1323: Todd Rose | The Collective Illusions Tearing America Apart

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Jordan Harbinger Show

Episode 1323: Todd Rose | The Collective Illusions Tearing America Apart
Date: May 7, 2026
Host: Jordan Harbinger | Guest: Todd Rose (Author, Researcher)

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Jordan Harbinger discusses with Todd Rose the phenomenon of "collective illusions"—widespread social misconceptions where people conform to beliefs or practices they don't personally hold, simply because they think everyone else does. The conversation uncovers how these illusions impact politics, social trust, online discourse, and even our basic understanding of what others believe in America. Rose shares research and real-world examples showing that Americans are privately far more united than public narratives suggest, and explores how social media and foreign actors exploit these illusions to sow division and distrust.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What are “Collective Illusions”?

• Definition: Social lies we all participate in because we assume everyone else believes them. (03:05)
• These illusions fuel unnecessary division: “On most controversial issues in the United States, something like 90% of people privately agree, but publicly, they act like they’re at war.” — Jordan Harbinger (03:16)
• The Elm Hollow Study: The first public opinion study showed a religious community privately flouted the strict rules they publicly endorsed—until the chief enforcer, “Mrs. Salt,” died and norms shifted instantly. (04:17–06:49)

2. The Mechanics of Conformity and Social Media

• Humans are hardwired to conform for group survival, but we use unreliable shortcuts—equating the loudest, most repetitive voices with consensus. (06:58)
• “Your brain assumes the loudest voices, repeated the most, are the majority.” — Todd Rose (06:58)
• Social media amplifies this distortion: 80% of content on platforms like X is generated by only 10% of users, who are often not representative but highly vocal extremists. (07:34–09:00)
• These manufactured majorities coerce silent or uncertain people into mimicking views they don’t actually hold.

3. Real-Life Examples of Collective Illusions

• Youth and Fame: Despite the illusion, most young people don’t aspire to be influencers—status-related ambitions are in the bottom quartile of what Americans value. (10:12–11:10)
• Hot-Button Issues: Sloganeering (e.g., “defund the police,” “abolish ICE”) by fringe groups causes people to parrot radical positions they don’t really support.
  • Finding: At the peak, 60% of Democrats publicly supported defunding police, but in private, only 9% did. (13:01)
• Division on Trans Issues & Polarized Topics: Social media makes fringe debates (like trans athletes in sports) dominate discourse even when almost no one in real life sees it as a priority. (14:06–16:08)
  • “It’s the first real hyper-online movement…the thing that makes me sad is there is a small percent of people who really do struggle with this who need help and just want to live their lives.” — Todd Rose (15:02)

4. The Dangers: Social Trust Under Attack

• False polarization erodes trust—people mistakenly believe their fellow citizens have wildly opposing values.
• Foreign actors (China, Russia, Iran) weaponize collective illusions, using bots and AI to amplify division for strategic gain. (20:02–22:41)
• “We were losing a war that we didn’t even know we were fighting in the space of propaganda and manipulation.” — Todd Rose (21:24)
• Conservative estimate: A quarter of your social media interactions may already be with bots. (22:41)
• Bots control comment threads and public tone, nudging people to speak or remain silent in manipulated directions. (23:39)

5. How Illusions Become Self-Fulfilling and Harmful

• If unchallenged, illusions reshape group norms—potentially destroying valued social contracts.
• Examples:
  • Drug Campaigns Backfiring: “Just Say No” campaigns increased drug use because they amplified the illusion that “everyone does drugs.” (45:22–46:28)
  • Marriage Equality: The fastest change in public opinion occurred not via persuasion, but through normalizing depictions and honest discussion (“social proof”). (51:11–52:44)
  • Bad Social Norms: Deeply entrenched harmful practices like female genital mutilation persist primarily through social illusions, despite most privately opposing them. (65:31–68:25)

6. Our Biological Programming to Conform

• Studies show when we conform, our brains reward us (dopamine); when we dissent, alarm signals fire, compelling us back towards perceived group consensus—even on subjective things like facial attractiveness. (57:41–61:11)
• The impact is so strong, some people in classic conformity experiments visually perceive what the group says, overriding their senses. (61:38–62:28)

