public relations.
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:20.319
He changed the war department to the Department of Defense.
00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:25.519
He's the reason that margarine is dyed yellow and common in the United States.
00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:29.200
He's the reason that Americans eat bacon for breakfast.
00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:31.119
It was never some tradition.
00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:33.920
It was engineered by Edward Bernays.
00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:43.680
He was the reason that uh Virginia Slim cigarettes were smoked by women, and he used identity to do every single one of those things.
00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:55.759
And if you really understand how to use a person's identity, I get you to make a small agreement, and then I make that agreement social, and then I get you to make one more agreement.
00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:57.599
I own you at that point.
00:19:58.319 --> 00:20:00.640
So here's how I could do it really quickly.
00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:08.960
Let's say you and I just met like in a in a bar or restaurant or something, and I said, uh, do you agree to X, Y, and Z?
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:12.559
Do you believe in doing good things for animals?
00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:14.640
Let's let's just keep it on that level.
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:16.960
And you're gonna say, Yes, of course.
00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:19.839
And I'd say, Oh, I've got to introduce you to my friend.
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:22.000
He runs this animal shelter.
00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:24.720
Would you mind if I made the text introduction?
00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:34.559
I'll just connect you to, even if you two had a conversation, and I send a text to this person, let's call him Ian, and I say, Hey, Ian, this is Tracy on the text.
00:20:34.799 --> 00:20:39.920
Say, Tracy loves animals and wants to do everything she possibly can for our world.
00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:43.440
And then Ian says, Hey, can you come by Sunday and volunteer?
00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:51.279
I've just made your agreement social, so now they can start digging and digging and digging and getting you to go out of your way.
00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:52.640
I've got them trapped.
00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:53.519
Yeah.
00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:54.960
Yeah.
00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:59.200
So is that what happens online in social networks, etc.?
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:02.960
Is that is that what's operating or is it something different there?
00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:03.599
It is.
00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:06.000
And so there's two layers happening at the same time.
00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:06.880
Well, the three.
00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:10.880
There's marketing and media that make you compare yourself to others feel like you're not enough.
00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:17.680
Number two is it's a constant confirmation bias machine.
00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:30.079
So if you think you like start binge watching insane videos of people cooking dogs and stuff in China and beating the crap out of dogs, it's gonna start feeding you more.
00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:45.119
So anything that you think uh you're interested in, it's going to convince you that more people like it and more people like it and more people like it, and it's going to normalize it and it's going to make you think, oh, there's lots of people in this.
00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:48.880
So now it becomes social, like what we just talked about.
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:55.839
And the second thing that it does is social media uses cognitive dissonance as a weapon.
00:21:56.160 --> 00:22:02.079
So cognitive dissonance is when our internal thoughts and something Outside of me aren't really matching up.
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:08.400
So it shows you stuff every once in a while to bring you up and then take you down, bring you up and take you down.
00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:12.240
So it's it's programming cognitive dissonance into your head.
00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:14.160
I am not that type of person at all.
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:18.559
I'm going to back further away from that behavior, further away from that behavior.
00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:32.319
And one of the things that I teach persuasion for a living, and I teach people to weaponize cognitive bias like psychotherapists, except to get people to stop an eating disorder or to talk someone out of hurting themselves.
00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:34.960
So there's a lot of good ways you can do it.
00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:44.000
So when if anybody's listening and you're thinking that these are dangerous, they're dangerous if your intent is to do bad stuff.
00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:49.519
I can kill you with a scalpel, I can save your life with that exact same tool.
00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:52.000
So it's it's a good tool to have.
00:22:52.240 --> 00:23:07.119
And I think in the at the end of the day, when it comes down to ethics, if if the person receiving your influence could read your mind and see in your head and see your intent and your desired outcome, would they agree?
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:10.000
Would they still go along with what you're doing?
00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:13.119
And if they would, then that I would say that's probably ethical.
00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:31.119
So if people could read your mind and you're in the media doing all these algorithms to do stuff, Facebook is already on record uh having, I think, used the algorithm to determine if it could if somebody would hurt themselves and they could maybe make that happen.
