Secrets Unveiled: The Power of Hidden Truths with Andrew Gold

24:07And he was, it showed that he was doing lots of steps after a certain hour, because he was moving up and down when he said he had been tied up. So that's how they got him. Like, there are so many things you think you've disabled all of it. And there's more that knows and can tell everyone what you're doing all the time. It's sort of like the other aspect of AI, which is, you know, you see all these videos now, where Joe Biden says something, or Donald Trump says anything, or LeBron James says something, and it's not what they said. But AI can make the face look like they said something and they can mimic the voice.

24:37And so now, clearly, there's no way to really know, or soon it'll be the case that there's no way to know what's real, what's not. I wonder if we have to just take a different view of, we just have to say, look, we don't really know what's, we're never again going to know what's real and what's not. Like, we don't know what's a secret, what's the truth, what's a lie. We kind of just have to give up on that fact. You would, I think, I feel like so far, and I don't know if this will always happen, Capitalism, I'm not some like mad pro-capitalist guy, but so far it seems to always find a solution for the problems.

25:10It causes its own problem and then somehow solves it. So I wonder if, you know, it might cause this problem that now we're not going to be able to know what's real and what isn't. Just from like science and technology, everything's growing and we're building these mad things and it's gotten out of control. Well, those same clever people, I'm hoping, will find ways to show, hey, this is genuine and this is not. And who knows if they're going to be, I mean, I've heard murmurings of that, ways to sort of imprint something into the, maybe the DNA of the video to say, this is a real video that hasn't been touched by deepfake.

25:44I mean, I'm extremely worried. I mean, everyone is worried about losing their jobs to AI. And I don't know if you've seen, have you seen those like 24 hour news stations full of just fake people? No. Oh man. Because I, you know, every single person, I'm sure you've found this as well, is like, it's mad. Like AI is going to take everyone's jobs. Not mine though, because my job is so important and special and different. And so I, you know, and I suppose I felt like that as a YouTuber because I've now, since I last knew you, I guess I was a podcaster and I think I'm now a YouTuber. I thought, well, how can they do that?

26:13And now I've seen these news channels and it's people that look and sound just like me and you. They look like they're in a real studio and they're doing 24-hour news. They've got inflection in their voice. They're going like, hey, over to you, John. What do you think? Well, it's a bit crazy what's happening up here. Oh, you're, you know, you're American, John. Yeah, I am. And that's going on. And why couldn't they just have, and once you can have one or two like AI YouTubers, you can have an infinite number. So there could be millions of people all putting out their own AIs. Well, how the hell am I going to compete with this like AI that is tuned to say the most perfect things at the most perfect times to get as much interaction as possible?

26:52The only thing I can think is if there is something in it to show, no, no, but this is an AI and you hope that people still want to watch real people, but they might be able to get away with it without us knowing who's AI and who's not. We know people don't really care that much about watching real people because, for instance, they watch cartoons and anime and so on, and they're just as happy doing that for entertainment as they are watching real people. But you're a writer and a journalist and like an investigative type of journalist. So like, let's say I was building a media organization and let's say it was a financial news service.

27:26I would fire all the financial reporters and replace them with AI. Because AI could do probably a better job of reporting Microsoft's earnings. Probably a better job because they know past earnings of Microsoft. They could say, oh, it's similar to how Oracle had a dip because of this, this, this. So AI is going to be a better basic financial journalist. And for celebrity gossip too, I would fire everybody. Oh, Britney Spears had a weird video the other day, the same day her, some legal case was coming up. Like AI could do that better than humans. But look at what you do. in this book for instance you have spent time building up a relationship with amanda knox who's you know famous or infamously you know had this case in italy this murder case in italy that was held the world by you know it was a gripping story and you interviewed her and you have your own unique take on interviews i think for true creatives ai will be like a collaborator but you're always going to be able to enhance what the AI does.

28:26Even if the AI is great, even if the AI is great, the AI is not going to interview Amanda Knox and build a relationship with her and get the answers you got. And I'm just using that as an example. The whole book is filled with stories and examples and people who opened up to you about secrets. Now, maybe they would open up the same way to an AI, but you're going to have your personal interpretation and you're always going to be able to take what an AI produces and enhance it. But for a video, you can't enhance it. It's already done. Like it's just, here's the video. Let's put me in there now to make it better.

29:05That's not going to be a role that happens. So I think for some things, AI is going to be a great collaborator and make your job better. But for other things, yeah, the job's going to be fired. but um you know i do think you know ai and data are going to play a big role a big have a big effect on the role of secrets just like would like you talk a lot about cults in the book i think in general the internet and the more widespread spread of knowledge has probably reduced i would think has reduced the influence of cults on people but maybe i'm wrong you talk a lot about cults in this book yeah yeah well i used to do a lot of youtubing on cults and now i'd sort of do more culture war stuff um because i caught it controversy i suppose i suppose as cults have become less controversial it's just because everyone's on on board with that except for tom cruise and john travolta like everyone's anti-cult except for those two guys and even john travolta i think secretly he's like let me out you know um yeah so so the cult stuff i find fascinating.

30:09And I think you're right. There were two big, I mean, Scientology is the one everyone likes to know about because Scientology is the celebrity one. And it was really big at one point. And they still claim to have millions and millions of members. It's thought that they actually have 20 to 30 ,000 now, which is smaller than like our numbers of listeners. Like we have larger cults now in that sense than Scientology. So they had a lot of trouble. I mean, the first thing that happened was wiki leaks they they got loads of stuff about the origin story of scientology out there and then south park famously put out this episode with um tom cruise and john travolta all about the secrets of scientology and what they actually believe and that's one of the things i think people were surprised by is if you look at cults um people think that cults only tell their truth to their members and they keep other truths out but not only do they actually i mean they do keep other truths out, but they also don't reveal their own doctrine to their members.