7. Collective Illusions and Social Trust

• Declining trust is both cause and consequence of illusions. When we perceive that we don’t share values, trust evaporates—even if the perception is false. (75:16–76:36)
• Low-trust societies are destabilized and hard to repair; social trust is a threshold variable that free societies can’t drop below. (74:32–75:54)
• “The single best predictor of social trust is perceived shared values.” — Todd Rose (75:18)

8. Breaking the Spell: What Can Be Done

• Countermeasures:
  • Personal honesty (“small acts of courage”) can quickly shatter illusions, especially when modeled by respected figures or through stories in popular culture. (68:35–69:05, 84:11–87:43)
  • Introducing uncertainty (“I’m not sure yet”) can break group-think.
• Institutions and Technology: Exposing bot/fake accounts (e.g., X revealing account locations) helps, but ultimately, individuals must internalize skepticism about their perceptions of group consensus. (31:26–32:31)
• Social Proof: Even one dissenting voice breaks conformity cascades—change spreads exponentially once the illusion is cracked. (68:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the nature of public vs. private beliefs:
  “The distinction between private truths and public lies is important because the way you solve it is very different.” — Todd Rose (28:37)

• On American division:
  “If I'm wrong about what most people believe, and I'm like, hold on, you don’t believe in dignity, you don’t believe in free speech… Now I lose trust in each other. And now… it’s a downward spiral.” — Todd Rose (18:25)

• On bot/fake influencer exposure:
  “You say you’re a MAGA supporter. You're literally in Bangladesh. And you realize how much of it was just bullshit.” — Todd Rose (31:52)

• On defending free speech:
  “Democrats are fully convinced that other Democrats don’t care about [free speech] anymore…but in private, it’s just not true. In fact, Democrats have slightly higher commitment in private than Republicans.” — Todd Rose (43:16)

• On the power of one honest person:
  “It often just takes one person…One other person telling the truth is enough to get the other person [to speak up]. It’s like that initial willingness to be honest about your views…how profoundly powerful that is.” — Todd Rose (68:38)

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Important Timestamps

• 04:17 – Elm Hollow story—first public opinion/collective illusion
• 07:34 – Social media’s amplifying effect on illusions/fringe voices
• 13:01 – Defund the police: 9% private support vs. 60% public (Democrats)
• 21:24 – Foreign powers exploit collective illusions as psychological warfare
• 23:39 – Bot armies manipulate comment threads and consensus
• 31:26 – X/Twitter exposes fake influencer origins
• 45:22 – ‘Just Say No’ drug campaigns backfire
• 52:44 – How marriage equality’s public opinion shifted
• 57:41 – Conformity and the brain (FMRI study)
• 65:31 – Private opposition to FGM in Egypt, but continued practice
• 75:18 – Shared values are the #1 predictor of social trust
• 84:11 – Practical steps to break illusions/rebuild trust

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Actionable Takeaways

• Assume less. What you see online or hear from loud voices likely does not reflect the majority.
• Speak up, honestly—but respectfully. One dissenting, authentic voice can empower others.
• Look for social proof in your in-group, and be part of it. When “normal” people are honest, illusions collapse rapidly.
• Question catchy slogans. “If it feels performative or extreme, check whether it actually matches your or anyone’s private values.”
• Don’t rely on social media consensus as reality. Question the source, frequency, and authenticity of opinions you see online.

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Optimistic Closing

Despite seemingly insurmountable division, Americans are remarkably aligned on core values—most just don’t realize it due to collective illusions amplified online. “Underneath these public lies are private truths that are pretty heartwarming. I think we’ll be okay as a country if we can recognize the real nature of the problem and realize that we have a role to play in solving it.” — Todd Rose (87:43)

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For more:

• Learn about Todd Rose’s research
• Full episode and resources
• [Recommended follow-up: Episode 1247 with Eric Kohl on cybersecurity and trust] (Timestamps 87:52–89:33)

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Share this with anyone worried about polarization, social trust, or simply curious why online discourse feels so broken—this episode demystifies America’s “division” and offers hope with concrete steps forward.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Todd Rose]

We've planned for the plot twists, so

[Jason]

support is always available.

