1323: Todd Rose | The Collective Illusions Tearing America Apart

20:03Todd Rose:And I'm like, in a war? We think we've uncovered something that relates to collective illusions, but we need to show you. And it turns out that there was really solid proof that foreign entities, China, Iran was particularly at play, and Russia. In this case, China was manipulating the algorithm, the TikTok, to drive anti-Semitic sentiment. China didn't care. They weren't like, hey, we hate Jews. It was actually more, this was a psychological weapon that you can refine this way so that when they tried to take Taiwan, they can get our young people streaming out into the streets in protest. Very, very effective.

20:37Todd Rose:But what we found, and I say we broadly, there's a lot of people in this now, is I would put it this way. We were losing a war that we didn't even know we were fighting in the space of propaganda and manipulation. Not to be too wonky, but there's a book about World War I called Guns of August. Oh, I've heard of this. Yeah, yeah. So good. So Barbara Turkman, an historian, her thesis was basically that the reason that war was so bloody and awful was that the technology for war had changed exponentially, but the mindset about war hadn't. And so they built strategies like, we're going to fight over small amounts of land.

21:14Todd Rose:We're going to dig trenches. Yeah, but now you have machine guns and chemical weapons. You're not just firing muskets at each other. And I think we have a Guns of August moment here in the form of propaganda where we've been taught to think that these state-sponsored actors sow disinformation. It's actually not really true. That's not terribly effective. What they do is they can manufacture collective illusions very easily with bots. And now with AI enabled bots that we've been tracking, very easy to get you to believe that your community believes something they do not. And then your conformity bias kicks in, you start acting.

21:52Todd Rose:And it's like, to me, like the way drones have changed war with the Shahid drone or whatever, Here's my$50 ,000 drone against your$5 million interceptor. Building a bot army and sowing discontent and distrust and manufacturing illusions in another country is so cheap. It is, yeah. And so effective. And right now, for example, conservative estimates. So we know from the research that if your interactions online are about 5 % with bots, if the bots are well designed, they can guarantee what consensus in that group will be. They can drive it. conservative estimates on social media is a quarter of all your interactions are with bots.

22:31I totally believe that. I mean, the people who say, I'm going to turn your family into a bar of soap. I got that comment the other day. I always look at it and it's like a picture of a totally normal looking person that's probably AI. They have two followers. They have four posts and they're all like weird photos that look AI. It's like a picture of a book or something or like a meme of a Jewish person. And then it's like following 3000 people. And I'm like, I bet you that if I worked for Instagram or Meta, I could look and see account created three days ago, immediately followed 3 ,000 totally random people and then follows everyone who interacts with it online.

23:06I mean, it's just obviously fake nonsense.

23:09Todd Rose:And the thing is, is what they've gotten really good at too is the bot armies now with AI though, if I want to shape your view and get you to be like someone who will start to speak up for things you didn't even believe in to begin with. So it's the bots that amplify and then there's entire bots that are dedicated to comment threads. So the first three comments in the thread basically dictate the tone of the thread. And so I get you to post about something because you think it's the right thing to say. And then the bots will also go in in addition to retweeting you will actually go in and basically verbally confirm that you're so smart or if you say the wrong thing, they attack you and they condition you into a certain behavior.

23:50Todd Rose:Like, oh, this is what my group believes. Exactly. So effective. I had a post like this. It was from Cory Doctorow, and he writes about technology and stuff. And he said, yeah, there's an Israeli tech company that is actually working with Delta Airlines right now where they do it's like algorithmic pricing. It's like they find out who you are based on your IP and they might charge you more if you're in Silicon Valley or more or less. And not everyone knew about that. And I was like, oh, man, people are going to be so pissed at Delta Airlines when they find out that they're doing this. No, the top comment was, of course, the Jews are doing this to us.

24:19And I was like, Delta Airlines are Jews? And they're like, no, dummy. The first thing he said was Israel's doing this to us. And I was like, no, a company based in Israel is hired by an American airline and all of the American airlines to do this to you. It's not the Jews, you absolute nincompoop. And it was just like, didn't matter. And then people were like, oh, Jordan's getting ratioed here. Ha, we're onto you. And I'm like, to me, what do I have to do with that? It's my post. I'm the one that put this out there. What are you talking about? And it was just these comments had hundreds of upvotes.

24:49And I was like, this just does not seem like normal people activity.

24:52Todd Rose:It is so manufactured. China has been really great at it. Russia has been doing it for a while, but Iran mastered it. And it's so clever. So if we take away the like awfulness of it, that's really smart. You can't beat us militarily. I'll tell you. So we have more private opinion data on the American public than anybody. We predicted Trump's final vote percentage in the last election within half a percentage point six months in advance because Gen Z was not telling the truth. Black and brown men were not telling the truth about their willing to vote for him. So I'm going to say that because when you look at the private views, it's a completely different country.

25:26Todd Rose:We are so similar in our views. It's hilarious. And then you look at the public opinion and we look like we're this close to civil war. Yes, that's what people are saying. We're so close to a civil war. And it's interesting because, man, I'm in such a bubble because I know Jewish people here, obviously, and they're like, I carry a gun now because I have so many threats against me. But I don't really trust my neighbors less. they're fine. Nobody's done anything to me yet. And it's like, yeah, because you're online and you're seeing all this. But guess what? That's an army of bots. Yeah. In Iran or China.

25:58In fact, I watched this documentary recently about Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist that got murdered in the Turkish embassy by Saudi Arabia, for those who don't know. And they were talking about how he got his profile initially got big and it was on Twitter and they exposed the bot farm in Saudi Arabia. And there were something like 10 ,000 people there in this building. And each one of them had maybe a few dozen or a hundred accounts or something, and they were using these decks to tweet and manufacture this. And now you can do most of that probably with AI. AI. And Jamal Khashoggi would be like, hey, I kind of disagree with this thing that Mohammed bin Salman did.

26:32And it would be like thousands of people be like, you're a traitor. We're going to kill you. And it just turned out to mostly be bot activity. And then, of course, they murdered him in the embassy. But that was the government doing that. It wasn't like he couldn't walk down the street because civilians were all angry at him. And go, there's that journal. No one wanted to kill him other than the government. And they made it sound like, oh, he had so many enemies. Look at that guy.

26:53Todd Rose:And if you think about it, what it does is it creates a cover for behaviors like that was unacceptable. Well, it's kind of like he had to come and lots of people felt. But it's so easy to do. Once you realize that this is a war that we're losing, we didn't even know we were fighting. If you think about my friend, Mike Milken gave me this. So I want to credit him. When we started uncovering these things and we found like this AI enabled bot farm that China was running through Pakistan and they were going after the American dream. And I was like, that's weird. Why waste your time? And he's like, look, Mike's like, you can't beat us militarily or even economically if we're really got our act together.

27:28Todd Rose:So what would you do? What you do is you actually destroy the social trust, the very fabric, right? You actually start to get us to see each other as enemies. And you think about right now, was it close to almost half of Americans think other Americans are the greatest threat. This is really effective. If it were true, then we should call a spade a spade. If we really were that divided, if we really did have these wacky beliefs that we were consolidated around, we should say it. It's just not true. And the reason I bring this up is that the distinction between private truths and public lies is important because the way you solve it is very different.

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30:37Todd Rose:on the internet you can't do that from my mind it's not really a legislative solve right there's some things that are going on remember one thing that has helped a little bit as we start to teach people maybe the people you listen to are just bots and they're not like actually representative of anything when x did the sudden reveal of the location of all the accounts have you ever this I was going to bring this up. Yes. Where. So for those who don't know, it was like American Patriot 1234. She's been tweeting hardcore about the influx of immigrants and how they're taking all the jobs. And then X.

