Truth Unrestricted

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The Manchurian Candidate has long been an idea separated from the film that created the term. The idea that a person could be reshaped and controlled as an assassin has long inspired conspiratorial thinking. So what other ideas from the film inspire these errant notions?

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Subjective reality is the mind's best estimation of what the objective world is. "Best estimation" is doing a *lot* of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_character_of_experience
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

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They Live is a film about wealth inequality, not grand conspiracies. So why do so many people see it as a wink and a nod to their conspiratorial ideas? And how can we use that to understand them better? Ep 129 of Truth Unrestricted dives into this film and its conspiracy ideas.

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The US influences many other nations, particularly the English speaking ones. And most Americans don't think much about it. So I decide to talk to someone in Scotland about American Cultural Influence In that country.

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Inception is a film about the barriers between the real and the imaginary. It provides a rich backdrop for understanding reality. The concept of incepting an idea into another's mind helps us understand the decision paranoia at the heart of all conspiracism.

Links
Inception Breakdown - Heavy Spoilers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3xaf2Hu-Gs
The ending explained?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YQcEmoOlH1w

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How should we treat famous people who appear to be leaving behind conspiracist beliefs? How can we encourage them to take additional steps to form a shared reality without allowing it to become a game to increase their influence? How do we eventually come to trust someone in this position? The recent heelturn of Marjorie Taylor Greene gives us the perfect reason to discuss this situation. Lydia Greene (@formerantivax on twitter) and Steph Kemmerer join me to discuss how to navigate some of our future parasocial relationships with unreal politicians.

Links<...

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Ep 125 of Truth Unrestricted is about the film Wag The Dog and how its ideas intersect with unreal ideas about our world. Also, for a few minutes near the end, I decided to name and shame famous actors who wouldn't be good enough to be crisis actors. Fun stuff. Enjoy.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_dog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_%27round_the_flag_effect

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How is The Matrix related to conspiracy theories? How do the ideas presented in the film assist people in creating conspiracy ideas?

The value of informed decisions

The Red/Blue Pill question

Fixed destiny vs choosing the future

Creating reality with the strength of will

The Matrix as grand conspiracy: simultaneously all powerful and completely unable to prevent dissension

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After it became likely that the full Epstein Files would be released, Trumpistan kicked into gear for their guy as they always do. Anything to make him seem innocent. Even by moving the line of what is considered to be wrong. So we thought it would be a good idea to discuss exactly why pedophilia is wrong so that everyone else could know as well.

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This will be an ongoing series on the podcast itself. The purpose will be to review a popular or relevant film that demonstrates some way in which we either understand our subjective reality or form unreal ideas. With this in mind, there will be a recurring aspect to this that I need to describe in detail.

We look at movies to help shape our world. Communicate our culture. Form parasocial relationships with the actors. Sometimes we even take on their personal drama as we live vicariously through them.

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Links
MilkbarTV synced footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDzxnQsSVQY
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/can-doug-mills-photo-of-a-bullet-and-president-trump-be-real-yes-heres-how
Jeff Ostroff July 20 in-depth explanation video (good)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7PdhHC2zr0
Jeff Ostroff follow-up video. Corrects a few mistakes, more info (good)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRKpMxtW6A
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/10/politics/trump-campaign-rallies-outstanding-invoices/index.html
Trump's wrestling experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NsrwH9I9vE
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/sicily-ship-investigation-lynch-1.7304159

https...

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Violence is not the answer to our political situation. Showing restraint in the face of belligerence and insult is the best way to prevent the manipulations of fascists.

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Pseudoconspiracies are situations that appear to be conspiracies from the outside but often aren't once we look closer. This episode was recorded live on twitter using Spaces and featured an open discussion with listeners at the end of the podcast. That twitter space can be accessed here:

https://x.com/spencergwatson/status/1963046227320439021

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Jim Stewartson is a twitter influencer who engages in conspiratorial ideas about Mike Flynn being Q of Qanon, Russian mind control mass media influence campaigns, and about Donald Trump being either the mastermind of a conspiracy to bring a new dark age of fascism or a rube that’s being used by Russia to bring about a dark age of fascism. Whichever happens to fit the mood of the day. His influence is slowly warping the ability for the left wing of the American political spectrum to see reality.