[Todd Rose]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

Visit [e-mail] Asana coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger show, close to almost

[Todd Rose]

half of Americans think other Americans are the greatest threat. Once you realize that this is a war that we're losing, we didn't even know we were fighting. You can't beat us militarily or even economically if we're really got our act together. So what would you do? What you do is you actually destroy the social trust, the very fabric. Right. Like you actually start to get us to see each other as enemies. This is really effective. If we really were that divided, if we really did have these wacky beliefs that we were consolidate around, we should say it. It's just not true.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the

[Jason]

world's most fascinating people and turn their

[Jordan Harbinger]

wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks. Spies, CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional former cult member, Fortune 500

[Jason]

CEO or Russian chess grandmaster.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you're new to the show or

[Jason]

you want to tell your friends about

[Jordan Harbinger]

the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite Episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started today on the show. Apparently we're all lying. Not in the fun. Yeah, I read the article kind of way. But more like we are collectively pretending to believe things that almost nobody actually believes, which sounds insane until you realize it explains basically everything. Why people panic, buy toilet paper like it's currency, why politicians chase opinions that

[Jason]

don't even really exist, why everyone online sounds like a radical and everybody in real life doesn't.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Today's guest, Todd Rose, calls this collective illusions, basically social lies that we all participate in because we think everyone else believes them. On most controversial issues in the United states, something like 90% of people privately agree, but publicly they act like they're at war. So, yeah, it turns out we're actually not that divided. We're just confused, insecure, and copying each

[Jason]

other, like middle schoolers trying to fit in. And the Internet makes the whole thing a million times worse.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Today we'll break down why you might be agreeing with things you don't actually believe. How social media manufactures fake majorities, why your brain literally rewards you for conforming like a lab rat, and how this whole thing quietly wrecks trust, politics, and your sanity. All this and more today here on the show with Todd Rose.

[Jason]

Here we go.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I really got into this book. It might actually sound kind of weird, but I found it quite a relief

[Jason]

that basically everyone is a hypocrite of

[Jordan Harbinger]

some kind and lying to each other.

[Jason]

And I know that sounds odd. People are listening and they're like, what are you talking about? I'm not a hypocrite, but hear me out.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The idea that we don't tell the truth about what we believe is actually

[Jason]

kind of a good thing. And maybe we begin with the story of Elm Hollow, where the moral is everyone's a hypocrite.

[Todd Rose]

Basically, that's right. When I was writing the book, I found this story was really the first major collective illusion, but it actually happened to be the very first public opinion study ever done. This guy, Richard Schenck, this was right before Gallup was formed and everything. And he said, I want to know how people form their opinions. So he did his dissertation. He went and lived in this small community. He called it Elm Hall. It was in upstate New York, and it Was a kind of religious community, a little bit tightly knit. At first, he gave everyone this survey just to kind of get their opinions. And he asked a lot about church stuff. You weren't supposed to play face cards. You didn't drink alcohol, whatever.

[Jason]

It was, like, super conservative.

[Todd Rose]

Yeah.

[Jason]

Like, and play cards. Holy smokes.

[Todd Rose]

Face cards, apparently. So they're asking a bunch of other attitudes. And he said, okay, I got the baseline. And he goes, but after six months, I actually drank alcohol and played cards with everybody in this community in the privacy of their own home. And he's like, everybody's lying. And he was like, what would lead them to lie like that? He did something really clever, which then we just have copied like crazy in our research. He decided to give him another survey. But instead of asking them their own opinions, he said, what do you think most people in the community believe on these issues? And that's what he found out. He says, oh, they all think everybody else believes this stuff. They don't personally, but they don't want to get kicked out of the group. So they're going along now. Here's what's wild. He figures out, like, wait a minute. How could they be so wrong about their group? I mean, just talk to each other. It turns out that there was this one old woman, and he called her Mrs. Salt. And she was one of those, like, true believers, like, fire and brimstone religious thing. Her dad was a preacher back in the day. She also happened to be the biggest donor to the church in the town. So, like, everybody was afraid of her. The pastor wouldn't really push back because he wanted to get a paycheck. And so she would just tell people how it is. Should shut them down. She'd cancel them. So everybody sort of just assumes she was speaking for the group, and she dies. And it doesn't take very long for everyone's like, wait, hold on.

[Jason]

They're playing cards at the funeral?

