September 4, 2025 • 40 mins
Explore the hidden world of psychological manipulation with host Erika Barker. In this explosive episode of The Gray Files, we continue in this 3 part series to uncover how algorithms and psychological tactics are used on a massive scale to shape your beliefs, memories, and desires. Drawing on the shocking experiments of mentalist Derren Brown, this podcast reveals the precise techniques of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), environmental priming, and emotional anchoring. Learn how these 'mind hackers' subtly engineer religious conversions, political radicalization, and even rewrite your memories. Understand the industrial scale of behavioral modification happening on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok, and why the line between authentic consciousness and engineered trance is blurring. Don't just consume content; understand how it's consuming you. This episode is a crucial guide to recognizing social media, and marketing manipulation and building your defenses. Tune in to understand the deep mechanics behind the attention wars and how they're affecting you.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker:
Welcome back to episode sixteen
of The Gray Files, where we peel (00:03):
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Speaker: back the layers of technology, economics, data science, and (00:09):
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Speaker: even the human condition itself, all in an effort to try and (00:15):
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Speaker: understand this vast and often perplexing world we live in. (00:20):
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Speaker: I'm your host, Eric Barker, and (00:25):
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Speaker: tonight we're continuing our (00:28):
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Speaker: three part series on the (00:30):
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Speaker: attention wars by diving into (00:32):
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Speaker: something that will challenge (00:35):
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Speaker: how you think about your own (00:37):
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Speaker: mind. (00:40):
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Speaker: The dark art of psychological manipulation, and how reality (00:41):
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Speaker: itself can be rewritten without you ever knowing it happened. (00:46):
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Speaker: In our last episode, we watched (00:52):
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Speaker: Charlie and Rachel Patterson, (00:55):
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Speaker: twins who once seemed (00:57):
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Speaker: inseparable. (01:00):
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Speaker: Pulled apart until they became enemies. (01:02):
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Speaker: The force that drove that (01:06):
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Speaker: transformation was algorithmic (01:07):
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Speaker: manipulation. (01:11):
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Speaker: Tonight we are looking at the (01:13):
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Speaker: techniques that make such (01:15):
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Speaker: changes possible. (01:17):
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Speaker: To do that, we turn to Derren (01:20):
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Speaker: Brown, the British mentalist (01:23):
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Speaker: whose work shows just how (01:26):
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Speaker: vulnerable the human mind really (01:29):
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Speaker: is. (01:32):
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Speaker: Now, a quick word before we dive in. (01:34):
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Speaker: If you hold your faith close, (01:37):
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Speaker: this next story may feel (01:40):
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Speaker: uncomfortable. (01:42):
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Speaker: I say that as someone who is deeply religious myself. (01:44):
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Speaker: I am a practicing Buddhist. (01:47):
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Speaker: My goal is not to dismiss spirituality. (01:50):
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Speaker: But what happened in this experiment is simply too (01:53):
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Speaker: important to ignore. (01:57):
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Speaker: So in twenty twelve, Darren Brown met Natalie, a committed (02:00):
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Speaker: atheist from London. (02:07):
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Speaker: Through conversation alone, without drugs or actors, he (02:09):
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Speaker: guided her into what she described as a religious (02:16):
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Speaker: conversion in a quiet church, lit only by candles and colored (02:19):
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Speaker: by stained glass. (02:26):
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Speaker: She began to cry. (02:28):
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Speaker: I asked God for forgiveness and declared her love for Jesus. (02:31):
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Speaker: The strange part is that Brown himself does not believe in God. (02:38):
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Speaker: He actually created the (02:46):
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Speaker: experiment to prove that what (02:48):
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Speaker: many people experience as divine (02:50):
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Speaker: can be reproduced through (02:54):
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Speaker: Psychology. (02:56):
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Speaker: That fact alone raises a terrifying question if a short (02:58):
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Speaker: conversation can alter someone's most deeply held beliefs, what (03:03):
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Speaker: else about us can be rewritten? (03:10):
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Speaker: Part one the impossible made routine. (03:16):
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Speaker: Many people think hypnosis is (03:24):
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Speaker: nothing more than silly stage (03:27):
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Speaker: tricks. (03:29):
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Speaker: Someone on stage flaps their arms like a chicken. (03:31):
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Speaker: The crowd laughs and we walk (03:35):
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Speaker: away convinced only fools fall (03:37):
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Speaker: for it. (03:40):
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Speaker: That reaction helps us protect (03:41):
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Speaker: the idea that our thoughts are (03:43):
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Speaker: our own. (03:47):
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Speaker: The truth is more unsettling. (03:49):
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Speaker: Brown's work shows that the mind is full of openings. (03:52):
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Speaker: It can be entered, shaped and (03:58):
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Speaker: guided by anyone who knows the (04:01):
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Speaker: entry points. (04:03):
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Speaker: Consider his famous experiment with actor Simon Pegg. (04:05):
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Speaker: Pegg privately wrote down the gift he most wanted for his (04:10):
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Speaker: birthday, sealed the note and handed it over. (04:15):
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Speaker: His choice was a leather jacket. (04:19):
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Speaker: Twenty minutes later, after what looked like casual small talk, (04:23):
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Speaker: Pegg announced that his true wish was for a red BMX bicycle. (04:29):
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Speaker: And that was the exact answer Brown wanted. (04:37):
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Speaker: The jacket was forgotten. (04:42):
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Speaker: Now that conversation was anything but casual. (04:45):
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Speaker: Brown had planted words related (04:49):
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Speaker: to cycling into their discussion (04:52):
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Speaker: while repeatedly anchoring those (04:55):
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Speaker: ideas with a touch on the same (04:57):
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Speaker: spot. (05:00):
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Speaker: Pegs unconscious mind linked the (05:01):
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Speaker: touch with the idea of a (05:05):
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Speaker: bicycle. (05:08):
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Speaker: And Brown eventually convinced (05:09):
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Speaker: him that the thought was his (05:11):
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Speaker: own. (05:14):
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Speaker: When people dismiss this as a (05:15):
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Speaker: trick or accused a participant (05:17):
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Speaker: of acting, they miss the real (05:19):
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Speaker: lesson. (05:22):
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Speaker: These are the same tools that advertisers, politicians, (05:23):
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Speaker: preachers and media outlets use every day on all of us. (05:29):
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Speaker: Brown is simply honest about what he is doing. (05:35):
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Speaker: Most manipulation happens quietly. (05:39):
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Speaker: Part two the neuro linguistic weapon. (05:44):
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Speaker: To understand how this works. (05:50):
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Speaker: We need to look at (05:53):
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Speaker: Neurolinguistic programming or (05:55):
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Speaker: in. (05:58):
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Speaker: Richard Bandler and John Grinder (06:01):
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Speaker: created in the nineteen (06:04):
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Speaker: seventies after studying three (06:06):
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Speaker: remarkable therapists Fritz (06:08):
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Speaker: Perls, Virginia Satir, and (06:11):
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Speaker: Milton Erickson. (06:14):
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Speaker: Now these three therapists could dissolve trauma, cure phobias, (06:16):
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Speaker: and free people from addictions in a single session. (06:22):
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Speaker: Bandler and grinder wanted to know how. (06:27):
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Speaker: So they studied the exact words, (06:31):
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Speaker: gestures and timing the (06:34):
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Speaker: therapist used. (06:37):
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Speaker: What they discovered was a repeatable system. (06:39):
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Speaker: Human consciousness follows patterns. (06:43):
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Speaker: Once you understand the (06:47):
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Speaker: patterns, you can influence the (06:48):
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Speaker: outcome. (06:52):
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Speaker: Practitioners of NLP learn how (06:54):
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Speaker: to read subtle cues, like how (06:57):
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Speaker: eye movements reveal whether a (07:00):
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Speaker: person is remembering or (07:03):
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Speaker: imagining. (07:05):
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Speaker: Changes in breathing and posture reveal shifts in mental state. (07:07):
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Speaker: By mirroring those patterns, the practitioner creates rapport, (07:13):
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Speaker: then slowly leads the person toward a new state of mind. (07:18):
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Speaker: Language becomes the most powerful tool. (07:25):
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Speaker: Certain phrases slip past (07:28):
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Speaker: conscious thought and reach the (07:30):
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Speaker: unconscious directly. (07:33):
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Speaker: Others confused the mind long enough to lower its guard. (07:35):
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Speaker: Emotional triggers can be set in place and activated later with a (07:41):
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Speaker: single word or gesture. (07:46):
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Speaker: These methods have been tested thousands of times. (07:49):
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Speaker: They do not require belief. (07:55):
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Speaker: They work whether or not the (07:57):
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Speaker: subject notices what is (08:00):
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Speaker: happening. (08:01):
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Speaker: So as you can imagine, Derren (08:03):
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Speaker: Brown is controversial even (08:05):
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Speaker: among skeptics. (08:07):
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Speaker: He spends his career exposing fraudulent psychics. (08:09):
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Speaker: Yet he also demonstrates that (08:13):
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Speaker: suggestion can create (08:16):
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Speaker: experiences so powerful they (08:18):