31:08Yeah. Elon at X. Love him or hate him. He was kind of like, I'm going to make it possible for everyone to see where these accounts were created. And it was all like Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan. And it's like these accounts are created and being used. This person's not American. This is not the white blonde chick in the profile photo. No, it's a bot in Bangladesh. That's all it is.

31:25Todd Rose:My colleagues were the ones that worked with him on it around this. You can't give people a heads up that this is going to happen because they'll do it. So you just all of a sudden sprung it on people. It became this game of like, oh, really? You say you're a MAGA supporter? You're literally in Bangladesh. Or and you realize like how much of it was just bullshit. I saw somebody tracking these and it was like this influencer who had 300 ,000 subscribers and tweeted almost exclusively about immigration. As soon as they got exposed that they were in Nigeria, they shut their account down three days later because they were like, well, the jig is up.

31:56No one believes that I'm Pam from Nebraska anymore. So I'm done. This is over.

32:01Todd Rose:So we're doing some things like it'll help. But ultimately, I do think one thing is we have to get to the place individually where we realize you cannot trust your brain to tell you what your group thinks anymore. You can't. It is just impossible. I'm pretty sure like the number of my super liberal friends who were like, yeah, I'll defend the police. I put that up there. I'm like, you don't believe it. But they're like so convinced. And then they tell themselves, well, they don't really mean defund it, but that's just a way to be like, I don't want to go against my group. They're like, no, I'm sure that this is what they believe.

32:31Todd Rose:So it feels like you're just wrong. You have to stop by saying like, whatever you think your group believes, you just take with a grain of salt. Which is not a bad thing in the sense that we should get back to trying to think for yourself just a little bit. Not the worst thing in the world. Yeah, not the worst thing in the world. It does surprise me that part of it is just, it makes you shake your head because you look at somebody like, I don't know, Dan Bilzerian, right? And he's like, I'm going to run for Congress and the Jews are doing this. And it's like, how dumb do you have to be to follow somebody like this?

33:00How dumb do you have to be to look up to somebody like this? What is going wrong in your life where this person is an influence on you that you don't think is negative? Nothing about this person stands out.

33:09Todd Rose:What's interesting to me in this space is one of the most frightening private opinion pieces of data we have is the amount of resentment in America right now. It is significantly higher during the Great Depression. The number of people who think society is just unfair and are resentful about it. The problem is at a neuroscience level, when you become resentful, it's a signal like, stop cooperating. You're getting screwed. It's time to compete. So you become zero sum in your thinking and sort of burn it down. The behavioral economics research on this is so funny, but where it's if we're playing a trust game and you start to screw me, I will zero you out.

33:46Todd Rose:Even if I get nothing, I still have$5, but you get 10. Screw you. We're both getting zero. It kind of explains the behavior in society right now where we're just like, and now under resentment, I don't know how much you've read like Rene Girard, which on mimetic desire worth reading. It is so good. So he basically showed that as humans, we copy, right? We imitate including what other people desire. But one of the things that he was really good at was showing that once we get into this rivalry where we're all resentful and competing, ultimately, it leads to you need a scapegoat, right? Why am I getting screwed?

34:20Todd Rose:And Jews have historically always been a great scapegoat because they punch above their weight. They're small enough to not be able to do anything about it and successful enough to like, it's plausible. They might control everything. And so then it's like, my life sucks. I'm resentful. I don't feel like I have any power. They're telling me this group that I probably don't even know very many people is the cause of all my problems. Get them. I follow these people, some on social media. And what they do is that they'll go on. I think it's Omegle. One of these chat things where you can just chat with a random person and it matches you.

34:51And they'll go on there and they're talking to people who hate Jews and they post it. And there's one guy who pretends to also not like Jews, but he's Jewish and he's a comedian. He asked people like, how many Jews do you think there are? And the guys are like, dude, there's at least one billion. And he's like, what if I told you there were only 15 million? And they're like, that's ridiculous, man. You got to Google that. And he's, I did. Google it yourself. 15 million. Well, wait, the Jews control Google. And it's, no, think about it. You're telling me that half the world's population is Jewish and that's why you're oppressed?

35:20It's a smaller number. And it's, wow, how can they do all this when there are only that many people? And the guys, it's almost like they're not doing all this. And then it's like this chat ends because the guys, no way.

35:30Todd Rose:It can't be that. It's exactly right. And what's sad about this particular one is we found right after October 7th, the thing that had gotten everybody nervous was Harvard Harris had released a poll that said 61%, I think it was right, of Gen Z said Hamas was justified. So not that, like, care about innocent kids. Like, the rape and murder of 1 ,200 innocent people was justified. It was like, if that's even close to true, that is terrifying. Yeah, we're cooked, as that generation likes to say. No, it never was higher than 7%. And because of the ability to manufacture these illusions, they were targeted directly at Gen Z.

36:08Todd Rose:And then you get them streaming out. And you remember the, I remember one video of the young woman, at least she was honest about it. They were protesting and someone, they interviewed her and she asked friends, what are we mad at again? What are we here for? So it's so effective to get that. So then what we found was once we realized that this was intentional and we started helping with a bunch of other agencies to start throttling down some of this fake content, you watched even their public belief in it just collapse as the content disappeared. So it's like, and again, look, reasonable people can have different views of what's going on in the Middle East right now.

36:43Todd Rose:And anyone that doesn't care about innocent women and children is a monster. but when these illusions take hold and the fringes start to dominate our discourse there it now becomes almost impossible to solve it at all and we're left with the thing that's scary about the scapegoating is historically it usually just ends in violence right it ends in violence toward the scapegoat and then the thing resets it does it's a complicated situation because a lot of these gulf countries for example manufacturing a lot of animosity towards israel but if what is that metaphor, it's the dog chasing the car.

37:16I guarantee you that if Saudi Arabia and all these other Gulf countries, let's say they weren't going to work with Israel like they are and create peace now, those leaders would be in deep trouble if they couldn't say, oh, it's the Israelis' fault, we can't do this.

37:28Todd Rose:Hey, this is why - The enemy of my enemy keeps me from having to get dethroned. Exactly. In this country, there's a joke where it's like, oh, Cuba's about to find out why we don't have free healthcare. They're going to get some freedom. Yemen's going to find out we don't have free healthcare. They're going to get bombed. And it's crazy, but this is what a lot of leaders in other parts of the world are doing, they're like, OK, we really need to lean on, hey, it's the Jews or hey, it's Israel or people do it with Iran, too. Like, oh, we can't do this. We got to have ball work against Iran. And it's all there because in many ways, if we don't do this, it's wait, how come you're a trillionaire and I'm a subsistence farmer?

37:59People are going to start asking very uncomfortable questions about why this dude has two yachts, one for his mistresses from Russia and the other ones for his wife.

38:06Todd Rose:It's 100 percent. And it's so easy to activate that every time. I'm allergic to politics. I'm registered independent. I think they're all just terrible. But my favorite is when my otherwise reasonable progressive friends have a view of Trump, which may or may not be right, as this narcissistic sociopath. And they're like, and he's completely controlled by the Jews. And I'm like, OK, so on the one hand, here's a guy that doesn't care about anybody else and just wants his ego and yet doesn't make any sense. Jeffrey Epstein, something, something, blackmail tape, something, something, Netanyahu. I mean, you really have to go down this weird web rabbit hole of everybody's in the Mossad and everybody has pee tapes with Donald Trump and dot, dot, dot the Jews.