31:06And that's something that religions used to do. You go back to Christianity years ago, it was only available in Latin or Greek or whatever. They didn't want the populace to actually be able to understand what they were worshipping. That's a way to keep people, if you keep them not knowing all the time, they're just going to be obedient because they don't know what's in there. That's a real way, secrets to keep power over people. Scientology, again, people think that Scientologists, you know they're like how can you believe in this stuff right galactic warlord xenu has taken nine or like hundreds of billions of people from his planet and put them into earth which was known as tigiak back then and in in scientology speak and put them into volcanoes to kill them and their souls came out they're called operating thetans and the operating thetans were put into cinemas this is actually what they believe it put into cinemas and the cinemas taught them fake things called Christianity and Judaism and Islam.

32:01And the real thing is Scientology. So who could possibly believe that? But most Scientologists don't even know about that. You don't learn about that until you go up these levels called operating thetans. One, two, and operating thetan three, or operating level three, is when you learn about Lord Zinu. By that point, you've already spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. You're in so deep, you've cut off all of your family and friends. So there's the boiling frog concept where it's happened so slowly that you just have to sort of go along with whatever they're telling you by this point.

32:34And the sunk cost fallacy as well. You've put so much in, you've just, you've got no choice. Like you've lost all your friends and family, just keep on going. So it's amazing how, and even then every level up you go, the more money you give, the more secrets you are told, the more special you feel as well, but also the more in their control you are. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Like, yeah, you're right. All, all these cognitive biases you meant, like you just said, like sun cost fallacy and so on. And when I was reading that in your book, I was thinking there were two other things at play, which remind me of Robert Cialdini's book, Influence.

33:10One is consistency. So, so is Scientology or NXIVM is a good example. NXIVM was a fascinating example because there, as you point out in the book, there's not the whole kind of science fiction backstory. And it was sort of unique in, in famous cults because of this, but it starts off just as a self-help thing. Like, Hey, come to this meeting and we're going to talk about how you could feel better in life and, and perform better and be more productive. And so it's almost like there's like this consistency thing happening, which Robert Cialdini talks about, get people to say yes. Like, Hey, don't you want to know how to live a better life?

33:46Oh yes, of course you do. So you kind of bring them in with consistency. And then as they trust you and as they get used to saying yes to you, they stay consistent with that. And now they say yes to more and more extreme things like, Hey, do you want to go to this retreat? Uh, it's only$10 ,000. And Oh yes, of course I do. And I remember one time going to, what was the thing that came after Est? it was it was cult like and I remember going to the first meeting I went because there was this girl I liked who said oh you should go to this and then afterwards two people like double teamed me and said hey you are going to have a retreat next weekend do you want to go and I'm like well I have to you know check my schedule and then they really started pouring it on like you know oh, you know, are you not a committed kind of person?

34:40Like, do you always doubt yourself and blah, blah, blah. So there was like all these tricks they were using to try to get me to say yes, because I was already there saying yes. Interesting. NXIVM is interesting because I knew someone who was very high up in NXIVM, and I knew when she was still in NXIVM, and she would talk to me. This is when NXIVM wasn't like a common word, Keith Raniere was still out there doing his thing. And she would tell me stuff like, why are people persecuting us? We're just trying to help people. And, but of course, that was the first step towards a much more, you know, a darker side to it.

35:19And so I wonder, I wonder if that's like how people get sucked into these things. The consistency aspects. Yeah, no, absolutely. There's probably so many aspects to it. Yeah, you start saying yes. And if they're just gotten you, it's interesting you went with a girl as well because that's so a lot of people get into cults because of that as well i mean steve hassan is known as sort of the the cult godfather or something for writing about the the dangers of cults um and he wrote this thing called the bite model b-i-t-e and it's this it's like one of those things where it's a list of this is what a cult is kind of thing um but he when he was younger he was like i don't know in his 20s he was at university he'd just been broken up with by his girlfriend and he was in the library and three beautiful women approached him and he was just like at that point, I just lost hold of all of my senses and was very vulnerable.

36:06And these beautiful women were saying, hey, you've got to come along to this thing called the Moonies, which was, you know, Reverend Moon in South Korea, who was thought to be the second coming of Christ. I don't think that everyone is, I mean, there's a line in the sort of anti-cult community on YouTube and all these things. And they will sort of, I think they're scared to victim blame. And I understand that urge that you don't want to blame the people who've fallen into cults. and I think we shouldn't blame them we should just be honest about what's going on and most of us I think most people listening if they were told no matter how beautiful these three women were they were told the second coming of Christ is a South Korean guy and you should come and join this this thing and you know most of us would say uh no you're all right no thank you you know so I don't know but but yeah I agree with what you're saying with the consistency aspect once he said yes once or twice the guy's in you know think about the guys you wrote about with scientology it's the one who like joined twice even and you know and again most people like you say don't know about the lord zenu stuff and all that until they're level five or whatever in the scientologists and so people and it's like you said too the smarter you are the more likely it is you could you could believe in these things or you know it's this i think it's true too the more the the higher iq you are the more likely it is you could be hypnotized like like you to start to tell a story of this guy i think his name is paul robeson wins the nobel prize and is somehow convinced to bring cocaine over the borders of Argentina.

37:52Like, how did that guy convinced get convinced to do that? Nobel Prize winner. It's so it's amazing. And we all think we're not going to get duped by stuff. And I had I nearly got duped just the other day. I'm trying to make myself a Wikipedia page, which is an embarrassing thing to have to admit. But I know that it will help me for my career. So then screw it. We're trying to get ahead. And I was like, why don't I have a Wikipedia? So I tried to make it and anyone who's tried to do that kind of thing on Wikipedia will know it's like impossible because there's a million rules to follow. There's a million rules and there's nasty people.

38:23Not all of them, I want to add, but some who are just in control of these things and have undue amount of power because it's this decentralized thing. Yes, 100%. And so I'm sitting there going, anyway, I put a draft in. So now there's a draft. It says it could take up to three months. Someone on LinkedIn sent me a message. And it's a LinkedIn person, works for Wikipedia, does all this stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've seen you've got a draft in. There's just a few little things you need to change and then we can put it up. Saying we as if he's at Wikipedia, all this stuff. And like, that's really like tempting.