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Bill Cosby's fall from fame represents a complete change of our collective view of him. An inversion of our shared reality. How should we look at people who once attempted to associate themselves with his image? In this episode, Eric the Deep State Operative joins me to discuss an edge case whereby a group of people might need to be exonerated of the crime of liking Bill Cosby but *not* of their other crimes.

Links
https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-cosby-suite-1847378762
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/bill-cosby-trial-complete-timeline-happened-2004/story?id=47799458
https...

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Links
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/plandemic-judy-mikovits-and-the-mother-of-all-covid-19-conspiracy-theories/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6255117/

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Is the US at war with Iran? Should anyone believe anything Trump says? How will the Iranian response affect world markets? Are we slow walking past mere nuclear brinksmanship? Can the US prevent Iran from ever becoming a nuclear nation or can it simply delay? Does violent intervention prevent further diplomatic opportunities from being useful? Mike Rains (aka @PokerPolitics on Twitter) joins me for ep 115 of Truth Unrestricted to make sense of Operation Midnight Hammer.

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The Throne Speech is usually not newsworthy. Until the response to it is a direct shot across the bow from the heart of Alberta Separatism. We also discuss deficit spending and the economic sleight of hand of Mark Carney.

Shoutout to: 
https://www.youtube.com/@TLDRnewsGLOBAL

Other links:
David Bexte's response to the throne speech
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?mibextid=wwXIfr&v=1233800394758308&rdid=kPj5Qa8nzTUo2Vwl

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Is playing nice in politics the same as playing nice in a competitive game? Do the same rules apply? Should we look at these things similarly? Are some of us doing so already?

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The Western Canadian separatist movement emanates outward from Alberta. And within Alberta the movement finds its roots in the oil and gas sector. Making this economic engine run is the primary goal of every Alberta government and it has progressed to the point where this goal foresakes all others. That's where we are now. Make the oil flow, or they leave.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Over the next year many arguments will be had on shop floors and dinner tables about why people should want to separate...

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Pascal's Wager is about how to make an existential decision. Should we or shouldn't we change our behavior now in case something turns out to be true? This isn't so useful for converting people to Christianity but it does apply directly to climate change.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

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The idea that Western Canada should separate from the rest of Canada is now rising in popularity so I thought we should go over it.

Links
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal-transfers/equalization.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Canada
https://enr.elections.ca/National.aspx?lang=e
https://x.com/TheBreakdownAB/status/1919906263485329823
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys80Xc-esrU

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What would Pierre Poilievre do as Prime Minister? How could Poilievre resolve his Trump-like rhetoric with a political need to oppose an expansionist Trump agenda? And what will Poilievre's most enthusiastic supporters do if he loses?

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Blendr News is a Canadian online alternate media outlet striving to become the next major interpreter of the world for those dissatisfied with the Liberal Party of Canada. In this episode, I check in with one of their videos to see how it compares with reality.

Links

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1371346464021477

Fried Kemper's Obituary
https://beechwoodottawa.ca/en/services/john-joachim-kemper

Verlie Kemper's marrige announcement
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-province-verlie-margaret-kemper-marr/64281628/

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Is the left creating their own populist movement to counter the right? Is it possible that it's happening by happenstance rather than by design? Do we need to be aware of the shape of our resistance lest it create bigger problems?

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Do you want Canada to join the US? If so, why? And if you won't say, why not?

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Poker as Life: Bluffing
There can exist a situation in information logic where a person knows something (usually that they themselves are lying) that they imagine no one else could possibly know. And in this way they manufacture a high level of confidence when asserting that a specific thing is true. It might be very interesting to examine this situation as a direct comparison to the "bluff" as used as a strategy in poker.

Bluffing might be the single best known part of the game of poker. Everyone knows it...

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Is AI conscious? How could we tell? Is AI dangerous? Can we trust AI? Could AI come to trust us?