38:45That's why people get more ridiculous with it, because you have to make more and more crazy leaps in order to make it make sense, because otherwise it doesn't make sense. And the other explanation is, hey, this doesn't really add up. And it's no. What if we add in this other crazy conspiracy theory? Now it all adds up.

39:00Todd Rose:Layers and layers. Yeah, conspiracy theorists, what they do is they connect dots that are not there. That's what a conspiracy is. What's funny is, is all the people that do this and then they're like, you know, those dumb QAnon people? I'm like, you sound very similar. I hate to tell you. Yeah, it's crazy to me. But it does seem like it's, again, the majority of people believe this, but it's good to know it's not the case because that would be terrifying. Honestly, like if I didn't do the research, if I didn't have the data, it still feels to me. It does feel that way. People are going to go, I feel like Todd is wrong.

39:31Because when I read the book, I was like, I feel like you're wrong, but there's data that says that it's not wrong. So why do I still feel like you are because of what I'm looking at online?

39:41Todd Rose:Yep, it's exactly right. And the easiest way out of this is touch grass for just a minute and go have one conversation with your neighbor. Like, it's comical how fast you're like, oh. And then it'll be like, OK, so maybe not my neighbor. But we're like, OK, talk to one other person. It's crazy how fast you're like, oh. I'll give you an example I thought was funny. is so we look at the research on highly polarized issues so abortion for example it splits in the abstract at identity level as pro-life pro-choice and those people are like die hard in those camps and they think the other side isn't just wrong they think the other side's evil right you either hate women or you want to kill babies and there's just real no greater no nuance yeah but then we have these methods that will take that and break it down into its concrete like okay what does that mean?

40:24Todd Rose:From a policy standpoint, it's 70 % of Americans are literally identical. Identical in their views. Yeah, we should probably not make it that easy in the third trimester, you know, life of the mother, rape, incest. Otherwise, someone's got to make this choice. It's like a very nuanced that you have like uber consensus on. And yet the people that have the identical profiles split almost evenly as pro-life, pro-choice. And they're like, those people, I'm Like, they're you. They literally believe the same thing you do. And we've gotten to this point of false polarization where we just see each other as bad.

41:00Todd Rose:And so we don't even engage anymore. It's crazy that it's the virtue signaling that's polarized and different, but the actual beliefs are very similar, if not the same. That's what's crazy to me. It is wild. Right now, you'll have, for example, you take any issue when it comes to, say, the DEI stuff versus like, turns out overwhelming majority of Americans across every demographic are like, yeah, there is some discrimination. That's not okay. But also we believe in meritocracy. And there are ways to solve this that don't require discriminating against other people in return. And you're like, yeah, that's a very sound position.

41:33Todd Rose:It's just not what the fringes on either side believe. But they're so convinced everybody has these extreme views and that they have to essentially pick a side. And so if you're a Democrat, you're like, I don't hate minorities. So I guess I got to go over here and I'm anti-racist now. Or if you're a Republican, And you're like, I do think we should acknowledge that racism is real and sexism is real. And it's like, oh, are you that progressive? So now you're like, ah, but now so you go over here and you're like, it's not a problem. I'm going to lose my seat if I mention this in public. Yeah, of course.

42:01Exactly. Wow. It's a little bit scary that we're so beholden to these collective illusions. And like the cognitive dissonance probably that we would have to endure to break out of that is also going to be highly uncomfortable.

42:12Todd Rose:It's going to be uncomfortable. But this is why there's a couple of ways out of it, right? One is individuals that deal with the dissonance, right? Which, trust me, your life is way better. If you want to conform and go with groupthink, go for it. That's up to you. I think there's downsides to that. The only truly really bad decision is when you conform to something that the group didn't even want. Because now you're destroying the very group that you're trying to belong to. It doesn't benefit anybody but fringes that try to manipulate through manufactured consent. So there's a handful of things, right?

42:42Todd Rose:Some of it's so stupidly obvious. but in liberal societies, we developed over a long time, the norm of tolerance, not because you endorse that, but because you know, it's way worse. The concept of tolerance came out of the religious wars in Europe where it was like, dude, I think you're evil. I'm gonna try to kill you. Well, I can't quite get out the upper hand. Now you're killing me. My kids are going to kill your kids. And we're like, hold on. No one's winning. What if we just said live and let live? It's okay. We don't have to all agree, but we can mind our own business. We can not have to feel like we have to control everyone.

43:12Todd Rose:So those norms that we're shredding right now are quite important. But the other thing is, I said this earlier, but I think it's worth hitting on. So when they're collective illusions, historically, the bad news is, is they become self-fulfilling. The good news is they're pretty fragile because they're lies. And if you pursue the right strategy, you can actually unlock change in a hurry, but it's not persuasion. So often, so like right now, I'll give example, like under free speech, people are fully convinced. Democrats are fully convinced that other Democrats don't care about it anymore. There's other issues are more important.

43:46Todd Rose:So even like the ACLU now is one thing that we do. You're like, it was the thing that you do. Like it was a really important thing. They're convinced, but in private, it's just not true. In fact, Democrats have slightly higher commitment in private than Republicans, but everybody basically still wants that. So say, okay, there's a problem. So I go tell my more influential center left people, okay, we got to do something. And then they go out and be like, guys, free speech is under attack. It's really important. We got to solve this. That doesn't actually shatter the illusion. It reinforces it.

44:17Todd Rose:And let me give you an example how not to ever solve this problem. Remember that say no to drugs campaign? Yeah, of course. Like the DARE program and just say, This is your brain on drugs. Yes. Okay. So this comes about in the 90s and 2000s because the government had a slight uptick in first time drug use amongst teens, many pot. Very small bump. They freak out. And they're like, we got to solve this. Nancy Reagan's like, I'm on it. Just say no. Mic drop. My spiritual advisor told me. That's right. My astrologist told me to tell you, just say no. We're done here, folks. You're welcome. The best ad agencies in the country.

44:54Todd Rose:They spent a billion dollars trying to get kids to just scare them straight. From a marketing standpoint, it was amazing. The typical American teen saw three ads a day for six years. The problem was the whole premise for this was that the reason kids were trying drugs is they were curious about drugs. But even back then, private opinion data existed that showed that wasn't true. Kids were kind of skeptical, but they were under this massive illusion. They thought that most American kids did drugs. Yeah, I can believe that. Dude, the irrelevant old white guy frying eggs. This is your brain on drugs.

45:29And then you're like, you talk to your doctor and you go, so is my brain frying? And he's like, no, that's actually complete bullshit. And you're like, well, wait a minute. This is a dumb movie called Walk Hard where this guy, comedian, he walks in and there's two people smoking pot and he's like, oh my gosh, should I try that? And they're like, no. And he's like, I wouldn't want to get addicted to it. And they're like, it's not addictive. And then I don't know, man, I wouldn't want to go crazy and hurt someone. And they're like, oh no, it doesn't really do that. It's not that kind of drug. I don't know.

45:54It seems like it's got to be really expensive. It's cheapest drug there is. And the guy's like, what the hell? What's the problem here?

45:59Todd Rose:Yeah, it's just so ridiculous. This campaign, right? So into the illusion, you blitz them with a billion dollars of ads trying to scare them straight. What the kids took from the ads was, this must be what we're doing. Why would adults try so hard to get us to stop? No kidding. That campaign caused an increase in drug use. So you don't do that. But what's nice is under illusions, the way you deal with it is just social proof. And so it's basically, I got to hear it from people like me. So talk to your neighbor, hear it from people I admire or cultural artifacts. So I'll give you an example. We've done some work on this with Hollywood showrunners and stuff where I'm like, I'll give you the private truth about what people believe where there's illusions.

