Hey everyone. Quick disclaimer at the top. In this conversation with Jordan's Harbinger, there may be strong language that is not appropriate for all members of the audience. We immensely enjoyed this conversation, and we hope that you do too. Just wanted to give you a quick heads up. With that in mind, let's dive in. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Folks. Opening question, what's the strangest place you've ever visited? How did the reality jibe with your expectations? Here's another fun one, have you ever spoken with a spy? If you have ever considered any of these questions, fellow listeners, than oh boy, oh boy, do we have something special for you today. We are joined with the author lawyer, thought leader, world traveler, the creator of the Jordan Harbinger Show, The One and Only Jordan Harbinger. Jordan, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me on. Although I technically have not written anything that has ever been public, well that's not true. I published some stuff on blogs. That makes me an author, right, You ever written like a note on the back of a cocktail napkin? You know, mostly yes, phone numbers mostly, but that counts. I mean somebody had to when somebody had to write it down, I gotta ask you really quickly. Have people ever asked you like, if your last name refers to being the harbinger of like the apocalypse or doing something like this, this is a harbinger of a good time? They're usually there's a negative connotation to it, and I've always wondered, I'm like, who came up with that. It's some metal band came up with it, probably in the seventies, and it was just like, you're never gonna have anybody think that you're good when you walk in the room. That's now. Now we have to thank you for the nominative determinism. They're right, like, how someone with the last name toothman maybe a bit more statistically likely to be a dentist. One of the first questions we had to ask you, Jordan's is it weird for you to be on the other side of an interview conversation given that you have interviewed so many people over the course of your career. Uh? Like what, I think it's a little early to check in and say, how are we doing? Man? But yeah, you're just a good experience for you to be on the other side. So far, so good. Yeah, except for that author thing. I don't know what you guys are thinking about that one. But beyond beyond that, this has been great. Yeah. I actually enjoy interviews where I'm the subject because I realized I didn't have to read a book in preparation for this one. I just had to show up, which is nice. That's how that's I've got that going for me. Which is so if a toothman is more likely statistically to become a dentist, I am I more statistically likely to be like the anti Christ or something of the times. Perhaps you know, well, guys, because you know housekeeping note, English, especially the dialect we speak here, is a living language, so it's really up to us what that surname will mean, right, and this is uh. We were working on so much research because there's so many questions we want to get to in today's interview. A lot of people may not be fully aware of your background, Jordan's you started in law school. We're talking. You are a fellow alum with our producer codenamed Doc Holiday. And it was startling to me that during your time in law school you launched your first podcast. Is that correct? Yeah, that I launched my first show, which shall remain nameless because they always try and assuming when I mentioned them, even if I don't say anything bad. Um. Yeah, Well that's what happens when you do a show for eleven years and you're like, I want to change everything about this business, and then your business partners are like no, but but also you're fired because you want to leave. Yeah you can, You're fired. It was literally the and I was like, well, okay, and then I was sad, but then I was like, wait a minute, this is the best thing that ever happened to me. But yeah, I launched. The first podcast was in two thousand and six, the one that I did. The first podcast I did, it was two thousand and six. It was like November December. It's not far off from the first podcast kind of era right there. Ever, Yeah, yeah, I I I do looking back now, and I'm like, man, only it was like me and Adam Curry and a couple of other people that are probably still in business this Weekend Tech or whatever, those guys, and that was it. I mean it was it was kind of exclusively nerds only. Now it's like only maybe nine nerds maybe, I think. So. Really we're really just running the gamut to expanding here in podcast. Yeah, and we're the we're the old House Stuff works crew of like the Nerdy Nerdy website. Guys, we've been like sixteen fifteen years doing that nerdy Nerds stuff. I think it's really cool. No one tell our bosses we get paid is as soon as accounting finds out, it's over for us. Guys. Were we were just at a podcast conference and someone made the joke of like we were in podcasting back before it was cool, to which someone replied, it's still not cool. Yeah, but it's a living, that's for sure. But well, you can get a lot of cool people to talk with you if you were if you know, you're you're making a really cool show and in your case, like it's what you're using your time to do. You're you're making the world a better place by getting insight from these people you speak to. Man, some of the conversations you've had, Uh, there's one in particular that was just teased at the end of an episode where you're speaking about your time in the DPRK and gosh, I can't even tell you off the top of my head who it was, but it was a spy, somebody who worked with the CIA to develop tech. It was one of the coolest sounding conversations. And I didn't have time to listen to it, but I can't wait to listen to it. And was it if it was it a woman that I was talking. Yeah, so so I think that might have been. And I'm I'm having a brain fart here, but she was John A. Mendez, right, So she was the head of the CIA's I can't remember exactly, but they have to do with costumes and technology, and she was in Moscow in the eighties and so this is like they're the only Americans with chief enemy in the middle of Moscow, and so they were doing things like making a car are that had a person, uh, that dummy that would pop up and down so they could trick the KGB into thinking that they had picked someone up or dropped someone off when they hadn't. Has to look super real and also has to be able to like fold down and be completely invisible. When the cops inevitably say who's in the car with you, they're like, no one, And they're like, does damn Americans, they must have left let someone out of the cards. So then they they're on this crazy chase around back alleys of Moscow, and they're doing it to just mess with these guys so that when they do eventually need to x filtrate someone, they're like, it's that stupid car dummy thing again. Meanwhile, there's like someone sewn into the car seat driving out of And we have to point out ex fil trade for anyone listening at home unfamiliar with the term means to safely get some get an asset or someone out of the environment of operation. And I want to step back here just for a second. Jordan's Uh, when we we talked just briefly about your first few podcasts, Uh, this has all kind of culminated in the