00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:44.400
And it's it's a weird place to be because our identities have never been as fragile as they are right now because they're they have been absolutely, deliberately undermined and shaken.
00:23:44.799 --> 00:23:45.039
Yes.
00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:47.759
Oh, this is what I want to ask you about deliberately.
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:48.400
Why?
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:54.400
So that we are insecure, confused, more susceptible to even more control.
00:23:54.559 --> 00:23:55.119
Is that why?
00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:55.839
That's it.
00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:56.240
Yeah.
00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:00.400
Like if I'm gonna paint the wall here in my office, I gotta sand it down first.
00:24:00.799 --> 00:24:02.480
So and that's what it means.
00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:11.200
Like I have this idea of who I am, and I'm gonna I need that to be sanded down first, or I need some holes in there so it can be filled.
00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:18.960
The second aspect of why that's happening a lot more recently is that something about this generation, I can't put my finger on it.
00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:25.200
I'd like to, you know, be a smart guy who can say something definitively, but I don't know.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:30.240
The people that are like 25 right now don't even know themselves.
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:34.720
They really don't fully truly understand who they are.
00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:46.079
And when you don't know who you are, and you are like fueled by separation, separation from everything, you are in I will join a cult territory right there.
00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:50.960
I talk about I've interviewed a hundred cult recruiters, I've spent time with cult recruiters.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:53.119
I wanted to ask you about cults.
00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:56.000
That's very interesting what you say about this generation.
00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:58.160
You're talking really about Gen Z, who's Z.
00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:05.599
I mean, I've done loads of research for them, I've asked them tons of stuff, and one that really stuck in my mind was a fashion student.
00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:06.799
She was 21 at the time.
00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:17.279
I mean, she was really into fashion, but um, to cut a long story short, she said she wanted an AI algorithm or assistant to help her advise her on her own fashion.
00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:22.480
I thought that was incredibly interesting because I was like, well, in my generation, that would be like a best friend.
00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:26.079
You know, you go shopping together and you advise each other and you say, Well, this looks good in you.
00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:32.000
No, she wanted something that was objective and analytical because she felt that that was like the truth.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:38.480
And I would have said, No, the truth is inside you, that like that, your gut failing, your instinct is another data point.
00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:43.359
But that's just subjective and therefore like non-nonsense to her.
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:54.799
And it was really interesting to me that somebody who was obviously an enthusiast and an expert in a certain area thought that even though that was the case, they wanted something external and objective.
00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:59.119
And it just felt to me like they'd lost all trust, or she had lost trust in her sense of self.
00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:01.119
Yeah, or or a definition.
00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:03.680
It was just like, I'm gonna try things on.
00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:07.440
Which one, which one defines me best?
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:19.440
And that's one of the things I taught my kids when they were growing up is I would make them look at the back of vehicles that had bumper stickers on them and stuff, crazy amounts of stuff, or people wearing a funny outfit.
00:26:19.599 --> 00:26:25.519
And I would always say, What do you think that person wants you to think about them?
00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:29.039
What do you think they want you to think?
00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:32.880
So, like somebody had these bumper stickers all over the back of their car.
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:43.119
It was like uh Tahiti and Travel More and Life's a Beach, uh, Marathon Running, and like all of this kind of adventurous stuff.
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:45.440
All it was like a Subaru, I think.
00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:50.640
My daughter, who I think was eight at the time, we were behind them at a stoplight.
00:26:50.720 --> 00:26:53.039
And I said, What do you think all of those stickers say?
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:55.759
If those stickers could talk for the person.
00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:59.200
It's like the person couldn't talk, they want the stickers to talk for them.
00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:00.640
What would those stickers say?
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:04.640
My daughter said, Well, uh, I uh I do lots of cool stuff.
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:06.400
And I said, All right, keep going.
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:09.599
Uh well, I do cool stuff because I'm a fun person.
00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:10.799
Keep going.
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:15.920
And she said, Well, I'm fun, so I would be a good friend, and I'm nice, and I'm nice to people.
00:27:16.079 --> 00:27:17.440
I have good friends.
00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:22.079
And I said, Are those stickers for her friends to look at or strangers?