46:41Todd Rose:And if you want to tell a better story. So in the success research, for example, oh, everybody wants to be famous and rich. So do you remember Modern Family? Yeah. So season 10, episode 13, they wrote a whole episode. Cam is an acting vice principal, has to put on a play. The idea is show the illusion, reveal the truth. And because if I like Modern Family, which I did, you have this parasocial relationship with it. And your brain treats members of the characters as part of your in-group. So if I hear it said in these shows or movies, it has an outsized effect on what I believe that we believe.

47:17Todd Rose:So there's ways to deal with this, but ultimately it's a whack-a-mole game unless people start to internalize the, you're being manipulated and here's the things that you need to do, right? To be able to not let that affect your life. You should support our sponsors. Everybody's doing it. Well, except for those people and we don't want to be like them now, do we? We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Quince. I simplify what I wear day-to-day because figuring out an outfit is one more piece of mental load that I don't need. There's a reason Steve Jobs had a uniform. Fewer decisions, more brain power for things that actually matter.

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48:36Todd Rose:Head to Quince.com slash Jordan for a free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Jordan for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash Jordan. This episode is sponsored in part by AT &T. You know why I love summer? All those plans we made, they finally make it out of the group chat. Seems like there's more time to fit everybody in. Whatever you've got in store this summer, capturing those memories is a must. That's why I love the iPhone 17 Pro I picked up from AT &T. It's center stage front camera auto adjust the frame to fit everyone into group selfies.

49:09You don't even have to turn your phone. No awkward cropping or asking strangers to take it, just the perfect group selfie every time. And AT &T makes sharing those moments with everybody easy, because you've got to share the pic or it didn't happen, right? Right now at AT &T, ask how you can get iPhone 17 Pro on them with eligible iPhone trade-in, any condition. Requires trade-in of iPhone 15 Plus or higher, excluding iPhone 16E and 17E. Requires eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change, visit att.com slash iPhone or visit an AT &T store for details. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors.

49:49They make the show possible. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code, email us. Somebody here will get you. Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to dig up codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Todd Rose. keeping kids off drugs campaign thing now that you say it caused an uptick in drugs it makes perfect sense and it's almost funny except for the results were disaster there was one where this guy's like he finds his kid's weed in a cigar box or something and he goes where did you learn how to do this and the kid goes you all right and i remember thinking dude people's parents are doing

50:27Todd Rose:this too am i the only kid who doesn't smoke pot i had that exact experience i learned it by watching you i'm like oh i didn't realize reasonable adults smoke pot this guy looks functional he came home from work. He's got a job. Yeah. He's got pants on. Yeah. It's like the exact opposite of whatever they thought they were doing. But history is littered with counterexamples where under illusions, if you use social proof, including again, we all get to be part of that. A little more authenticity without putting your whole job at risk goes a long way in shattering illusions in your groups. But marriage equality is a phenomenal example.

51:04Todd Rose:2003, 30 % approval for gay marriage. Activists and academics met in, I think it was Chicago. It was like, listen, do not try for marriage. The public's not ready for it. It'll backfire. Private opinion actually had a slim majority. It was the love is love crowd and libertarians who were like, I don't care. But they all thought that people in their churches, people at their work, oh, they care. So there's an illusion. They were smart enough to realize this persuasion, this trying to convince people to change their minds doesn't work because it reminds them, oh, everybody else must not really agree with this because you're knocking on my door trying to convince me to change my mind.

51:38Todd Rose:I kind of already agree with you. So a bunch of them peeled off and went to Hollywood and started just telling stories. Will and Grace is a famous one, even Modern Family, right? And it's not just put it in the background. And it's the fastest change in public opinion ever recorded. It went to 70 % approval in the span of like 14 years. And that sort of exponential change in public opinion doesn't happen if people privately don't agree with it. It's a floodgate opening of people going, oh, I can express that this is the least important thing in my life now or that I'm totally fine with it. And yeah, that's really interesting.

52:14Right.

52:15Todd Rose:You can do that in these other places where it's like countries have been transformed. In my book, I wrote about the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia was anchored in this. Just real quick on that, because I still think it's something more people should know. It's the only time where an authoritarian communist government was overthrown without anybody dying. And it was like, what was amazing is the guy that did it was Voslav Havel. Wasn't a politician at the time, wasn't a military guy. He was a poet and a playwright. He had written this satire of communism called The Garden Party. And it was so subtle, even the censors didn't know they were being made fun of.

52:51Todd Rose:I see. Wow. But he sat and watched it and it became like literally the Hamilton of its time. Runaway, sold out every night. He said, I watched the audience every night, not the play. He said, they laughed at all the right parts. They laughed at things you wouldn't find funny if you really believed in communism. And so he realizes that the problem wasn't that everyone believed, it's that they all thought they believed. And he wrote this phenomenal manifesto called The Power of the Powerless, which you can get for free, you download, it's like worth reading, where he realizes the problem's an illusion.

53:21Todd Rose:And he's like, well, if that's the case, then there's only one way out of this, right, is that people have to find that responsibility to live in truth again, because we're so used to living in the lie. And they went about these, called them small works. They were non-political. They literally like would have like a literary club. So people could start to write poetry a little bit more authentically. And people made fun of him. Like they were like, you're so naive. Like they have all the guns. You're going to overcome this with authenticity and personal responsibility. But it happened so fast that like literally no one saw it coming.

53:54Todd Rose:The KGB missed the Velvet Revolution. The CIA missed it. Even Havel, just before the revolution, the 12 days that overthrew the government, he was on an international radio doing an interview. And he said he was trying to rally the troops. And he was like, look, revolutions take a long time. Stick with it. I probably want to be alive to see the end of it, but I'm committed to it. Three months later, he was the first democratically elected president of a free Czechoslovakia. So crazy. That's wild. That's incredible. I did not know that story. I was an exchange student in the former East Germany, and I remember asking how many people were like really communist.

54:29My host father was like, I don't know. We didn't exactly have data on who totally didn't believe in the system, but a lot of people died driving into the other country or going over a minefield or trying to get over the Berlin Wall or trying to sneak out on a train. And they dedicated a lot of resources to not letting us do that. You know, a lot. Landmines, machine gun nests. There's a listener to the show. She'll write me after this. She told me that she was a kid and she had family in East Germany. And every time they would go to East Germany on the train and come back, the border police would pull her aside because she was a kid and go, where are you really from?

55:04And they would ask her to say things and try and see if her dialect would slip into an East German dialect because it's slightly different. And she wasn't East German. So they always let her out. But she's like, I remember every time they would pull me aside away from my parents and ask me different questions. Where are you really from? How do you say this word? read the sentence for me to see if she would slip into an East German dialect. You don't dedicate that kind of resources when you have a bunch of true believers and it doesn't matter. It's not a thing. You wouldn't have to worry about this.

55:29Todd Rose:Are the guns trying to keep you in or like it's a dead giveaway. Exactly. Then when the wall fell, my host father told me, he's like, pretty much everyone who could went there. I mean, you had people riding on the top of cars because most people didn't have a car. And then you'd fill the car with your neighbors. And then somebody would get in the trunk and another person's like, drive slowly and I'll hold on to the top of the car because I want to go. And there's this old documentary footage where border guards are like, I'm not going. There's nothing for me over there as people are just streaming past them.

55:57And there's a German joke that says the old president at the time, his name was Eric Hunnaker. He was like the president or whatever you'd call it of East Germany. And the joke is, hey, man, don't forget to turn out the light because the last person in a room turns out the light in Germany. So they're like, hey, Eric, don't forget to turn out the light. If you want to go there, you can. All right. Don't forget to turn out the lights, buddy. Everybody's out of here. I love it.