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Speaker: feel supernatural. (08:22):
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Speaker: And that brings us back to Charlie and Rachael. (08:25):
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Speaker: Now, if Brown can rewrite an atheist faith and an evening and (08:29):
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Speaker: convince Simon Pegg to forget his own birthday wish, imagine (08:35):
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Speaker: what algorithms, armed with billions of data points about (08:41):
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Speaker: us, are able to do. (08:47):
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Speaker: Part three The Architecture of conversion. (08:52):
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Speaker: Let's break down exactly how (08:59):
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Speaker: Derren Brown managed to guide (09:01):
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Speaker: Natalie from firm atheist to (09:03):
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Speaker: trembling believer. (09:07):
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Speaker: Because the techniques revealed (09:09):
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Speaker: the deeper structure behind all (09:10):
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Speaker: ideological conversion. (09:13):
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Speaker: The dramatic moment in the church was only the finale. (09:16):
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Speaker: The real work had been unfolding quietly for weeks, through (09:21):
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Speaker: preparation so subtle that Natalie never once recognised (09:25):
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Speaker: she was being guided. (09:31):
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Speaker: Brown began with something (09:34):
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Speaker: psychologists call environmental (09:36):
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Speaker: priming. (09:38):
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Speaker: He didn't drag Natalie into (09:40):
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Speaker: sermons or confront her with (09:42):
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Speaker: Bible verses. (09:44):
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Speaker: Instead, he slipped sacred (09:45):
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Speaker: imagery into everyday (09:48):
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Speaker: experiences where it seemed (09:50):
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Speaker: harmless. (09:52):
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Speaker: A classical music concert that (09:54):
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Speaker: just happened to be sacred (09:56):
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Speaker: choral work. (09:59):
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Speaker: A gallery tour filled with (10:01):
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Speaker: Renaissance paintings of angels (10:03):
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Speaker: and saints presented as mere art (10:05):
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Speaker: history. (10:09):
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Speaker: Casual conversations about the comfort people find and (10:10):
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Speaker: traditions and rituals. (10:15):
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Speaker: Nothing about this felt like religion being pushed. (10:18):
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Speaker: It was presented as culture, art and casual observation. (10:23):
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Speaker: Yet Natalie's brain was busy stitching connections in the (10:29):
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Speaker: background, linking these images with positive emotions. (10:35):
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Speaker: Pathways were forming without her awareness. (10:41):
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Speaker: Airness. (10:46):
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Speaker: Once her mind was softened by (10:47):
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Speaker: this gentle exposure, Brown (10:49):
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Speaker: moved into emotional (10:52):
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Speaker: preparation. (10:53):
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Speaker: He used conversations that (10:55):
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Speaker: seemed casual, but every word (10:57):
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Speaker: had direction. (11:00):
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Speaker: He asked about childhood memories, regrets, and her (11:02):
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Speaker: hunger for deeper meaning. (11:07):
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Speaker: Slowly, he led her into feelings (11:10):
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Speaker: that often accompany religious (11:13):
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Speaker: awakening, sorrow for past (11:15):
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Speaker: mistakes, the ache for (11:18):
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Speaker: forgiveness, the longing to (11:21):
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Speaker: belong to something larger than (11:23):
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Speaker: herself. (11:25):
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Speaker: Every time Natalie expressed (11:27):
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Speaker: those emotions, Brown reinforced (11:29):
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Speaker: them his tone of voice, his (11:32):
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Speaker: posture, even a simple look of (11:35):
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Speaker: empathy. (11:38):
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Speaker: All of it worked to deepen her experience. (11:39):
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Speaker: And it is here where he layered (11:43):
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Speaker: in his most important tool (11:46):
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Speaker: anchoring. (11:48):
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Speaker: Each time Natalie voiced (11:51):
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Speaker: spiritual yearning, he paired it (11:53):
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Speaker: with a specific sensory cue (11:55):
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Speaker: maybe a gentle touch on the (11:58):
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Speaker: shoulder, maybe a shift in vocal (12:00):
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Speaker: tone. (12:03):
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Speaker: Her unconscious mind began to (12:05):
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Speaker: tie these emotions to those (12:07):
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Speaker: cues. (12:09):
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Speaker: He was laying down psychological (12:10):
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Speaker: tripwires he could trigger (12:13):
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Speaker: later. (12:16):
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Speaker: By the time Brown brought her (12:18):
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Speaker: into the church, the stage was (12:19):
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Speaker: set. (12:22):
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Speaker: The environment did half the work for him. (12:24):
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Speaker: Candlelight quiets the nervous (12:27):
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Speaker: system and nudges the brain (12:30):
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Speaker: toward trance. (12:32):
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Speaker: Centuries of religious history (12:34):
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Speaker: in the stone walls create what (12:36):
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Speaker: psychologists call environmental (12:38):
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Speaker: demand characteristics. (12:41):
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Speaker: Simply being there carries the unconscious expectation that one (12:43):
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Speaker: should feel reverence. (12:49):
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Speaker: All Brown had to do was activate the anchors. (12:51):
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Speaker: He had planted a touch on the (12:55):
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Speaker: shoulder, a certain tone of (12:58):
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Speaker: voice. (13:00):
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Speaker: The cues awakened the emotions. (13:01):
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Speaker: Natalie had rehearsed again and again, surrounded by sacred (13:03):
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Speaker: imagery and history. (13:10):
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Speaker: Her body and mind surrendered to the moment. (13:11):
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Speaker: What followed was powerful and sincere. (13:16):
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Speaker: Natalie collapsed into tears, whispered apologies to God, and (13:21):
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Speaker: declared her love with the full weight of belief. (13:29):
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Speaker: She was not faking. (13:34):
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Speaker: She was feeling every single word. (13:37):
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Speaker: The tragedy is that those feelings had been engineered. (13:42):
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Speaker: They were the result of (13:47):
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Speaker: calculated psychological (13:49):
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Speaker: manipulation. (13:52):
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Speaker: To Natalie, it was divine (13:54):
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Speaker: revelation, but in truth, it was (13:57):
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Speaker: conditioning, rehearsed step by (14:00):
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Speaker: step until the final moment felt (14:04):
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Speaker: inevitable. (14:07):
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Speaker: Part four the Twins transformation revealed. (14:10):
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Speaker: Now we can see Charlie and Rachel Patterson's story with a (14:18):
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Speaker: bit of sharper clarity. (14:24):
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Speaker: What happened to them was not (14:26):
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Speaker: just about being fed different (14:28):
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Speaker: news articles or social media (14:30):
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Speaker: posts. (14:33):
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Speaker: The algorithms guiding their (14:34):
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Speaker: feeds were quietly deploying the (14:36):
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Speaker: same psychological techniques (14:39):
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Speaker: Derren Brown uses in his (14:42):
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Speaker: experiments. (14:44):
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Speaker: Only this time the manipulation (14:45):
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Speaker: was automated and applied at (14:48):
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Speaker: scale to millions of people at (14:51):
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Speaker: once. (14:54):
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Speaker: Charlie's gradual drift into conservatism followed a textbook (14:56):
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Speaker: path of ideological programming. (15:02):
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Speaker: The first step was environmental priming. (15:05):
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Speaker: Algorithms increased his (15:09):
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Speaker: exposure to conservative (15:10):
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Speaker: language and ideas, slipping (15:12):
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Speaker: them into places that felt (15:15):
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Speaker: harmless. (15:17):
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Speaker: An unrelated to politics. (15:19):
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Speaker: A farming video that casually (15:22):
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Speaker: mentioned government (15:24):
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Speaker: regulations. (15:26):
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Speaker: A local news story where (15:28):
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Speaker: conservative voices framed the (15:29):
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Speaker: debate. (15:31):
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Speaker: Posts from friends repeating (15:33):
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Speaker: familiar conservative talking (15:35):
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Speaker: points. (15:38):
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Speaker: None of these, of course, raised alarms. (15:39):
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Speaker: It simply became background noise. (15:42):
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Speaker: And that background noise trained Charlie's brain to (15:45):
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Speaker: connect conservative ideas with feelings of comfort. (15:50):
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Speaker: Problem solving and belonging. (15:56):
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Speaker: The more he saw, the more natural it felt. (16:00):
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Speaker: Then came emotional preparation. (16:05):
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Speaker: The system learned what stirred him economic worries. (16:09):
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Speaker: Resentment over unfairness. (16:14):
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Speaker: Fear of cultural change. (16:17):
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Speaker: Longing for stability. (16:20):
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Speaker: Once those feelings surfaced, (16:24):
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Speaker: his feet answered with (16:26):
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Speaker: conservative explanations and (16:28):
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Speaker: solutions. (16:31):
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Speaker: Every flare of anxiety or (16:33):