38:56And he said, can you just like, here's my email address. And his email address was like Jonathan at wikiadmin.org or whatever it was. Oh my God. Yeah. Like that's really compelling, isn't it? If you're me and you want to, so I'm going, oh, thank you. So I start, I sent the email and I'm just, because I thought, you know, I don't know. It didn't even cross my mind this because it was so obviously real. Although, you know, one of the things that actually got me, because I did look again, so I emailed saying, hi, it's me, that'd be great, thank you so much, and all that. And then he replied saying, yeah, yeah, just give me a phone number and I'll just give you a quick call.

39:26And then I thought, okay, like, you could have just messaged me what the problems were on LinkedIn. You could have messaged me in the email, but now you're asking for more information. You want my phone number as well. What do you want my phone number for? And then I had another look at his LinkedIn and it said he speaks Urdu. And I know that's, I don't, there's nothing against people who speak Urdu. which is one of the many languages of India. But his name was like Jonathan. And I thought, hang on, there are very few people called Jonathan who speak Urdu. Something's not right here. So I didn't sort of follow up with any of that.

39:58But they've just done a good job. So we could all be gotten, but very few of us... Okay, here's the thing with the cult people. When you join a cult, I think, and I get a lot of flack for saying this, I think that part of you wants to be above other people, right? And I think that's with the victim blaming thing, no one wants to admit that bit. They just say, hey, clever people can be susceptible. And I think, yeah, clever people who want to climb a hierarchy and to be able to be in control of other people and to be special. So that's what I think. I think that's very true. I think the hierarchy thing is critical.

40:31Like when you look at cults that have, let's say, spun out of Scientology, meaning high level people who are at Scientology who ended up starting their own things. It always has that, hey, there's 12 levels. here's the initiation for the first level then second and third and it's always more and more money to get to like higher and higher levels and that works you look at like you know i don't want to not everything with a hierarchy is bad but you look at like sports okay you're either in the the minor leagues or the major leagues or you're in this division or the higher division and and people judge their self-worth by where they are in the hierarchy that they choose you can't be in every hierarchy but oh let's say you're a stand-up comedian i saw this in the stand-up comedy world are you performing at small clubs bigger clubs you know theaters uh arenas stadiums like there's a whole hierarchy there and i think that's how society is more or less formed that way so so So it makes sense that cults, you know, oh, here's a hierarchy that I actually could rise in and that they love me.

41:38They're love bombing me and they want me to rise in this hierarchy as opposed to most other hierarchies. That's it. It's very tempting. Status game. The status game. Not only that, you want to have power over others, not just people in the hierarchy, but hey, if you join this cult, you're going to have powers or some extra knowledge of life that you could use to make money or whatever. Yeah. You know what's proof of that? I just want to say about what you were saying about that need to climb ranks and be special and all of that stuff. I'm part of a... Because I did a lot of YouTube with all the ex-Scientologists, so I'm part of their sort of ex-Scientology community.

42:13And as you can probably guess, it became quite culty itself. And loads of infighting, loads of... They'd be telling these stories about their time in Scientology and acting a little bit as though, like, God, it was so bad. But you could tell there was a little bit of pride about one of them was higher up than the other while they were in the cult. and they've all fallen out and it's been an absolute disaster, all the ex-Scientologists. And I think it's just personality types. You've just got the personality types. I mean, to be fair, many of them were born into Scientology, but the ones who joined, these are people who want to climb up and be ahead of people.

42:45Yeah. And so I'm just curious, you include the stuff about cults in a book called The Psychology of Secrets. I guess what's interesting there is that even the members of the cult don't know all the secrets. and revealing the secrets is a way of luring people more and more in. So secrets have this hold on us. They're like a magnet. Like if you think about every movie and novel in the world, okay, sometimes people structurally describe a movie or a novel as, you know, the arc of the hero, Joseph Campbell's, you know, the hero's journey. But another way to describe the structure of a story is that there's a giant secret in the middle and it's gift wrapped with many layers of wrapping and each wrapping gets you further and further into the story until finally the secret is revealed.

43:34Like that's all what a story is. You delay it as much as possible. But if Scientology gave away too much of their secrets too early on, it's like, well, what do I do now? There's no point. So yeah, that's absolutely true. And it's obviously not just Scientology. This is something that authoritarian cults have done for a long time is to use secrets against one another. If you were high up in the Stasi, you might get a little bit of extra information about your neighbors. And who wouldn't want that rather than be the neighbor who isn't getting information, but their information about them is going to everybody else.

44:04So this use of secrets is a way to suppress people. I mean, it really is. And I think if you... Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Shit. What was I saying? So the secrets is like kind of withholding secrets and then giving secrets is almost like a currency of power, like in the authoritarian society sense. yeah and and to speak to your movie but this is what i was going to say to your point about movies and the stories that we tell one another uh it's definitely true that if something is supposed to be a secret or if it's a part of it is kept secret it really elevates that to the sublime it can the mundane to the sublime i give an example uh of my dad uh you know one of the earliest memories i have as a child walking in on my dad and he's got like silver foil in his hair and he's dyeing his hair basically uh getting highlights in there you know he was quite vain he had this long hair and like nobody would remember that like as an early childhood memory except that he went no don't come in like no no no close the door and I was like oh shit I've like stumbled in on something secret here and that has just like imprinted itself on my psyche forever and it's just such a boring stupid thing it's just him getting hair dye but you make something a secret it just elevates it to this incredible level and I think good storytellers good authoritarian leaders and cult leaders, they know exactly how to use those secrets to sort of ensnare you.

45:31Yeah, and like, you know, think about it. If he hadn't yelled out, like, you know, get out of here or whatever, would you have remembered it? No, not in a million years. So it's interesting too how it's not the secret itself. Sometimes it's the wrapping around the secret. Like that's why the unraveling done artfully is either a story or an authoritarian regime or a cult. And you mentioned early on in the book, something like 97 % of people in a survey say they have some deep, dark secret. And people communicate like when, if I tell you a secret, let's say we're hanging out, I tell you a secret, that's almost a way of bringing two people closer.

46:15Oh, this person's sharing a secret with me. Now I'm gonna share a secret with them. And it's sort of, that's often a way of two people becoming closer. And that can be used in a manipulative way too if you know that's why you're revealing the secret. And so it's interesting how fundamental the psychology of secrecy is to all communication really. Absolutely. And I think also I try to think about what a secret actually is and how it differs from something that's just private or a lie. Is that a secret? Is it not a secret? Where do these things overlap? And it's interesting. I love thinking about the fact that, okay, so a secret, it seems, is actually a societal transgression.