[Todd Rose]

Yeah. Seriously, though, Richard Shank goes to the pastor. He goes, you gotta do something. People all believe this. And so he had the pastor show up at a church event and play cards. And then the gossips are. The pastor's playing, and they're like, yeah, you can play cards. That wasn't ever a rule. You just believed it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was a Mrs. Salt thing. And she's gone now.

[Jason]

We don't have to worry about her.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In that case, let me go get the whiskey I've been holding in my

[Jason]

cabinet for three years.

[Jordan Harbinger]

As far as it's not a new bottle from Costco.

[Todd Rose]

Yeah. So funny. So that was the very first, like, time that ever tried to look at public opinion. And the first thing they find is people don't tell the truth because they want to be part of their group. But it turns out we're really, really bad at reading what our groups believe because our brains have this really flimsy shortcut. Your brain assumes the loudest voices repeated the most are the majority. So that's why Mrs. Salt being the only one speaking, look, she speaks for everyone. So no big deal, you can happen in these small communities. It wasn't until social media.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Todd Rose]

That this became a runaway train. In fact, it's funny, in the 70s and 80s, psychologists were like, this happens when you're wrong about your group. Because that's all collective illusions are. They're group think, but you're wrong about the group.

[Jason]

So it's a collective illusion is like a social lie. So it's just not true.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We conform because we are doing what we think others want.

[Jason]

But then we're just doing what nobody

[Todd Rose]

wants but nobody wants. And so we all have a conformity bias. Our brains are wired to be with groups. It's survival. But then again, how do you know what your group believes? And so the shortcut of loudest voice repeated the most, it's quite like, efficient. And it must have worked to evolve, Right, that you were accurate enough. And in most communities, at some point you could just pull your neighbor aside and go, hold on, do you really believe this? But you go into social media without any distorting effects. But we'll talk about that too, because countries are weaponizing this. And if you look at like X right now, the platform, 80% of all content on X is generated by only 10% of the users.

[Jason]

That totally makes sense. Whenever I see a crazy tweet or somebody shares something with me, I always

[Jordan Harbinger]

go like, oh, I wonder who this person is? And you can see that they've tweeted

[Jason]

48 times that day. And I'm like, that's more than I've tweeted in the last decade.

[Todd Rose]

It's all they do. And then Pew Research actually studied this 10% and they found, like, they are not remotely representative of the public. They're extreme on everything.

[Jason]

No, they're fringe kooks.

[Todd Rose]

Yeah, yeah, they are. And so they're really loud. But here's the problem. Now, if 10% of the country holds a view, you think it's 80%. Unless you're willing to go against your group, you're just going to say nothing or you'll start saying what you think you're supposed to say and suddenly the result's a collective illusion.

[Jason]

That makes sense. My friend is a teacher and I was like, hey, I heard that every kid wants to be a famous YouTuber. And she is like, yeah, they all want to be famous YouTubers.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then she came back a couple

[Jason]

of weeks or months later and she's like, you know, actually remember when you

[Jordan Harbinger]

asked me that it turns out that they think some of these YouTube people are cool. But when we actually talked about what we really wanted to do, not I'm going to be a rock star astronaut, when you actually talked about what sort

[Jason]

of path are you thinking of taking,

[Jordan Harbinger]

it was the same as it's always been. Like, my dad's a lawyer and that

[Jason]

seems kind of interesting. Or like I. I really like watching True Crime, so I thought maybe I'd be an investigator. One kid wanted to be a YouTuber, of course.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Or two. But it wasn't like the whole class. But if you ask the class and

[Jason]

everyone has to raise their hand, it's

[Jordan Harbinger]

like, I want to be a YouTuber.

[Jason]

And everyone's like, oh, that sounds cool.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because it's kind of a LARP they're

[Jason]

playing and it's in front of everyone else.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But it's like when you really sit

[Jason]

down, it's like, no, no, no, I want to go to dental school.

[Todd Rose]

What's funny about that is that's where I'm at. You just nailed exactly like. So I think tank, we do this private opinion research. It's not just what you'll say out loud, but what do you really believe? And we can get around that sort of social pressure. And we did a massive study on what you mean by a successful life. The illusion is we think everybody wants to be famous, like the number one trail priority.

[Jason]

And rich, right as well.