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Speaker: confusion was met with a video (16:35):
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Speaker: or post promising clarity (16:38):
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Speaker: through conservative frames, his (16:41):
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Speaker: unconscious mind built the (16:44):
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Speaker: association step by step, (16:46):
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Speaker: linking conservative ideology (16:50):
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Speaker: with relief. (16:53):
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Speaker: Rachel experienced the same (16:56):
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Speaker: process, only mirrored in the (16:58):
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Speaker: opposite direction. (17:01):
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Speaker: Her frustrations were tethered to villains on the conservative (17:03):
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Speaker: side, her values were reinforced through progressive activism and (17:07):
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Speaker: liberal narratives that offered meaning and purpose. (17:12):
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Speaker: Her emotions were guided to (17:17):
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Speaker: reach for comfort through (17:19):
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Speaker: liberal solutions. (17:21):
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Speaker: Both twins were walking through (17:23):
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Speaker: parallel versions of the same (17:26):
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Speaker: psychological maze. (17:29):
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Speaker: Environmental priming. (17:32):
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Speaker: Emotional preparation. (17:34):
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Speaker: Anchoring techniques identical to those used in religious (17:37):
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Speaker: conversion, cult recruitment and even therapeutic intervention. (17:42):
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Speaker: The crucial twist was that this (17:50):
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Speaker: time there was no individual (17:52):
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Speaker: guide. (17:55):
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Speaker: The orchestrator was an (17:57):
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Speaker: algorithm, learning their (17:59):
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Speaker: weaknesses and feeding them (18:01):
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Speaker: content designed to reshape (18:03):
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Speaker: their beliefs. (18:06):
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Speaker: That is why their (18:08):
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Speaker: transformations felt so (18:10):
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Speaker: authentic. (18:12):
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Speaker: Just like Natalie's moment in (18:14):
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Speaker: the church, Charlie and Rachel's (18:17):
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Speaker: political conversions were real (18:20):
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Speaker: to them. (18:23):
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Speaker: They weren't acting. (18:25):
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Speaker: Their new convictions felt (18:27):
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Speaker: self-directed, yet those (18:29):
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Speaker: convictions were cultivated (18:31):
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Speaker: through carefully fully (18:34):
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Speaker: designed. (18:35):
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Speaker: Environmental conditioning. (18:36):
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Speaker: Part five the hypnosis. (18:39):
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Speaker: You don't recognize. (18:43):
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Speaker: The most important insight we can pull from Derren Brown's (18:47):
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Speaker: work is that hypnosis is nothing like the cliche image. (18:52):
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Speaker: We've been sold. (18:58):
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Speaker: Pop culture has trained us to (19:01):
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Speaker: picture hypnosis as someone (19:03):
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Speaker: swinging a pocket watch in front (19:05):
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Speaker: of your face, or cartoon spirals (19:08):
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Speaker: spinning in your eyes while a (19:11):
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Speaker: magician orders you to fall (19:14):
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Speaker: asleep. (19:16):
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Speaker: Those theatrics can be one version of hypnosis, but they (19:17):
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Speaker: are not the essence of it. (19:23):
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Speaker: Real hypnosis is simply focused (19:26):
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Speaker: attention paired with heightened (19:29):
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Speaker: suggestibility. (19:31):
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Speaker: Sometimes this is done through a (19:33):
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Speaker: formal induction, but it also (19:35):
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Speaker: happens naturally in everyday (19:38):
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Speaker: life. (19:41):
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Speaker: Think about reading a novel so intensely you forget the world (19:42):
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Speaker: around you, or driving a familiar route and realizing you (19:47):
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Speaker: can't remember the last five minutes on the road. (19:54):
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Speaker: Even listening to music or (19:59):
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Speaker: getting pulled into a TV show (20:01):
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Speaker: can slip the mind into this (20:03):
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Speaker: state. (20:06):
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Speaker: Critical thinking fades into the background and the brain becomes (20:07):
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Speaker: more open to suggestion. (20:13):
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Speaker: Modern media is built to keep (20:16):
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Speaker: people in this condition as much (20:18):
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Speaker: as possible. (20:21):
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Speaker: Infinite scroll holds attention (20:22):
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Speaker: long past the moment you meant (20:24):
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Speaker: to stop. (20:26):
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Speaker: Autoplay keeps feeding you (20:27):
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Speaker: videos without asking for a (20:29):
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Speaker: decision. (20:31):
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Speaker: Personalized feeds wrap you in (20:32):
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Speaker: content that matches your (20:34):
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Speaker: worldview so tightly that it (20:36):
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Speaker: feels natural, like you are (20:39):
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Speaker: discovering truth rather than (20:42):
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Speaker: being guided. (20:44):
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Speaker: Researchers call these flow states, and in a flow state, the (20:46):
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Speaker: mind is focused. (20:52):
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Speaker: Self-awareness fades, and outside distractions blur away. (20:55):
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Speaker: Flow can be great for creativity (21:01):
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Speaker: and learning, but it also leaves (21:04):
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Speaker: the door wide open for (21:07):
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Speaker: influence. (21:09):
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Speaker: When you consume content in this (21:11):
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Speaker: state, your brain stops picking (21:14):
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Speaker: apart arguments or questioning (21:16):
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Speaker: the source. (21:19):
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Speaker: Information slides in unchallenged and often gets (21:20):
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Speaker: stored as accepted truth. (21:25):
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Speaker: That is why a post on social media can feel more persuasive (21:28):
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Speaker: than the same point made in a lecture or a newspaper. (21:34):
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Speaker: The platform has engineered your (21:39):
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Speaker: mental state, so that suggestion (21:41):
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Speaker: sticks. (21:44):
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Speaker: Charlie and Rachel's radicalization unfolded inside (21:46):
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Speaker: these trance like states. (21:50):
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Speaker: They weren't sitting down, weighing evidence and deciding (21:53):
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Speaker: to shift their beliefs. (21:57):
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Speaker: They were scrolling, streaming, (22:00):
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Speaker: and absorbing in moments where (22:02):
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Speaker: conscious choice had stepped (22:04):
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Speaker: aside. (22:08):
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Speaker: Part six The Memory Thieves. (22:11):
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Speaker: One of Derren Brown's most (22:16):
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Speaker: unsettling demonstrations is (22:18):
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Speaker: something he calls false memory (22:21):
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Speaker: implantation, the ability to (22:25):
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Speaker: convince someone they lived (22:28):
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Speaker: through events that never (22:30):
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Speaker: actually happened and carefully (22:33):
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Speaker: controlled experiments. (22:36):
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Speaker: Brown has led people to believe they witnessed crimes they never (22:38):
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Speaker: saw, met people they never encountered, and held, beliefs (22:42):
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Speaker: they had never expressed. (22:48):
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Speaker: The techniques echoed those used for centuries by interrogators, (22:50):
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Speaker: therapists, and religious leaders who understood, (22:55):
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Speaker: consciously or not, that memory can be rewritten. (23:00):
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Speaker: Human memory is not a hard drive. (23:07):
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Speaker: We do not replay experiences like a video file. (23:10):
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Speaker: What we store are fragments, (23:15):
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Speaker: impressions, feelings, sensory (23:17):
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Speaker: flashes that get stitched back (23:21):
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Speaker: together every time we recall (23:23):
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Speaker: them. (23:25):
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Speaker: And the act of remembering is fragile. (23:26):
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Speaker: It can be bent by suggestion. (23:30):
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Speaker: Altered by someone else's confidence. (23:33):
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Speaker: Or reshaped by the environment in which the memory is recalled. (23:37):
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Speaker: By sprinkling in precise details (23:42):
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Speaker: about an event that never (23:45):
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Speaker: occurred. (23:47):
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Speaker: A skilled manipulator can steer the reconstruction process. (23:48):
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Speaker: The mind takes those details and weaves them into the story. (23:54):
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Speaker: Until the invented memory feels (23:59):
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Speaker: as real as anything that (24:02):
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Speaker: actually happened. (24:04):
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Speaker: People will defend it with absolute conviction because to (24:06):
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Speaker: them it is real. (24:11):
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Speaker: This is exactly what happened (24:14):
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Speaker: with Charlie and Rachel (24:16):
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Speaker: Patterson. (24:17):
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Speaker: Once the algorithms pushed them down separate political paths, (24:19):
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Speaker: they began to reconstruct their shared past in ways that (24:23):
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Speaker: confirmed their new beliefs. (24:28):
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Speaker: Charlie became convinced that (24:31):
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Speaker: Rachel had always been (24:33):
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Speaker: vulnerable to liberal (24:36):
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Speaker: propaganda, even though she had (24:37):