evolution of the show you do now where you interview, as Matt just alluded to, not just celebrities, not just athletes, but actual spies, actual defectors, And I think a lot the reason I'm using the word culmination, the reason I'm using the word evolution is because looking back, it seems to me that this has built upon the skills you have honed in your previous iterations to your previous explorations. So one of the questions that people are gonna want to hear on this show what they want to hear it answered you as a modern renaissance man. You have expertise and critical thinking, networking, social engineering as well. Uh where I'm sure you get this all the time. But what what leads you to find a person that you want to speak to? How do you contact them? And have you ever gotten in a hairy situation doing so? Oh? Yeah, so just do you mean show booking basically? Like? Well, so, when I was a kid, I actually got in trust. This will surprise no one. I got in trouble all the time because I was always interested in things that were kind of esoteric slash forbidden. So when I was really young, I figured out how to open those green phone boxes on the side of the road, and I made a phone that you could essentially clip in there and eavesdrop on conversations, which didn't It didn't occur to me that that was completely illegal and that I would have gotten real trouble for that. But I started to listen to a lot of my neighbor Yeah, my neighbor's phone conversations for hours at a time. I was an only child in TV. You know, it gets boring, especially if your parents won't spring for cable, But listening to a neighbor or talk about his divorce really was interesting. So I started to get interested in a lot of those like hacker. We called it freaking right, like the phone hacking type stuff back in the nineties. pH of course you hit't shot everything, that's right. Every everything started the pH uh in that community, that's everything was a f sound right because of the phone. And so that was a really interesting niche for me to be in, and I really enjoyed that. But I realized after a while I enjoyed the social engineering aspects more than the hacking aspects or the technical aspects and the engineering, and so I focused on that, and then I also realized, Okay, I'm not even as interested in the security elements of the social engineering stuff. I'm more interested in the human element. And then that led to networking, which was as a corporate skill which I knew I was going to need as an attorney, which I practiced for a little while, went to law school, and then I realized it wasn't even I wasn't even interested in the corporate stuff. I was just interested in the conversations. And as I started teaching this networking class at the University of Michigan to law students, I started to realize I was interested in body language, persuasion, nonverbal communication, things like that. So I still had that interest in esoteric or forbidden stuff, but as applied to social engineering or the human element. But then also like what, I was like, what I what am I gonna do? I'm not interested. I'm not even interested in the law. I'm interested in people. And it was like, should I just go back and get a PhD in psychology? And as I started doing the podcast to do for for the course, because I wanted to record my quote unquote lectures and have them somewhere, I turned it into a show and I was like, this is so fun, maybe I should just do a radio show about this stuff went to serious XM Satellite Radio kept doing the podcast. But to your question, how do I book people? Because I'm really good at staying on topic, as you can sell. I just find people that are interesting to me personally, and then I do this sort of sanity check, like, Okay, what percentage of my audience do I think will be into this? And if if it's less than ten percent, I don't do it because that usually means a lot. That usually means less than thirty and I'm just being kind about something that I really like. So like when when you mentioned before Matt interviewing defectors from North Korea as the DPRK, as you mentioned, I know that people are going to be interested in that because it is objectively just something we don't hear about that is interesting for a lot of people, even if people don't think they're going to be interested in it, and that that's kind of my rule. Is it interesting to me? If yes, which percentage? What percentage of that is going to be interesting to other people, whether they know it at the moment or not. I don't want to survey and go how many people want to hear from a defector from North Korea because people go, I don't care. I don't even know what it is. But then when they hear the story, right, yeah, what is that? I don't care? Are like my friends from Korea? I think he's not that interesting, And it's like, no, no, no, how about this guy who escaped twice, you know, worked in under underground stuff. Now he helps smuggle refugees. You tell the story and people go, Okay, that was fucking interesting, like period. And so I think one of the things that I've always been good at, even as a kid, is finding stuff that people go that exists, Holy sh it, I didn't even know that existed, and then getting into that kind of stuff. But but keeping it true. You know, there is a line at which, and especially true and podcasting, where it's like aliens built the pyramids, man, and it's like, can we just keep there's enough true that's interesting in the world. We don't have to just make stuff up anymore. Like that's not only that. If you find that, if you find that gateway in with the big you know, like um explosive kind of entry point, you're gonna have people that are going to branch out and ask more questions even after they leave the interview. And I think that's sort of like a low key way of educating people, you know, when they maybe don't even realize that's what's happening. And I think that's why podcasting can be great. If you can pull people in with something that's larger than life. Then sometimes they leave knowing about the nuances of international affairs or something that maybe they wouldn't have, you know, dipped their toe in otherwise. Yeah, I agree. I think I call it hiding the broccoli, you know, because I have little kids. If I want to get them to eat broccoli, they they'll do it now, But certainly in the beginning, it's like, how about this cheesy cover, don't worry about it, you know, like okay, and you're feeding it to them and they're just eating it because they think it's his like cheese whiz or whatever, because I'm a terrible parent. But I do that with the audience too, where it's like, oh that people need really do need to learn about networking. It's good for your career. But if you tell a bunch of twenty and thirty and what even forty year olds Hey, we're gonna teach you networking. They're like and funk off and they don't care. They're not interested. Click the channel change. But if I'm like, this is a spy who's going to teach us about how they develop assets, and then that person tells you exactly what you would do if you were a lawyer trying to develop new clients, except for it's in the context of and there I was in Afghanistan with the head of the Taliban local Taliban. It's the same stuff. It's just told and taught in a much more interesting way than someone is like