56:17Todd Rose:Again, this is that scale where like repressive regimes have understood the need to control that narrative and manufacture the illusion because that's the best way to keep people in check. There's not for nothing, regardless of what you think about the war, there's a reason Iran turned off the internet for the last 45 days. The last thing that they want is for everyday people to be able to say anything about, because it would be the end for them. We look at that and we think, oh, wow, these governments doing this. OK, but now come back into our lives and realize that the same kind of manipulation is being directed towards us in more small ways around our identity groups and around.

56:52Todd Rose:And it's all happening online. And part of it is just realizing we're not special. It's happening to me, too. I wrote the book on it and I guarantee you I fall for the same stuff. It's everywhere right now. It seems you mentioned earlier we're wired for this. So why are we wired for this? obviously has something to do with social cohesion and things like that. I wonder, is there any sort of FMRI experiment that shows like, hey, when I conform to the group, I get a dopamine hit or I don't know, something along those lines. Some of my favorite studies on this. Yeah. So we've been wired to be with groups, not against them.

57:25Todd Rose:We just, we're not a lone wolf species. And that makes tons of sense from a survival standpoint that you would just be like, there's an old saying, better wrong together than right alone. Just like, you're going to survive. Being the dude that's like, you guys are all wrong. I'm like, well, good luck to you. Yes, have fun out there. One of my favorite studies that a colleague of mine did in the Netherlands, he was like, yeah, conformity. Like a lot of the conformity studies we do are so artificial that you're like, yeah, does anybody really have that experience? It's like the classic like ash line experiment where we put you in this room and judge lengths of lines.

57:57Todd Rose:You're like, no one's doing that, though. So he was like, let me pick the most subjective thing I could imagine. And he was like, it's who you think is good looking. That is such a personal thing. Okay. He's like, I wonder if conformity goes that far. So he did this super clever fMRI study. So he brings people in and he's like, we're just doing this study rating faces. It's just like hot or not. And he's going to give you like a couple hundred faces and you ran on a scale of one to five, how attractive they are with five being the hottest. So you're doing this in the scanner. And then, so a picture comes up.

58:31Todd Rose:I'm like, Oh, five. As soon as I give it a score instantly above my score, it shows you what the average was for everyone who's done the study before you. So this is a group you don't know. It's not even that important of a group. But what was super clever is they have you do all that. And at the very end, they're like, oh, shoot, it didn't record your scores. I'm really sorry. If we pay a little more, would you just quickly do the, and they don't show the group scores anymore and just quickly have you re-rate them. So when you're in your brain, when you are told that you're five. Oh, it's a five, two.

59:06Todd Rose:And by the way, the group data was all bullshit. Completely made up. There was no other group. Half the time, the group agrees with you. The other half, it doesn't in a far way. And then kind of a little bit in between. When the group confirms, oh, you said five, the group says five. It triggers a dopamine reward response. The same brain areas that hard drugs activate. Just saying like, do more of this. This is awesome. When you are told you're against your group, it triggers what's called an error signal. There's these very special neurons called spindle neurons that cascade electrical signal all across your brain.

59:40Todd Rose:They disrupt everything else, memory, attention, saying something's wrong, start paying attention. It's that hardwired, right? Not surprisingly, when we gave them the test again, almost everyone moved their scores on attractiveness to be close to the group and they had no idea they did it. they swore they hadn't changed anything and they randomized them. They didn't even really know. You saw a couple hundred of them, but it's just, oh shit, I'm way far away from my group on who you think is attractive. Such a personal choice. But how did they know who to shift their rating on if they didn't have the ratings from the group in front of them?

1:00:13Todd Rose:Their brain remembered. So it's that instant where I rate this face, I'm like five and the group says one, that error signal instantly. And so what happens is you get this instant, almost like flash bulb kind of remember is like, what is going on in my environment right now? Something is off. It's not even like conscious. You're not even aware of it. It's just, it's evolved for survival. But then you pair that with, so how do you judge what your group thinks? You're like the loudest voices repeated the most. Right. The most extreme loudest person who's willing to constantly berate everyone. It reminds me of those experiments.

1:00:46They have a bunch of Confederates and then there's one person who's the test subject and it's like, okay, which circle is bigger? And everyone's like pointing to the small one if you think it's a small raise your hand then the person who's wait a minute that's clearly the smallest not the biggest they're looking around and their hand like slowly goes like oh i guess i am wrong and it's like they're just they won't even believe their own eyes at

1:01:07Todd Rose:that point it was wild about those studies solomon ash was the first guy to do them in like the 50s and they were obsessed about what happened in world war ii like how could so many people commit atrocities like they're not all evil people so what led them that so he showed that the exact studies where it's like, they'll literally just lie. The objective truth, the different circle sizes, it wasn't hard. There's an obviously a right answer, right? They're all saying the wrong answer. And you go with it. What was wild though, is afterwards in those studies, Ash would interview them and be like, okay, all right.

1:01:38Todd Rose:All right. You can fess up now. That wasn't true. And like about half of them would be like, yeah, but I didn't want to. What was the point? Why am I going to stand out? A subset of them swore up and down that they actually saw what the group told them to see. Really? So their brain just changed the visual. So he was like, Ashley, that's not true. They're lying. A colleague of mine in Georgia actually said, well, wait, we have fMRI now. So he redid the entire study and found that for a subset of people who conformed, it changed in their visual areas of their brain what it was they were seeing.

1:02:15Todd Rose:We are so wired for this. And again, if that were really true, that's what your group wants out of you. There may be some trade-off where you're like, am I really going to stand on my own? Like, I like X, but your whole group likes Y. Does it matter? Maybe I want to be with the group. But collective illusions are, it's a lie. The group doesn't even believe this. So you're conforming to it is actually literally changing the group, right? and you destroy the group that you actually want to be part of. Is this how bad social norms or corrupted social norms develop and come to? Because people think because a social norm exists that everybody agrees with that.

1:02:56I'm thinking primarily, I guess, of racism, for example. So there's so many people that grow up in a racist environment. And this is an embarrassing example. I think I might get in trouble for this. But my dad's family, half the family, kind of racist. Michigan in the 50s and 60s and 70s. It was just like a little bit racist. And it's weird, right? Because they're like teachers in Detroit public schools, but they say racist stuff all the time. But my dad is not at all. And he was very much, hey, we don't talk like that at all. And I'm like, but Uncle Bobby and Uncle Steve. And he's like, my mom was like, don't listen to anything these people say because they are racist.

1:03:30And it's bizarre because they had the same upbringing. They grew up in the same house. They went to the same schools, everything. I am almost convinced that they don't really necessarily believe this. Like, how are you a teacher in a Detroit public school where almost all the students are black and then you make all these really inappropriate, horrifying jokes at family parties? What is true? You care about your students. So what are you dedicated your life to these people?

1:03:52Todd Rose:What the hell? Is exactly right. So first of all, you did a good job. You won't get in trouble with your family because you said half. So everybody in there can be like, why was not the racist half? Everybody goes, well, it's not me. It's yeah, it's not me. Yeah, it's Uncle Steve. Well done. So you're exactly right. So there's actually some really good private opinion research on this during integration in the South. So a guy named O 'Gorman did this research where he found that white Southerners privately were done with like segregation. They were like, this doesn't make any sense. I don't really want this.

1:04:23Todd Rose:But they were so convinced because of the norms that this is definitely what everybody else believes. And they're faced with, do I stand on principle but lose my group? like my actual community. And so most of them literally upheld and fought against desegregation, even though they were privately for it. And people go, that can't be true. No, listen, again, people want to belong. That's such a powerful force, right? So at risk of losing your community, others go along with this. Those norms, they just stick around. They're so hard to get rid of. I'll tell you another one that we know for sure right now is female genital mutilation in Egypt.