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Speaker: barely cared about politics (24:40):
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Speaker: growing up. (24:42):
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Speaker: Rachel grew certain that Charlie (24:43):
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Speaker: had been voicing conservative (24:46):
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Speaker: views for years, despite the (24:48):
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Speaker: fact he had never said those (24:51):
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Speaker: things. (24:53):
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Speaker: These weren't lies in the mind. (24:54):
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Speaker: These were memories, vivid and (24:57):
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Speaker: certain, built from suggestion (25:00):
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Speaker: and repetition. (25:03):
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Speaker: The algorithms had reached back (25:05):
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Speaker: into their past and rewritten (25:07):
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Speaker: it. (25:10):
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Speaker: What had once been a shared (25:11):
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Speaker: history between siblings was now (25:13):
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Speaker: two completely different (25:16):
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Speaker: storylines, each supporting the (25:19):
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Speaker: worldview the system had (25:23):
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Speaker: assigned them. (25:26):
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Speaker: Part seven the industrial scale of mind control. (25:29):
undefined
Speaker: When you understand how psychological manipulation works (25:38):
undefined
Speaker: on one person, the bigger picture comes into focus. (25:43):
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Speaker: Every single technique Derren Brown demonstrates in a small, (25:48):
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Speaker: controlled setting is being used every day on a massive scale. (25:52):
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Speaker: Political campaigns lean on (25:58):
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Speaker: emotional anchoring to fuse (26:01):
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Speaker: positive feelings with their (26:04):
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Speaker: candidates faces. (26:06):
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Speaker: Religious groups lean on (26:08):
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Speaker: environmental priming and social (26:11):
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Speaker: pressure to manufacture (26:13):
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Speaker: conversion experiences. (26:15):
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Speaker: Corporations pour billions into advertising that slips past (26:18):
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Speaker: rational defenses and speak straight to unconscious desire. (26:22):
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Speaker: The difference is scale. (26:29):
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Speaker: Brown can steer one person at a (26:32):
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Speaker: time with carefully chosen words (26:34):
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Speaker: and gestures. (26:37):
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Speaker: Institutions backed by (26:38):
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Speaker: technology can reach millions at (26:40):
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Speaker: once. (26:43):
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Speaker: Artificial intelligence fine tunes the process in real time, (26:44):
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Speaker: learning what works best for each individual and delivering (26:50):
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Speaker: it with precision. (26:55):
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Speaker: Social media platforms have (26:57):
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Speaker: evolved into what researchers (27:00):
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Speaker: bluntly call behavioral (27:02):
undefined
Speaker: modification engines. (27:05):
undefined
Speaker: And these engines are not neutral communication tools. (27:08):
undefined
Speaker: They are systems explicitly (27:13):
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Speaker: designed to alter human (27:16):
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Speaker: behavior. (27:19):
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Speaker: Behind the curtain are teams of neuroscientist, behavioral (27:21):
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Speaker: economist and data scientist, mapping out the soft spots and (27:26):
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Speaker: human psychology and building features to exploit them. (27:31):
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Speaker: The platforms often know more about people than those people (27:37):
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Speaker: know about themselves. (27:41):
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Speaker: For instance, shopping habits can reveal political leanings. (27:44):
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Speaker: Search histories can expose emotional wounds. (27:49):
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Speaker: Even the structure of your friend network can allow (27:54):
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Speaker: algorithms to predict when your views might shift. (27:57):
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Speaker: And prediction is only part of it. (28:03):
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Speaker: Something to remember is that (28:06):
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Speaker: these systems don't just (28:09):
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Speaker: forecast behavior, they actually (28:12):
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Speaker: intervene. (28:15):
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Speaker: Someone vulnerable to anxiety based messaging will be nudged (28:17):
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Speaker: toward content that heightens that anxiety, followed by (28:23):
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Speaker: targeted ads or political posts that promise relief. (28:27):
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Speaker: Someone showing signs of loneliness will see communities (28:33):
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Speaker: suggested to them, often tied to ideological movements or (28:36):
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Speaker: products that provide the feeling of belonging. (28:41):
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Speaker: The outcome is mass (28:46):
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Speaker: manipulation, packaged as (28:48):
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Speaker: personalization. (28:50):
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Speaker: People scroll through feeds, believing they are carving their (28:53):
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Speaker: own paths, when in reality their emotions, memories and desires (28:57):
undefined
Speaker: are being engineered. (29:03):
undefined
Speaker: It feels like self-discovery, but the experience has been (29:06):
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Speaker: designed for them. (29:11):
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Speaker: Part eight The Weaponization of Empathy. (29:16):
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Speaker: Perhaps the most disturbing (29:22):
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Speaker: feature of modern psychological (29:25):
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Speaker: manipulation is how it twists (29:27):
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Speaker: our best qualities into weapons (29:31):
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Speaker: against us. (29:34):
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Speaker: Take empathy, for example. (29:36):
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Speaker: The ability to feel someone else's suffering should be one (29:38):
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Speaker: of our strongest moral compasses, yet manipulators have (29:42):
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Speaker: figured out how to hijack it. (29:47):
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Speaker: They craft artificial emotional (29:50):
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Speaker: experiences that make us feel (29:53):
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Speaker: compelled to act, even when the (29:56):
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Speaker: stories are exaggerated or (29:59):
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Speaker: completely invented. (30:02):
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Speaker: Political fundraising emails (30:05):
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Speaker: lean on vivid, heart wrenching (30:07):
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Speaker: stories that may or may not be (30:10):
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Speaker: true. (30:12):
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Speaker: Pulling at compassion until a (30:13):
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Speaker: donation feels like the only (30:15):
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Speaker: option. (30:17):
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Speaker: Charities. (30:19):
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Speaker: Charity splash! (30:20):
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Speaker: Images of starving children or abused animals across screens, (30:20):
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Speaker: bypassing any rational evaluation of whether the (30:25):
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Speaker: organization is effective. (30:29):
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Speaker: Social movements right. (30:32):
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Speaker: Narratives of injustice that may simplify or distort reality. (30:34):
undefined
Speaker: But the emotional surge they (30:40):
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Speaker: spark is enough to cement (30:42):
undefined
Speaker: loyalty. (30:46):
undefined
Speaker: The reason this works is simple (30:48):
undefined
Speaker: human empathy evolved in small (30:51):
undefined
Speaker: tribal groups, where emotional (30:54):
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Speaker: displays usually reflected (30:56):
undefined
Speaker: genuine need. (30:59):
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Speaker: If someone in your circle cried, it meant something. (31:00):
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Speaker: Our brains are not wired to process mass scale emotional (31:05):
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Speaker: appeals delivered by professional storytellers, (31:10):
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Speaker: marketers, or algorithms designed for Or maximum impact. (31:14):
undefined
Speaker: This was exactly how the algorithmic manipulation of (31:21):
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Speaker: Charlie and Rachel unfolded. (31:26):
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Speaker: Charlie was shown stories of (31:30):
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Speaker: struggling rural families (31:32):
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Speaker: crushed by regulations, farmers (31:34):
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Speaker: going bankrupt under (31:37):
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Speaker: environmental policies, and (31:39):
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Speaker: towns abandoned by coastal (31:41):
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Speaker: elites. (31:44):
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Speaker: His real compassion was (31:46):
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Speaker: activated and then tied to (31:48):
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Speaker: conservative political (31:50):
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Speaker: solutions. (31:52):
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Speaker: Rachel's feed leaned on the same (31:53):
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Speaker: mechanics stories of minorities (31:56):
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Speaker: facing discrimination, women (31:59):
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Speaker: held back by structural (32:01):
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Speaker: oppression, and vulnerable (32:03):
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Speaker: groups threatened by (32:05):
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Speaker: conservative power pulled at her (32:06):
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Speaker: empathy and anchored it to (32:09):
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Speaker: progressive activism. (32:11):
undefined
Speaker: Both twins were guided by their (32:14):
undefined
Speaker: highest intentions, the impulse (32:17):
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Speaker: to help and to fight for (32:20):
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Speaker: justice. (32:22):
undefined
Speaker: The tragedy is that the (32:23):
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Speaker: algorithms had learned how to (32:25):
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Speaker: trigger those impulses on (32:28):
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Speaker: command, redirecting genuine (32:30):
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Speaker: compassion into manufactured (32:32):
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Speaker: conflicts that served outside (32:35):
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Speaker: interest. (32:39):
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Speaker: Part nine The Reality hackers. (32:41):
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Speaker: The true aim of psychological (32:47):
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Speaker: manipulation goes beyond nudging (32:49):
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Speaker: people toward certain beliefs or (32:52):
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Speaker: behaviors. (32:54):
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Speaker: The deeper goal is to reshape a (32:56):
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Speaker: person's relationship with (32:58):
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Speaker: reality itself. (33:00):
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Speaker: Beliefs and actions sit on the surface, but beneath them lie (33:03):
undefined
Speaker: the frameworks we use to decide what is real, which voices (33:08):
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Speaker: deserve trust, and what kind of evidence counts as proof? (33:13):
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Speaker: Master manipulators know that if (33:19):
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Speaker: they can tamper with those (33:23):