47:01You've done something that you want to keep quiet, that goes against the norms of the particular time and place you live in. So I don't know, if you kept a slave in the 18th century, then that might be private, but it's not no big secret. It's just everyone knows that's what you're doing. If I had a slave in my house now, that would be a huge secret, you know? And the only thing that's changed is the time and society and whatever. Like human beings are still human beings. And the value of that information has risen, right? Because fewer people have slaves, one would think as a percentage of society, fewer people have slaves living in their basement now than in the 1800s.

47:42And so the value of that piece of information has risen And because supply has gone down and demand has probably gone up for that knowledge, the value of that information has gone up to the level where you could say this is a secret. Yeah, no, absolutely. And then another example is like, you might think that how often your parents have sex, that's a secret or whatever. Or your parents have sex, that's a secret. And it's not really because - But that's information I don't, has no demand. There's no demand for that information. So what's the difference between that secret and the slave in the basement?

48:15Well, that secret goes along with societal expectations. That's all it is. And funnily enough, if a couple doesn't have sex, so the less salacious option is just, a couple doesn't have sex, right? Boring. What a boring piece of information. But that is a secret. That is a secret because society expects that a couple has sex. When the sex dries up, that becomes a secret. Them having sex is just private. So the difference, anything that's private, if you make that something that would cause ostracization, were it aired, if anyone knew about it, or if it was something that goes against societal expectations, that's when it becomes a secret.

48:53And, you know, that has really important... I think it's important because the way that we portray ourselves on Instagram, for example, social media, and I know this is an overspoken about topic, but we're these perfect, pristine people and all of these kinds of things. It means that when you do something that doesn't go along with those ridiculous expectations, you feel a lot of shame because those are the societal expectations. They don't align with what we're all actually doing. And that's why in my survey, I did a survey to find out how much people pick their noses. Because I just find that such a ridiculous, silly thing that, you know, I told a story about a friend of mine who he always remembers one of the first memories he has when he was like 10, his mom's taking him to school and he's got his finger right up his nose, like really having a pick.

49:42and then he suddenly notices that outside the window, they're in traffic. There's these three girls about his age who've been walking alongside the car looking at him the whole time and laughing with each other and pointing and stuff. And it's just what a traumatic thing. And it's so bizarre because it's something that everyone, according to my survey, does. Most people feel they do it way too much. And yet we have to pretend it doesn't happen. And that makes it into a secret rather than just a private matter. There's one theory which we just talked about, which is what's the value of this information?

50:12The other is what's the penalty for this information? So, and that's something that's a little bit personal. Like for him, the penalty of these girls seeing him pick his nose was pretty high. Even though it's girls he's never gonna see again, he never has to think about this in the future, but somehow in his head, right that moment, the penalty was so high, he remembers it for the rest of his life. And it's the same thing with, you know, like for your dad, his self-conception of the penalty of his secret was so high that that's what made it kind of bigger than it than it was so that's like a self-perception kind of thing and you know and also like things like insider information in the stock market there's a legal penalty so that's why some things are a secret um you know if you have information and that can't get out there there's there's a penalty for that information getting out there a legal penalty and as opposed to other things which might just be there's no penalty there's no value but but it's private then so some if someone said you know james how often do you have sex okay i'm not gonna say i'm not gonna reply that's secret like like i think it's i think it's private i think that's private unless unless the number is either like zero or like a thousand and then it's like because then there's a penalty there's some ostracist there's some judgment yeah yeah i think i think a lot of this is an evolutionary hangover if you look at like tribes.

51:39Imagine tribes going about their business, doing their thing back in the day. And then you did something that you knew went against societal expectations. So in my friend's case, it had his finger up his nose, right? That went against society. So he suddenly had this pang of utter humiliation. And that's a way for your body to tell you. You're walking around in these tribes like, hey, man, you just did something that the rest of the tribe don't like. And I'm going to make it feel really bad for you in here so that you don't ever do that again and don't get kicked out the tribe. Right. So that's, that's really interesting because, okay, so, so Darwin had his theory of revolution, of evolution, but then he had this other theory, uh, which he wrote about, I think it was his theory of sexual selection, which he asked the question, why are artists attractive?

52:27Like why are rock stars attractive? And, and it's because, you know, because everyone loves a rock star. And his theory was that they sort of rose beyond evolution in the sense that an artist had no real value in society. If you paint it on the cave walls, you're not like hunting and getting food or anything. So this idea that you've risen beyond the normal expectations of evolution and that becomes value. Like how could this person be so special that he's even beyond evolution? and so darwin's theory was that that is sexually rewarded more than even being the best hunter of bears and in this case if you don't care that someone uh saw you picking your nose you know you're cooler than the people who do care the people who do care are like more nerdy like oh my god i picked my nose and they saw but the people who are cooler like screw you i can do whatever I want, they get, they get the girls or the guys or whatever.

53:31And I noticed, and the reason I bring this up is I noticed when I was writing, when I switched around 2010, I used to write about mostly just stocks and financial stuff. And then I started writing about how times that I've gone broke and other kind of shameful things where things I used to be ashamed about, but then I would just write about them openly. My audience probably, my writing audience probably 10X over what it was before because I was owning, I was rising beyond the shame I was supposed to feel about going broke. Yeah. I think that's, that's, there's definitely something to that. I'm not, the only thing I think is that, of course, you could do something really embarrassing and it would get millions of views, but it might not make people think you're cool.

54:18I think people like to think you're cool because you're a great writer. And because the things that are embarrassing of things that happen to everyone all the time and people can relate. There's also a difference between, as you say, you're owning it like that. There wasn't much that my friend could have done, I don't think, when he had his finger up his nose like that. So I think there are some things that cause such revulsion in a particular society. So it just so happens in Western modern society, a finger up a nose is just revulsion. And if you try and explain your way out of that, the groupthink is so strong, you'll see people jump on you.