00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:26.640
And Charlotte, my daughter, said, strangers, and I said, Well, keep going to the next level.
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:28.640
And she said, I'm lonely.
00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:29.519
Wow.
00:27:30.640 --> 00:27:33.039
So kids can get this.
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:35.519
Kids can get this.
00:27:35.759 --> 00:27:50.480
And if if you like if you know most people that are like under the age of 35 uh feel insane amounts of loneliness that's unprecedented.
00:27:50.640 --> 00:28:00.559
And I think we're never more isolated because of this forced uh idea and identity of I am separate from everybody else.
00:28:01.359 --> 00:28:07.279
And that is so rampant today that loneliness is kind of like a a new epidemic.
00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:10.640
So is Taylor Swift a cult?
00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:13.599
Well, I think we'd have to define first.
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:20.799
But I think there are good cults, and I think there are dangerous or bad cults for people.
00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:26.319
Yeah, so how does one know where one is when one is I was in a cult for 20 years.
00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:28.480
It's called the United States military.
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:29.599
Yeah.
00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:33.839
I went to the landmark for you know, the landmark forum stuff.
00:28:34.079 --> 00:28:34.240
Yeah.
00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:34.640
Yeah.
00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:36.640
I went, a friend dragged me along.
00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:38.400
I thought, oh, it's not really me.
00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:39.200
I'm gonna do this.
00:28:39.359 --> 00:28:42.960
And I've never felt like the whole weekend, I've never felt so uncomfortable.
00:28:43.119 --> 00:29:06.880
But I mean, I could see some of it, I could see some of it operating, you know, I could see some of it behind the curtain, like you can't have a drink, you have to get up and go to the table to have a drink, you have to do this, you have to do how they were sort of I don't know, you well, you'll tell me, but how they were sort of unpicking you to stitch you back together again, it r really was the most bizarre.
00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:08.000
I really hated it.
00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:11.039
But um, yeah, you were in that you were in a cult for 20 years.
00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:14.160
Yeah, well, what they were doing is sanding down the the wall.
00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:14.799
Yeah.
00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:16.240
They're sanding your identity.
00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:17.839
That's how I need to think of it now.
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:20.880
When I show up to boot camp, what do I identify as?
00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:24.480
Well, especially as a 19-year-old, like, well, I had a lot of hair back then.
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:28.079
Like it like you walk in, they shave off your head.
00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:29.920
Uh, you don't get your clothes anymore.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:35.920
You have to wear their clothes, you have to obey their rules, sleep in their bed, drink water when they tell you to.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:40.880
Uh, and that was, you know, the military is an example of what I think is a good cult.
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:43.200
I think it's the reason I'm successful.
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:50.160
And when you get into the bad cult, you'll see those things like what you were just talking about with the water.
00:29:50.480 --> 00:30:00.000
Was can I get you to very covertly start making small agreements to be compliant to me?
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:04.000
So I'm gonna get you to comply with very small things at first.
00:30:04.160 --> 00:30:09.839
So by the time that I get to a big thing, it's an automatic response when I tell you to do something.
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:15.519
You're ready to go because you've been doing this, you've been doing this, and you did it in front of people.
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:19.680
So you made a social contract that I am compliant.
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:25.279
And they will take all of those emotions out and take you on this emotional roller coaster.
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:28.880
There is a name for this, it's called fractionation.
00:30:29.599 --> 00:30:41.440
So that's psychological fractionation, and it's the fastest way to emotionally or maybe psychologically what I call capture a person.
00:30:42.720 --> 00:31:00.400
So I teach a formula only to my VIP clients and and government people, but it's called capture, uh, where it's a 12-minute formula that kind of puts a human brain into the state of being in a cult for a month in like this these 12 minutes.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:10.319
But you captivate a person like that just by getting small levels of compliance, letting them know, like what do they do?
00:31:10.400 --> 00:31:14.160
Like there there were name tags, you learned everybody's names, where they're from.
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:16.720
They had friend building exercises.
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:18.799
So I get small compliance.
00:31:19.039 --> 00:31:25.759
I sh very covertly convince you that this is your ticket out of loneliness is also happening there.