and then put them in your CRM system after you get their business card. It's the same set of skills. Jordan's I'm gonna call this interview Hyde the Broccoli because I think that's a I think that's a great title for us. And there's full, full disclosure all the cards on the table. One of the things I know we're very excited to speak with you about is your expertise in something that's often termed dark tourism for lack of a better word. And you know there are a lot of locals and state institutions in those destinations who find that term objectionable. But one of the things that really stood out to us, to Matt Nolan myself is your experiences in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea known as North Korea to westerners. And Uh, there was a line you had and I think it's episode uh four thirty five, first of a two parter. You and your colleague Gabe Are you have this beautiful line where you say, yeah, man, anytime someone has to tell you how democratic their country is in the name, it's a little bit of a signal. But let's talk a little bit, maybe about what what people mean when they say dark tourism in general, and what drives you to explore those sorts of play. Yeah, dark tourism. I don't have a formal definition, but it's essentially when people when normal people say I'm going on vacation, usually they mean They're going to hit up a resort in the Maldives and go scuba diving. They're going to hit a beach in Hawaii or eat go on a food tour of New York City and see the Statute of Liberty. Maybe some of your more adventurous friends are going to a resort somewhere in Turkey, right there. But most people, just given the statistics, are not going I'm going to get a visa that I have to bribe someone at a bar in China, and then I'm going to go to North Korea and do a tour of all these very that has minders and that you're not allowed to talk to anyone on you know, who's not in your group, and go on this very controlled ops tour optics tour of North Korea where they had it's it's not even the least visited country in the world. I think that's gonna be some other smaller place like Tonga, but it's going to be or yeah, the Sentinel Islands, although I think that's technically part of India are and but yet most people don't go there. And like if they do go on a tour of another place in Africa or in certain parts of Africa, They're not going to Chibouti, right, They're going to They're not going to some of these sort of really sketchy type places that have an active or not superactive war zone. They're not going to Eritrea. They're not going to try and walk across the border of Eritrea into Ethiopia. And none of that stuff, and yet I I used to before having two kids, really enjoyed that stuff. I still have a little bit of a I guess you'd call it like a dark tourism booner for those places. But I also just I've come closed a couple of times, and I've seen you you see the news where people go, oh, it won't happen to me, and then they end up it happens to them, or just even worse now, people going to China and getting arrested because they're Canadian and Canada is holding the princess CEO of Huawei, and and so some guys spending four years in in an absolute hell hole because he has the wrong passport, and Chi Jin Pain wants to send a message at the Chinese Communist Party wants to send a message, and I'm like, I can't afford to do that, because now it's not just like, yeah, it's not worth it, you know, It's it's just not worth it. When you're in your twenties and your quote unquote invincible. Sure you can go someplace and you're probably not gonna step out of landmine and who cares. But now I'm sure I'm not trying to get blown up or kidnapped or show up on CNN wearing a blindfold or any of that stuff. Now we're gonna pause here for word from our sponsors, hopefully not state sponsors, and we'll be back, and we're back with Jordan's Well, let's talk about some of the experiences you did have in the DPRK because it is a two part episode. What did you say? Ben? Four thirty five and I think four thirty nine are two episodes of the Jordan Harmager Show that you can listen to right now. It's part one. In part two, really great conversation. I want to talk about some of the common things that you noticed that exists. Items I would say that exists in the average DPR case citizens like home orforman wherever they live, specifically images, they the images and the speaker. I really want to just tell us about that. Sure. So what's funny is the DPR North Korea is the opposite of your show title. It's only stuff they want you to know, period, And if you find out stuff they don't want you to know, they're going to pretend like that ship is not even there. And I'll tell you what I mean in a second. So one thing that you do see that even your guides will admit is in there is every home and this is the most orwellian thing in the world. Uh, every home that has electricity in North Korea has a speaker in the wall and you cannot turn it off and it broadcasts. I've asked about this the news in quotes, air quotes, very strong bold air quotes. If you can't see me right now, and what that news is, I've asked because it sounds like an emergency, and all of the news in North Korea sounds like an emergency, and they're like, Oh, it's just the news. I'm thinking that is an aggressive tone for the news. So I'll say, what's what's in the news. Oh, it's about how we're striving forward and really winning is a you know, communist socialist paradise, and how the American imperialists are trying to get us down by doing something that probably we haven't done since the nineteen fifty whatever, the Korean War, and we're going to strive and win under the great leadership of Kim John Lue. And I'm like, that's every They hear that every day, all that's on their speaker in the morning. It wakes you up in the morning at the time that you need to get up for work, so there's no like sleeping in because that thing is blasting. And again you cannot turn it off. You can turn it down, but you cannot turn the volume off, so you wake up to that. They play a little bit of music in the morning. And I've heard it because I've stayed at hotels that are in residential areas, which by the way, have huge walls around them because you're not allowed to go out and see other areas, but you can hear it blast in the staff quarters. And what's also very bizarre, and there's a lot of places in North Korea that don't have electricity. No surprise, we've all probably seen that graphic where it shows the South Korea and then there's the d m Z and then above it is just like there's a dot for where Pyongyang is and the rest of the country is dark from space. That is very real. There's a lot of places with no electricity in North Korea, So how do they how do their speakers work? There's vans that will roll up to villages and there they have these o g sort of bullhorn loudspeakers on top, and they play the music and the patriotic stuff in the news at a specific time every day and then drives to the next place or recharges the batteries or whatever, so you hear it no matter what, even if you don't have electricity or running water or freaking toilet, you're still getting a full dose of propaganda. And and in hotels where I've stayed in North Korea that are for tourists, I I'm a snooper. So I started looking around and I