54:49We can take a much stronger, and more disgusting example. There was recently this guy in Spain who's a politician. I don't know if the news reached the States. And he was found to have been eating shit, basically. And he'd put them on some website or I don't know what, and people have found out that it was him. And obviously that's disgusting. And he quit his job and all of these kinds of things. And then a friend of mine, do you know Peter Boghossian? Yeah. Yeah, he's been on the podcast a bunch of times. Oh, great. Okay, I love Peter. And so Peter tweeted, because he's always just going to be that guy.

55:29He just doesn't care. And he owns it. And he goes, I'm going to be that guy. And he said, Okay, the guy did a horrible thing. But here's something, why don't we just leave him alone? Right? And you would think that if it were possible to just own stuff that people would have gone good point, Peter, they absolutely hounded him. And I spoke to Peter, he said, I just don't care. I don't care. Like, fine. But I was stupid enough to then tweet like, come on, like, because people were putting under Peter's thing, saying, obviously, you like eating shit as well. That's how the groupthink works. You can imagine a tribe.

55:59I mean, we know about witch hunting. You can imagine a tribe back in the day, you do one thing that isn't you're not supposed to do. Everyone's going to jump on you because they're scared that they're going to get accused or whatever it might be. I find it so cowardly and contemptible, but it's just life. And so loads of people saying that. So I just replied saying, guys, like, you know, just because you're missing the point here. He's just saying a guy did a disgusting thing. He's lost his job. He's been embarrassed. Job done. Let's move on. And as you can imagine, I got loads of tweets going, oh, obviously, Andrew and Peter both like eating shit and all this stuff.

56:30So I think that idea of owning it is a nice idea and can work in certain circumstances. But if you sort of screw up in any way, that tribe, that cultish mindset of the human being is there to punish you quickly. I think you're right. I think because like in my, in, in the situation I described about myself, it was, it was okay. I still got all the trolls and the haters. That was interesting to me. But the reason why I 10 X the audience and got many more people who liked my stuff was because this has happened to many people. They've all kept it secret and, and they all related to what I was writing.

57:06Whereas not everyone's going to relate to like eating shit and, or being supportive about eating shit. So you didn't really have a natural audience of people to support you. Yeah, just to reiterate to anyone listening, I wasn't supporting the act of eating shit. Neither was Peter. It was just a mind. I mean, Peter does that. Anyone who knows him, he likes to, he's very much a contrarian. I mean, as are you and as am I, and I imagine many people who listen to your podcast are as well, and you just want to sort of throw something out there and go, well, you know, maybe we shouldn't all jump on this.

57:36I hate any kind of jumping, everyone jumping on one guy. I always feel bad for that guy. And I don't know. But again, that's another dimension of secrecy. Like depending on how relatable the secret is, supporting that secret, so now one level further, like supporting that secret will subject you to the same type of judgment. And we see this all the time. People will judge you based on who you hang out with. And sometimes that's appropriate, but sometimes, like in this case, just a tweet supporting Peter who made a tweet saying, hey, leave this guy alone, that got you the same, you inherited suddenly the same hostility that the Spanish politician got when his secret was revealed.

58:24So there's such this magnetic power on secrecy that is so immense, which is why I think approaching this as the psychology of secrets is, you know, so compelling. secrets are really powerful. And that's why as well, I started looking at, you know, what kinds of people do we reveal our secrets to? And it turns out that most people, when you ask them, who do you think you reveal secrets to? We tend to say we reveal our secrets to polite people. Like, oh, a nice polite person, I'd probably tell them. And in actual fact, it's the complete opposite. We don't. And that's because on some level, we know they would be the worst people to tell.

59:01Because what does polite mean? Polite means you adhere to societal norms at a particular time and place. Again, what is polite in Japan might not be what's polite in America. We know what's polite in America and the UK is even different. It's different all over. It's a totally subjective social construct. It doesn't mean anything. And if you happen to be harboring a Jew in the time of the Nazis, well, the polite thing to do is to report that somebody's doing that. So you would not tell a polite person or during times of the Stasi or whatever, you wouldn't tell of them by the way I went and uh watched pornography or whatever because they hated pornography in the stasi um so we never tell polite people polite is not and if you want to get secrets out of other people don't sort of stress how polite you are uh the best thing to be is assertive and I think someone like Peter in in in pushing back there he was assertive right that Spanish guy doing his disgusting habits would have been much better place to tell just Peter than to tell all of these people who would consider themselves to be polite but really are just bullying this guy waiting for him to kill himself, you know?

1:00:02Well, assertive, but not judgmental. Like you'd have to get a sense that they're not going to judge you. That's true. That's true. I mean, one of the examples I looked at was, there's a journalist here called Louis Theroux, or Louis Theroux, Americans sometimes pronounce it, the son of the travel journalist, Paul Theroux. He's like the guy in the UK that people will think of when it's like, oh, everyone reveals their secrets to him. How does he do it? How does he get people to try? And everyone just thinks, oh, he's really polite and whatever. And I went and watched back and he was actually pretty judgmental.

1:00:30He was like, that's bullshit what you're saying. That's not true to Nazis when he was interviewing them. Stuff like that. But he's definitely assertive and he definitely does show compassion. So those were the two biggest indicators of traits in people that we revealed to. So in what sense was he compassionate? So he was saying that's bullshit, but maybe he wasn't being judgmental. He's just saying, I don't really believe that that is... Like, he's not judging the secret. He's just saying, I don't believe that that's true. So maybe that's true. That's true. There's an element of judgment there.

1:01:02I just think it's like, they're seeing this guy, they're going, hey, I'm a Nazi, and I hope no one cuts that bit out of context. But I'm an Nazi, and no one wants to talk to me ever. Well, here's this journalist, and he's hanging out with me. We're going on the school run to take my kids to school. We're like having lunch together. And yes, he keeps, as you say, having a go at me. And he is a bit judgmental. He's judging some of the stuff, but he sees me as an equal. He doesn't think he's morally superior to me. He's not polite. So something about me trusts him because I guess evolutionarily, we know a polite person is someone who sticks too rigidly to social mores.