1:05:01Yeah.

1:05:01Todd Rose:What a horrific norm. We know as a matter of fact, over 90 % of adults in Egypt do not want that. Parents don't want to hurt their little girl. That's interesting. I'm doing a show about this right now, actually. It's funny. Good timing. But you think about how that works, right? They're still convinced that most other people are okay with it. In that culture, that norm has consequences. If you don't do this, she is unmarriable like what, 10 years later. And if that's your retirement, basically, you're playing a dangerous game. You're like, I'm pretty sure everyone believes this. I don't want to do this.

1:05:35Todd Rose:But if I don't do it, they're stuck. They're stuck. The whole FGM female genital mutilation thing is quite interesting because if you go into this, like my researcher did, she was like, clearly men want to do this because they want to control women. And it turns out in her research, she's like, Jordan, you're not going to believe this. It turns out the people who are tricking young girls into a basement with a chocolate bar are aunties and grandmas. The men, when we surveyed them, she read research, when they're surveyed, the men are like, I don't care. I think it's kind of gross they're doing that and they're mutilating her and uncut versus cut.

1:06:07I don't care. I don't even believe any of these wives tales. She's going to cheat on me if she has a clitoris. None of that makes any sense to me, but grandma really wants to do it. And we're just all going to turn a blind eye while she commits this atrocity in a basement somewhere. And it's crazy because it's the opposite of what you think? You think it's like, oh, these old men are so gross. They're just doing this for the patriarchy. The guys don't care. Yeah.

1:06:29Todd Rose:There's like a small subset of religious zealots, but you're right. So we see this in our data too. And some of the explanations for it are like a little bit of misery loves company or like I had this happen to me. So therefore to suddenly say like, this isn't okay, or this isn't good. It's kind of tough to do that. But it's funny how many of the guys are like, I don't care. We're like, oh, the men are doing it. You're like, okay, if we can't accurately understand what's driving this problem, you have no chance of solving it. There's a story, you probably know this. There was a community, I think, somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa where this was commonplace.

1:07:01And the pastor, who was a man, suddenly decided, this is really gross and not hygienic, and there's no reason for us to be doing this. And so he went up in church where everybody goes to church. It's one of those kind of, and he goes, this is not something that God actually wants us to do. And everyone was like, what? And so every sermon, every Sunday. He was like, by the way, there's nothing in the Bible about this. God does not care if we do this. This is something you are doing. If you're doing this, you're doing this. God's not telling you to do this. This is on you. And the village was like, oh, okay, I guess we just won't do that anymore.

1:07:31And it's basically like they just stopped.

1:07:33Todd Rose:So this is what's important is these collective illusions, the most powerful things are like, okay, the people I admire, he's a social meaning maker. For him to say it is like, okay, well, obviously like that. So this is the pastor playing cards and Mrs. Salt, whatever village is the same thing. He just shattered the reality of the collective illusion. We don't need to do this. And everyone was like, oh, God, thank God. Thank God. And what's nice is then one person just needed the pastor to say it. And they're like, we're done. And then the other person's like, oh, and my neighbor's not doing it.

1:08:02Todd Rose:You know what I mean? And it sort of snowballs. Like, we all have different thresholds. Like, oh, we have a choice. We have a choice. We don't have to do this to our kid now. Yeah. And what you see in a lot of the research is fun. It's like, it often just takes one person. So when you do those same, which circle is bigger? if you have one other person, it doesn't matter how many other people are lying, one other person telling the truth is enough to get the other person. It's like, I'm not alone. So it's like that initial willingness to be honest about your views. I think people underestimate like how profoundly powerful that is to enabling other people to start being honest to.

1:08:34Nothing like realizing your beliefs and your behavior don't match to give you that low grade existential dread. Good news. You can also distract yourself with the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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1:10:22The idea is something specific and practical that will have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships in under two minutes just about every Wednesday. If you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It really is a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Now for the rest of my conversation with Todd Rose. I'm not trying to pat podcasting on the back, but it does do this for certain people. Look, if you're listening to this and you live in New York City or Chicago, most of what I say here is on the show with the guests is interesting enough.

1:10:53You listen to it, obviously, but it's not world changing. The emails I get from people that live in countries where they don't necessarily have free media and they don't have a lot of sources because you would need a satellite dish to get anything that's not state run, for example. we have a lot of listeners in Iran, we have a lot of listeners in random African countries and stuff where they speak English, and me and the guests speak clearly enough that they understand what we're saying a lot of the time, even if it's their second language. I get emails from these people that are like, I had no idea you didn't have to do what your parents wanted you to do.

1:11:20That was news to me when I started listening to your podcast. You don't have to have the same religion, or you can marry somebody who's not from your area or the same belief system as you. this show is like the first time that idea had ever been communicated to them and that to me is crazy ideas like this shows like this and any other podcast for that matter any other internet media can shatter these collective illusions because you're the only voice that they have in their head that is not echoing the exact same things as their neighbors in some of these small

1:11:50Todd Rose:communities and what's interesting is these illusions shatter at the speed of trust right So what's interesting with the podcast space is you've built a very dedicated following. So sometimes you think of these fragmented media ecosystems like, yeah, there's no more Oprah anymore. Yeah, that's true. There's not like a person that now. That's fine. But the people that listen to you trust you. Do you know what I mean? And you have a relationship. So when you say something, it actually matters in a way that it doesn't at scale with, we just get a famous celebrity to say it. No, we're choosing in to listen to you.

1:12:23Todd Rose:to your point too is I found it wild the amount of emails that I get from Iran like I literally just got one last week from a graduate student in Iran who's doing her dissertation on collective illusions and she's huh I think that maybe I'm like yeah maybe don't be too loud right now like give it another month yeah you might be okay finish your dissertation in London how's that sound yeah let's get you a visa to get out of there you reminded me of something when you mentioned trust I find it so ironic that China, Iran, Russia, and other low trust societies are the ones that are like, we need to make sure people in America don't trust each other.

1:13:02And we need to chip away at that trust. Because when I think of low trust society, I think of post-Soviet countries. Because when I lived in former Yugoslavia, I remember talking to people there and they were like, it's not that I don't trust my neighbor. I don't trust anyone. And I was like, really, What's it like growing up and you don't trust anyone? It's, oh yeah, my dad's best friend murdered him with an axe. And it's like, why? They were both in the intelligence services and like they got drunk and like, I don't know, something happened. He murdered my dad with an axe. And I'm like, that doesn't sound like a random argument like this.

1:13:34And it's like, no, in East Germany, you would go and look at your Stasi file, which is the state police, like the secret police for people who don't know. And they had counseling on the second floor because you'd go and you'd look at your Stasi file to find out which one of your like student friends was spying on you and you find out it's like your wife and your brother and your dad and they're all reporting on you and so your faith in all of your closest relationships is immediately destroyed because you've read this file and it's

1:13:59Todd Rose:like there's no trust for the most part then you look at like why post-soviet satellite states have had such a hard time because social trust is like a threshold variable where free societies just don't function below a certain level. The counter example there, and I've spent some time there is Estonia, which has done a phenomenal job. They have some of the highest levels of social trust, but it was intentionally cultivated. They were lucky enough that when that iron curtain fell or went up, they had access to the radio through Finland. And so they didn't lose complete and they kept traditions alive, subtle ways to signal to each other that they hadn't bought into the stuff.