noticed that on the floor there is a quarter inch audio jack and I'll hold up what would go in there? For people that are not audio dorks like us? Uh, it's basically a giant headphone jack. So it's gonna look like this, but it's the whole for this, not the actual pluck. And I'm like, what is that? So I finally asked the tour guide what is that? What is that? Do you have that in your room? And she goes, no, I don't have that. And I say, do you have a speaker in your room? And she goes, yeah, for the news, and I'm like, that's what that is. So when tourists are in there, they unplug it. But when tourists are not in there and a local is in there, they plug in the propaganda speaker and there it is. So I've always thought, if I go back, I'm bringing this exact thing, and maybe like a pair of headphones, and I am going to have them playing so that I can kind of hear them if I'm in the room, but not really and maybe even just or like recorded on my iPhone or something and play it into that. But now I can't go back because I do shows like this and I'm gonna end up freaking getting arrested. Was gonna ask, but sorry that what were you gonna say? I'm just a really quick follow up to that, and it just it's please feel free to shut me down completely, guys. This is just my where my mind went when I was listening to you talk about that on on the podcast Jordan's Um. It got me thinking about the devices we have perpetually attached to our hands, and I'm thinking about what you're talking about with the human human intelligence, human element of intelligence, and I was just wondering if our tablets are you know, laptops, are all these things are devices that we have always on constant access to things like the news that were some things we would consider the news and entertainment. Um, I'm wondering. I'm wondering if we are on some strange level trained or I don't know a better word for it, we're so accustomed to using these devices and acclimated, yeah, to to feed ourselves these things rather than it being fed to us, and so on the nose of like what we're supposed to believe in, what you know, we're what we're supposed to think about, we like do it to ourselves, but it's a little more under the radar of what the actual messages. It's like that movie They Live where you know, we're being advertised at all the time through all of our news, whether it's news, entertainment or some combination of the two. There's advertising, right, because everything's fed through advertising. And I just wonder how much of that we're actually doing to ourselves. With a more cultural message like don't think, consume more work some more consume Yes, I don't know, what do you think? I'm with you on that. I was gonna interrupt you and do this episode sponsored by Blue April Air like, but but you're right, so we have consumers culture here. I think the main difference if you're asking, because a lot of people go, yeah, man, we're just like North Korea, but we don't even know. But the thing is, we have a separate information spaces, right, we can choose. You can choose, within a certain amount of reason or a certain degree, what comes in on that phone. You know, you can block your notifications. You can say I'm not gonna read BuzzFeed, I'm sick of this, I'm not gonna read MSNBC, or I'm not gonna read Fox Nage. Whatever you want. You can listen to podcasts like this. You don't no one's forcing you, thankfully to listen to like Rachel Mattau or Ben sha Bireau. Right, where we can choose, we can choose. They cannot choose the information space in a country like North Korea or even in its CCP controlled China. Frankly, they have a different information space that is highly that is completely controlled by the state period and you there aren't other personalities that you can trust more than the state leadership that that there's not different types of information that you can consume. So, yes, we have our phones. The thing is you are free. So in so much as you believe in free will to turn that thing off and go, you know, I'll turn it on in the afternoon or I'm not going to be in my email. North Koreans literally don't have that option, even from schooling. I've gone to schools in North Korea just to check it out, like the nice ones where the I guess you'd call them like kids the leaders probably are attending, and we saw their little like music thing and their dance thing, and we got to ask them questions, which is through the translator and the guide, and of course only select students could answer them. That's how that whole thing is. But we would say, what what is your favorite subject? Oh, my favorite subject is poetry. And I'm like that's so random. I'm wondering, like what are you writing? She goes, oh, no, we don't really write them. We just read them and perform them. And I was like, well, that's okay, very North Korean to like not create something of your your own. What's your favorite poem? And she would deliver this like crazy passionate poem and I'm like, this girl's really talented and loves that poem, and I go, what is that about? To the guide and she and they they go, what is that about? And she goes, it's about how our great leader is going to deliver us from all of the our enemies that are oppressing our country, and how amazing our country is and how we're gonna have record grain harvests. And I was like, she's fucking kidding, right, Nope, that's what the poem was about. Obviously just written by like some Stalinist propagandist, but years ago, but they were paid to do so. It's full time. So so in a degree, you could say for a Western analog, you could say maybe when there's a single space, uh, single information space, love that term, Jordan's when there's no real Overton window right of what is where, what is able to be discussed? Everything is sponsored content and there's only one sponsor. I've got to say, like a thing that surprised me. I've been to uh the border of r o K Republic of Korea, South Korea and DPRK multiple times. I haven't gone on the tour yet because uh, like you with DPRK, I probably have some customs clearing issues in PRC nowadays. Uh, But one thing that startled me, and I think It's something a lot of people missing these conversations. Is there there is also propaganda on the r O K side, on the South Korean side, Could you describe a little bit of what that experience is like for people I'm familiar, so I don't know much about South Korea because I've actually never been there, but I would say that, which is funny because everyone's like, wait, what, you went to the hard Korea, not the easy one. That's like, why would you do that to yourself? Uh, that's more of a dark tourist. I'm like, I can go to South Korea when I'm sixty five, you know, that's hand. It's gonna be like I can walk over with my the entire family, the kids. Yeah, we're gonna go to South Korea. North Korea is kind of like you do that before you have any real responsibility to come home in one piece. We definitely have propaganda over here, and I don't think anybody's sort of well, maybe there are some people that deny that, or they try and do semantic arguments about how we don't have that. Of course we have that. If we didn't, we would have a lot more reasonable dialogue inside this country because we wouldn't be like, but freedom. It's like terrorists don't hate our freedom. I mean a little