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Speaker: frameworks, they no longer need (33:24):
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Speaker: to argue about individual (33:27):
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Speaker: issues. (33:30):
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Speaker: Once reality testing itself is (33:31):
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Speaker: compromised, the target will (33:34):
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Speaker: keep generating false beliefs (33:37):
undefined
Speaker: and poor decisions on their own, (33:39):
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Speaker: with little need for outside (33:42):
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Speaker: guidance. (33:44):
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Speaker: This is what makes cult (33:46):
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Speaker: deprogramming so difficult, and (33:48):
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Speaker: political depolarization feel (33:51):
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Speaker: nearly impossible. (33:53):
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Speaker: The obstacle isn't a list of incorrect facts that can be (33:56):
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Speaker: fixed with better information. (34:01):
undefined
Speaker: The obstacle is the collapse of the mental systems that (34:04):
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Speaker: distinguish truth from lies. (34:09):
undefined
Speaker: That is what happened to Charlie and Rachel Patterson. (34:13):
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Speaker: Their divergence wasn't simply a (34:18):
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Speaker: matter of different political (34:21):
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Speaker: opinions. (34:23):
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Speaker: Each developed a new way of filtering reality. (34:24):
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Speaker: Charlie began trusting sources that confirmed conservative (34:29):
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Speaker: narratives while brushing off anything that contradicted them. (34:33):
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Speaker: Rachel came to trust liberal (34:38):
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Speaker: sources and rejected (34:40):
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Speaker: conservative voices as (34:42):
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Speaker: illegitimate. (34:44):
undefined
Speaker: Researchers described the state as epistemological closure when (34:45):
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Speaker: it takes hold. (34:51):
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Speaker: Contradictory evidence is not (34:53):
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Speaker: just disagreed with it is (34:55):
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Speaker: dismissed before it can even be (34:58):
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Speaker: considered. (35:01):
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Speaker: The mind protects its new framework automatically. (35:03):
undefined
Speaker: The algorithm's guiding the twins had achieved something far (35:08):
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Speaker: more More profound than a shift in political alignment. (35:12):
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Speaker: They had reconfigured the very (35:16):
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Speaker: systems that tell us what is (35:19):
undefined
Speaker: true. (35:21):
undefined
Speaker: Once those systems were altered, Charlie and Rachel became both (35:22):
undefined
Speaker: open to constant manipulation and resistant to correction. (35:27):
undefined
Speaker: They weren't just convinced of new ideas, they were living (35:33):
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Speaker: inside new realities. (35:37):
undefined
Speaker: Part ten The Hypnotic Society. (35:43):
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Speaker: As part two of our journey on algorithmic manipulation comes (35:49):
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Speaker: to a close. (35:53):
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Speaker: We have to sit with the uncomfortable possibility we may (35:55):
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Speaker: all be living inside a hypnotic society where everyday (36:01):
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Speaker: consciousness has been swapped for manufactured trance states. (36:05):
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Speaker: Think about the mental state (36:11):
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Speaker: required for ordinary social (36:13):
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Speaker: media use. (36:15):
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Speaker: I locked on the screen awareness of the room fading. (36:16):
undefined
Speaker: Critical thought. (36:21):
undefined
Speaker: Softening. (36:22):
undefined
Speaker: Emotions. (36:23):
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Speaker: Rising faster than reason. (36:24):
undefined
Speaker: Time slipping away unnoticed. (36:26):
undefined
Speaker: These are the very conditions hypnotists cultivate when (36:30):
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Speaker: guiding clients into trance. (36:35):
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Speaker: Most of us spend hours in this (36:38):
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Speaker: state every single day, (36:40):
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Speaker: consuming content chosen by (36:42):
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Speaker: algorithms that care only about (36:45):
undefined
Speaker: keeping us engaged in these (36:47):
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Speaker: hours. (36:51):
undefined
Speaker: Choice weakens and suggestion grows stronger, and the (36:52):
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Speaker: information we take in while scrolling doesn't just pass (36:57):
undefined
Speaker: through us, it imprints itself. (37:02):
undefined
Speaker: It sculpts our political leanings, our shopping (37:05):
undefined
Speaker: decisions, Our expectations of love and friendship. (37:09):
undefined
Speaker: Even our sense of what life should look like. (37:15):
undefined
Speaker: It implants memories, spins up emotions and manufactures (37:20):
undefined
Speaker: desires that feel as real as anything we've lived. (37:25):
undefined
Speaker: At a certain point, the line between authentic and (37:30):
undefined
Speaker: manipulated consciousness blurs. (37:34):
undefined
Speaker: If our thoughts, feelings, and memories are constantly being (37:37):
undefined
Speaker: shaped by systems designed to steer behavior, what part of us (37:42):
undefined
Speaker: is truly our own? (37:49):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie and Rachel's story is not rare. (37:52):
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Speaker: It is common. (37:55):
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Speaker: They show us what happens when (37:56):
undefined
Speaker: techniques originally created (37:59):
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Speaker: for therapy or stage performance (38:01):
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Speaker: get scaled up into industrial (38:05):
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Speaker: operations tionS with entire (38:07):
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Speaker: populations placed inside (38:10):
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Speaker: behavioral modification (38:12):
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Speaker: platforms. (38:14):
undefined
Speaker: What happened to them is happening everywhere. (38:16):
undefined
Speaker: Their descent from loving siblings into ideological (38:20):
undefined
Speaker: adversaries is proof that we have built machines capable of (38:23):
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Speaker: rewriting human consciousness. (38:29):
undefined
Speaker: While most people remain unaware. (38:32):
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Speaker: In our next episode, we are going to turn to the tools of (38:36):
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Speaker: politics, advertising and media. (38:40):
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Speaker: We'll examine how language itself becomes weaponized, how (38:44):
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Speaker: emotions get hijacked in the service of power, and how (38:49):
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Speaker: societies can be programmed to believe things that benefit (38:54):
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Speaker: institutions rather than people. (38:58):
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Speaker: For now, ask yourself this as you scroll through, three feats, (39:02):
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Speaker: absorb opinions and make choices about who to trust. (39:08):
undefined
Speaker: How much of that feels like your own voice, and how much of it (39:14):
undefined
Speaker: has been scripted for you? (39:19):
undefined
Speaker: The mind hackers are not science fiction. (39:22):
undefined
Speaker: They exist. (39:25):
undefined
Speaker: Their techniques work, and they are probably shaping your (39:27):
undefined
Speaker: consciousness right now, even as you hear these words. (39:31):
undefined
Speaker: The real question is not whether you are being manipulated. (39:37):
undefined
Speaker: The real question is whether you (39:41):
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Speaker: will learn to spot the (39:44):
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Speaker: manipulation and build defenses (39:46):
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Speaker: against it, or whether you will (39:49):
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Speaker: remain a subject and someone (39:52):
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Speaker: else's experiment. (39:55):
undefined
undefined
Speaker: back the layers of technology, economics, data science, and (00:09):
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Speaker: even the human condition itself, all in an effort to try and (00:15):
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Speaker: understand this vast and often perplexing world we live in. (00:20):
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Speaker: I'm your host, Eric Barker, and (00:25):
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Speaker: tonight we're continuing our (00:28):
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Speaker: three part series on the (00:30):
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Speaker: attention wars by diving into (00:32):
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Speaker: something that will challenge (00:35):
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Speaker: how you think about your own (00:37):
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Speaker: mind. (00:40):
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Speaker: The dark art of psychological manipulation, and how reality (00:41):
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Speaker: itself can be rewritten without you ever knowing it happened. (00:46):
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Speaker: In our last episode, we watched (00:52):
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Speaker: Charlie and Rachel Patterson, (00:55):
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Speaker: twins who once seemed (00:57):
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Speaker: inseparable. (01:00):
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Speaker: Pulled apart until they became enemies. (01:02):
undefined
Speaker: The force that drove that (01:06):
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Speaker: transformation was algorithmic (01:07):
undefined
Speaker: manipulation. (01:11):
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Speaker: Tonight we are looking at the (01:13):
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Speaker: techniques that make such (01:15):
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Speaker: changes possible. (01:17):
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Speaker: To do that, we turn to Derren (01:20):
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Speaker: Brown, the British mentalist (01:23):
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Speaker: whose work shows just how (01:26):
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Speaker: vulnerable the human mind really (01:29):
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Speaker: is. (01:32):
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Speaker: Now, a quick word before we dive in. (01:34):
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Speaker: If you hold your faith close, (01:37):
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Speaker: this next story may feel (01:40):
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Speaker: uncomfortable. (01:42):
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Speaker: I say that as someone who is deeply religious myself. (01:44):
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Speaker: I am a practicing Buddhist. (01:47):
undefined
Speaker: My goal is not to dismiss spirituality. (01:50):
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Speaker: But what happened in this experiment is simply too (01:53):
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Speaker: important to ignore. (01:57):
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Speaker: So in twenty twelve, Darren Brown met Natalie, a committed (02:00):
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Speaker: atheist from London. (02:07):
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Speaker: Through conversation alone, without drugs or actors, he (02:09):
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Speaker: guided her into what she described as a religious (02:16):
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Speaker: conversion in a quiet church, lit only by candles and colored (02:19):
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Speaker: by stained glass. (02:26):
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Speaker: She began to cry. (02:28):
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Speaker: I asked God for forgiveness and declared her love for Jesus. (02:31):
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Speaker: The strange part is that Brown himself does not believe in God. (02:38):
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Speaker: He actually created the (02:46):
undefined
Speaker: experiment to prove that what (02:48):
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Speaker: many people experience as divine (02:50):
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Speaker: can be reproduced through (02:54):
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Speaker: Psychology. (02:56):
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Speaker: That fact alone raises a terrifying question if a short (02:58):
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Speaker: conversation can alter someone's most deeply held beliefs, what (03:03):
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Speaker: else about us can be rewritten? (03:10):
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Speaker: Part one the impossible made routine. (03:16):
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Speaker: Many people think hypnosis is (03:24):
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Speaker: nothing more than silly stage (03:27):
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Speaker: tricks. (03:29):