00:31:25.920 --> 00:31:30.799
So I'm working up Maslow's pyramid here with your connection to self.
00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:33.920
Like I'm I'm around groups and family members.
00:31:34.079 --> 00:31:45.119
Then I go up, and then like this sense of self and the sense of confidence, and then this like self-actualization towards the end of this little uh cult experience where it's really emotional.
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.079
So I've got I've gotten rebuilt from the ground up.
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:50.640
So I have small amounts of compliance.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:53.359
This might be your cure for loneliness.
00:31:53.680 --> 00:31:57.680
I'm gradually increasing your openness in front of these people in a cult.
00:31:57.759 --> 00:31:59.039
I don't care what cult it is.
00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:02.319
You're gonna cry, you're gonna talk about some kind of emotional stuff.
00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:14.400
I'm gonna make you use all of the bit mental scripts that you use for family and very close friends in front of these strangers and rewire those people in your head to be a brand new social circle.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:20.640
There's like 10 other things happening, but that's just those things that I talked about now are enough to capture people.
00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:26.720
Yeah, they did this whole thing about, you know, come up to the microphone and share, you know, X, Y, Z.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:32.960
I I think it was about three of us who just didn't do it for the whole weekend.
00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:36.240
Just anyway, gosh, this brought back some memories.
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:41.200
When I was 29, I did it with uh with a very similar group to that.
00:32:41.839 --> 00:32:43.920
And I wasn't skeptical at all.
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:50.240
I wanted to go all in just to experience it, and it was one of the greatest times I've ever had.
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:57.359
And during this little emotional, they made it emotional on purpose, but this graduation ceremony, I cried.
00:32:57.519 --> 00:33:01.119
Like I was in it, and man, it felt good.
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:10.880
It felt like I am better than other people because I agree with this organization, which is the step one that we talked about 20 minutes ago or whatever.
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:13.359
Yeah.
00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:21.039
I want you to pretend, just entertain me for a moment, that each neuropeptide associates with one of these human needs up here.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:26.400
And I want to make this very clear.
00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:31.680
When we're looking at this needs map, is this a need to be significant or to be seen as significant?
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:33.759
Seen as.
00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:35.039
Big difference.
00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:38.720
Do I have a need to be intelligent or to be seen as intelligent?
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:40.160
That's me, right?
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:41.359
Both of those.
00:33:41.759 --> 00:33:46.000
I was hoping I could demonstrate that first before I started talking about it.
00:33:46.640 --> 00:33:47.599
Thank you.
00:33:50.880 --> 00:33:59.039
What we're really doing here with neuropeptides is flooding the brain with the correct ones, but I want you to pretend there's a neuropeptide for every single need.
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:05.359
There's a significance neuropeptide, acceptance, approval neuropeptide.
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:11.519
So I know that this person has lived their whole life trying to get this from other people.
00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:14.320
Needs are what we want from other people.
00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:17.360
Needs are what we want from other people.
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:28.480
If I'm looking to buy a car through my needs lens, how will this make other people see me?
00:34:29.519 --> 00:34:33.280
If I'm picking a university, how will this make other people see me?
00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:36.639
If I'm joining a social group, how will this make other people see me?
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:38.480
That's what the needs lens is.
00:34:38.639 --> 00:34:40.800
Needs are what we get from other people.
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:47.360
It's interesting that superiority, you don't, as you said, I think you said, you don't really need a reason, do you?
00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:53.039
It's just posited and then agreed to, and there you therefore you are superior.
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:59.519
I mean, you've mentioned a couple of things, but how do we resist some of this manipulation out in the out in the world?
00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:04.719
You've uh you've identified a very good, you know, fundamental question we should always ask ourselves.
00:35:04.880 --> 00:35:07.280
Are there other watchwords or tips or tricks?
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:25.599
Yeah, so the the the number one thing that I've taught my kids is every time you hear something that sounds good, not even too good to be true, anything good or anything really bad, I want your head to automatically say the word maybe.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:42.719
Just use the word maybe and program that into your brain because it sounds simple, but I promise you, when your brain is flooded with dopamine or serotonin, you think you're getting some kind of great information, great advice, that maybe doesn't come out automatically.