bit, yes, but not that's not like the reason nine eleven happened, right, it's not because they're like freedom sucks, um. That's that's a very small part of it, and they're not. Their definition of freedom is not the same one that we have right when they're when they're complaining. South Korea definitely has. I mean South Korea was and this is sort of surprising for me to learn as well, that was kind of a hard core military dictatorship all the way up until I want to say to eighties or even the mid eighties, and my wife's family there from Taiwan, and I was like, yeah, Taiwan so free. Look at that economy China up until like eighty nine. That place was also like don't say anything of the secret police will come to your house and throw you into prison, and it's not fair, and there's a military tribunal and it's under like a very iron hand of the KMT party Chang Kai check type. These are not nice places to live. And part of that is the result of what happens after a war, when the war is still kind of going on, at least in the minds of the leadership and the propagandists. Right, it's very much Cold War, but it's kind of like they're more six minutes to Bid Night than the US and the Soviet Union probably ever were. They're kind of in perpetual Cuban miss Cuban missile crisis level of of of fighting or warfare. So are Okay, had a lot of people that we're just taught that the well, first of all, the United States was not super beloved there because soldiers have go out in like rape girls that were on their way to school. That didn't make us look good. They and and that's what North Korean propaganda will say all the time, you know, the South Korean government, they're just puppets of the United States. And I was like, oh, this is so nonsensical, And then I would start reading history and I'm like, Okay, it's actually not that nonsensical. It's just outdated. You know, if this was from nineteen seventy nine, what's written in here probably not that much of an exaggeration, except for now it's two thousand and thirteen, and this hasn't been going on like this for thirty years. But who No, no one in North Korea is going to know that because they are stuck in nineteen fifty five at the latest. And even in terms of dress and the way that they speak and the movies that they watched and things like that. Um, they really don't have a lot of that, and even a lot of the technology. I was there, uh several times when I work first went there, nobody had mobile phones. Literally no one uh. And and like tour guides from the UK who live in China, they had mobile phones that didn't do anything but call the hotel to tell us, tell them we're on away, or maybe call for some other thing. Now when you go there, or at least as of a few years ago, quote unquote, normal people have cell phones. But I will tell you these are like those no keyas from two thousand and one that have snake on them. They and they can't dial out of the country. They can only dial in the country, and they have sort of like there's no internet, there's just intra net that's inside your Korean They're reliable as hell. Jordans. Those phones, Yeah, you can put them underwater, those ones where yeah, you can like use them to bash your way out of the car. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I gotta ask you though, you know, with all this conversation around propaganda and access and lack of access to information without singling anybody out or anything like here in this country, it does all this talk about you know, the North Korean people not having the choice you know, of of which propaganda they would like to to enjoy. Uh, it really makes me even more grumpy at the folks here in this country, you know, for lack of a better word, not it too heated about it choosing the propaganda that they choose. Yeah, it's just really so that's the worst of you have no choice and it's being shoved down your throat at the penalty of death. It's like you willingly listen to this idiot, what's wrong with you? Like you're actually tuning into info Wars because you want to like, how how dare you? Shame? Shame on you? Come on? And I listened to an episode that you did about you know, fake news and the nature of propaganda with another CIA analysts who was very very CI analysts. Yeah, so I just wonder, how do you how do you correlate that with that with that experience that we see with fake news, and is fake news the same thing as propaganda? Are they achieving the same end results? Or is one a more high you know, high tech or like more advanced version of the other. Yeah, I think I think when I think propaganda, I think more state sponsored propaganda. But really, what is marketing and advertising if not propagation it for a specific company. I mean we when we say you know that Casper Mattress was so soft, I love it and you can get I mean, we are basically propagandizing for the thing is it's very it's transparent because the FTC in the United States is make essay. By the way, they gave me money to say this. That said, I did use it and I like it, and you could do it as well, and it will support the show. That's a little different than saying these are the facts and there's no debate around it, and this is what the science says about this. So I am a little bit I I do. I do understand what you mean, uh, and I do I also do get a little bit. I guess triggered is probably the best word when I'm like, why if you can choose to watch or listen to anything, do you choose the set of facts that's making you the most miserable and is just objectively, verifiably not not true. And so it's frustrating. That's an education issue. UH. And I think what you're maybe it sounds like what you're saying is in a place where you can choose to be educated about something else, Why are you choosing to be ignorant deliberately in a way and then funnel some thing into your head? Yeah, it is frustrating. Look, I love that you put it this way because I actually I singled out the episode the Fake News Interview from Jordan Harbinger Show in our notes because this is this is a commonality that our shows have together, the application and importance of critical thought. Uh. And this is this is something that I think we quarrel with. First off, Jordan's I love that you absolutely drew a very close Venn diagram between advertising and propaganda. It's sort of like, what's the difference between lobbying and bribery. That's a weird one to explain to your friends. Totally right, So this this question, and I um I urge anybody listening today, UH to check out your interview with Cindy Uh. Cineodas. Uh, this question is something that can be really difficult to answer for for you as UH, as a student of media discourse in the modern day, What can our fellow listeners do to try to suss out the miss and disinformation from the objective communication? I'm thinking, Oh, I gotta pull the rug real quick. For American listeners, the Smith Munth Act, which for many years UH did not allow Uncle Sam to push propaganda onto domestic audiences. It got pulled in. So if you're if you're hearing this, it's already happened. How do people how do you get to um the truth amid all the noise? Yeah, well there's this is a huge topic, of course, and I'm not gonna be able to do it justice like Cindy did on on the show on my show. She's a disinformation expert ironically from