[Todd Rose]

And rich.

[Jason]

Is that the second one.

[Todd Rose]

They're all status related is what we think everyone wants. In reality, those are like bottom quartile. You want to have enough money to live your life. But like the tops are all like what you'd actually be happy with. People want to contribute, they want to be in their community, they want to have good relationships. The problem is that if I think everybody wants to be famous and I'm sitting in a group and like these kids and we see this with younger people, they're like, yeah, I want to be an influencer. And like, do you? I was like, not really. But if you say it, it's like performative. I know that. I think this is what everyone thinks is really cool and successful. So I'm gonna say that. Well, of course, you saying it is more evidence to everybody else that we

[Jordan Harbinger]

all want to be that when somebody

[Jason]

says that, the other kids are going, yeah, not really. But I don't want to be the guy who's like, I want to be a dentist. Everybody will make fun of me. So I'll just. Fine, I'll say, I want to be a fitness influencer, too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think also there's an element, especially

[Jason]

among kids, but probably among everybody, where

[Jordan Harbinger]

it's like, in this particular moment that sounds like something that would be fun

[Jason]

for a day as a job, though, I don't know.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And so you see these people who,

[Jason]

like, even more extreme takes. I've got a friend who was like,

[Jordan Harbinger]

we should stop all immigration.

[Jason]

I was like, do you really think we should stop all immigration? And they're like, not like doctors from other countries. And they're like, what about software engineers? I don't know. I mean, we probably need some of them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's like, so basically, you don't

[Jason]

want to stop most of the immigration that's actually happening.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You just don't want to people to jump over the wall.

[Jason]

Thousands per day, unmitigated, in the southern border, like you're watching on whatever news channel you watch.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But you don't actually want to stop all of the immigration.

[Jason]

You're just agreeing with, like, a literal Nazi on X.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because they said this thing that sort

[Jason]

of in the moment, got you charged up and emotional. But your parents are from China, dude.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What are you talking about?

[Todd Rose]

Exactly? We see this all the time. So, like, there'll be this fringe we have in our data on immigration. Like, actually, super majority of Americans across all stripes are like, I don't want to close the border entirely. Why would we do that? They really like legal immigration. They do worry about not knowing who's coming in. That's fine. But then the problem is, is the fringes are really good at coming up with slogans that actually reflect their crazy views. And people go, remember, like, abolish ice. And we're like. A lot of my sort of normie friends were like, no, I don't like what they're doing. I'm like, you're saying abolish it? And they're like, well, they don't mean abolish. No, they actually do. You're just repeating this. We saw that the best example in our data is, remember the defund the police movement?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I was going to say defund the police. So get rid of the police.

[Jason]

No, not really. Just make them stop shooting people for no reason. Okay, but that's not as catchy.

[Todd Rose]

That's very different. And so we actually got pulled in with the Biden administration because they had read the book and they were like, so what? If we're dealing with any illusions here, I'm like, sure are. Like, at the peak, 60% of Democrats publicly said they supported defunding the police. It was 9% in private. 9% in private. You can get 9% of people to agree to anything. Like, so the administration was like, oh, no, that one's real. We get a lot of calls from 10 people over and over again. So we got one line in the State of the Union address. It was that it was the state union where the Ukraine crisis had blown up, too. And he said, it's not defund the police, it's fund the police. Because we're like, your constituents don't believe this. And if you go out in public and endorse this, it's going to be on you. What's so funny is, is we're all susceptible to it. But what we find in our research, there's like three groups of people who are the most susceptible. Young people, which makes sense. They really want to fit in CEOs, because you're like, what do my customers think? What are my employees think? And politicians who are like, which way is the wind blowing?

[Jason]

You know what it reminds me of? I don't do politics that much on the show, but I feel like this is relevant somehow. Certain Democratic politicians got it in their head that the most concerning thing in the entire country was, like, whether trans people could be in sports or something like that. And then the Republican side was like,

[Jordan Harbinger]

oh, we have to talk about this

[Jason]

thing that they're talking about.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And also, it's a great opportunity to

[Jason]

show how crazy, out of touch these people are.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And so everyone's talking about that. And I remember talking to some of my super conservative friends and some of my super almost commie, liberal, you know, friends, and they were like, do you care about this? Because we don't care about this. And I was like, I don't think most people actually care that much about this. I think everybody is, why is this

[Jason]

the thing that's taking up all the airtime?