00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:47.360
You've got to be ready for it and you've got to kind of rehearse that quite a bit.
00:35:47.599 --> 00:35:53.679
So when somebody gives you any kind of piece of news, you're watching the television or news, then I would say maybe.
00:35:54.079 --> 00:36:00.800
And the more you spend time on social media, the more easily hacked your brain is, period.
00:36:00.960 --> 00:36:04.800
Because that machine is made to make suggestible human beings.
00:36:05.039 --> 00:36:11.039
Every once, I don't do this often, but every once in a while I'm speaking on stage, I'll call up a random audience member.
00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:15.280
Within three seconds, I will have them unconscious on the floor.
00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:19.119
Just doing some covert, very covert hypnosis stuff.
00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:20.159
Three seconds.
00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:26.800
And one of the ways that I do that is earlier on in the day, I'll say, Who spends an hour or more on social media?
00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:27.760
Put your hands up.
00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:28.480
Let me see the hands.
00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:29.440
And I'll look around the room.
00:36:29.519 --> 00:36:31.920
There's like maybe a thousand, two thousand people.
00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:36.320
And I'll say, All right, so if you spend more than three hours, keep your hands up.
00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:38.719
Four hours, five hours, six hours.
00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:48.480
Just those people who spend a lot of time on social media, I can pick out the suggestible people in no time at all, instantaneously, because I know how good that computer is.
00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:51.599
I didn't hypnotize that person who came up on the stage.
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.360
They were already ready to go because of their habits and their lifestyle.
00:36:55.519 --> 00:36:59.599
I just leveraged what I knew would turn their brain off, dropped them on the stage.
00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:03.440
It's very dramatic, uh, and it's not that hard to do.
00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:08.639
But I would say it's one thing to just say, I'm going to protect my brain.
00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:13.280
It's another to tell yourself, like, social media can't affect me.
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:27.440
I would I would beg you, beg you to reconsider that idea that it is more dangerous uh than, in my opinion, it's more dangerous than a lot of the illicit drugs that exist out there.
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:29.519
Wow.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:31.679
I want to ask you two things really.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:39.760
What your theory of identity is, and also whether you think we are one self or many selves or many expressions of a self.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:46.320
Because obviously we've got in the West now, we've got several different versions of theories of identity.
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:51.199
Some of them are quite eastern influence about plurality and multiplicity of the self.
00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:59.840
And a lot of this is burgeoning because of the digital environment where you can show up as multiple different avatars, um, use different masks and personas.
00:38:00.239 --> 00:38:13.679
So I wondered what your core theory of identity was and where you thought it sort of uh can be preserved or maintained in this digital world, or whether it can be at all.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:16.639
I do have a sort of a theory of identity.
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:21.440
And I think most people have what's called a role-based identity.
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:25.519
Here's kind of what I am and what I'm doing and what I do.
00:38:25.760 --> 00:38:30.880
And not just your job, but this I'm I'm kind, I'm loving, I'm here to help people.
00:38:31.039 --> 00:38:32.400
I love helping people.
00:38:32.559 --> 00:38:34.559
I want to make money and do this in the world.
00:38:34.719 --> 00:38:36.480
I want to be a successful entrepreneur.
00:38:36.639 --> 00:38:37.599
This is what I do right now.
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:39.039
I'm a best-selling author.
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:40.400
That's a role, right?
00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:44.639
So that's kind of a it's a what you might call a character identity.
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:48.880
Another version of that is called a historical identity.
00:38:49.280 --> 00:38:52.480
I am a person who's been through X, Y, and Z.
00:38:52.559 --> 00:38:53.840
I've been through all of this stuff.
00:38:53.920 --> 00:39:01.920
Or if you hear somebody that comes on a podcast and can't stop talking about, I did 20 years in the US military, that would be like a historical identity.
00:39:02.079 --> 00:39:03.519
I'm based on my history.
00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:06.960
Is that the same as a narrative theory of identity, or is that different?
00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:09.679
I would say that's probably the same.
00:39:10.079 --> 00:39:11.679
That narrative identity.