1:01:38And he's compassionate. I see that how he's interacting with his crew or how he's talking to my daughter right now. He's interested and he wants to get to the human in people. I think that's how we get people to tell us their secrets. Those are the traits we have to sort of emphasize. And there's always this relationship between secrecy and lying because if you don't want to tell a secret and someone directly asks you you have to lie to cover up the secret and you you discuss in the books uh and you you brought up Anne Frank earlier but you discuss how Sam Harris had who wrote a book uh lying uh Sam Harris has been a frequent guest on this podcast uh you mentioned how he had a professor in college who was able to convince him even in the Anne Frank situation you shouldn't lie to the stormtroopers who come to the door asking if Anne Frank's there.

1:02:27What's the argument for not lying? I mean, 100 % I would lie if Anne Frank was in my attic. I would hope that I would lie. I would like... Because you never really know how you react in a certain situation. But I hope I would lie. So what's the argument though for not lying? I think I'd do that thing where I'm like, no, she's not here. But like with my eyes, looking like she's up there kind of thing. Don't kill me. As long as you don't kill me, I'm fine. No, hopefully I would also be brave, but who knows. So Sam didn't really give... I mean, it was quite muddy what he seems to say. He's not entirely sure of what he's saying.

1:03:05He doesn't give examples of what the teacher used to say in that Anne Frank situation. And he even, after sort of spending a long time saying, you know, we must just always tell the truth. It's always best to tell the truth. He then says only a psychopath would actually endorse this kind of behavior. Like I must tell the truth in that circumstance. I mean, I get, let me, let me just interrupt for one second. Like, I guess there's a macro argument where, where is, is why you'd have to be a psychopath. The macro argument might be, I'm going to tell the truth here and Anne Frank is going to die. But because I told the truth, they're going to be more likely to listen to and believe all my neighbors who are who are who will lie about the girls they have in their attics and all of those girls will be saved because the people will believe because they knew I was telling the truth yeah I mean there's I mean that I think that's maybe it's a bit specious isn't it but you're hopeful in that situation you'd be panicking wouldn't you I'd be like yeah okay maybe I'm helping I'm helping other people I'm helping all the others to survive um I mean Immanuel Kant gives this answer because he's a truth purist and he was a philosopher German guy.

1:04:14And so he said, the issue here is that you lie and say, no, Anne Frank's not up there. Now, this was before Anne Frank. So it was just a random person that you're harboring. But you say, Anne Frank's not up there. And then you don't know this, but Anne Frank climbs out the window and like escapes. And then the guard, the Nazi, he's left because you said, no, Anne Frank's not up there and the nazi then comes across and frank and the road and kills her and that's your fault because your lies led to that situation yeah i read that argument in the book and i was thinking that doesn't that seems really like convoluted like and frank has to be like shopping in the grocery store now and then the nazis just randomly run into her and now she definitely dies as opposed to maybe she would have died and so that so i'm so by the way it does make me think that there were probably too few or too many philosophers back then.

1:05:10Now just everybody's a philosopher because you have Twitter. So the value of being a philosopher has gone to zero. The supply is now infinite of philosophers. So... Poor philosophers. Hmm? Well, the philosophers, I mean, they weren't exactly swimming in money before, were they, the philosophers? And now it must be their economy, yeah, it's just sunk. It's just crashed. Yeah. So, I mean, what did your own relationship to secrecy, like, okay you know and i'm pretty sure we've talked about this before but where do you stand on radical honesty because that's related to all this secrecy and the anne frank stuff and so on it's just it's just certain kinds of people i was on this podcast called trigonometry do you know that yeah so constantin kissing and francis foster and i had a great time on there and when we finished they said constantin said well well done that that was great that was really really really good.

1:06:05That's going to do well, you know, that kind of thing. And I said, yeah, but I mean, I say that to everyone when they come on my podcast, like if someone, you know, I just always tell them you were brilliant, you were wonderful. That was so good. I mean, I've even said that in times when I think, God, I can't even put that one out. That's so bad. But I'll still just be like, fantastic. Thank you so much. Yeah, you're really good. And he just went, I thought he would sort of sort of agree i don't know and he's went really why i went what why because it's easier or because this is a person who's given up their day to come and whatever and if they are going to realize later down the line that oh god my video wasn't actually very good or whatever at least they've realized it you know they're at home they're with their family they're alone or whatever instead of like face to face with the guy who's like looks really disappointed in them that's such an awkward thing and so sad for them to have to go through.

1:06:57And he said, well, you know, you've just got to be honest. You should always be honest. I don't know what's right there. I just know it's not natural for me to do it. And it appears that it is natural for him to do it. And I think that helps him out a lot because he has no issues with just being honest and putting everything on the table and it makes him a wonderful arguer. But I couldn't do it. I think you wouldn't be able to do it either. I definitely would not be able to. No, you can't. You can't even reply to a text, you know? I know. Wait, have you texted me and I've not replied? No, I didn't bother.

1:07:29By the way. No, but it's true. This is a huge problem for me that's getting bigger every single day that I literally cannot respond to people. And then everyone who I like, because those are the people who text me are people who I like. Everybody who I like starts to hate me. And I don't know what I can do about this problem. It's some kind of issue I have. I'm fortunate that with you, I went into this with my eyes open because when I met you a year and a half ago, I think, I'd already read your articles. You don't even reply to your own family. So I gave you a bit of shit about it, but I just thought, okay, this is someone I'm meeting who's very nice, very hospitable, and what a lovely experience it was.

1:08:06And it really, really was. I mean, you know, and it's gonna, I'm not gonna have an ongoing relationship with this man until Jay maybe messages me or something because he can't reply to texts. It's just as if phones weren't a thing. And I've accepted that. I can't respond to phone calls either. so i i don't it kind of makes me isolated but uh i i'm trying i'm trying really hard it's it's i need like some i don't know how to do it but you know it it's so it's by the way just in general all the topics that you write about and that we talk about they're so interesting each one deserves its own podcast like i love reading about nexium because i knew personally someone who was like neck deep in that cult while they were still in it.

1:08:53I loved reading about Scientology just because I didn't really know that all that stuff about Lord Zeno. I hadn't seen the South Park episode. And it was interesting how even people very deep into Scientology were still high enough to know all of these secrets. So it was fascinating to see how they unraveled their secrets in order to basically extract more money from people. And just in general, the psychology of secrecy made me think of the connection between secrecy and storytelling. And it builds a whole new model of storytelling if you think about stories in terms of secrets. And it's just always fascinating stuff that you're working on.