1:14:38Todd Rose:So they've recovered a lot faster, but it worries me here in the US. So we now have the lowest levels of social trust ever recorded in the United States. That does not surprise me at all. And this is where collective illusion is both a problem and part of the solution, which is the single best predictor of social trust is perceived shared values. If I think you share some of my basic values, I'm inclined just to trust you until you prove me otherwise. Right. So what if we share a lot of fundamental values, but the illusions have led us to believe that we don't. So then we end up losing trust. The result's the exact same.

1:15:12Todd Rose:So destroy the trust that we have each other by fomenting false polarization and driving a resentment to sky high levels. You can do a lot of damage to a country that you would never have been able to do with guns. Yeah. So it's not just distrust in institutions, it's distrust in other people. I would argue that's the trust that matters the most. So when I think of trust institutions, maybe this is just like semantics, but I think about it as confidence. Through transparency and accountability. I have confidence that this institution will do what it says and isn't going to have too much grip. And so this trust requires vulnerability, right?

1:15:44Todd Rose:Trust requires that I can't actually know. And that's the kind of stuff you have to have with your fellow citizens that on the whole, I think most people can be trusted. That small thing, think about it, like even in the free market, like if I'm a mom and pop shop and I sell stuff to Walmart, in theory, if they don't pay their bills, I could sue them, but not really. Not really. They're going to bury you in paperwork for two decades. Of course. You have no recourse. None. So there's like even this trust that they will pay their bills, right? That trust erodes. Like basic free markets don't even work.

1:16:18Yeah.

1:16:19Todd Rose:And so it's like a very clever. Imagine going to a restaurant, you have to pay up front, even though you're not sure what you're going to get during the meal. That's annoying. And it's like, okay, well, I'm going to go out less and maybe I go to the places that still allow me to do this. We don't let just anyone in because we get stiffed on the bill all the time. You know, you got to do a credit check before you go out to dinner. And look at the spiral where rather than treat crime seriously, look, we can get at the underlying causes of it or whatever. But the idea that you're going to excuse crime in some of these cities and now all of a sudden places are like, I guess we lock up our deodorant now.

1:16:49Todd Rose:Yes, you lock up the deodorant. And then I go in and go, it's like ridiculous. You go to like a CVS and you're like, I just want a deodorant, but now I got to find someone to open it. Like you ring the bell, no one shows up. And I'm like, geez, I'm about to steal this just so I can get out of here and go on with my life. But they're doing it in response to stupid policies that basically decriminalize theft. And then the signal that sends to everyone in the community is there must be a lot of criminals here because these guys are having to lock up everything. It's certainly not convenient. And so then it changes my view of my neighbors.

1:17:21Todd Rose:It's a spiral. And you're like, this is San Francisco, man. They had all the shoplifting. You couldn't do anything about it. so the store would lock everything up. I stopped shopping there because I don't want to spend an hour at CVS getting razor blades, waiting for an employee to come unlock it, walk it up to the front. I'm like, for God's sake, this is taking way too long. It's easier for me to just order it on Amazon with everything else. Then Walgreens closes and then everyone goes, oh, they're closing the drugstores in this area. It's because they hate poor people or whatever. And it's, no, it's because of these dumb ass policies and all of the theft that was done by 0.1 % of the people that walk in here.

1:17:55Todd Rose:All you had to do was take care of that. And, you know, it's funny, the defund the police one is such a good example, too, because I spend so much time trying to teach senators and congresspeople about this just to help them understand, like, if you want to do right by your constituents, you can't just assume the 10 people calling you all the time. But the defund the police is like in Seattle, San Francisco, or other places, policies were implemented. And let's just give them the benefit of the doubt. They thought that's what people wanted. They thought that was obviously politicians want to get reelected.

1:18:25Todd Rose:So like the last thing I'm going to do is do a bunch of stuff that everyone hates. I think people want this. So I get ahead of it. I admit policies. They were disastrous. Not my opinion. They've rolled back all those policies because they were terrible. It'd be one thing if the people of Seattle were like, no, we kind of want this. then you get to live with like your choices. Yeah. It's tragic when it was like, no one really wanted it, but we all thought that's what we wanted. This is what happened in my neighborhood in San Francisco. I went there, I visited a friend. I was like, oh, I'll walk you back to the train station.

1:18:54And then I did a loop and I walked back to my place and I see this dude who broke into a bike garage, which is like a freestanding thing with like a building with a rolled down metal grate. I saw him slide under there and I was like, holy crap, he doesn't see me. So I called 911. They're like, the police are busy right now. Can you wait? And I'm like, sure. I'm just going to stay out of sight. 41 minutes later, they show up with their guns drawn and they're like, is he still there? I'm like, yeah, he's stolen like 10 bikes already. He just keeps going back. He knows no one's coming. He's piling these things up and he's going to ride them all back.

1:19:22He's just taking them out one by one. So they get him out of there. They're like, are you sure it's him? I'm like, there's one guy in there with burglary tools. You're going to find him. It's a tiny one room thing. And then they go like, oh, there he is. He's right here. So they drag him out from under the thing and they're like, drop your weapon and your tools. They drag him out. I have to go testify, right, because I'm the witness. I don't even think he had bail. He just basically, they let him out, and then he never showed up to court. Surprise. They catch this dumbass jaywalking because he's a brilliant individual who can't even follow the most basic of laws when you have a warrant out for your arrest.

1:19:51They finally get him in there, and the jury lets him go, basically, because they're just like, oh, we think maybe that this was motivated by racism on part of one of the witnesses and stuff like that. And I was like, you think that I watched this man who is also ambiguously white, I can't even tell, break into a building. And I stood there for 41 minutes because I wanted to frame him for stealing bikes, even though they caught him with burglary tools and stolen bikes. And there's video footage of the whole thing. And then they were like, time served. And I was like, you know what, jury? You deserve the neighborhood that you live in.

1:20:24When this is your bike and your car is getting broken into, don't shed a tear because this is what you are doing to yourself. And I thought to myself, how many people in that jury room were like, let's throw the book at this guy. But then one person was like, this is all systemic racism against this dude. And it's like, all right, let me just get out of here.

1:20:41Todd Rose:And everyone else is like, yeah, I want to get out of here. Yes. Or I don't want to be called a racist. Yes. That's the irony of all that is the use of those kind of tools to silence people only works when we call everything racism. It only works because people aren't racist. No one in the KKK is like, please don't call me racist. That's a good point. I had not thought about that. You're right. Because if you get that cranky old 1960s guy in there and they're like, that's racist. And he's, yeah, I don't like people who are brown. It's like, oh, well, that weapon didn't work. Yeah. Melvin's not going to vote not guilty.

1:21:09Melvin wants to go home, too, but he doesn't care. He wants to put him away.

1:21:12Todd Rose:But yeah, so it's so clever. Oh, I actually don't like racism. So you threatening to label me as that is really quick to silence. Powerful. Exactly. Yeah. I'm not a fascist, but I found one of the quickest ways to shut people down who are like, you're basically a Nazi. I'm like, yeah, and? and they're like, oh, crap, that was my card. It just kind of ended. That was all I had. That was all I had. I thought you were going to defend yourself. No, you want to call me a Nazi for something? That's fine. I'm literally Jewish, but you go off. And they're like, well, crap. That's like the mental equivalent of closing the Strait of Hormuz.

1:21:42Todd Rose:You played your one card. Now it doesn't work anymore. That was all you had. That's all you had. Here we are. I'm just shrugging it off. What are you going to do now? I wonder if this whole trust thing, does this fuel populism or is that kind of like... It does. When trust gets below a threshold, we're looking at in the rear view mirror right now. And especially when there's a lot of uncertainty in the world, instead of think as we, the people, right? Part of being a democracy with hundreds of millions of people is it's an imagined community, right? I'm not going to meet most everybody, but feel like we're part of community.