00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:27.280
And when when it comes to that, I've just say that I think the identity is very fluid because 90% of our world does not know who they are.
00:39:27.920 --> 00:39:31.039
They really genuinely don't know who they are as a person.
00:39:31.199 --> 00:39:32.639
So that's a fluid thing.
00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:39.920
And my identity just becomes what's going to get me the most dopamine in this situation, and that's who I'm going to become.
00:39:40.079 --> 00:39:42.559
I'm going to get some kind of social reward.
00:39:43.039 --> 00:39:49.119
So when we're growing up as kids, there's what I have uh called a childhood triangle of development.
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:53.599
So, what did I do as a kid to keep myself safe or feel safe?
00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:58.480
Number one, the second side of the triangle uh on the right side is friends.
00:39:58.639 --> 00:40:06.719
What did I do to win social circles, to gain social circles, or to get some kind of alliance with with other kids?
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:11.840
And the other side, the left side of the triangle is uh rewards.
00:40:12.079 --> 00:40:13.440
What did I do to get rewards?
00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:15.599
For some kids that was recognition.
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:21.760
For other kids who had a harder life, that was like a glass of water I had to work for, or food.
00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:27.760
So all of those behaviors, those three behavioral patterns carry into adulthood.
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:31.039
And I think that is really who we truly become.
00:40:31.119 --> 00:40:33.199
And that is maybe identity.
00:40:33.440 --> 00:40:41.599
And then we get into another five-hour discussion on identity versus consciousness and uh the consciousness theory.
00:40:41.679 --> 00:40:55.280
I'm working on three different uh neuroscience studies, neurology studies right now on consciousness, and um all the evidence is suggesting, which I think is beautiful, even if it turns out not to be true.
00:40:55.440 --> 00:40:58.800
I don't ever think we'll fully understand consciousness or the brain.
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:00.239
Maybe we never should.
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:01.119
Maybe we shouldn't.
00:41:01.199 --> 00:41:01.360
Yeah.
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:05.199
We don't even know where memories are stored for real.
00:41:05.760 --> 00:41:13.280
And but that all the science is starting to prove and point in the direction of consciousness being outside of us.
00:41:13.679 --> 00:41:17.440
And we are filtering consciousness, not creating it in any way.
00:41:17.599 --> 00:41:24.559
So if that is the case and it's surrounding us, and we're just kind of like experiencing consciousness, not making it.
00:41:24.719 --> 00:41:31.920
We're it's like the your kitchen sink does not manufacture water, right?
00:41:32.320 --> 00:41:36.079
It just it just filters it a little bit and cuts it down.
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:43.199
So what we're really seeing of reality is you and I are not as separate as we thought.
00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:46.880
We we are sharing some something that we don't understand.
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:54.000
And I think it's beautiful to say we have no idea and we might never know, but we are definitely sharing something.
00:41:54.159 --> 00:42:00.639
We have some similarities in our consciousness, enough to say it's possible that you and I have the same consciousness.
00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:05.280
We are uh so connected to each other, all of us, not just you and me.
00:42:05.679 --> 00:42:09.280
That has some interesting implications for causation, I think.
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:09.760
Yeah.
00:42:10.559 --> 00:42:11.679
Certainly does.
00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:16.639
That maybe it's not the will inside or or whatever.
00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:46.400
I wanted to ask you what you thought about neurotech and everything that is being suggested to us at the moment about how our brainwave data needs to be understood so that we can know when we're distracted, we can know when we're really paying attention, and actually we can avoid any sort of burnout or cognitive overload, and therefore we should really be assessed and monitored all the time, especially at work, and our brainwave data, well who knows, could become the the most important biometric.
00:42:46.639 --> 00:42:54.239
And obviously, they're already putting it into our ear pods and caps, hats, helmets, if you're on a construction site.
00:42:54.400 --> 00:43:02.239
What is your point of view on this sort of burgeoning area uh or battlefields, which is which is our brain monitoring?
00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:04.719
I love getting new data.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:19.119
Uh, but when we say new data is gonna solve problems that were solved 5,000 years ago, uh, so like I read an article two days ago from the University of Texas, and it says groundbreaking.