Stephen Mather is the co-host of the Matter Over Mind podcast which discusses quantum physics and psychology by turns.

https://open.spotify.com/show/3MfsQEbW0lvHic5UHYOREt

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matter-over-mind/id1788940184

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What level of political compromise should politicians on the left be comfortable with when attempting to curb the excesses of the right? Can the less extreme participants trust the more extreme and, if so, to what extent?

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Can football be rigged? Could the Super Bowl have been rigged? Why? Why not? What would it take for it to have been rigged? What would it take for someone to believe it had been rigged?

This episode was made for youtube and contains video clips that are described verbally in the episode. For the full visual experience you can find the YouTube version of this episode here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OKP1wzkWvg

Follow me on:

YouTube @spencergwatson

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Does science slowly "eat away" at spiritual ideas? Does the exactness and thoroughness of modern science stifle spiritual belief? Do people attempt to re-engage with spiritual beliefs by first casting themselves and their ideas against science?

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchantment

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Truth Unrestricted

Building language for the Disinformation Age.

Evidence Aversion is about the propensity or likelihood that a person who engages with unreal beliefs will work to avoid being exposed to evidence and ideas that would contradict their beliefs. But the fact that they know what to avoid tells us something about where they think reality divides. They aren't simply discovering the world. They are actively working to manufacture it in their minds and they consciously avoid ideas that could shatter their illusions.

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You may have heard it said that "every accusation is a confession." But what does that really mean? Why do we think it's true? Are we looking at it in the world right now?

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The USA has been pushing its culture outward past its borders for a very long time. This is the beginning of a series of episodes dedicated to looking at what that cultural aggression looks like from the perspective of people that experience it. Joel Hill is on of the hosts of the Conditional Release Program podcast and he joins me to discuss the effects of American Cultural Aggression on Australia.

Links
https://torontosun.com/news/national/convoy-plans-to-replace-canadas-elected-government-the-stuff-of-fantasy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest
https://podcasts.apple...

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The Gish gallop is a technique employed to skip away from the current topic and toward other supposedly related topics so as to confuse and overcomplicate a discussion and make it much more difficult to debunk or oppose. Finding ways to dismantle or circumvent the Gish gallop is one of several primary concerns among people who want to find ways to reach the people who are lost in conspiracy thinking. Proof By Association is one logical fallacy that can be pointed to as a resource for doing exactly that.

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Jim Stewartson is an online influencer who pushes disinformation to people on the left. He espouses extreme views which work to radicalize those who pay attention. In this episode, I speak to Robin Eriksson about the nature of the problem with Stewartson and how Stewartson's content compares to Joseph McCarthy.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Flynn

Stewartson claims that he is fighting a "mind war."
Source: https://www.mind-war.com/p/cdf?utm_source=publication-search

...

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This episode is long. We also swear a lot. Enjoy.

Links
https://www.nbcwashington.com/decision-2024/2024-voter-turnout-election-demographics-trump-harris/3762138/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/after-victory-the-path-ahead-trump-legal-cases_n_672540ade4b00acf55d9d96a?5zj
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535043/percent-change-number-young-voters-state-us/

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Fascism attempts to weaponize human selfishness and hatred. It encourages the worst parts of people on a grand scale. How can we recognize it? How can we counter it? What can we, as individuals, do against something that subverts entire nations?

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Truth and Reconciliation Day is a relatively new Canadian holiday that recognizes the struggle of indigenous peoples in Canada and the world while also working on healing rifts and countering racial hate. Len Morissette is a co-founder of C.I.A. Solutions, a majority Indigenous owned film and advertising company, and a former president of the Alberta Native Friendship Centre Association. This conversation was done in recognition and in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation to appropriately honour the day.

Links
https://www.youtube.com/@CIASOLUTIONS1
https://www.youtube...

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It is obvious that Trump plans to use fear about immigrant crime as a wedge issue in the upcoming election. The current focal point for this effort is on Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH. Is anything about this factual?

Links
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/video/sotu-bash-vance-haitian-immigrants-full-interview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield,_Ohio,_cat-eating_hoax
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/10/politics/jd-vance-haitian-immigrants/index.html
https://www.fairus.org/news/congress/angel-moms-detail-horrific-consequences-open-borders-congress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide...