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it was weird to see, like, my almost fascist level right wing friends and my, like, almost kooky commie level

[Jason]

friends and everyone in between be like,

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm pretty sure we agree that this is not the most important issue going

[Jason]

on in the country right now, like,

[Todd Rose]

what the hell you're getting at? Something really important is like, because of our social media saturated worlds out that it's so easy for these vocal fringes to end up masquerading as majorities, which it has two effects, right? Like one, it's, wait, so let's say I'm a Republican. I'm like, these people believe this. So first of all, in my group, if I'm Democrat, I'm like, oh, I guess we're supposed to be over here. So we start repeating the, yeah, we should defund the police. Like, you don't believe that. Nobody believes this. But then if I'm Republic, I'm like, what the hell is going on with these people? So it's sort of like pulls everybody to the extremes in a way that is just nuts. And I feel bad. I think that the whole trans thing is a perfect example because it's the first real hyper online movement. So it's made it deeply susceptible to collective illusions. The thing that makes me sad is there is a small percent of people who really do struggle with this who need help and just want to live their lives. They don't care about college sports. They're not coming after kids. They're like, I need hormones to live. And they're the ones that end up getting screwed out of this for sure.

[Jason]

Yeah, no, I've got a friend who's, she's an older lady now. She's the first trans person I ever met because I didn't even know that existed when I met her 25 years ago. And she'd already, like, lived her life and had kids and was married and everything.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I was like, hey, friend to

[Jason]

friend, how much do you care about this?

[Jordan Harbinger]

And she's like, jordan, I can't even explain to you. Even if we only focus on the trans thing, the sports thing is like not even making the top 10. She's like, we need to have people stop killing us for no reason. That's kind of up there. Maybe the right to just go to

[Jason]

the dang restroom without having somebody chase me in there.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Stuff like that. And so it was just like you

[Jason]

said, an illusion where everyone's, oh my

[Jordan Harbinger]

God, everyone's so concerned about whether this

[Jason]

person can join the Olympics.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's no, this is a weird clickbait headline that just got way too

[Jason]

much airtime and runaway energy infringe people who wanted to make a name for themselves and as like, pro or against this. You'd think, oh, this guy has millions of followers.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then you look at their actual

[Jason]

whatever platform where they make money, and you're like, this guy has 3,000 actual people supporting him.

[Todd Rose]

So this is such a good example because we've found this exact phenomenon in over a hundred issues in the country right now. But what we just walked through, this is the consequence. You took something that was tricky, and we're trying to learn how to deal with it. And societies are progressing by expanding who we include. And it's hard. And these people just want to live their life. And then some fringe is able to manufacture the illusion that a subset, this is what this party believes. And everyone's like, tribal, and they go to their little group because they want to belong, and they're wrong. But now they've pushed it. And the other side's like, hey, that's crazy. Let's go to the further extreme. And now all of a sudden, it dominates the discourse. It shoves out the space of, like, things we actually care about. It makes solving this problem almost impossible. And the end result is it harms the actual people who just need hormones. And the destruction of social trust and the sense of false polarization that I'm sitting here going, you cannot believe this crazy thing. When someone says they actually want to defund the police, I'm like, I will be the first to tell you, the police should abide by the laws and should not violate your rights. And we should have gotten rid of qualified immunity. There's lots of stuff we could do. I do not want to defund the police. And anyone that tells me that's a good idea, I'm like, you're crazy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I said, dude, have you seen the Purge? That's not gonna work.

[Todd Rose]

It's not how it works. And so then I'm like, now imagine across a hundred issues, those are the most fundamental values we have in society. If I'm wrong about what most people believe, and I'm like, hold on, you don't believe in dignity, you don't believe in this, you don't believe in da da. You don't believe in free speech. I don't think I have anything in common with my fellow Americans. Now I lose trust in each other. And now it just, it's a downward spiral. And so this is the thing is, like, even though illusions are social lies, they're self fulfilling if you don't do something about them. And they can destroy entire countries.