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:27.840
They use the word groundbreaking, and new research on psilocybin psychedelics could help treat depression and PTSD.
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:28.960
Groundbreaking.
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:38.079
We've been using mushrooms since before humans existed to treat to treat ourselves, to become more spiritual, to feel better about the world.
00:43:38.639 --> 00:43:44.400
But uh science is thinking that all the stuff that we figured out a long time ago is groundbreaking now.
00:43:44.960 --> 00:43:51.599
The stuff that's groundbreaking is that they can assign it in a Excel spreadsheet, but we've known that it works for a long time.
00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:56.880
If you've had successful people for the last 2,000 years, they weren't biohackers.
00:43:56.960 --> 00:43:59.760
They're not sitting there uh studying the ultimate.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:02.159
Morning routine, they get it done.
00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:05.440
They get passionate about something and get it done.
00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:16.400
So they're not sitting there like doing exactly 17 minutes of staring into the sun while meditating in the morning and simultaneously going through the checklist for the day.
00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:20.639
Um, we keep thinking, like, I'm gonna find the secret to doing stuff.
00:44:20.800 --> 00:44:23.440
The secret's been out there for 2,000 years.
00:44:23.920 --> 00:44:24.320
Yeah.
00:44:24.559 --> 00:44:29.440
Maybe it was just AI wrote that wrote the um the title for the research report.
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:30.559
I don't know.
00:44:30.719 --> 00:44:38.559
Maybe it wrote the title for the um, but actually I wanted to ask you about AI because AI agents, I mean, I was listening to Mustafa Suleiman the other day.
00:44:38.639 --> 00:44:44.880
Well, not the other day, he was still at Inflection doing his Pi AI agent before he went to Microsoft.
00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:52.320
And he was talking really interestingly about how you'll have your AI agents or more than one, and obviously it'll be an extension to you.
00:44:52.480 --> 00:45:00.559
It knows your tone of voice, it knows your objectives, your goals, your mission, and also is connected to you in terms of having a fiduciary responsibility.
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:08.000
It's like you, it's on your team, it's by your side, it's sort of part of you, and it goes off and does these things on your behalf.
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:19.199
But he was talking about how it, AI, the agent, whatever, will also be negotiating values with you because it will have its own ideas about what your values will be.
00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:24.719
You have your own ideas about well, maybe you can't express them, but you certainly will have them and they'll come out somehow.
00:45:24.800 --> 00:45:33.679
So it's this kind of negotiation between you and the AI about what values would take you forward or decide your behavior in any sense.
00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:39.920
And so my question is around will AI end up programming us our values?
00:45:40.079 --> 00:45:44.800
Maybe it already does, maybe technology all always has, and we we can't get away from that.
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:58.079
But in particular with AI, because it seems to be being built a lot of the time as some kind of digital twin, some some version of you, cybernetic version of you, which will go out into the world and do things on your behalf.
00:45:58.239 --> 00:46:01.599
I don't know if you've got, I'm sure you've got thoughts on that.
00:46:02.800 --> 00:46:03.440
I do.
00:46:04.559 --> 00:46:07.760
I'm actually, I don't say this ever on the internet.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.960
I'm the chairman of the board for one of the major AI companies in the United States.
00:46:14.079 --> 00:46:19.840
And I don't use the term AI because every time these guys try to explain it to me, I don't understand it.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:36.239
And I've they made a crappy decision, you know, because I don't get that stuff, but um I would always just use the word algorithm because we can everything is an algorithm, especially even with AI, there's algorithms at place.
00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:52.239
So if we look at what dipshits on TikTok, how much influence they are capable of issuing about people's values and ethics, and never going upward.
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:56.880
There's no upward trend uh in in values unless you're in China.
00:46:56.960 --> 00:46:59.119
Have you seen the Chinese version of TikTok?
00:46:59.440 --> 00:47:06.960
Yeah, it's patriotic, it's educational, there's no uh crazy like videos and stuff on there.
00:47:07.440 --> 00:47:08.880
Programming a different race.
00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:09.760
Yeah.