1:22:13Todd Rose:When that breaks down, it's resorting to tribes as fast as possible. And so you'll see it in this case, it's political a lot, but they'll just keep going smaller and smaller to the group that I feel like I can trust. And then I'm going to cling to that like a life preserver. And that's why you see like right now, it just doesn't matter. If I'm a Republican, it's like, what do we believe? Just tell me what we believe. And you're like, weren't you guys the ones that were about free trade? And you're like, now you're like, tariffs. And you're like, wait, or wasn't the left like counterculture, free speech?

1:22:44It isn't like, what? It just turned out they just wanted people who agreed with them. Oops. I saw this funny joke the other day where somebody was like, railing against Palantir, right? This company that kind of like spies on everybody and is like working with all these three letter agencies and is owned in part by Peter Thiel, who is gay. And this person was like railing against them. And their bio had all of this like sort of progressive stuff in it. And this very clever sort of right wing troll replied, I support queer owned businesses. And it was like, what are you going to do to the way you're going to fight against that?

1:23:16What are you going to say? And it was like, yeah, but not like that. No, not Peter deal. Not like that. It was the other gay owned businesses, the ones I like.

1:23:25Todd Rose:That's amazing, though. Yeah, that's the way out of this when people are trying to play this is you just take it to the absurd. You escalate it up. Oh, like I support gay owned businesses. This is double down on this. What's your point? Yeah, OK, so. Exactly. Yeah, the virtue signaling thing. I am wondering how we push back on this lack of trust. Can this even be rebuilt? Leave us with something optimistic here, because I'd love that. This is what's really important. Social trust has been in free fall, but most of the people that study it think it as sociological. So they're like, countries with high trust have good welfare systems.

1:23:56Todd Rose:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a little carp for the horse. Again, the single best predictor of social trust is perceived shared values. This is a huge opportunity that we all have a role to play here. We, I promise you, Americans have unbelievable common ground in the values that matter most. You can get all the data from our website. It's like shocking. They're buried under these public lies. If you shadow of those illusions, the first thing that changes is trust because it's, oh, wait, okay, no, you're on my side. You're one of me. And we all have a role to play. So we'll do our part institutionally.

1:24:29Todd Rose:We've got lots of stuff in culture with music and television trying to shatter them. We can do stuff. We have these conversations on your podcast with your reach, but everyday people are by far the most powerful. So we've go back to marriage equality. Yes, it was the television and stuff, but the real thing that changed it was the come out of the closet campaign. where everyday people found the courage to tell the people that mattered most to them that they were gay. And when you look at the curve for approval of gay marriage, it looks the exact same, just lagging behind of the curve of, do you know someone who's gay?

1:25:04Todd Rose:It happened in my family where it was one thing when it was an abstract question. It's another thing when it's my brother. Right. And everyone's like, well, it's our brother. We just wanted to be happy. So when you're sitting there right now, listening or watching this and you're like, I don't know, I wish this were true, but I don't, first of all, go read the research and look at how many of our predictions have come true. Like this is not rocket science. We're just not telling the truth. And then realize that you are part of the social proof. You don't need to go light your job on fire, right?

1:25:33Todd Rose:You don't need to take risks like crazy, but have an honest conversation with respect with at least one person that matters to you. And again, we want to be like, Hey, asshole, I'm a big Trump supporter. You can be like, hey, how about that? Or listen, I care so much about you. I want you to know how I feel on this. If you don't feel like you can be honest, there's a close second, which is just inject uncertainty. So people are like, we're all for Kamala. You're like, yeah, I haven't met up my mind yet. Tell me about that. It's like just introducing the idea that maybe, or I'm not so sure yet.

1:26:06Todd Rose:It's amazing how many people will grab onto that. Oh, me either. I'm not sure yet either. But I promise you, if you can find that courage. We get out of this, it seems simple. Find the moral courage to be honest with the people that matter to you. Don't be an asshole about it. There's a way to be respectful and let people have their opinions too. The second piece is have the civic courage to make it safe for other people. In some ways, that's easier. If I'm sitting here and we're all hanging out and some super MAGA person's saying something, I'm almost trying to shut them down. And I can be like, look, I don't agree with her, but let's hear her out.

1:26:39Todd Rose:She has a right to speak. Like that's pretty safe thing to do just to create the space for people doing stuff like that. You can make a difference in a hurry. Just like that. As one person starts being like, straw, you told, right? Oh, wait. So the pastor is, so we don't need to mutilate genitals. This is okay. Right. It will cascade and you will be shocked. And I promise you again, underneath these public lies are private truths that are pretty heartwarming. I think we'll be okay as a country. if we can recognize the real nature of the problem and realize that we have a role to play in solving it.

1:27:13Todd Rose, thank you very much. Let's not wait two and a half years to do the next one. Next time in person. That's right. Thank you so much. We're more connected than ever and somehow more vulnerable than we've ever been. Cyber crisis author Eric Cole explains how AI-driven attackers, corporate scale scam operations, and aging systems have turned everyday tech into an open door. So you want to be 100 % secure? you want your family to be 100 % secure, it's easy. Pack up your bags, sell everything, move to Pennsylvania and become Amish. Because I'll tell you, I hacked a lot of things in my life.

1:27:47I have not been able to hack a candle and a horse and buggy. If you have no functionality or no benefit, you can be 100 % secure. And to give you a more realistic example, my smartphone. As soon as you add any functionality, you're decreasing security. Security and functionality are inverse. 100 % security is zero functionality. What is the value and benefit? What is the risk and exposure? Is the value worth the risk? If the value or benefit is worth the risk, do it. If the value and benefit is not worth the risk, don't do it. And the reality is, and I always tell people, the most dangerous word on the internet is the F word.

1:28:23And it's not what you're thinking. The F word is free. Free is not free because all the times when you have a free app, you're basically allowing them to access your microphone or your camera or your pictures. If they ask you and you say yes, and you give them permission, that's actually an authorized app and it's allowed. And the reality is most people don't even realize when they install these apps, they're hitting yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And allowing access. If I want to make my smartphone a hundred percent secure, smash it, burn it, throw it in a ditch, turn it off, and it'll be a hundred percent secure.

1:28:57It's actually freaking scary of how much you're being monitored and tracked with your phones that you don't even realize it. Check out episode 1247 of the Jordan Harbinger show with Eric Cole, and you'll start looking at your phone, your home, and even the power grid very differently. So yeah, turns out the biggest thing dividing us might not actually be division. It's the fact that we think we're divided. We're guessing what everybody else believes. They're guessing what we believe. And somehow we all end up stuck in this weird social game where nobody says what they actually think. And the cost of that, bad policies, broken trust, a whole lot of unnecessary conflict and bad blood, as well as vitriol online.

1:29:34But the upside, and this is the hopeful part, these illusions are very fragile. They only exist because we keep reinforcing them. So the moment you question the norm, you say what you actually think, or you just ask, wait, why is that? You start to break the spell, which is a rare case where just being a little more honest and a little less performative actually makes the world a better place. So maybe we don't fix the entire country today, but maybe we just stop pretending. That's a decent start anyway. All Things Todd Rose will be on the website. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show also on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:30:10Please consider supporting those who support the show. Don't forget about 6 Minute Networking as well over at 6minutenetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. There's not a whole lot of bots there. Not yet anyway. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tadis Adlaskis, Ian Baird, Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

1:30:41If you know somebody who's interested in social science, extremism, or is just wondering why the discourse in this country has actually gone completely to heck in a handbasket, share this episode with him. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

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