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The first (and likely only) debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is over. All of Trump's pending legal issues and have been delayed until after the election. And Taylor Swift has given her endorsement. Are we almost out of election stuff to talk about?

Links
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/walzs-military-record-vances-accusations-stolen-valor/story?id=112618991
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/03/07/lawmaker-who-claims-to-be-a-retired-rear-admiral-was-actually-demoted/
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/jd-vance-school-shootings-fact-of-life/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-sundown-town-rally-racism-b2605946.html
https://azluminaria.org/2024/09/13/standing-ovation-from-tucsons-trump-supporters-a-do-or-die-election/
https://www.tiktok...

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When a lone gunman attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th, we saw online the birth of a new conspiracy belief. It has heavily influenced a large number of people on the left to participate in conspiracism. In this episode we take a closer look at the events with an eye to examine some of the ways people engaged poorly with the facts in order to support conspiracy beliefs that have become damaging to the prospect of a shared reality.

Links
Peter Gabriel...

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Notes
Daniel Loxton is an author and science communicator. He has published books about skepticism and was previously the editor of Junior Skeptic magazine. Daniel, David Bloomberg and I discuss skepticism, its importance, and how we can promote its presence in our information world in this episode.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Loxton
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/roundup-lawsuit-update/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hotez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West

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Topics covered in brief:
Democrats
Walz is VP. How is that going?

Harris and Walz have been doing rallies that are *packed* and very high energy.

Polls: many polls now show Harris as climbing and leading, though still by a small margin. 

Even now almost 4 full weeks after Biden dropped out of the race there are still left-leaning influencers who threaten each other semi-casually over their stance on whether Biden should have or shouldn't have dropped out of the race.

Republicans
Trump h...

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My take on the Imane Khelif debacle.

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TBD

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Zealotry in a single person is characterized as the amplification of the importance of one single subject to the point that all other subjects have little or no relative importance. Anyone can engage in zealotry and it can lead to many negative consequences for the zealot. How this manifests in social scenarios is discussed in this episode.


Links

https://www.newsweek.com/los-angeles-synagogue-attack-everything-we-know-1916345

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No notes for this episode. David and I sat down to record on a completely different topic and then decided very suddenly to do this conversation instead. Was it the right decision? Would this impulsiveness be good in other situations? 

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Jordan Peterson is a right wing polemicist who shouldn't have any measure of celebrity. The fact he does is due to some deeply flawed ideas that were not properly debunked in the moment when he was gaining popularity. I say better late than never.

Links

Previous Truth Unrestricted episodes mentioned in this episode:
The Two Selves
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1947369/10973742-the-two-selves
Gender Yin-Yangism 
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1947369/13315113-gender-yin-yangism-with-lydia-greene
Schrodinger’s Meaning
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1947369/15033732-schrodinger-s-meaning

Content directly mentioned in this epi...

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Game theory gives us terminology to understand the fundamentals of the games we play. How inforation is hidden and/or discovered is a big part of how we play games and why we think some of them are fun. David Bloomberg and I explore how it is that information affects the strategies used in the games we play and watch.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information

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Content warning: this episode of the Truth Unrestricted podcast contains graphic descriptions of drug addiction and some of the ways that people suffer from drug addiction. Listener discretion is advised.

Conspiracism as compared directly to drug addiction. What does it mean to be so pulled into the idea that conspiracies surround us that giving it up would take an intervention or rehab? The habits that make us feel good encourage us to do them again but what about the habits and situations that make us feel bad? How do those factor...

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David and Spencer breakdown the current state of the 2024 Us election. This is recorded one day after the Manhattan verdict of 34 guilty counts involving hush money payments made by Trump to hide affairs.

Links
Timeline
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/trump-stormy-daniels-hush-money-payments-timeline-of-events/5462838/
List of witnesses
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-hush-money-trial-05-21-24/h_15e34ea2c68ae046a5738937ff53dd94

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Crowdsourcing is the process of using a lot of different people all adding a little bit of effort to accomplish a large task.  Crowdsourced Storytelling is about the way in which we tell stories online in an attempt to understand the world but also in a way that can go terribly wrong. 