00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:37.039
So if you just use the word algorithm, since probably 2006, almost half of relationships or more now, like intimate adult relationships, started because of an app or a website, or we met online, or we met through an online friend, which means that half of the babies born in the last almost 20 years were created by an algorithm.
00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:43.679
So it's already just making humans.
00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:46.559
So it and we don't even realize it.
00:47:46.639 --> 00:47:49.840
We're we're not realizing the influence of it already in our lives.
00:47:50.079 --> 00:47:55.840
So it is very powerful and and very dangerous.
00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:58.880
It is it is the biggest threat to the entire planet.
00:47:59.760 --> 00:48:15.440
I was thinking particularly as well, in if you look at the gender disparity for when you're talking about the younger generation, Gen Gen Z, the way in which the the boys, the males are going towards more traditional conservative values, and the girls are moving towards more liberal progressive values.
00:48:15.599 --> 00:48:30.079
And I wonder how that's going to um eke out over time if you've got a generation who should be dating um and getting on with each other and conversing and socializing actually becoming more and more and more polarized politically.
00:48:30.239 --> 00:48:34.480
I don't think that that doesn't really bode well for lots of things, including fertility, does it?
00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:38.639
So, what haven't I asked you about identity that I should have asked you about, Chase?
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:41.440
I think human beings.
00:48:44.239 --> 00:48:54.159
There's so much hubris in us as a species that every generation laughs at the previous generations for how little they knew.
00:48:54.400 --> 00:48:57.519
And then we pat ourselves on the back for how much we know now.
00:48:57.679 --> 00:48:59.360
We've got it all figured out now.
00:48:59.599 --> 00:49:02.000
And then but the next generation will laugh at us.
00:49:02.159 --> 00:49:03.440
We know so little.
00:49:04.079 --> 00:49:14.400
And I think that it's okay for us to say, I'm not certain about something, because we tend to feel like I'm losing power if I don't know something.
00:49:14.559 --> 00:49:17.199
I can't label it, I can't describe it.
00:49:17.440 --> 00:49:18.400
That it's okay.
00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:23.599
Like if we're describing identity using modern-day language, it's just not capable.
00:49:23.679 --> 00:49:30.159
It's not enough to fully get what's going on or even to describe the world that we're living in.
00:49:30.559 --> 00:49:40.079
Trying to describe identity just with words, I think is like me describing a sun, uh sunset to you by giving you the temperature of the air.
00:49:40.559 --> 00:49:42.159
It's so inadequate.
00:49:42.239 --> 00:49:44.079
Uh, but that's okay.
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:51.920
The problem is that we feel like I have to have all this shit figured out, or I'm dumb, or I'm I'm powerless.
00:49:52.159 --> 00:49:53.760
It's okay to just say I don't know.
00:49:53.840 --> 00:49:59.920
And I think the words that I don't know for sure is the most intellectually accurate answer that people can give.
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:02.639
And I think more people need to get comfortable with that.
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:03.360
Okay.
00:50:03.679 --> 00:50:05.760
I think that's a great note to end on.
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:09.599
Thank you so much for this time chatting about identity.
00:50:09.679 --> 00:50:10.800
It's absolutely fascinating.
00:50:11.039 --> 00:50:11.840
Talk to you for hours.
00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:12.719
Yeah, thanks, Tracy.
00:50:12.960 --> 00:50:14.400
But thank you for your time today.
00:50:14.559 --> 00:50:17.519
Hopefully, we can revisit this in sometime in the future.
00:50:17.679 --> 00:50:18.559
Thanks, Chase.
00:50:18.800 --> 00:50:19.199
Indeed.
00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:20.400
Thanks.
00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:29.360
Thank you for listening to the Future of You, hosted by me, Tracy Follows.
00:50:29.440 --> 00:50:33.360
Be sure to check out the show notes for more info about the topics we covered today.
00:50:33.519 --> 00:50:38.079
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00:50:38.239 --> 00:50:41.920
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00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:47.920
For more on the future of identity in a digital world, visit futuremade.group slash the future of you.
00:50:48.159 --> 00:50:53.039
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00:50:53.119 --> 00:50:56.800
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