Thought Leaders

Summary

SNAFU with Ed Helms — "Thought Leaders" (July 15, 2026)

Podcast: SNAFU with Ed Helms
Host: Ed Helms, iHeartPodcasts
Episode Theme:
This episode, "Thought Leaders," gathers highlights from conversations with some of the most insightful, witty minds featured on SNAFU this season. Ed Helms, joined by a range of luminary guests—including scientists, economists, psychologists, tech journalists, and podcasters—dives into the anatomy of human blunders, the nature of emotional connection, the psychology of scams, the roots of inequality, and the evolution of curiosity and science. The episode is part reflective hangout, part masterclass in “group therapy for humanity,” and is packed with memorable moments and thought-provoking exchanges.

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1. The Secret of Living a Good Life: Insights from Human Connection

(03:39–06:06)

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Ed Helms asks podcaster Kelly Corrigan whether years of deep podcast conversations have brought her closer to knowing how to live a good life.
  • Corrigan and Helms reflect on “aha moments”—those insights from guests that feel both revelatory and familiar.
  • Notable neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett distilled a profound truth:
    • “The best thing for a human central nervous system is another human central nervous system. And the worst thing for a human central nervous system is another human central nervous system.” — Lisa Feldman Barrett, relayed by Ed Helms (04:17)
  • The importance of choosing wisely whom you surround yourself with—“Pick your human central nervous systems wisely.” (04:27)
  • “Listening is so close to love that most people can't tell the difference.” (05:04)
  • The cumulative wisdom: Seek people who are still, who listen, who help you grow.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “We're an average of the five people we spend the most time with.” (04:49)
  • “That intuition is being developed and honed by knowledge.” (06:06)

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2. Podcasts vs. Social Media: A Cultural Shift

(06:21–07:11)

• Key Discussion Points:
  • Podcasting is framed as an “antidote” to the shallow, disposable content of social media.
  • The medium allows for deeper curiosity, connection, and reflection.

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3. Rage, Inequality, and Social Upheaval: Economic Dynamics Explored

(07:11–13:15)

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Conversations with thought leaders Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway tackle the roots and consequences of rising income inequality in America.
  • Swisher recounts telling a tech mogul:
    • “You're either going to have to deal with the inequality and give people a better wage, or you're going to have to armor plate your Tesla.” (08:09)
  • Galloway on generational wealth decline:
    • “For the first time in our 275 year history, a 30 year old American isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30.” (08:27)
    • “The 26 wealthiest families in America pay an average tax rate of 6%.” (09:13)
  • The historical pattern: asset concentration, followed by correction (often violently, e.g., revolutions—Black Lives Matter, MeToo, as modern examples).
  • The psychological impact of inequality is worsened by constant social comparison online.
    • “A middle class person right now is living better than the richest person on the planet 100 years ago... But that's not how the human brain works.” — Scott Galloway (10:42)

• Memorable Moment:

  • “You can understand people say young people are entitled. No, they're not. They're entitled to be enraged.” (11:49)

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4. Mystery Meets Science: The Changing Nature of Discovery

(13:15–17:04)

• Key Discussion Points:
  • Reflections with Jad Abumrad (Radiolab) on the role science has played in unraveling historic SNAFUs, from poisonings to financial scandals.
  • The evolution of “gentleman scientists” collecting curiosities to today’s relentless, disciplined specialization.
  • Jad on his mother’s four-decade study of a single protein:
    • “That's what science is now. It's just like unbelievable rigor and dedication.” (16:20)
  • The challenge today: science as just one way of knowing—now must “compete” with other, sometimes less rigorous, narratives.
  • “Maybe that's where we are.” — Jad Abumrad (16:54)

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5. The Psychology of Scams: Ponzi, Madoff, and the New Confidence Games

(17:04–24:05)

• Key Discussion Points:

  • Analysis of the “dark triad” (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) with psychologist Adam Grant, unpacking what drives Ponzi scheme perpetrators.
    • “What this kind of scheme is really about is... manipulating other people and using them for personal gain.” (18:50)
    • Most relevant: Machiavellianism—cold, calculated manipulation, not necessarily a lack of empathy.
  • On the role of "ethical fading" and "moral disengagement" among participants and bystanders:
    • “You stop applying a principled lens to the situation... because other people are accepting it.” (21:18)
    • Grant cites Maria Konnikova:
      “The true con artist doesn't force us to do anything. He makes us complicit in our own undoing.” (22:07)
  • Early investors and employees recruit others, making denial easier and complicity deeper.
  • Connection to internet-era scams:
    • “Americans lost $16.6 billion to online scams, a 33% increase from 2023.” (22:52)
    • The isolating nature of online interaction removes subtle trust cues, making fraud easier.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “Sometimes you don't even know if it's a human or a bot that's pitching you.” (24:05)

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6. Privacy, Social Media, and the Age of AI

(25:04–30:13)

• Key Discussion Points:
  • The open-data era of Facebook and the rise of mass data sharing:
    • “Americans will say privacy is important... but they will give up their privacy for almost anything.” — Casey Newton, paraphrased (25:43)
    • Facebook’s permissive APIs enabled explosion of third-party access, ultimately culminating in scandals like Cambridge Analytica.
  • The shift in user behavior: public oversharing decreasing; intimate conversations now moving to smaller group chats and DMs.
  • The emergence of AI chatbots as a new zone of risky oversharing:
    • “People are having conversations that are very intimate... and I don't think they [users] know or particularly care what's happening to that data on the other end.” (29:39)
  • Helms reflects:
    • “I've gotten much more anxious about this over the last few years.” (30:06)
  • The fundamental tradeoff: Our brains chase shortcuts and convenience, often at the expense of security or privacy.

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7. Notable Quotes & Themes

• Human Relationships:
  • "Listening is so close to love that most people can't tell the difference." (05:04)
• On Rage vs. Fear in Class Divisions:
  • "It's rage versus fear... Workers raging about inequality, and elites are afraid of losing their status." (06:34)
• On Historical Self-Delusion:
  • "I'm shocked we haven't had much more of a revolution or anger over money." (10:05)
• On Science & Truth:
  • "Science was always one way of knowing the world, and it's not the only way. And now all the different ways have to compete." — Jad Abumrad (16:54)
• On Data & Privacy:
  • "Americans will say privacy is important... but they will give up their privacy for almost anything." — Casey Newton (25:43)
  • "Can I get you to give up information if I give you something of relatively low value? Yes, I think that is still broadly the case." (28:48)

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8. Memorable Moments & Takeaways

• The central nervous system as a metaphor for our social experience—choose your people wisely.
• The inevitability—and volatility—of economic cycles of inequality.
• The dark charm and complexity of classic and modern con artistry and the psychological phenomena that let them thrive.
• The evolution of science from wide-eyed exploration to laser-focused rigor; truth now must compete with seductive pseudo-wellness and feel-good stories.
• The shifting landscape of digital privacy—what we trade away for discounts, convenience, friendship, or entertainment.

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9. Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment Description | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------|------------| | Introduction of thought leaders, setup | 00:55–03:39| | The Secret of Living a Good Life | 03:39–06:06| | Podcasting as Antidote to Social Media | 06:21–07:11| | Inequality and Social Fractures | 07:11–13:15| | Science as Story: Discovery and Its Limits | 13:15–17:04| | Psychology of Ponzi Schemes | 17:04–24:05| | Digital Privacy, Social Media & AI Risks | 25:04–30:13|

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In Ed Helms' own words (paraphrased from 00:55):

"These blunders, fiascos, and faceplants say a lot about who we are. Spoiler: we’re basically just toddlers with nukes."