All feedback for this episode can be sent to truthunrestricted@gmail.com.

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Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment which is meant to illustrate some of the absurdity of what is happening with Quantum Mechanics. In the thought experiment the life of a cat is directly related to the state of a particle. Quantum Mechanics says that without observing the state of the particle it could be in either state. Erwin Schrodinger was attempting to show how ridiculous this was by attaching the particle state to a mechanism inside a box which would kill a cat trapped inside. The state of the particle then would have...

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Reality Inversion is a psychological concept seen among conspiracists wherein evidence that should show them the truth instead reinforces their fantasies. Stephanie Kemmerer joins me for a discussion about the topic with many relevant examples.

Links
The Collapse of World Trade Center - The Complete Physics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NkBfLBov5Q
Robbie Parker (Sandy Hook parent) press conference (full)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fr1-YejnY4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World<...

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Audience Capture has a second meaning! It describes when a person is stuck having to perform for their audience. David Bloomberg and Spencer discuss this aspect in an addendum to the previous episode about Audience Capture.

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This episode might upset some people. If what is said here offends you, I want to hear about it. Send all feedback to truthunrestricted@gmail.com. If you agree with what I've said I also want to hear from you, even if it's only a score out of ten.

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These US Election Update episodes are an attempt to chronicle the twisting tale of history as it is happening for an event that we are certain will affect the future. We discuss each of the major candidates and what is currently affecting their progress toward the title of president.


Links
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/28/marianne-williamson-presidential-campaign
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4544764-robert-f-kennedy-jr-rfk-jr-aaron-rodgers-nicole-shanahan-andrew-yang-jesse-ventura/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/the-trump-docket-the-very-puzzling-problem-in-florida-and-the-strange-possibility-of-a-trial-and-election-all-at-once/

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Why are there people who believe the Earth is flat? How is it possible to get so far turned around about something so basic? I sit down with Reds Rhetoric, a person who has been pushing back against Flatearthers for a very long time, to discuss it.

Links
https://www.youtube.com/@RedsRhetoric
1998 Space Shuttle Endeavour launch video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNdaUMND_Yw

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How do we talk about transgenderism? Why should we talk about transgenderism? What is going on with pronouns? Are there really 52 new pronouns that we need to learn? How do we have these conversations without insulting trans people or their experiences? Grace Leder joins me for a meta conversation about how to have the Transgender Conversation.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/
Neil deGrasse Tyson and Shapiro talking transgender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w89etN8...

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Audience Capture is the process of mimicking another influencer's strategy and messaging so as to gain some or all of their audience share. What does this mean for the US political situation and how should this shape our decisions?

Links
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/26/ron-desantis-texas-border-mexico/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
https://newrepublic.com/post/177373/watch-vivek-ramaswamy-embrace-every-disgusting-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-can-think

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In what ways are conspiracy beliefs psychologically addictive?  Can a person get a "good feeling" from a turn down the rabbit hole that they would want to experience a second time?

Links
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scientists-studied-brains-more-800-prisoners-heres-what-they-found
https://www.jta.org/2020/04/07/ny/memory-plays-tricks-about-mengele
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/amanda-moore-undercover-far-right/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory#Frazzledrip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis
https://culteducation.com/group/1289-general-information/35734-anti-trump-cult-expert-mistakes-porn-for-highly-sophisticated-mind-control.html
https://en.w...

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Links
Dr Dan Wilson - Is there DNA contamination in COVID vaccines? No.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q61OPhZ3eO8
https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2024/01/20240103-halt-use-covid19-mrna-vaccines.pr.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/24/florida-surgeon-general-covid-vaccine-00093510
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-jr-hires-del-bigtree-anti-vaccine-activist-communications-director-rcna131859
RFK Jr gets confronted about antivax claims in interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4vP4GdHhoA

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The human mind creates models and symbols to represent everything that it "knows". When these are models of tangible items it is clear what the mind is doing. But when it comes time to represent intangible things it is a little less clear. Very often we use comparisons between tangible and intangible things to assist in communicating to each other what we think of the intangible things. In this way, it is possible that there is a bridge that can be built in the mind between the tangible and intangible. I call this...