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Speaker: Someone on stage flaps their arms like a chicken. (03:31):
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Speaker: The crowd laughs and we walk (03:35):
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Speaker: away convinced only fools fall (03:37):
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Speaker: for it. (03:40):
undefined
Speaker: That reaction helps us protect (03:41):
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Speaker: the idea that our thoughts are (03:43):
undefined
Speaker: our own. (03:47):
undefined
Speaker: The truth is more unsettling. (03:49):
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Speaker: Brown's work shows that the mind is full of openings. (03:52):
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Speaker: It can be entered, shaped and (03:58):
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Speaker: guided by anyone who knows the (04:01):
undefined
Speaker: entry points. (04:03):
undefined
Speaker: Consider his famous experiment with actor Simon Pegg. (04:05):
undefined
Speaker: Pegg privately wrote down the gift he most wanted for his (04:10):
undefined
Speaker: birthday, sealed the note and handed it over. (04:15):
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Speaker: His choice was a leather jacket. (04:19):
undefined
Speaker: Twenty minutes later, after what looked like casual small talk, (04:23):
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Speaker: Pegg announced that his true wish was for a red BMX bicycle. (04:29):
undefined
Speaker: And that was the exact answer Brown wanted. (04:37):
undefined
Speaker: The jacket was forgotten. (04:42):
undefined
Speaker: Now that conversation was anything but casual. (04:45):
undefined
Speaker: Brown had planted words related (04:49):
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Speaker: to cycling into their discussion (04:52):
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Speaker: while repeatedly anchoring those (04:55):
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Speaker: ideas with a touch on the same (04:57):
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Speaker: spot. (05:00):
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Speaker: Pegs unconscious mind linked the (05:01):
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Speaker: touch with the idea of a (05:05):
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Speaker: bicycle. (05:08):
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Speaker: And Brown eventually convinced (05:09):
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Speaker: him that the thought was his (05:11):
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Speaker: own. (05:14):
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Speaker: When people dismiss this as a (05:15):
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Speaker: trick or accused a participant (05:17):
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Speaker: of acting, they miss the real (05:19):
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Speaker: lesson. (05:22):
undefined
Speaker: These are the same tools that advertisers, politicians, (05:23):
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Speaker: preachers and media outlets use every day on all of us. (05:29):
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Speaker: Brown is simply honest about what he is doing. (05:35):
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Speaker: Most manipulation happens quietly. (05:39):
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Speaker: Part two the neuro linguistic weapon. (05:44):
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Speaker: To understand how this works. (05:50):
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Speaker: We need to look at (05:53):
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Speaker: Neurolinguistic programming or (05:55):
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Speaker: in. (05:58):
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Speaker: Richard Bandler and John Grinder (06:01):
undefined
Speaker: created in the nineteen (06:04):
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Speaker: seventies after studying three (06:06):
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Speaker: remarkable therapists Fritz (06:08):
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Speaker: Perls, Virginia Satir, and (06:11):
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Speaker: Milton Erickson. (06:14):
undefined
Speaker: Now these three therapists could dissolve trauma, cure phobias, (06:16):
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Speaker: and free people from addictions in a single session. (06:22):
undefined
Speaker: Bandler and grinder wanted to know how. (06:27):
undefined
Speaker: So they studied the exact words, (06:31):
undefined
Speaker: gestures and timing the (06:34):
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Speaker: therapist used. (06:37):
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Speaker: What they discovered was a repeatable system. (06:39):
undefined
Speaker: Human consciousness follows patterns. (06:43):
undefined
Speaker: Once you understand the (06:47):
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Speaker: patterns, you can influence the (06:48):
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Speaker: outcome. (06:52):
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Speaker: Practitioners of NLP learn how (06:54):
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Speaker: to read subtle cues, like how (06:57):
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Speaker: eye movements reveal whether a (07:00):
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Speaker: person is remembering or (07:03):
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Speaker: imagining. (07:05):
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Speaker: Changes in breathing and posture reveal shifts in mental state. (07:07):
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Speaker: By mirroring those patterns, the practitioner creates rapport, (07:13):
undefined
Speaker: then slowly leads the person toward a new state of mind. (07:18):
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Speaker: Language becomes the most powerful tool. (07:25):
undefined
Speaker: Certain phrases slip past (07:28):
undefined
Speaker: conscious thought and reach the (07:30):
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Speaker: unconscious directly. (07:33):
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Speaker: Others confused the mind long enough to lower its guard. (07:35):
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Speaker: Emotional triggers can be set in place and activated later with a (07:41):
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Speaker: single word or gesture. (07:46):
undefined
Speaker: These methods have been tested thousands of times. (07:49):
undefined
Speaker: They do not require belief. (07:55):
undefined
Speaker: They work whether or not the (07:57):
undefined
Speaker: subject notices what is (08:00):
undefined
Speaker: happening. (08:01):
undefined
Speaker: So as you can imagine, Derren (08:03):
undefined
Speaker: Brown is controversial even (08:05):
undefined
Speaker: among skeptics. (08:07):
undefined
Speaker: He spends his career exposing fraudulent psychics. (08:09):
undefined
Speaker: Yet he also demonstrates that (08:13):
undefined
Speaker: suggestion can create (08:16):
undefined
Speaker: experiences so powerful they (08:18):
undefined
Speaker: feel supernatural. (08:22):
undefined
Speaker: And that brings us back to Charlie and Rachael. (08:25):
undefined
Speaker: Now, if Brown can rewrite an atheist faith and an evening and (08:29):
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Speaker: convince Simon Pegg to forget his own birthday wish, imagine (08:35):
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Speaker: what algorithms, armed with billions of data points about (08:41):
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Speaker: us, are able to do. (08:47):
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Speaker: Part three The Architecture of conversion. (08:52):
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Speaker: Let's break down exactly how (08:59):
undefined
Speaker: Derren Brown managed to guide (09:01):
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Speaker: Natalie from firm atheist to (09:03):
undefined
Speaker: trembling believer. (09:07):
undefined
Speaker: Because the techniques revealed (09:09):
undefined
Speaker: the deeper structure behind all (09:10):
undefined
Speaker: ideological conversion. (09:13):
undefined
Speaker: The dramatic moment in the church was only the finale. (09:16):
undefined
Speaker: The real work had been unfolding quietly for weeks, through (09:21):
undefined
Speaker: preparation so subtle that Natalie never once recognised (09:25):
undefined
Speaker: she was being guided. (09:31):
undefined
Speaker: Brown began with something (09:34):
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Speaker: psychologists call environmental (09:36):
undefined
Speaker: priming. (09:38):
undefined
Speaker: He didn't drag Natalie into (09:40):
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Speaker: sermons or confront her with (09:42):
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Speaker: Bible verses. (09:44):
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Speaker: Instead, he slipped sacred (09:45):
undefined
Speaker: imagery into everyday (09:48):
undefined
Speaker: experiences where it seemed (09:50):
undefined
Speaker: harmless. (09:52):
undefined
Speaker: A classical music concert that (09:54):
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Speaker: just happened to be sacred (09:56):
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Speaker: choral work. (09:59):
undefined
Speaker: A gallery tour filled with (10:01):
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Speaker: Renaissance paintings of angels (10:03):
undefined
Speaker: and saints presented as mere art (10:05):
undefined
Speaker: history. (10:09):
undefined
Speaker: Casual conversations about the comfort people find and (10:10):
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Speaker: traditions and rituals. (10:15):
undefined
Speaker: Nothing about this felt like religion being pushed. (10:18):
undefined
Speaker: It was presented as culture, art and casual observation. (10:23):
undefined
Speaker: Yet Natalie's brain was busy stitching connections in the (10:29):
undefined
Speaker: background, linking these images with positive emotions. (10:35):
undefined
Speaker: Pathways were forming without her awareness. (10:41):
undefined
Speaker: Airness. (10:46):
undefined
Speaker: Once her mind was softened by (10:47):
undefined
Speaker: this gentle exposure, Brown (10:49):
undefined
Speaker: moved into emotional (10:52):
undefined
Speaker: preparation. (10:53):
undefined
Speaker: He used conversations that (10:55):
undefined
Speaker: seemed casual, but every word (10:57):
undefined
Speaker: had direction. (11:00):
undefined
Speaker: He asked about childhood memories, regrets, and her (11:02):
undefined
Speaker: hunger for deeper meaning. (11:07):
undefined
Speaker: Slowly, he led her into feelings (11:10):
undefined
Speaker: that often accompany religious (11:13):
undefined
Speaker: awakening, sorrow for past (11:15):
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Speaker: mistakes, the ache for (11:18):
undefined
Speaker: forgiveness, the longing to (11:21):
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Speaker: belong to something larger than (11:23):
undefined
Speaker: herself. (11:25):
undefined
Speaker: Every time Natalie expressed (11:27):
undefined
Speaker: those emotions, Brown reinforced (11:29):
undefined
Speaker: them his tone of voice, his (11:32):
undefined
Speaker: posture, even a simple look of (11:35):
undefined
Speaker: empathy. (11:38):
undefined
Speaker: All of it worked to deepen her experience. (11:39):
undefined
Speaker: And it is here where he layered (11:43):
undefined
Speaker: in his most important tool (11:46):
undefined
Speaker: anchoring. (11:48):
undefined
Speaker: Each time Natalie voiced (11:51):
undefined
Speaker: spiritual yearning, he paired it (11:53):
undefined
Speaker: with a specific sensory cue (11:55):
undefined
Speaker: maybe a gentle touch on the (11:58):
undefined
Speaker: shoulder, maybe a shift in vocal (12:00):
undefined
Speaker: tone. (12:03):
undefined
Speaker: Her unconscious mind began to (12:05):
undefined
Speaker: tie these emotions to those (12:07):
undefined
Speaker: cues. (12:09):
undefined
Speaker: He was laying down psychological (12:10):
undefined
Speaker: tripwires he could trigger (12:13):
undefined
Speaker: later. (12:16):
undefined
Speaker: By the time Brown brought her (12:18):
undefined
Speaker: into the church, the stage was (12:19):
undefined
Speaker: set. (12:22):
undefined
Speaker: The environment did half the work for him. (12:24):
undefined
Speaker: Candlelight quiets the nervous (12:27):
undefined
Speaker: system and nudges the brain (12:30):
undefined
Speaker: toward trance. (12:32):
undefined
Speaker: Centuries of religious history (12:34):
undefined
Speaker: in the stone walls create what (12:36):
undefined
Speaker: psychologists call environmental (12:38):
undefined
Speaker: demand characteristics. (12:41):
undefined
Speaker: Simply being there carries the unconscious expectation that one (12:43):
undefined
Speaker: should feel reverence. (12:49):
undefined
Speaker: All Brown had to do was activate the anchors. (12:51):
undefined
Speaker: He had planted a touch on the (12:55):
undefined
Speaker: shoulder, a certain tone of (12:58):
undefined
Speaker: voice. (13:00):
undefined
Speaker: The cues awakened the emotions. (13:01):
undefined
Speaker: Natalie had rehearsed again and again, surrounded by sacred (13:03):
undefined
Speaker: imagery and history. (13:10):
undefined
Speaker: Her body and mind surrendered to the moment. (13:11):
undefined
Speaker: What followed was powerful and sincere. (13:16):
undefined
Speaker: Natalie collapsed into tears, whispered apologies to God, and (13:21):
undefined
Speaker: declared her love with the full weight of belief. (13:29):
undefined
Speaker: She was not faking. (13:34):
undefined
Speaker: She was feeling every single word. (13:37):
undefined
Speaker: The tragedy is that those feelings had been engineered. (13:42):
undefined
Speaker: They were the result of (13:47):
undefined
Speaker: calculated psychological (13:49):
undefined
Speaker: manipulation. (13:52):
undefined
Speaker: To Natalie, it was divine (13:54):
undefined
Speaker: revelation, but in truth, it was (13:57):
undefined
Speaker: conditioning, rehearsed step by (14:00):
undefined
Speaker: step until the final moment felt (14:04):
undefined
Speaker: inevitable. (14:07):
undefined
Speaker: Part four the Twins transformation revealed. (14:10):
undefined
Speaker: Now we can see Charlie and Rachel Patterson's story with a (14:18):
undefined
Speaker: bit of sharper clarity. (14:24):
undefined
Speaker: What happened to them was not (14:26):
undefined
Speaker: just about being fed different (14:28):
undefined
Speaker: news articles or social media (14:30):
undefined
Speaker: posts. (14:33):
undefined
Speaker: The algorithms guiding their (14:34):
undefined
Speaker: feeds were quietly deploying the (14:36):
undefined
Speaker: same psychological techniques (14:39):
undefined
Speaker: Derren Brown uses in his (14:42):
undefined
Speaker: experiments. (14:44):
undefined
Speaker: Only this time the manipulation (14:45):
undefined
Speaker: was automated and applied at (14:48):
undefined
Speaker: scale to millions of people at (14:51):
undefined
Speaker: once. (14:54):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie's gradual drift into conservatism followed a textbook (14:56):
undefined
Speaker: path of ideological programming. (15:02):
undefined
Speaker: The first step was environmental priming. (15:05):
undefined
Speaker: Algorithms increased his (15:09):
undefined
Speaker: exposure to conservative (15:10):
undefined
Speaker: language and ideas, slipping (15:12):
undefined
Speaker: them into places that felt (15:15):
undefined
Speaker: harmless. (15:17):
undefined
Speaker: An unrelated to politics. (15:19):
undefined