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Episode Summary:
If you want a brisk, heartfelt, and intellectually enriching survey of why humans keep getting in their own way—and what that says about us—this episode delivers, weaving together wit, wisdom, and some much-needed group therapy for the species.

Transcript

[Ed Helm]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Amazon Health AI Announcer]

Guaranteed Human Amazon Health AI presents painful

[Podcast Host]

thoughts why did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores

[Ed Helm]

in various stages of ooze.

[Podcast Host]

I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Don't go down the rabbit hole.

[Amazon Health AI Announcer]

Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

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[Ed Helm]

And.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

And of course, everything can still be edited by hand if you feel the need for distinct specifications. I mean, it's your website, your call. Try [e-mail] Harmony that's wix.com Harmony do you want to find a stress free way to buy your next car? Start at CarMax and shop your way. If you want to browse with confidence, get pre qualified online, but no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget. From luxury cars to family rides, CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than 25,000 cars priced under $25,000. So hey, want to get started? Just head to CarMax.com for details and get pre qualified today. Want to drive CarMax? Hello SNAFU listeners. I've been pondering the world's deepest questions. Why are we here? Who will win the World cup later this week? What is the meaning of life? Are Labubus always going to be popular or is it just like a 2025 thing? And if so, what's the new Labubu of 2026? Is there a chance I could make an Ed Boo boo? You know what? No. Anywho, the people who do the real cognitive acrobatics, the real critical ponderers, those are the folks that get me really thinking the most. People like Adam Grant, Kara Swisher, Scott Galloway, Kelly Corrigan, or one of my oldest buddies, Jad Abumrat. The best part is all those folks appeared on SNAFU this season and they blew me away with their adept insights and quick witticisms. The way these folks interpret and evaluate snafus. It's really cool.

[Podcast Host]

Cool.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

It's eye opening and incredibly insightful and also at times, extremely funny. So this week I'm really excited to share a few of my favorite moments with our favorite thought leaders Enjoy. Kelly Gorrigan Wonders is a phenomenal podcast, which I highly recommend. You're five years in, over 700 episodes. The, the format of the show, it's basically a masterclass in human curiosity, in, like, exploring what makes us tick, what we fear and love and how we cope. And I'm just curious, after all of that deep listening, do you feel any closer to the secret of living a good life? Or is there anything like some crazy counterintuitive revelation about the human condition that you've landed on?

[Ed Helm]

More that sometimes when you're listening to someone, a guest on the show, they synthesize things in such a memorable way that it's almost like I've sort of known this. I've sort of intuited this my whole life, but now you just put the words on it. So two that come to mind are this. We had this neuroscientist on named Lisa Feldman Barrett. She's in the top 1% scientists cited worldwide in any discipline. So she's really respected. And she has a great book called How Emotions are Made. And that's what we were talking about. And the line she said was, the best thing for a human central nervous system is another human central nervous system. And the worst thing for a human central nervous system is another human central nervous.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Damn it.

[Ed Helm]

So pick your human central nervous systems wisely.

[Psychologist or Expert Guest]

Right.

[Ed Helm]

And that's the feeling that you get. I mean, that's what happened when we first met, really is my central nervous system and your central nervous system kind of rubbed up against each other and it was like, oh, this is a good.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Yeah, but that's a lot of pressure when you're like, on the life partner choices. That's like, oh, geez, I better get this right.

[Ed Helm]

Well, I mean, this other guest said that we're an average of the five people we spend the most time with. And so that's sort of a related thought. And then this other guest said that listening is so close to love that most people can't tell the difference.

[Psychologist or Expert Guest]

Wow.

[Ed Helm]

And so if you kind of glue those all together, you get some clarity about, like, who you're looking for out there. And you're looking for people who can be still, who can listen, who can take it in. And that's the central nervous system that's going to work for you, and that's the central nervous system that's going to make you better.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

I love that because I've always felt that profound insights are things that we hear that were like these aha moments. They feel like aha moments. Right. They feel like things that, like, oh, my God, what a revelation. I now understand that better. But you're really just. It's actually just affirming something that you already felt. The only reason it's an aha moment is because you know that it's true the second you hear it, because it resonates with something already in you. And I just. I love that because it speaks to this kind of grand human intuition that we all share and that we all understand these fundamental truths.