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What does it mean to be a zealot? How do we measure a person's zealotry? Do we exaggerate ideas when they support the things we are zealous about? Do some of us openly and knowingly lie about things simply because it supports our ideas?

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What is Magical Thinking? Why do humans think magical things are real? How does this occur? Why is it that a person who leaves behind a magical belief is often more likely to start believing a new one? Is a soul an intangible vessel for your life essence? Or is a soul merely an illusion of consciousness?

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Do we want to live in a world where politicians can freely fake images and videos without regard for consequences? If we don't, what could we possibly do about it? The American Information Integrity Alliance (AIIA) is attempting to create a set of social norms for how public officials should treat the ability to create fake video content. The "No Fakes" Pledge is an initial step that could help avoid some of the worst outcomes available to us in the foreseeable future.

Links
https://infointegrity.us/
https://infointegrity.us...

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Some people in our world have adopted a system for navigating the world that is less related to which concepts or rules they wish to live by and more related to which people they wish to support or oppose. The absolute enemy is usually a political figure which a person opposes in all things. The AE cannot, by definition, ever do anything correct and, again by definition, everything the AE does is bad. The absolute ally has the opposite properties. Everything the absolute ally does is good and right and nothing they've ever...

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Why are credit cards marketed to students who have no jobs? Why do student loans survive bankruptcy? Why are payday loan offices open so late? Why doesn't paying rent positively affect your credit rating? Is our system of credit and debt negatively affecting upward financial mobility? We discuss all of these questions while we openly fight about how the banking system works.

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Notes
Charles Eisenstein is an author of New Age nonfiction. His ideas about nonduality are influential in New Age circles but conflict heavily with reality. I examine one of his core beliefs about science being a religion in this episode.

Links
https://charleseisenstein.org/videos/video/is-science-a-religion/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

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Episode 61 Notes
Logic is the study of the building blocks of knowledge. Logic seeks to answer the question: how do we know what we know? 
Fear is a powerful instinctive response that is meant to keep us alive. But it overpowers and blocks out more rational thinking. Can the two coexist? How do we deal with both? Also, how is Ben Johnson, the disgraced Olympic sprinter, related to Adolf Hitler? These are the kinds of questions you'll only find answered here.

Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y...

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Notes
Confirmation bias is the process of starting from the conclusion and working backwards toward the things that will support that conclusion. Scientism is the idea that science is more like a religion than a system to study reality. It is the idea that scientists are completely captured in confirmation bias such that scientific principles are dogmatically followed rather than replicatable observations.

So how do we know that scientism isn't happening in the scientific community? What makes us believe that science isn't captured by the confortable mental trappings of confirmation...

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Episode 59 - Math
Why are we good at some mathematical concepts and bad at others? Why is it that we can intuitively know how to throw a baseball to another person but we can't figure out how many cups of water fill a vase? David and I discuss these questions and others as we make a case for math education.
We also get sidetracked for a bit about ivermectin and how grifters misuse real information. Because that's the sort of thing that happens around here.

Links
https://en...

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Episode 58 - PsyOps
PsyOps are Psychological Operations. They are instances wherein an organized institutional entity (like a government) attempts to influence public opinion via a false event. PsyOps have been used among conspiracists as a catchall explanation for any evidence that would otherwise counter their worldview.

Examples of events that conspiracists have claimed are psy ops include: The violent parts of the Jan 6th insurrection at the Us Capitol building are said to be either antifa and/or instigated by FBI agents "riling up the crowd". The unseemly parts of...

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Episode 57 - Critical Thinking with Jon Guy
Jon Guy is an author of the book Think Straight: An Owner's Manual for the Mind. We discuss the concept of Critical Thinking, how it relates to our everyday lives, and where it sits in relation to other related things like "thinking outside the box." Some other topics that are brought up are: ghosts, UFOs, how to discuss reality conflicts with people, and metaphors.