Speaker: A farming video that casually (15:22):
undefined
Speaker: mentioned government (15:24):
undefined
Speaker: regulations. (15:26):
undefined
Speaker: A local news story where (15:28):
undefined
Speaker: conservative voices framed the (15:29):
undefined
Speaker: debate. (15:31):
undefined
Speaker: Posts from friends repeating (15:33):
undefined
Speaker: familiar conservative talking (15:35):
undefined
Speaker: points. (15:38):
undefined
Speaker: None of these, of course, raised alarms. (15:39):
undefined
Speaker: It simply became background noise. (15:42):
undefined
Speaker: And that background noise trained Charlie's brain to (15:45):
undefined
Speaker: connect conservative ideas with feelings of comfort. (15:50):
undefined
Speaker: Problem solving and belonging. (15:56):
undefined
Speaker: The more he saw, the more natural it felt. (16:00):
undefined
Speaker: Then came emotional preparation. (16:05):
undefined
Speaker: The system learned what stirred him economic worries. (16:09):
undefined
Speaker: Resentment over unfairness. (16:14):
undefined
Speaker: Fear of cultural change. (16:17):
undefined
Speaker: Longing for stability. (16:20):
undefined
Speaker: Once those feelings surfaced, (16:24):
undefined
Speaker: his feet answered with (16:26):
undefined
Speaker: conservative explanations and (16:28):
undefined
Speaker: solutions. (16:31):
undefined
Speaker: Every flare of anxiety or (16:33):
undefined
Speaker: confusion was met with a video (16:35):
undefined
Speaker: or post promising clarity (16:38):
undefined
Speaker: through conservative frames, his (16:41):
undefined
Speaker: unconscious mind built the (16:44):
undefined
Speaker: association step by step, (16:46):
undefined
Speaker: linking conservative ideology (16:50):
undefined
Speaker: with relief. (16:53):
undefined
Speaker: Rachel experienced the same (16:56):
undefined
Speaker: process, only mirrored in the (16:58):
undefined
Speaker: opposite direction. (17:01):
undefined
Speaker: Her frustrations were tethered to villains on the conservative (17:03):
undefined
Speaker: side, her values were reinforced through progressive activism and (17:07):
undefined
Speaker: liberal narratives that offered meaning and purpose. (17:12):
undefined
Speaker: Her emotions were guided to (17:17):
undefined
Speaker: reach for comfort through (17:19):
undefined
Speaker: liberal solutions. (17:21):
undefined
Speaker: Both twins were walking through (17:23):
undefined
Speaker: parallel versions of the same (17:26):
undefined
Speaker: psychological maze. (17:29):
undefined
Speaker: Environmental priming. (17:32):
undefined
Speaker: Emotional preparation. (17:34):
undefined
Speaker: Anchoring techniques identical to those used in religious (17:37):
undefined
Speaker: conversion, cult recruitment and even therapeutic intervention. (17:42):
undefined
Speaker: The crucial twist was that this (17:50):
undefined
Speaker: time there was no individual (17:52):
undefined
Speaker: guide. (17:55):
undefined
Speaker: The orchestrator was an (17:57):
undefined
Speaker: algorithm, learning their (17:59):
undefined
Speaker: weaknesses and feeding them (18:01):
undefined
Speaker: content designed to reshape (18:03):
undefined
Speaker: their beliefs. (18:06):
undefined
Speaker: That is why their (18:08):
undefined
Speaker: transformations felt so (18:10):
undefined
Speaker: authentic. (18:12):
undefined
Speaker: Just like Natalie's moment in (18:14):
undefined
Speaker: the church, Charlie and Rachel's (18:17):
undefined
Speaker: political conversions were real (18:20):
undefined
Speaker: to them. (18:23):
undefined
Speaker: They weren't acting. (18:25):
undefined
Speaker: Their new convictions felt (18:27):
undefined
Speaker: self-directed, yet those (18:29):
undefined
Speaker: convictions were cultivated (18:31):
undefined
Speaker: through carefully fully (18:34):
undefined
Speaker: designed. (18:35):
undefined
Speaker: Environmental conditioning. (18:36):
undefined
Speaker: Part five the hypnosis. (18:39):
undefined
Speaker: You don't recognize. (18:43):
undefined
Speaker: The most important insight we can pull from Derren Brown's (18:47):
undefined
Speaker: work is that hypnosis is nothing like the cliche image. (18:52):
undefined
Speaker: We've been sold. (18:58):
undefined
Speaker: Pop culture has trained us to (19:01):
undefined
Speaker: picture hypnosis as someone (19:03):
undefined
Speaker: swinging a pocket watch in front (19:05):
undefined
Speaker: of your face, or cartoon spirals (19:08):
undefined
Speaker: spinning in your eyes while a (19:11):
undefined
Speaker: magician orders you to fall (19:14):
undefined
Speaker: asleep. (19:16):
undefined
Speaker: Those theatrics can be one version of hypnosis, but they (19:17):
undefined
Speaker: are not the essence of it. (19:23):
undefined
Speaker: Real hypnosis is simply focused (19:26):
undefined
Speaker: attention paired with heightened (19:29):
undefined
Speaker: suggestibility. (19:31):
undefined
Speaker: Sometimes this is done through a (19:33):
undefined
Speaker: formal induction, but it also (19:35):
undefined
Speaker: happens naturally in everyday (19:38):
undefined
Speaker: life. (19:41):
undefined
Speaker: Think about reading a novel so intensely you forget the world (19:42):
undefined
Speaker: around you, or driving a familiar route and realizing you (19:47):
undefined
Speaker: can't remember the last five minutes on the road. (19:54):
undefined
Speaker: Even listening to music or (19:59):
undefined
Speaker: getting pulled into a TV show (20:01):
undefined
Speaker: can slip the mind into this (20:03):
undefined
Speaker: state. (20:06):
undefined
Speaker: Critical thinking fades into the background and the brain becomes (20:07):
undefined
Speaker: more open to suggestion. (20:13):
undefined
Speaker: Modern media is built to keep (20:16):
undefined
Speaker: people in this condition as much (20:18):
undefined
Speaker: as possible. (20:21):
undefined
Speaker: Infinite scroll holds attention (20:22):
undefined
Speaker: long past the moment you meant (20:24):
undefined
Speaker: to stop. (20:26):
undefined
Speaker: Autoplay keeps feeding you (20:27):
undefined
Speaker: videos without asking for a (20:29):
undefined
Speaker: decision. (20:31):
undefined
Speaker: Personalized feeds wrap you in (20:32):
undefined
Speaker: content that matches your (20:34):
undefined
Speaker: worldview so tightly that it (20:36):
undefined
Speaker: feels natural, like you are (20:39):
undefined
Speaker: discovering truth rather than (20:42):
undefined
Speaker: being guided. (20:44):
undefined
Speaker: Researchers call these flow states, and in a flow state, the (20:46):
undefined
Speaker: mind is focused. (20:52):
undefined
Speaker: Self-awareness fades, and outside distractions blur away. (20:55):
undefined
Speaker: Flow can be great for creativity (21:01):
undefined
Speaker: and learning, but it also leaves (21:04):
undefined
Speaker: the door wide open for (21:07):
undefined
Speaker: influence. (21:09):
undefined
Speaker: When you consume content in this (21:11):
undefined
Speaker: state, your brain stops picking (21:14):
undefined
Speaker: apart arguments or questioning (21:16):
undefined
Speaker: the source. (21:19):
undefined
Speaker: Information slides in unchallenged and often gets (21:20):
undefined
Speaker: stored as accepted truth. (21:25):
undefined
Speaker: That is why a post on social media can feel more persuasive (21:28):
undefined
Speaker: than the same point made in a lecture or a newspaper. (21:34):
undefined
Speaker: The platform has engineered your (21:39):
undefined
Speaker: mental state, so that suggestion (21:41):
undefined
Speaker: sticks. (21:44):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie and Rachel's radicalization unfolded inside (21:46):
undefined
Speaker: these trance like states. (21:50):
undefined
Speaker: They weren't sitting down, weighing evidence and deciding (21:53):
undefined
Speaker: to shift their beliefs. (21:57):
undefined
Speaker: They were scrolling, streaming, (22:00):
undefined
Speaker: and absorbing in moments where (22:02):
undefined
Speaker: conscious choice had stepped (22:04):
undefined
Speaker: aside. (22:08):
undefined
Speaker: Part six The Memory Thieves. (22:11):
undefined
Speaker: One of Derren Brown's most (22:16):
undefined
Speaker: unsettling demonstrations is (22:18):
undefined
Speaker: something he calls false memory (22:21):
undefined
Speaker: implantation, the ability to (22:25):
undefined
Speaker: convince someone they lived (22:28):
undefined
Speaker: through events that never (22:30):
undefined
Speaker: actually happened and carefully (22:33):
undefined
Speaker: controlled experiments. (22:36):
undefined
Speaker: Brown has led people to believe they witnessed crimes they never (22:38):
undefined
Speaker: saw, met people they never encountered, and held, beliefs (22:42):
undefined
Speaker: they had never expressed. (22:48):
undefined
Speaker: The techniques echoed those used for centuries by interrogators, (22:50):
undefined
Speaker: therapists, and religious leaders who understood, (22:55):
undefined
Speaker: consciously or not, that memory can be rewritten. (23:00):
undefined
Speaker: Human memory is not a hard drive. (23:07):
undefined
Speaker: We do not replay experiences like a video file. (23:10):
undefined
Speaker: What we store are fragments, (23:15):
undefined
Speaker: impressions, feelings, sensory (23:17):
undefined
Speaker: flashes that get stitched back (23:21):
undefined
Speaker: together every time we recall (23:23):
undefined
Speaker: them. (23:25):
undefined
Speaker: And the act of remembering is fragile. (23:26):
undefined
Speaker: It can be bent by suggestion. (23:30):
undefined
Speaker: Altered by someone else's confidence. (23:33):
undefined
Speaker: Or reshaped by the environment in which the memory is recalled. (23:37):
undefined
Speaker: By sprinkling in precise details (23:42):
undefined
Speaker: about an event that never (23:45):
undefined
Speaker: occurred. (23:47):
undefined
Speaker: A skilled manipulator can steer the reconstruction process. (23:48):
undefined
Speaker: The mind takes those details and weaves them into the story. (23:54):
undefined
Speaker: Until the invented memory feels (23:59):
undefined
Speaker: as real as anything that (24:02):
undefined
Speaker: actually happened. (24:04):
undefined
Speaker: People will defend it with absolute conviction because to (24:06):
undefined
Speaker: them it is real. (24:11):
undefined
Speaker: This is exactly what happened (24:14):
undefined
Speaker: with Charlie and Rachel (24:16):
undefined
Speaker: Patterson. (24:17):
undefined
Speaker: Once the algorithms pushed them down separate political paths, (24:19):
undefined
Speaker: they began to reconstruct their shared past in ways that (24:23):
undefined
Speaker: confirmed their new beliefs. (24:28):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie became convinced that (24:31):
undefined
Speaker: Rachel had always been (24:33):
undefined
Speaker: vulnerable to liberal (24:36):
undefined
Speaker: propaganda, even though she had (24:37):
undefined
Speaker: barely cared about politics (24:40):
undefined
Speaker: growing up. (24:42):
undefined
Speaker: Rachel grew certain that Charlie (24:43):
undefined
Speaker: had been voicing conservative (24:46):
undefined
Speaker: views for years, despite the (24:48):
undefined
Speaker: fact he had never said those (24:51):
undefined
Speaker: things. (24:53):
undefined
Speaker: These weren't lies in the mind. (24:54):
undefined
Speaker: These were memories, vivid and (24:57):
undefined
Speaker: certain, built from suggestion (25:00):
undefined
Speaker: and repetition. (25:03):
undefined
Speaker: The algorithms had reached back (25:05):
undefined
Speaker: into their past and rewritten (25:07):
undefined
Speaker: it. (25:10):
undefined
Speaker: What had once been a shared (25:11):
undefined
Speaker: history between siblings was now (25:13):
undefined
Speaker: two completely different (25:16):
undefined
Speaker: storylines, each supporting the (25:19):
undefined
Speaker: worldview the system had (25:23):
undefined
Speaker: assigned them. (25:26):
undefined
Speaker: Part seven the industrial scale of mind control. (25:29):
undefined
Speaker: When you understand how psychological manipulation works (25:38):
undefined
Speaker: on one person, the bigger picture comes into focus. (25:43):
undefined
Speaker: Every single technique Derren Brown demonstrates in a small, (25:48):
undefined
Speaker: controlled setting is being used every day on a massive scale. (25:52):
undefined
Speaker: Political campaigns lean on (25:58):
undefined
Speaker: emotional anchoring to fuse (26:01):
undefined
Speaker: positive feelings with their (26:04):
undefined
Speaker: candidates faces. (26:06):
undefined
Speaker: Religious groups lean on (26:08):
undefined
Speaker: environmental priming and social (26:11):
undefined
Speaker: pressure to manufacture (26:13):
undefined
Speaker: conversion experiences. (26:15):
undefined
Speaker: Corporations pour billions into advertising that slips past (26:18):
undefined
Speaker: rational defenses and speak straight to unconscious desire. (26:22):
undefined
Speaker: The difference is scale. (26:29):
undefined
Speaker: Brown can steer one person at a (26:32):
undefined
Speaker: time with carefully chosen words (26:34):
undefined
Speaker: and gestures. (26:37):
undefined
Speaker: Institutions backed by (26:38):
undefined
Speaker: technology can reach millions at (26:40):
undefined
Speaker: once. (26:43):
undefined
Speaker: Artificial intelligence fine tunes the process in real time, (26:44):
undefined
Speaker: learning what works best for each individual and delivering (26:50):
undefined
Speaker: it with precision. (26:55):
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Speaker: Social media platforms have (26:57):
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Speaker: evolved into what researchers (27:00):
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Speaker: bluntly call behavioral (27:02):
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Speaker: modification engines. (27:05):
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Speaker: And these engines are not neutral communication tools. (27:08):
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Speaker: They are systems explicitly (27:13):
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Speaker: designed to alter human (27:16):
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Speaker: behavior. (27:19):
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Speaker: Behind the curtain are teams of neuroscientist, behavioral (27:21):
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Speaker: economist and data scientist, mapping out the soft spots and (27:26):
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Speaker: human psychology and building features to exploit them. (27:31):
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Speaker: The platforms often know more about people than those people (27:37):
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Speaker: know about themselves. (27:41):
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Speaker: For instance, shopping habits can reveal political leanings. (27:44):
undefined
Speaker: Search histories can expose emotional wounds. (27:49):
undefined
Speaker: Even the structure of your friend network can allow (27:54):
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Speaker: algorithms to predict when your views might shift. (27:57):
undefined
Speaker: And prediction is only part of it. (28:03):
undefined
Speaker: Something to remember is that (28:06):
undefined
Speaker: these systems don't just (28:09):
undefined
Speaker: forecast behavior, they actually (28:12):
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Speaker: intervene. (28:15):
undefined
Speaker: Someone vulnerable to anxiety based messaging will be nudged (28:17):
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Speaker: toward content that heightens that anxiety, followed by (28:23):
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Speaker: targeted ads or political posts that promise relief. (28:27):
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Speaker: Someone showing signs of loneliness will see communities (28:33):
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Speaker: suggested to them, often tied to ideological movements or (28:36):
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Speaker: products that provide the feeling of belonging. (28:41):
undefined