the Central Intelligence Agency formally anyway, Uh, somebody told this a long time ago, and they really nailed it. If you think about something that you know a lot about, let's say podcasting for for any one of us, and then you read an article about it in some the Wall Street Journal, but it's not written by Ashley Carmen, who writes about podcasting, right, it's written by some random journalists, and they get all these little things wrong, and you think like, oh, that's not right, that's not right, that's not right, and or this other thing is this big thing is not right. That's how media is with literally every other topic that you're consuming. So to believe that they got everything wrong about underwater basket weaving or whatever expert the thing that you're expert in, but they definitely got it right when it comes to whether or not one side of the aisle or the other side of the aisle or this other country is doing X y Z. It's like, well, that's interesting. They're wrong about this thing you know a lot about, but that you just thinking about percent right about everything else that you consume from them. So when you start to realize that they're probably equally if not more, wrong about everything that you are not familiar enough with to criticize, then you can start looking for better materials. So the rule for me is, if I read something that's an emotional headline or an emotional piece that gets me fired up in some way, it's been written that way deliberately to get that reaction out of me, So I always try and take a deep breath before sharing it, before taking action on it, because it's probably designed for the social media algorithm for shares, clicks, likes, and whatever, versus to inform me about something that is accurate. Right, Yeah, always yeah, or owns so and so own as this other person, right, and it's like got it, um, that's just a YouTube hit or whatever. As a Reddit user, I love to look at an article, go into the comments, and you always has Reddit as it always isn't read it. There's always somebody that's like, you'll read something that's like semiconductor breakthrough da China, and then someone at the top common is, yeah, I work in semi conductors and have for thirty years. This is not actually a breakthrough. This is them getting to where the United States was like nineteen nine, except for I bet you just knowing what I know about semiconductors, which is like everything compared to everybody else who's reading this article, and even the person who wrote it, he's like one in thirty of those things works out of the box, except to test them it would take longer than and so you're just getting this massive explanation about how this this thing it's supposed to scare Americans because China had some breakthrough and they're shipping chips to Russian weapon manufacturers. It's just like, slow down. This thing is probably garbage if it's even real, and also probably doesn't ever work, and if it does, it's gonna like get cold and not work anymore. And you're like, Okay, that's I probably don't have to worry about this. You know, if I'm reading more about this over and over and over and it seems like it's written by people that actually know what they're talking about, then I can start to worry about it. But when it's just another Tuesday on Reddit or just another Tuesday on the news, this is almost dollars to donuts a bunch of nonsense. And then if it's a big enough subject, you can go to a place like Snopes, where people will dig and dig and dig and research and research and research, and they will debunk or at least clarify really large, large claims, and you'll find out that maybe it's not true, or half of it's not true, or it's completely misleading. And I like to do that because and I do that whenever I feel emotionally triggered by something because chances are that that article or headline was written to get that reaction from me and from other people, and that makes it a lot easier. Also, people say, how do you stay informed when you're reading the news aside from my little reddit John's, I really don't engage in the news, and they'll go, well, but what you know so much about so many different things? I read books about them because books take years to write. Articles take twenty minutes from an a or nothing from an AI robot now to write, and so most articles and so if I read a book about something like semiconductors in China and the United States, it's going to be well thought out, cited. There's gonna be counter arguments from other people. The reviews on Amazon are going to tell me if it's a bunch of bullshit or not. If I'm reading an article on the Daily Wire about some of my conductors in China or an MSNBC in China, it's written with a certain perspective and it's almost certainly designed to just get me to click on stuff or share it because I'm angry or scared. We're gonna take a quick moment here our sponsors words and then come back with more words with Jordan's and we're back with more from Jordan's. All right, I want to stay on this topic. And yes, because I heard you name drop somebody in one of the episodes I listened to for this, um, are you friends with Neil Strauss, author of Rules of the Game bunch others? Yeah, him and I go way, way way back. Yeah, okay, that's awesome. We we happened to know him through Tenderfoot TV because of his show on the first trip that I lead. Actually, I want to kind of bring this together. That sounds right. That sounds right. So you and he share this interest in the kinds of games that they're not really game strategies, maybe that we can play on each other as humans to kind of hack the way our brains function and the way we perceive people, the way we react to people, and those kinds of things. I wonder if there's anything you could share with our audience just about everyday interactions that we're having out in the world where perhaps our minds are getting taken advantage of by somebody. Good question. Look, usually, so this is a tricky one because of course this happens all the time. I mean it's not just you know, people say like, oh, it's sales people are doing this. Okay, fine, The best people are that do this are salespeople and con artists generally, and your significant other. Now they're doing different things for different reasons. But our children, children are also really good at this. Master persuaders, master manipulators. Some do it for their own agenda, Some do it because they think they're being altruistic. They're not. Other people are doing it to destroy you because they get a perverse pleasure out of it, etcetera. So while there's always a different agenda or a different reason that these people are doing things, sometimes I think it's okay. And and I'm obviously not talking about con artists and manipulators and things like that. I think it's okay to not have your guard up all of the time for these types of things humans were if persuasion was negative, we would have those people who are able to be persuaded would have been out of the gene pool well before podcasting technology allowed us to have this conversation. So I think a lot of people who avoid human interaction or they they are paranoid about what everybody wants from them, and things like that. It's helpful to realize that the thing that allows you in many ways to be taken advantage of, that element of