[Ed Helm]

Yes. And that intuition is being developed and honed by knowledge. Don't you feel from podcasting that you're just full of so much more information to draw from? I feel like my inputs in the last five years have gone through the roof.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

I love that podcasting has emerged as such a vital medium in our culture now, because it feels like an antidote to social media. It feels like an antidote to all of the Just like, crazy, flashy, quick, disposable stuff. Yes, to your point. It has provided a great scaffolding for my curiosity and connection with so many cool people like yourself. I see this as basically the collision of two very primal emotions. It's rage versus versus fear. You have the workers raging about inequality, and then, of course, elites are afraid of losing their status and their fancy things. Is this dynamic just baked into capitalism, or is there a better way? Is socialism kind of trying to have both sides?

[Podcast Host]

Oh, I think. I mean, Scott can talk more about this because he talks about sort of the rage. But one of the things. I just interviewed Bernie Sanders. He was very good. He was very mad about the oligarchs. He's a book called Fighting Oligarchy. And so I think this is a new thing. But one of the things that's important to keep in mind is that it's usually preceded by an area where lots of people get really rich, like, really, really rich. And we're in that. And many years ago, when this income inequality started to really. And then the tech people are the new winners, essentially the tech moguls. When they started to get ahead, I went to one of them and I said, we have a real problem with income inequality. You could see the numbers. The minimum wage hadn't been rising. And I said, you're either going to have deal with the inequality and give people a better wage, like, solve it, or you're going to have to armor plate your Tesla. And I looked at him, and I realized he wanted to armor plate his Tesla. That was okay. They thought that they had gotten all their money by their own doing and not by help by the government, et cetera. And they didn't care about people. And you could see that.

[Amazon Health AI Announcer]

Yeah. If I were to try and think of one piece of data that explains the epicenter of many of our problems, it would be the following. For the first time in our 275 year history, a 30 year old American isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. And that not only keeps creates rage and shame among a young group of people who are more likely to pick up guns, specifically young men, it creates rage and shame across the household. The algorithm or the pattern you're referring to plays out over and over in a capitalist society and it's the following. A group of very talented, very hardworking and very lucky people gather a disproportionate amount of assets and then we talk ourselves into believing that it is patriotic and not a bad thing to create tax policy, legislative policy and regulatory capture such that corporations can have their lowest taxes since 1939 now, such that the 26 wealthiest families in America pay an average tax rate of 6%. That is. Now the bad news about income inequality is it always happens. The good news is it's always self correcting. And more bad news though is that the means of correction are usually war, famine or revolution. And I would argue that as revolutions take on new complexion, we're in the midst of a series of small revolutions. Black Lives matter and the MeToo movement were both righteous movements that had real justifiable components. But they weren't going after the sexual harasser owner of a taco truck. They weren't going after someone who was racist in a small company. They were going after rich people. And at some point, when the bottom 52% of America have the same amount of wealth as Elon Musk, they figure out that the fastest way to double their wealth is to go after that person. And that's where we are. At some point we are having a series of small revolutions to try and correct income inequality.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Yeah, Heavy.

[Tech or AI Expert]

That's a good break.

[Podcast Host]

Heavy.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

That's heavy.

[Podcast Host]

It's a good breakdown and people are getting it. I'm sort of shocked. We haven't had much more of a revolution or anger over money.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

The crazy thing is that back in 1919, these workers were in like really horrendous conditions and still trying to make it work. But it's sort of, it's all relative, right? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what, like what the actual conditions might be. It's the Disparity itself. That is so, that just feels so off.