Links
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1633887979?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_BEV8RQFWFWKGA55N0W6J
...

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Episode 56 - Currency

How does fiat currency work? Should I buy gold as a "backup" in case the dollar fails? Should I invest in crypto? Some people will say that you should *definitely* invest in gold and crypto. When the idea that you shouldn't comes up, they often lean on the unknowable as a looming specter of uncertainty to push you to "play it safe" and invest in those things anyway. The utility of investing in gold and/or crypto is not unknowable and shouldn't be coupled with doomsday predictions. Fiat...

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Episode 55 - Gender Yin-Yangism
If you asked a person to make a list of all the words that would describe a "man" and then I asked them to make a separate list of all the words that would describe a "woman" what do you think are the chances that you would end up with a list of antonyms? Do we see "masculine" and "feminine" as opposites? Should we? Not only is it not actually true that men and women are opposites but the concept that they have opposite traits will tend to...

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Episode 54 - Consciousness and Memory with Prof Xeno Rasmusson

Consciousness is a difficult concept to both explain and understand. In the simplest sense the word is synonymous with "wakefulness" or maybe "awareness" but it is so much more than that. It is an enduring mystery of neuroscience and how exactly consciousness occurs from the firing of many neuronal connections in the brain is as yet a mystery.

When I attempt to focus in on the experiences of consciousness I'm almost immediately distracted by something else: time. Our perception of...

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Episode 53 - Grift Tactics

Hijacking Occam's Razor: Escalate the level of complexity about a topic until it reaches a level which is unknown by the other party, then declare that the other party doesn't know what they're talking about. In the confusion, insert your own narrative that is always much simpler. The simpler narrative almost always fails to account for all knowable observations but to most people it is good enough. The trick attempts to hijack Occam's Razor to make it *appear* as though the inserted, simpler narrative is more correct...

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Episode 52 - Fame (Fandom II)

Does fame give society the right to the famous?
Peter Hotez is harassed at his home.
Eminem is followed to the bathroom for an autograph when he's having dinner with his family. From a song, The Way I Am. This particular song seems to really hit the nail on the head for this topic. Eminem basically says "I appreciate the support from the fans but there are times when I don't want to be a celebrity and I don't owe my fans anything other...

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Juxtaposition is the placement of two ideas in very close proximity so as to imply a direct connection between them. At no point is it required that they be actually connected in meaning. Any conclusion that is false falls squarely on the audience and gives the person doing the juxtaposition an automatic out (I didn't *explicitly say* that).
Some examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvia_Grossman
https://thecjn.ca/news/international/activists-distribute-thousands-of-fake-anti-israel-new-york-times-papers/

Internet memes are usually a very good example of this form of expression. More and...

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Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Countering_Digital_Hate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briahna_Joy_Gray
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-all-time-child-mortality-rate/
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-cdc-covid-vaccine-deaths-910677348223
Viki Male on Covid-19 vaccines and Fertility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFudXb8l7H8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Samoa_measles_outbreak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed<...

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Decisions you make will consider the interests of some people but not other people. The people whose interests you wish to protect with your decisions are people in your community. The people whose interests you don't care to protect are not in your community. This definition makes it more clear that you can be in a community with people you don't know and you can be in a community with people who are only connected to you virtually.
This definition also becomes its own practical test. You should trust other people *if...

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We have evolved as social creatures and for most of that evolution our social interactions were person to person. This is why we absorb the news better when it's a person we can see that's telling it to us. Our current world of mass media (this probably started with radio but television has been the biggest player for this) distorts these effects. We see people on screen and sometimes we imagine what it would be like to be around them or talk to them. But those people don't know us at all. This...

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Episode 47 - Explicit Paradox
I see a thing that happens with communication. When someone tries to make a point their point is less effective rather than more effective once they try "too hard" to make it. An attempt to more explicitly state a thing can sometimes make it less solid, real, or believed by the intended audience. If you had a person who was attractive but who attempted to explicitly tell you about how they were attractive they would become less attractive. If a person tried to explicitly state that they were...