trust that you tend to give to people is actually an adaptive characteristic that's good for you. And I can't remember who I talked about this with a couple of people and it's been a while now, but it's actually better to trust other people. But it's Malcolm Gladwell. It's better to trust other people just as you normally would in society, even if you get taken advantage of sometimes, because the benefits of being a person that can develop and maintain trust in relationships is actually those actually far out way the downside. Now, look, if you get murdered by a serial killer, I know that's dark, but like you, we're talking about dark consequence. That's bad, you know, So you do have to have some common sense about you. I'm not saying hitchhike around because you'll save on gas and probably nothing's gonna happen to you. What I am saying is there's a lot of folks out there that will be like, you can't trust anyone. You've got to go into a relationship with a default, you know, zero some kind of mindset, and you really should not do that. You should actually be more most people should be more trusting than they are, even though you will get taken advantage of. That is a fact of life. The social network that you build, the friendships that you create and maintain, the opportunities that you find will actually outweigh if you trust people and maintain those relationships, will outweigh the damage you suffer as a result of not doing so. And I think that is while sort of meta and thirty thousand foot is, really it's a really important point because Niel Strauss and I we used to be like, oh, you got to do this in that and body language in nonmorable communication and this and that and you can tell if they're lying. None of that really was that would all added up to like five percent of human interactions or one percent of human interactions. And the big hack was confidently creating and maintaining large networks of friends and allies, because that will take you much further than like knowing the right thing to say, or like mastering hypnosis techniques. All that stuff ends up really coming together to make you kind of a weirdo. And I think we him and I both came to that conclusion earlier. It's I know it can be self limiting. What's that old proverb, If you want to travel fast, go alone. If you want to travel far, go with others. I'm paraphrasing. But the this this leads us to something else that I think is probably one of the speaking of meta Jordan's one of the underlying missions of both of our endeavors here in good old podcast Land, and that is the exercise of critical thought, which, just like physical exercise, can be challenging at times. Right like our our brains want us to find stuff that already confirms what we agreed with earlier, Sometimes you don't want to show up to that gym of of discourse and thought. When you talk about critical thinking, I think a lot of people throw the term around right, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Certainly subreddits love it right. But by one of the questions that for you is what is your philosophy regarding critical thought? And how would you say, not to trick you into a crash course for us, but how would you say people can start applying critical thought? Two things, What's what's the challenge there? What's the benefit? Sure? So critical thinking? Yeah, crash course in just a few minutes is not possible, and it's it's really hard to remember all these But I would love to give a couple of things, I guess quick tips if you will, that I use all the time, aside from the when I read something and get triggered, what is that tell me? That's sort of that's data that I can use. The other thing is, whenever I want to argue with somebody about something, I will try, not necessarily verbally doing this, but I will try arguing against myself. I will and I will argue their side of the argument, and then I will try and figure out why they are right. And I'm not trying to figure out why they are right and then secretly figure out why they're wrong. I'm actually trying to figure out why they're right. Most people try and figure out why somebody else is wrong. If you try and figure out why somebody else is right, it's sort of it takes down some of the guardrails in your mind about what you're allowing in. As far as data, I wish I could come up with an example here, but let's say you were arguing that climate change isn't it isn't real and someone else is telling you that it is. If I'm just trying to find points that support my conclusion, there's gonna that will be there, especially if I'm looking on the Internet, which is not a source of truth but more like a fun house mirror that just confirms whatever I'm throwing at it. Right. Um, yes, it's a lot wider than a fun house mirror. It's a it's a fun house mirror so wide you don't know you're looking into it because it's all you can see, right, And it's a it's an information battleground so large you don't know you're on it. As my friend says, So arguing against yourself is great another thing, and this is sort of the other side of the same coin as the steel man. So the straw man is, oh, I'm picking something where I can argue a semantic detail based on the worst or weakest characterization of your argument. The steel man is, let's assume one good intent on your part and that all of your arguments that you say are totally correct. Can I still poke holes in it without poking holes in any of your assertions? And if you can't, then you can start poking. Of course, then you start looking at their evidence and evaluating it. But a lot of times you'll find, especially if you're argument against somebody who's just telling you something is complete nonsense, you'll find that even if you assume all their premises are correct, that's it's still you can't get there. It can't be supported. And that's a stronger place to come from if you say, if you say that, if that person is a dick, so I don't believe anything they say, straw that's not even a straw man. Let's add hominum fallacy. But if we say, well he said this, but let's admit it, that's probably not real. Come on that straw man, or could be considered strong man. But if I say, hey, this is let's assume these are all correct, well, but then he didn't even address this other thing. You're just gonna leave that out, And then that's your way into this critical thinking that gets you away from well, I just don't like him, or those people always say that, or well whatever, he's an idiot, or oh yeah, isn't that the guy who also said other dumb things through him? You know, we do that a lot a lot when we see arguments that we don't like and that's the opposite of critical thinking. It's just we're trying to confirm our own conclusions, our own bias, whatever you might see. But unfortunately we don't even often see that because that's how everyone's brain sort of naturally operates. So we are not remember as humans, we are evolved to keep the tribe together by thinking and acting and acting talking whatever, the same way. We are not evolved to go to be right. That is a secondary and not even a close second kind of option. It's better for the whole tribe to be just really really wrong but still stick together. That it is for a couple of people in the tribe to think one way and a couple of people think another way, and everyone