[Amazon Health AI Announcer]

Well, that's a, that's a great, that's a great point just to interrupt you because there's something to the notion, and this is a true statement, a middle class person right now is living better than the richest person on the planet 100 years ago. And middle class Mississippi is our poorest state. It has a higher household income than the UK or Germany or France. So America is actually, you could correctly say a middle class person in the US is thriving and doing really well. But that's not how the human brain works. The human brain sees 210 times a day that if they're not on a gulf stream or don't have a boyfriend with ripped abs that they're failing. And also they're living with roommates because the price of a home went from 290 to $420,000 during COVID because we flushed the market with so much stimulus. Because me or you or Kara getting less wealthy would be a crime greater than a million people dying. And the natural cycle of redistributing income and destroying capital during crises that cedes economic advantage back from the capital owners to labor we didn't allow happen. What was most criminal about it was we used their credit card to pay for our incumbency. So these people, you know, you can understand people say young people are entitled. No, they're not. They're entitled to be enraged. And you have just this incredible shifting of economic prosperity and they're reminded several hundred times a day on their phones that they're failing. So try to tell. It's like the mistake Democrats made trying to tell people inflation's not that bad. Well, okay, it feels that bad to me. And I also want to be clear. This is a bipartisan issue. What Trump has effectively done really well is like, okay, Republicans and Republican donors, I'm going to divide up TikTok. I'm going to give you AI legislation that makes you richer. And, and Democrats who are really rich and hold the power. There's a really uncomfortable silence of conspiracy that says don't get too angry cuz you're gonna make bank if you're a rich Democrat. And one of the most disappointing things about this is good Democrats who are in positions of powers have been fucking silent on all of this. Why? Cuz stop, stop. It hurts so good my taxes are going down.

[Podcast Host]

I would agree. Yeah, absolutely brutal. And also, you know, it's often at the expense of the young toward the old. And you see it in Congress, where they're antiquated and they're making rules that benefit the top groups.

[Science or History Expert]

That story has all the things, Ed, like, that's just, that is something. I liked how you kind of, right at the Connecticut moment, you spun it into a sort of clue, knives out, who done it kind of situation. They lived large back then, you know, they explored large, they, they poisoned large. They beefed pretty large. It's a, it's a. I feel like our lives are soft and small by comparison. Although maybe we're better for it, you know, that's quite a tale.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

What I love about this story and what I loved about it for you in particular was how science is part of the murder mystery. And I, I always loved how, you know, Radiolab episodes would unpack a narrative, whether it was a mystery, whether it was even a science based narrative. Very often science was part of the, if not the sort of mechanism of discovery in, in Radiolab episodes.

[Science or History Expert]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

It speaks to the power of science both from just a, a research standpoint. I mean, here's a guy at Dartmouth, this Loomis professor, he's just writing a biography and, and turns out, oh, I've got reason to suspect he was murdered. We're going to go dig him up and run these tests on him and, and lo and behold, all this new evidence emerges and there's just no end to what we can learn when science is applied in the right ways and with creativity.

[Science or History Expert]

Yeah. What I was thinking about as you were talking was the way science has changed over the years. Right. There was a period in the 19th century and really in the precise moment that this story is unfolding where what it meant to be a scientist, it was this kind of like the era of the gentleman scientist where they would get on a boat and sail to a new land and they would collect species and then they would create these cabinets of curiosities of butterflies and birds and all kinds of marsupials. And there's something sort of imperial about it. There's such an abundance and they're grabbing from the land and really collecting and trying to outdo each other. But on the other hand, there is just this kind of wonderful sense of openness and discovery, of like, the world is full of things that might seem magical, but we, through inquiry and a method, will demystify them. And there's a sense of like a naive sense that we can know everything. And it's interesting to juxtapose that in a split screen in your mind to where we are now, where there's science has Never been more robust. And there's so much. I mean, my mother, just as a personal example, has been studying one protein for 40 something years at this point.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

In what capacity?