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Limited time offers are sales techniques that are meant to give the person choosing whether or not to purchase something less time to consider their decision. This is a calculated sales technique and should be approached with caution rather than with glee.
Many conspiracy hypotheses include a set of dire consequences that are meant to make fear and override logic in their audience. People who believe the world is going to end (or just significantly change) will make a different set of decisions than people who don't. This is, generally, bad for...

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I have a principle about rules: you only ever make a rule for something that you don't think people will do/follow if you didn't state the rule. This means that every rule says something about the people who are meant to operate by them. By explicitly stating the rule you betray something about the level of expectation of those meant to follow the rule. For this reason, we don't have rules about "obvious things" that we don't think people would really do.
Every so often someone drags out a list of...

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What is platforming? Why do we talk about it and why is it considered a good or bad thing? How does this interact with misinformation? How can we interact with bad information actors while still being careful about issues of platforming? 
These questions and several others are explored in Part 3 of our extended conversation about Free Speech.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels

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Free Speech: Why would we limit it?
First and foremost, you can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. This example is widely used mostly because it is both so succinctly put and illustrative of the point.
Second, hate speech can inspire violent acts and is very often targeted against marginalized people for populist gain. We need to limit hate speech. If you don't want overt rules against it then make an effort to limit hate speech socially in your everyday lives. If a person isn't working to limit hate speech socially...

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What is free speech? Why would we even want it? Free speech is about free expression of ideas. Ideas are the most important thing humans produce. They are what has allowed us to evolve past the other species into what we are now. The appropriate treatment of ideas has allowed us to create a structure for their creation. Ideas in a vacuum all seem good, therefore we need to weed out the bad ideas by challenging them. Ideas are useless until after they have survived an *appropriate* level of challenge (not any level...

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Thought experiment: if you lived in a world without mirrors (no reflective surfaces, no cameras for playback, no way to see your own face) would you be more self conscious of the way you appear? Or less self conscious of the way you appear? Would you eventually get to a point where you might be able to discover how attractive you were by comparing other people's reactions to you against those same people's reactions to other people?
We can look at some human properties as only having meaning when they are placed...

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Perception is the act of observing and understanding a thing. This is a subjective understanding and can (and often is) inaccurate compared with objective reality but it *is* true to the perceiver. We can view perception as observations that are being subsequently interpreted. The "observation to interpretation" process is a common part of the human experience and is almost always happening without anyone consciously thinking about it.
Observations can be inaccurate in that they are almost always incomplete. If you're viewing something with your eyes you have a particular vantage point from...

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Building a conspiracy is just like building a teddy bear. It will be unique, just like all the others. It will have all the same types of distinct features. We build a brand new conspiracy from a base set of principles that anyone could follow to make one of their own.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build-A-Bear_Workshop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration

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In this episode we discuss how swapping two common metaphors could potentially improve how we see two common things: science and deceptive practices. The episode then dovetails into a discussion about science in which I get something wrong and then Jeff gets something wrong. We find the path to the correct answers in the end, though.

Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force

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How does confidence affect the decisions of people around us?
Are we regularly mistaking confidence for competence? 
Are we trusting people more when they are confident and are some people taking advantage of that?
Is this whole thing being further skewed as more of our social interactions occur online without the regular set of social cues?

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With enough data points it is possible to find patterns which do not exist. This is often done by picking certain data points that fit a pattern and arbitrarily ignoring the rest of the dataset.
Outliers are a part of statistical analysis. They are data artifacts that don't appear to fit the rest of the dataset. Outliers can always tell us something important about the dataset, sometimes it's just something about the reliability of the measurement system involved. But sometimes it's something more specific about the circumstances surrounding that particular data point.<...

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Manipulation is the use of social power by one person over another person. It can be seen as "social cause and effect." We think of some people as "manipulative" but this is a messy thing, actually. Everyone manipulates in that everyone (generally) understands that, as individuals, we need the cooperation of other people to accomplish our individual goals and convincing other people to participate in that manner is a form of manipulation. Most of this manipulation is of the form "quid pro quo" when both parties get something of use. A person is "...