disagrees, but some of them are right and some of them are wrong or somewhere more right than others. That's how you die early in the game as a tribe that needs to stick together. So if you remember that you're actually evolved to be wrong, but stick with the people that you like, where that you know like and trust already, you can be more right because you can start to fight those instincts by using systems and techniques. Well, and it's also like I mean the idea of basing every argument around why this thought leader is the devil or why this person who has this perspective or this group are the anti collective anti Christ. It's not about facts, it's not about logic, it's about mothering um. And I think that is where we get this kind of mob mentality where you get so caught up in like the the chase of it all, that you don't even take a second to step back and think if if any of the things that you're saying or believing or make any sense. Yes, absolutely, because again you're evolved not to even care if they make sense. You know, if you're in if you're in a life and death situation and there's five people around you, and one person says, you know what, the guys on the other side of the island, they're there. They stole something from somebody that I know back in third grade, and we gotta go over there and steal all their crap, and we're gonna use it. We're gonna use that to survive. You're like, that's a sound rationale. I'm gonna do that. You know, you're not thinking, We'll wait a minute, Actually that doesn't work, you know, it's really really hard to do that because it is it's fundamentally against human nature to do so. People who are maybe more rational balanced, uh, like to evaluate evidence. Those people died tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. Those pre hominids were like their brain was too active, and then they got crunched by other people who were like, just shut up and accept the party line. And Uh, this is where we have the moment together where you say, there's so much stuff that we haven't gotten to yet. Uh, Jordan's we are going to have to have you on in the future in the interest again, would love that of transparency and disclosure. My man. We have we have lists of questions we have yet to touch. We might have to save them for a future appearance in the meantime. Spoiler alert, folks. Uh, you can tell we are fans of Jordan's show, and we hope you enjoy it at least some fraction of as much as we do. Jordan's where can people learn more about you your work? And uh, you know, if you if you are at liberty to disclose, sir, what's next on the horizon? Sure? So it's a podcast that Jordan's Harbinger Show or Harbinger Show. I would love it if people came over there and gave it a shot. Otherwise, I'm at Jordan Harbinger on all social media, you know, Instagram, Twitter. I love to hear from people. I'm happy to help you find episodes you think might be interesting if you want to check out the show. Oh, I made a start page Jordan Harbinger dot com slash start, and it has playlists of disinformation, cyber warfare, North Korea stuff, China stuff, just different topics because I know not everybody likes all those same nerdy stuff that I do. So Jordan Harbinger dot com, slash start and what's next on the horizon for me? You know, I I have. I am always trying to figure out what would be the most interesting for my audience. But I think some of the ones I'm excited, really excited about coming up. One is with this human rights lawyer who's talking about the genocide and Shinjiang, and he's really dystopian stuff. I mean, it's really really like an inside look at how Chinese, the Chinese Communist Party, the police, they put apps on your phone so they can track your whereabouts. I mean it is absolutely it's North Korea, but with technology in that province of China. I also did a show with an author named Matthew Campbell which is about how the high seas are just completely lawless and there's insurance fraud and there's piracy and nobody can do anything about it because who's gonna go thousands of miles off the coast of Yemen and try and be like that's insurance fraud. I mean, it's just really a fascinating look and he's really on the inside, Yes, exactly. Yeah, So I'm look, I got a lot of fun, fun air quotes shows like that on the rise in and I'm excited about it. You know that that stuff really keeps me going. I think podcasting is just like you said before, I can't believe I get paid for this, but I'm glad that I do because we really enjoy it. Thank you very much. I appreciate I'd love to come back. You guys are super fun to talk to you and I yeah, I would love to do it again. Absolutely, what a ride behind the scenes. Fellow conspiracy realist Jordan's Matt Noel and uh they called me been. We all ran out of time and we actually spent some time off air, uh, talking about all the stuff we didn't get to yet today. Uh No, no spoilers, But I don't say this every time, guys. Really, I enjoyed that one. I've been following this guy's work um as we were gearing up for this, and he's legit. I liked speaking to him very much. Good guy, very educated. Uh, very much. What is w parking in our same garage? Kind of you know, conceptually speaking? Yeah, but what what Jordan does is this really interesting marketing school thing that you can take for free. I didn't know anything about until I started listening to the show. It seems like a pretty cool concept. I'm gonna look into it more. This is not a plug for that, Like I'm not telling you to do. I'm just letting you know I'm actually interested in that. Yeah, and uh we I well, I don't want to speak for you, guys. I checked out one of those courses and that's part of that's part of my calculus and saying, uh, Jordan's is legit uh and has stories to tell. He is speaking with spies, he is speaking with defectors. One person who defected not once, but twice from the d p r K. So we're not blowing smoke when we say check out his show. We're also not blowing smoke. Well, we say we want to hear from you. Where is a place you've always dreamed of traveling? What are your strange experiences domestic or abroad. We can't wait to add your voice to the show, So help us out, folks. We try to be easy to find online. Oh, the Internet, We're all over that place. You can find this a conspiracy stuff to handle conspiracy stuff on Twitter, um, YouTube, and Facebook, where we have a Facebook group called Here's where it gets Crazy. Get it on the fun over there, share memes, meet the meet the people, meet the realists. They're all out there and they're waiting for you. Yes, you, We are also at Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. That's right. And if you like to use your phone to make phone calls, well why not call one eight three three st d w y t K. That's our voicemail system and you can leave a message. Please give yourself a cool nickname, like you know whatever. You I'm not even gonna give you a concept of an idea. You just come up with something conjurant from from whole cloth, and uh, tell us what your name is and then you've got three minutes say whatever you like. Please include whether or not you give us permission to use your name in voice on one of our episodes. And if you don't want to use your phone, we get it. Why not instead to send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.