[Science or History Expert]

As a, as a biologist, she discovered, or not discovered. I mean, it was there, but she kind of came to know this protein, brought it to the world's attention, and has been studying it every day for 40 years. And like, that's what science is now. It's just like unbelievable rigor and dedication and discipline. And yet you're in this, like, maha moment in which science kind of hold on the truth has been a bit marginalized. But, you know, I say to myself, I'm spinning myself into a cul de sac here. I say to myself, you know, science was always one way of knowing the world, and it's not the only way. And now all the different ways have to compete. And maybe that's. Maybe that's where we are.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Very well said. I think, yeah, that the, the sort of magic of, of science is getting confused with the magic of wellness. Stories that make you feel good, wellness narratives that grossly oversimplify and just kind of give us that endorphin rush. But good science, hard science, disciplined science, also provides that it's just a lot harder, and it's a lot harder to consume. In 1907, Ponzi landed in Montreal and scored a job as an assistant teller at a small bank serving Italian immigrants. And it was there that he witnessed the original model of the scam he would later perfect. His boss, Luigi Zorossi, lured depositors with absurdly generous interest rates. And amazingly, he would pay them, of course, by funneling new deposits straight to the earlier investors. It was a beautifully unsustainable system. So when the bank inevitably crashed and Zarossi bolted for Mexico to avoid accountability, Ponzi was left behind, unemployed, but newly educated in the fine art of financial tomfoolery. Now, most of us would look at this whole mess and think, okay, well, that backfired. Maybe crime doesn't pay. What can you tell us about the psychology of someone who definitely does not learn that lesson, in fact, sort of learns the opposite lesson of, like, here's more opportunity? I mean, is, do you see, like, sociopathy at play? Or is it just sort of that healthy or maybe unhealthy ego with a kind of rules don't apply swagger? I mean, how dark is that?

[Psychologist or Expert Guest]

So there are three traits that would normally predict being attracted to that kind of scheme, and psychologists call them the dark triad. And you hit on one of them Pretty closely anyway. They're being a narcissist, being Machiavellian and being a psychopath. And I think we're probably talking about Machiavellianism here more than we are being a narcissist or a psychopath or sociopath. Because what this kind of scheme is really about is it's about manipulating other people and using them for personal gain. And you don't have to have a giant inflated ego to want to do that. You don't have to feel no empathy for other people. You just have to be a little bit callous around feeling like, you know what, I can use other people a little bit. And in fact, I think part of the appeal of a Ponzi scheme is you look at that and you say, well, if I can keep it going, actually, I'm going to profit and no one else is going to get hurt because each former investor is going to get their money back because of a new one. And so all I have to do is perpetuate it. And, you know, I'm just, I'm exploiting a loophole in the system. I'm not exploiting people so much. And I think if you tell yourself that story, you probably sleep at night. And it doesn't, it doesn't require much more than a little bit of Machiavellianism.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

The scale of his operation, that's what's so mind blowing, is that like the buy in from so many different people, like the eagerness to want, like the desire for this to be true and for this all to be like a functioning, healthy way to make money. It's like the things we can force ourselves to believe, like he's the perpetrator, Ponzi or Bernie Madoff, like they're the perpetrators. They're either deluding themselves or they're just like criminals or whatever's going on with them. I mean, there's the investors who are just pure victims, but then there are people who are in the organization, right? They're in the running of these things and they have to have a sense of like, this doesn't add up. Or it's just like, I'm going to keep my head in the sand. I'm not going to. Like, this spreadsheet looks weird to me, but I'm just not going to ask because, boy, it feels good to trust this nice old man Bernie, who just seems to know who's been venerated by the great financial institutions for decades.