1:09:29Like what else are you working on? What are you working on now? Thank you for the kind words, by the way. I do really appreciate that. And it reminds me of storytelling. I mean, that's such a big part that we've actually lost in... Because I try to look at the good sides as well. And I did have a go at Hasidic Judaism in the book, but they would say to us like, okay, you've got your individualism and you've got your American dream and all of this stuff and you can do what you want to do. Okay. But you've lost what we have, what they have, which is they gather around a, you know, a fire or whatever it might be.

1:10:01And they tell one another stories and they can't wait for the next story. And there's something nice about that. Now, I wouldn't change it for what we have, not in a million years, but, you know, I also want to be honest that I think it's sad that we don't really have that. In terms of what I'm working on, I mean, I started this new channel that's going to probably, I mean, it might piss off half your listeners, but the other half will absolutely love it. Because I was doing the YouTube channel about cults and ideologies. And every now and then, I went into controversial terrain. Like people don't mind, like I said, everyone's on board with you about Scientology.

1:10:31But when you go into like, well, either side of the political spectrum, like is Trump a cult or whatever, people are really angry and if you go on the other side is trans ideology a cult or something like that everyone goes bananas and so I thought I've just got to start a new channel and just do that stuff I'm really interested in the culture wars obviously both sides you know when you go too far either way are awful but I don't find the right as interesting as a storyteller as a youtuber or whatever because I don't know any right-wing people I don't know guys running around saying Jews will replace us and just, oh, I hate black people and I should have a slave.

1:11:09I don't know anyone. That's not to say they're not out there, but no one I grew up with and no one I know is espousing this stuff on Instagram. Whereas loads of people I know who I went to university with and all these kinds of things are shouting all sorts of woke stuff, you know, trans women are women, that kind of thing. So I just thought, okay, you can't have a YouTube, unfortunately. That does both because you get an audience and your audience are going to go for, you know, one way, unfortunately. That's a really sad aspect of audience culture. By the way, I think Peter Boghossian told me this.

1:11:43I think basically he said, you can't be in the middle if you want an audience. Because then both sides, if you want, I think it was either Peter Boghossian or Scott Adams who told me, if you present the view of both sides fairly, then everyone will hate you. Yeah, 100%. That's what he did with the shitting Spanish man. The way YouTube works, And I feel like I've got the algorithm sort of down. Not that there actually is an algorithm. It's just basic psychology. It's basic human psychology. And so if I water things down and make them nuanced, it doesn't get as many clicks. That's just life. It's just reality.

1:12:15It means that I lose a lot of friends who think I'm more extreme than I am. The interviews are very nuanced. The titles and thumbnails on YouTube are pretty extreme. But also I've now got, after six months of this new channel, it's already got 125 ,000 subscribers. Most videos get 100 ,000 to 500 ,000 views. so it's doing well and I know that what it does is every time I put out a new video if I were going to put out something like oh this is the problem with Trump you know he's not very statesman like and he's just a bit of a buffoon or whatever or you know or things I would like to say you know I'm still like probably pro-choice and I'm a vegan I'm not very passionate about it but I don't eat meat and like things like that if I suddenly put out something like why I don't eat meat Well, what YouTube will do is it will show those 125 ,000 subscribers first.

1:13:05These are the guys that signed up because I said the left has a worrying relationship with Islam. You know, they don't want to, they're not going to click. And if they don't click, YouTube won't show the actual audience who would want to see that stuff about why I don't eat meat. So you can't win. And I tried and tried and tried. And the videos that were a bit more worthy and that's other side just failed every time. And then you can't pay to run your channel. um but anyway that's that's what that's right that's very interesting that's similar someone someone told told us uh the linkedin algorithm show it takes anything you write and it shows your first 30 000 subscribers uh the article or the content and then if they like it it shows it to the rest and then to the outside world and if they don't like it within the first 60 seconds or minute or 10 minutes or whatever, then it's gone.

1:13:56And I'm thinking, boy, my first 30 ,000 subscribers were 18 years ago. So I don't even know who, you know, they're all dead. I don't even know who they are. That's a problem. That is a problem on like YouTube in particular. It's not so much of a problem on like an audio platform because an audio platform doesn't have discoverability in the same way. So people subscribe to it. If they like what you've put out, they'll always get a notification and they'll watch it, listen to it, sorry. On YouTube, you only get big views from discoverability, which means YouTube saying, hey, this video is doing really well with his normal subscribers.

1:14:28Let's push it to new groups. And that's how you grow. And that's how a video does well. So you are constantly incentivized, not just financially, but also you want your channel to do well, you know, to get more and more extreme guests who are all one way and all one way of thinking. And even like I had a guy on the other day who was really nuanced. He's the guy who wrote the status game, Will Storr. And early on, he said he made a sort of joke about anti-vaxxers because, you know, it just seemed obvious to him that the vax is fine or whatever. And I didn't even say I don't have an opinion. I don't you know, it's not my area of expertise.

1:15:01But I saw a huge drop off because somebody had said a thing that went against what their tribe thinks for like an anti-woke or non-culture war channel, and they couldn't handle it. So anyway, I try I'm just trying as much as I can to keep it balanced. And I think the way to do that now is have extreme guests on because people click on that, but halfway to ask them about what they're talking about. And then halfway through say, okay, let's have an argument, you know? Um, and so, and then I still get to feel like, Hey, I've, I've pushed back against some of the views, but some of them I agree with.

1:15:39So it's a lot on the, how fast do you do the argument? Like how fast do you have to bring the argument in to get the controversy in? Well, the argument doesn't necessarily get more views because the argument is, if you imagine all my followers and subscribers are going, yes, this is a video about why the trans thing is no different to exorcism in another part of the world. Because it's just like teenage girls who don't have control of their lives, trying to exert control over something and it's their body or whatever. You want to watch that video, then that's what you're on. You're like, I'm on this.