Speaker: The outcome is mass (28:46):
undefined
Speaker: manipulation, packaged as (28:48):
undefined
Speaker: personalization. (28:50):
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Speaker: People scroll through feeds, believing they are carving their (28:53):
undefined
Speaker: own paths, when in reality their emotions, memories and desires (28:57):
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Speaker: are being engineered. (29:03):
undefined
Speaker: It feels like self-discovery, but the experience has been (29:06):
undefined
Speaker: designed for them. (29:11):
undefined
Speaker: Part eight The Weaponization of Empathy. (29:16):
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Speaker: Perhaps the most disturbing (29:22):
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Speaker: feature of modern psychological (29:25):
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Speaker: manipulation is how it twists (29:27):
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Speaker: our best qualities into weapons (29:31):
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Speaker: against us. (29:34):
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Speaker: Take empathy, for example. (29:36):
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Speaker: The ability to feel someone else's suffering should be one (29:38):
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Speaker: of our strongest moral compasses, yet manipulators have (29:42):
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Speaker: figured out how to hijack it. (29:47):
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Speaker: They craft artificial emotional (29:50):
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Speaker: experiences that make us feel (29:53):
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Speaker: compelled to act, even when the (29:56):
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Speaker: stories are exaggerated or (29:59):
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Speaker: completely invented. (30:02):
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Speaker: Political fundraising emails (30:05):
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Speaker: lean on vivid, heart wrenching (30:07):
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Speaker: stories that may or may not be (30:10):
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Speaker: true. (30:12):
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Speaker: Pulling at compassion until a (30:13):
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Speaker: donation feels like the only (30:15):
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Speaker: option. (30:17):
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Speaker: Charities. (30:19):
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Speaker: Charity splash! (30:20):
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Speaker: Images of starving children or abused animals across screens, (30:20):
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Speaker: bypassing any rational evaluation of whether the (30:25):
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Speaker: organization is effective. (30:29):
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Speaker: Social movements right. (30:32):
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Speaker: Narratives of injustice that may simplify or distort reality. (30:34):
undefined
Speaker: But the emotional surge they (30:40):
undefined
Speaker: spark is enough to cement (30:42):
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Speaker: loyalty. (30:46):
undefined
Speaker: The reason this works is simple (30:48):
undefined
Speaker: human empathy evolved in small (30:51):
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Speaker: tribal groups, where emotional (30:54):
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Speaker: displays usually reflected (30:56):
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Speaker: genuine need. (30:59):
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Speaker: If someone in your circle cried, it meant something. (31:00):
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Speaker: Our brains are not wired to process mass scale emotional (31:05):
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Speaker: appeals delivered by professional storytellers, (31:10):
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Speaker: marketers, or algorithms designed for Or maximum impact. (31:14):
undefined
Speaker: This was exactly how the algorithmic manipulation of (31:21):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie and Rachel unfolded. (31:26):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie was shown stories of (31:30):
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Speaker: struggling rural families (31:32):
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Speaker: crushed by regulations, farmers (31:34):
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Speaker: going bankrupt under (31:37):
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Speaker: environmental policies, and (31:39):
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Speaker: towns abandoned by coastal (31:41):
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Speaker: elites. (31:44):
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Speaker: His real compassion was (31:46):
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Speaker: activated and then tied to (31:48):
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Speaker: conservative political (31:50):
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Speaker: solutions. (31:52):
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Speaker: Rachel's feed leaned on the same (31:53):
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Speaker: mechanics stories of minorities (31:56):
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Speaker: facing discrimination, women (31:59):
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Speaker: held back by structural (32:01):
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Speaker: oppression, and vulnerable (32:03):
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Speaker: groups threatened by (32:05):
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Speaker: conservative power pulled at her (32:06):
undefined
Speaker: empathy and anchored it to (32:09):
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Speaker: progressive activism. (32:11):
undefined
Speaker: Both twins were guided by their (32:14):
undefined
Speaker: highest intentions, the impulse (32:17):
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Speaker: to help and to fight for (32:20):
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Speaker: justice. (32:22):
undefined
Speaker: The tragedy is that the (32:23):
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Speaker: algorithms had learned how to (32:25):
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Speaker: trigger those impulses on (32:28):
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Speaker: command, redirecting genuine (32:30):
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Speaker: compassion into manufactured (32:32):
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Speaker: conflicts that served outside (32:35):
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Speaker: interest. (32:39):
undefined
Speaker: Part nine The Reality hackers. (32:41):
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Speaker: The true aim of psychological (32:47):
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Speaker: manipulation goes beyond nudging (32:49):
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Speaker: people toward certain beliefs or (32:52):
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Speaker: behaviors. (32:54):
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Speaker: The deeper goal is to reshape a (32:56):
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Speaker: person's relationship with (32:58):
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Speaker: reality itself. (33:00):
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Speaker: Beliefs and actions sit on the surface, but beneath them lie (33:03):
undefined
Speaker: the frameworks we use to decide what is real, which voices (33:08):
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Speaker: deserve trust, and what kind of evidence counts as proof? (33:13):
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Speaker: Master manipulators know that if (33:19):
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Speaker: they can tamper with those (33:23):
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Speaker: frameworks, they no longer need (33:24):
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Speaker: to argue about individual (33:27):
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Speaker: issues. (33:30):
undefined
Speaker: Once reality testing itself is (33:31):
undefined
Speaker: compromised, the target will (33:34):
undefined
Speaker: keep generating false beliefs (33:37):
undefined
Speaker: and poor decisions on their own, (33:39):
undefined
Speaker: with little need for outside (33:42):
undefined
Speaker: guidance. (33:44):
undefined
Speaker: This is what makes cult (33:46):
undefined
Speaker: deprogramming so difficult, and (33:48):
undefined
Speaker: political depolarization feel (33:51):
undefined
Speaker: nearly impossible. (33:53):
undefined
Speaker: The obstacle isn't a list of incorrect facts that can be (33:56):
undefined
Speaker: fixed with better information. (34:01):
undefined
Speaker: The obstacle is the collapse of the mental systems that (34:04):
undefined
Speaker: distinguish truth from lies. (34:09):
undefined
Speaker: That is what happened to Charlie and Rachel Patterson. (34:13):
undefined
Speaker: Their divergence wasn't simply a (34:18):
undefined
Speaker: matter of different political (34:21):
undefined
Speaker: opinions. (34:23):
undefined
Speaker: Each developed a new way of filtering reality. (34:24):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie began trusting sources that confirmed conservative (34:29):
undefined
Speaker: narratives while brushing off anything that contradicted them. (34:33):
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Speaker: Rachel came to trust liberal (34:38):
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Speaker: sources and rejected (34:40):
undefined
Speaker: conservative voices as (34:42):
undefined
Speaker: illegitimate. (34:44):
undefined
Speaker: Researchers described the state as epistemological closure when (34:45):
undefined
Speaker: it takes hold. (34:51):
undefined
Speaker: Contradictory evidence is not (34:53):
undefined
Speaker: just disagreed with it is (34:55):
undefined
Speaker: dismissed before it can even be (34:58):
undefined
Speaker: considered. (35:01):
undefined
Speaker: The mind protects its new framework automatically. (35:03):
undefined
Speaker: The algorithm's guiding the twins had achieved something far (35:08):
undefined
Speaker: more More profound than a shift in political alignment. (35:12):
undefined
Speaker: They had reconfigured the very (35:16):
undefined
Speaker: systems that tell us what is (35:19):
undefined
Speaker: true. (35:21):
undefined
Speaker: Once those systems were altered, Charlie and Rachel became both (35:22):
undefined
Speaker: open to constant manipulation and resistant to correction. (35:27):
undefined
Speaker: They weren't just convinced of new ideas, they were living (35:33):
undefined
Speaker: inside new realities. (35:37):
undefined
Speaker: Part ten The Hypnotic Society. (35:43):
undefined
Speaker: As part two of our journey on algorithmic manipulation comes (35:49):
undefined
Speaker: to a close. (35:53):
undefined
Speaker: We have to sit with the uncomfortable possibility we may (35:55):
undefined
Speaker: all be living inside a hypnotic society where everyday (36:01):
undefined
Speaker: consciousness has been swapped for manufactured trance states. (36:05):
undefined
Speaker: Think about the mental state (36:11):
undefined
Speaker: required for ordinary social (36:13):
undefined
Speaker: media use. (36:15):
undefined
Speaker: I locked on the screen awareness of the room fading. (36:16):
undefined
Speaker: Critical thought. (36:21):
undefined
Speaker: Softening. (36:22):
undefined
Speaker: Emotions. (36:23):
undefined
Speaker: Rising faster than reason. (36:24):
undefined
Speaker: Time slipping away unnoticed. (36:26):
undefined
Speaker: These are the very conditions hypnotists cultivate when (36:30):
undefined
Speaker: guiding clients into trance. (36:35):
undefined
Speaker: Most of us spend hours in this (36:38):
undefined
Speaker: state every single day, (36:40):
undefined
Speaker: consuming content chosen by (36:42):
undefined
Speaker: algorithms that care only about (36:45):
undefined
Speaker: keeping us engaged in these (36:47):
undefined
Speaker: hours. (36:51):
undefined
Speaker: Choice weakens and suggestion grows stronger, and the (36:52):
undefined
Speaker: information we take in while scrolling doesn't just pass (36:57):
undefined
Speaker: through us, it imprints itself. (37:02):
undefined
Speaker: It sculpts our political leanings, our shopping (37:05):
undefined
Speaker: decisions, Our expectations of love and friendship. (37:09):
undefined
Speaker: Even our sense of what life should look like. (37:15):
undefined
Speaker: It implants memories, spins up emotions and manufactures (37:20):
undefined
Speaker: desires that feel as real as anything we've lived. (37:25):
undefined
Speaker: At a certain point, the line between authentic and (37:30):
undefined
Speaker: manipulated consciousness blurs. (37:34):
undefined
Speaker: If our thoughts, feelings, and memories are constantly being (37:37):
undefined
Speaker: shaped by systems designed to steer behavior, what part of us (37:42):
undefined
Speaker: is truly our own? (37:49):
undefined
Speaker: Charlie and Rachel's story is not rare. (37:52):
undefined
Speaker: It is common. (37:55):
undefined
Speaker: They show us what happens when (37:56):
undefined
Speaker: techniques originally created (37:59):
undefined
Speaker: for therapy or stage performance (38:01):
undefined
Speaker: get scaled up into industrial (38:05):
undefined
Speaker: operations tionS with entire (38:07):
undefined
Speaker: populations placed inside (38:10):
undefined
Speaker: behavioral modification (38:12):
undefined
Speaker: platforms. (38:14):
undefined
Speaker: What happened to them is happening everywhere. (38:16):
undefined
Speaker: Their descent from loving siblings into ideological (38:20):
undefined
Speaker: adversaries is proof that we have built machines capable of (38:23):
undefined
Speaker: rewriting human consciousness. (38:29):
undefined
Speaker: While most people remain unaware. (38:32):
undefined
Speaker: In our next episode, we are going to turn to the tools of (38:36):
undefined
Speaker: politics, advertising and media. (38:40):
undefined
Speaker: We'll examine how language itself becomes weaponized, how (38:44):
undefined
Speaker: emotions get hijacked in the service of power, and how (38:49):
undefined
Speaker: societies can be programmed to believe things that benefit (38:54):
undefined
Speaker: institutions rather than people. (38:58):
undefined
Speaker: For now, ask yourself this as you scroll through, three feats, (39:02):
undefined
Speaker: absorb opinions and make choices about who to trust. (39:08):
undefined
Speaker: How much of that feels like your own voice, and how much of it (39:14):
undefined
Speaker: has been scripted for you? (39:19):
undefined
Speaker: The mind hackers are not science fiction. (39:22):
undefined
Speaker: They exist. (39:25):
undefined
Speaker: Their techniques work, and they are probably shaping your (39:27):
undefined
Speaker: consciousness right now, even as you hear these words. (39:31):
undefined
Speaker: The real question is not whether you are being manipulated. (39:37):
undefined
Speaker: The real question is whether you (39:41):
undefined
Speaker: will learn to spot the (39:44):
undefined
Speaker: manipulation and build defenses (39:46):
undefined
Speaker: against it, or whether you will (39:49):
undefined
Speaker: remain a subject and someone (39:52):
undefined
Speaker: else's experiment. (39:55):
undefined
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