[Psychologist or Expert Guest]

There are terms that have been coined to describe what happens to a lot of people in the orbit of a Ponzi or a Madoff. Bandura called it moral disengagement. 10. Brunzel and Messick have called it ethical fading, where you just. You stop applying a principled lens to the situation you're in because other people are accepting it. And you assume, well, you know, surely these are not bad people. I see them, you know, they're. They're decent parents and partners and caring bosses, and, you know, they couldn't be doing anything bad. And you lose sight of the lines that are being crossed. I think that that could be part of what's happening in their orbit. And the. Maybe the other piece of this is. I was thinking about Maria Konnikova, a psychologist turned poker champ who wrote a book called the Confidence Game. And there's a quote in that book that shook me. Maria wrote, the true con artist doesn't force us to do anything. He makes us complicit in our own undoing.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Adam, what are you and I complicit in right now that we have no idea is part of our own doing?

[Psychologist or Expert Guest]

I really hope nothing. But, you know, just thinking about what happens to the. The early employees and the early clients, they start to recruit other people into the scheme. Of course, you. You try to get your friends hired at this great company. You try to get your, you know, your family to invest in this, you know, this fund with incredible returns, and pretty soon, you have a strong incentive to see no evil.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

I want to bring this into the present moment a little bit. I love digging into this story because of how hyper relevant it feels today in the age of Internet scammers and just this sort of, like, new generation of con artists that have emerged. I mean, it's funny to think of Charles Ponzi as perhaps now him being like, an Instagram influencer, you know, who's just, like, taking people in. But here's just a few stats. The FBI reported that Americans lost $16.6 billion to online scams, which is a 33% increase from 2023. Do you think that there is also a way that sort of the online distance from a con artist and like us, when we're in our own bubble and we don't have other people to sort of cross reference with or bounce an idea off of? Does that. Does the solitary nature of Internet interaction make us additionally more vulnerable or less vulnerable or. I mean, it does seem like the Internet is just a cesspool of scam.

[Psychologist or Expert Guest]

Yeah, I would love to see some data on this. I have not seen a good analysis. I Think I have a similar hunch to yours, which is the isolation can make it really easy to fall for a scam. I think the other piece of it is you're missing some of the cutes that would normally, you know, sort of, you know, even if you didn't recognize them consciously. You know, you interact with a con artist face to face, and you start to get a gut feeling sometimes, like, I don't quite trust this person. I don't know why, but, you know, maybe. Maybe I should verify, or maybe I should wait a little bit. And you're just deprived of a lot of those cues over the Internet. Sometimes you don't even know if it's a human or a bottle that's pitching you. And so I think that probably makes it harder for people to use whatever intuition they have around judging people's trustworthiness. What's the New Yorker cartoon on the Internet? No one knows you're a dog?

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Yeah, of course. Well, that's more of a catfish joke. No, but I guess it works here just as well. This app was building a surprisingly detailed dossier on you, your psychology, and that of your entire digital arm, Entourage. Question. Do you think that the average American at that time had any sense of how this kind of personal information that everyone was sharing just exhaustively could be turned against them? Or were we just high on digital narcissism?

[Privacy or Social Media Expert]

No, I mean, an American. Americans are very interesting in that they will say that privacy is very important to them, but they will give up their privacy for almost anything. Right. It's like they will tell you, you know, that they. They don't want to, you know, put the name of their children online, but if it got them 10% off at Ross Dress for Less, they will absolutely give you all that and more. So companies are always sort of doing this weird dance where they're trying to get you to reveal as much as they possibly can without it accidentally blowing up in their face.

[Tech or AI Expert]

Well, and this was also an era that was called sort of the open graph era of Facebook. Basically, they were trying to turn Facebook from an app where you would, you know, stalk your crushes from college or whatever, to a platform where other apps could build things. There were apps like farmville that you could play inside Facebook. You could use Facebook to log into Spotify or any other number of services. And that was part of this quiz. Push was like you could build things on top of Facebook, and then Facebook would actually send some of that data to the developers of the quizzes. This was the same protocol, the same process that they used to connect people with FarmVille games and Spotify.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

The best case use of that data would just be for that app to reach more users or at this point, what's their reason for being, just so give and take with this data.