1:16:11So we've got a guest. The guest is telling me all that stuff. And if I suddenly go, well, hang on. I don't agree. That's already putting a bit of, they're getting annoyed. They're writing comments going like, hey, well, Andrew's not on board with this. Well, I am. And people are pissed off. And they click off. There's too many other videos for them to watch with people who do say the things they want to hear. So that's the reason that I actually leave the argument for like half an hour in. And it's for me really. But it's also good for trailers on Twitter and things like that. So that is good.

1:16:39I did a good one the other day. It was a really woke woman called Enia Luko, who is a black English ex-soccer player who is a pundit, like a commentator on TV all the time with the football. And, you know, I think you know from my story and everything, I used to work at the BBC and make documentaries. And then they said, because you're a white man, we can't have you on screen. You have to be like behind the camera and we'll put a minority on screen. And I was like, but it's my work. The journal, I found the stories and that's what they wanted. They didn't want to hear that I was Jewish. That didn't help.

1:17:08but they would just laugh at me when I said that and whatever. And so we had this debate, her and I, where she was saying, hey, DEI is a good thing. And I was saying, no, it's not. And that did like really well, not on YouTube. It did okay, got 200 ,000 views. But on Twitter, it like blew up, got over 2 million views because it was this big clash. And also because unfortunately, she really didn't come across that well. And it was one of those kind of disaster ones. But yeah, you know, so that's what I'm doing. It's a channel called Heretics. that's so interesting. And the stuff about the algorithm is interesting because I feel like, I don't know what I did early on in YouTube, but I must have quickly built up to about 50 ,000 subs.

1:17:48But that was like, again, years and years ago, more than 10 years ago. And now I post something and I tend to be pretty neutral about a lot of issues. I just want to kind of learn and get information and maybe storytell, but I can't get views because I'm just like not triggering the algorithm at all. I'll get literally like 12 views on something. You're completely fucked, man. You're fucked. You've got to start a new channel. I think that's right. I think I do have to start a new channel. But your channel is like related to like your email and like your Google account and all that. I guess I have to start a branded channel.

1:18:21Like you started a channel with a name like Heretics. It's not like the Andrew Gold channel. It's actually got a purpose that's outside of you. So you could start a new one. Your problem isn't that you're James Altucher. That's a good thing. People will sign up. But it is a problem what you've encountered. You've got a lot of people at the beginning. A lot of celebrities get a lot of subscribers at the beginning. They start a YouTube channel, and then their videos don't do well. And the reason for that is that subscribers, those people are not necessarily people who want to watch an hour-long interview.

1:18:48They're people who like the guy. Say it's Ricky Gervais. They're like, I like this guy, Ricky Gervais. I'm going to just subscribe. So suddenly, he's got a million followers, but none of them are actually people who watch his kind, if he was doing podcasts, let's say. None of them are those people who watch it. So what happens? Every time he puts out a new video, or let's say you, Every time you put out a new video, loads of people followed you because they liked the stuff about the articles that were controversial, things you've said in the past. But maybe these are not podcast listeners or podcast viewers on YouTube.

1:19:16They've just seen your name and they go, oh, I like him. Click subscribe, but they'll never watch it. So you're just screwed from the beginning because every video you put out goes to them first. They don't watch it. No one else gets to see it. So yeah, you've got to start again. And that's why I started again with Heretics. It just wasn't going to work on the old channel. I think that's really smart. I'm going to experiment with this. So, and then when's the book on heretics coming out? Oh man, I might. I started it. It's called, what was it? The Unintentional... Oh man, hang on. I want to get this right.

1:19:53Because I had this great name. And I've probably got it here. The Unintended. The Unintended Bigot Chronicles of a Hellbound Heretic. And it's about how, because I haven't mentioned this, but this book, I was invited to like loads and loads of museums, the Tate Museum, all these kinds of things to speak about it. And every single one of them got in touch after inviting me with Pam McMillan and disinvited me because they say I'm a controversial figure. I think it's mostly because of the gender stuff. So I've not been able to do any of that kind of like traditional publicity. And I'm like, this is weird.

1:20:30Yeah. So I'm sitting there thinking it's interesting because the book, as you know, doesn't even touch on culture wars. It's all about psychology and secrets and those kinds of cults and things. So I just thought, how has it gotten to this point where, I mean, one very quite famous journalist, his name was going to be on the back and he also called up the day before and said, I've seen what you've been doing and I don't actually disagree with you, but I can't have my name on the back of the book. I was like, okay, thanks for that, coward. But, you know, how is it, I'm interested in investigating that, sort of telling the story of how I started the YouTube channel and all of these things and trying to analyze myself and go like, am I a bad guy?

1:21:05What's going on? Have I let myself be captured by audience and ideology? So that's what I'm interested in now. Can we do another podcast about that like in a couple of weeks? Yeah, of course. We can do it now and after you write the book. We can do that. And we can do that in a couple of weeks if you want. And then just push the psychology of secrets at the end. That's what I want people to get because you know what? They did a weird thing. It's not even out in America till the 1st of September on Amazon. you can free order. Oh, this is not out till 1st of September? Yeah, it's mad. But it is out in the UK.

1:21:39So what all my sort of subscribers in America are doing is you go to amazon.co.uk, you've got to go to the English Amazon, the UK Amazon, and order it there. And then they ship it over. It's like, hopefully it's only like$5 or$6 or something to ship it over from the UK. Well, people should absolutely get it. Like they should get it now because I really, I don't always enjoy, look, when I have a guest on, I usually love what they do. But sometimes, like maybe they ghost write the book or maybe they're not really a writer. So it's a little bit, I like the ideas, but it's a little harder to get through the book.

1:22:16You are an excellent storyteller. You're an excellent writer. This book is so fascinating. Like the concepts around secrecy, the psychology of secrecy. I just loved it. So it's a great book and you're always a great guest, Andrew. You're always welcome on the podcast. You should come on all the time. And, you know, thanks once again for coming on this. And by the way, here's what I'll do. I'm going to release the podcast now so people can order off of amazon.co.uk, but also I'll release it in the first week of September when it comes out. Oh, mate, you're amazing. You're an absolute legend. Double hit.

1:22:52So thanks once again, Andrew. I really appreciate it. It's such interesting stuff. Oh, thank you, James. anytime