[Privacy or Social Media Expert]

So Facebook used to have this very permissive, what they call an API, an application programming interface. It's essentially just a piece of software that lets other pieces of software talk to each other. And there was a time when Facebook invested really heavily in that because they wanted essentially every other software to connect whatever they were building to Facebook. Facebook thought, this is the way that we are going to grow and take over the world is essentially everything runs through this. And the way that Facebook was able to attract so many of those people to its platforms was by saying, we will give you data that you can't get anywhere else. Right. There aren't a lot of other places where you can go if you're a legitimate researcher, a shady researcher, somebody who's making a mobile game, and immediately get not just my name and my email address and my phone number, but also, at the time, the names of all of my friends and their phone numbers and their email addresses. So for people like the ones who wound up building the app that led to Cambridge Analytica, this was a gold mine. It was an absolute bonanza, and it really benefited Facebook until it didn't.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

And do you think we've gotten just back to that initial question about how we share information online? Have we gotten any better at this? Casey, I love your analogy. If we get a discount on something, we're just like, yeah, take whatever you want. Here's my mother's maiden name. But are we just that lazy? Our brains are just wired for heuristics. We just want the shortcuts everywhere.

[Privacy or Social Media Expert]

I think there have been some major changes, and you can see it when you log on to social media. You used to log on to Facebook and Instagram, and you see your friends and family. Now you see a clip from a podcast you've never heard of. Right. And that has several causes behind it, but one of the big ones is that Americans are sharing less. The whole bargain that they struck with Facebook of, hey, I'll give you all my information in exchange for you keeping up on the divorces of my high school classmates. That bargain doesn't feel like that's as good anymore. And so all the real sharing is happening in these private group chats, and all the public stuff is kind of more, you know, creator content and, you know, celebrities and all of that. So in that respect, I really do think things have changed now. At the same time, can I get you to give up information if I give you something of relatively low value? Yes, I think that is still broadly the case across, you know, many different dimensions.

[Tech or AI Expert]

Well, and I also think like AI has become the sort of next frontier of this because people are sharing all kinds of stuff with chatbots. People are having therapy sessions, they're confessing their crimes. They're like people are doing. People are having these conversations that are very intimate in some cases. And I don't think they know or particularly care what's happening to that data on the other end.

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Wow. Yeah, I don't know. I've gotten much more anxious about this over the last few years.

[Privacy or Social Media Expert]

What kinds of things?

[Co-host or Guest Commentator]

Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, the stuff I've already told to ChatGPT, it's all. That's all just in the murder category. SNAFU is a production of iHeart podcasts and snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Post production and creative support from Good Egg Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helm, Mike Falbow, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by Matt Gossen and the Collected Works legal review from Dan Welch, Megan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horne, Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman and Niki Ator. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, the Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com thanks for listening and subscribe. See you next week. The official language of football is trash talk, late night group chats, memes and unbelievable highlight clips. That's why Boost Mobile brings you our new global connection plan, the first plan ever made for WhatsApp. Get unlimited data, talk and text, international roaming and calls to open 100 countries for just $40 a month. $40 price includes $5 a month autopay discount after 40 gigabytes of premium high speed data. Speeds will be lowered. Coverage not available everywhere. Visit store or boost mobile.com for details. Honestly, honestly, honestly, no one wants to think about hiv, but there are things that everyone can do to help prevent it. Things like prep. PREP stands for Pre Exposure Prophylaxis, and it means routinely taking prescription medicine before you're exposed to HIV to help reduce your chances of getting it. Prep can be about 99% effective when taken as prescribed. It doesn't protect against other STIs, though, so be sure to use condoms and other healthy sex practices. Ask a healthcare provider about all your prevention options, and visit findoutaboutprep.com to learn more. Sponsored by Gilead this is an iHeart podcast.

[Podcast Host]

Guaranteed human.