[Jason]

Yeah, I think right now. And I wonder if this is a collective illusion. It seems like if you go online right now and you look at anything having to do with Israel or something. There'll be a guy who posts some sort of Nazi thing. I get this all the time. I get, well, I'm going to throw you in the oven like your grandpa or whatever. And I'm like, okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you look at who's saying that

[Jason]

online, it's, oh, my God, 80% of people online hate Jews and want to kill me for no reason.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then you look at other folks and you're like, this is like a lot of bot activity.

[Jason]

These Nazis are terminally online, even Nazi influencers. I'm like, this guy would have been a crypto influencer five years ago. He's just happens to pick up on the Nazi thing now. And he's wearing a Nazi shirt, he's got his Nazi tats.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I'm like, this is just a

[Jason]

grifter who found a niche.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This guy would have picked something else

[Jason]

if this wasn't trending on social media.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And people are like, 100,000 people follow him. And I'm like, yeah, 50,000 are bots. 20,000 are like journalists who are like,

[Jason]

holy shit, a Nazi on social media. And the other 30 are like, maybe on the fence and teenagers.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So it's bad, but it's not like

[Jason]

this Nazi has an army behind him. He's a tool, he's an influencer. He might as well be selling protein shakes.

[Todd Rose]

Yes, exactly. Right? It's crazy. There's always going to be a tiny fringe of people that hold batshit crazy ideas. That's always been true. It'll always be true. And then what? We've been part of a coalition that's been studying not just collective illusions that we uncover, but the fact that foreign entities have figured this out and weaponized it. Whatever people think is going on, it is so much worse. So here's the thing. Like, I will tell you, just full disclosure. A lot of this started for me after October 7th. So I was actually on vacation and I got a call and said, you need to come to Tel Aviv. And I'm like, in a war, we think we've uncovered something that relates to collective illusions. But we need to show you. And it turns out that there was really solid proof that foreign entities, China, Iran was particularly at play. And Russia, in this case China, was manipulating the algorithm, the TikTok, to drive anti Semitic sentiment. China didn't care. They weren't like, hey, we hate Jews. It was actually more. This was a psychological weapon that you can refine this way so that when they try to take Taiwan, they can get our young people, stream it out into the streets in protest. Very, very effective. But what we found, and I say we, broadly, there's a lot of people in this now is, I would put it this way, we were losing a war that we didn't even know we were fighting in the space of propaganda and manipulation. Not to be too wonky, but there's a book about World War I called Guns of August.

[Jason]

Oh, I've heard of this, yeah, yeah.

[Todd Rose]

So good. So Barbara Tookman, an historian, her thesis was basically that the reason that war was so big, bloody and awful was that the technology for war had changed exponentially, but the mindset about war hadn't. And so they built strategies like we're going to fight over small amounts of land, we're going to dig trenches. Yeah, but now you have machine guns and chemical weapons, you're not just firing muskets at each other. And I think we have a Guns of August moment here in the form of propaganda where we've been taught to think that these state sponsored actors. So disinformation, it's actually not really true. That's not terribly effective. What they do is they can manufacture collective illusions very easily. With bots and now with AI enabled bots that we've been tracking, very easy to get you to believe that your community believes something they do not. And then your conformity bias kicks in, you start acting and it's like to me, like the way drones have changed war with the Shaheed drone or whatever, here's my $50,000 drone against your $5 million interceptor. Building a bot army and sowing discontent and distrust and manufacturing illusions in another country is so cheap.

[Jason]

It is, yeah.

[Todd Rose]

And so effective. And right now, for example, conservative estimates. So we know from the research that if your interactions online are about 5% with bots, if the bots are well designed, they can guarantee what consensus in that group will be. They can drive it. Conservative estimates on social media is a quarter of all your interactions are with bots.

[Jason]

I totally believe that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I mean the people who say I'm

[Jason]

going to turn your family into a bar of soap, like I got that comment the other day. I always look at it and it's like a picture of a totally normal looking person. That's probably AI. They have two followers, they have four posts and they're all like weird photos that look AI. It's like a picture of a book or something or like a meme of a Jewish person. And then it's like following 3,000 people

[Jordan Harbinger]

and I'm like, I bet you that

[Jason]

if I worked for Instagram or Meta, I could look and see account created

[Jordan Harbinger]

three days ago, immediately followed 3,000 totally

[Jason]

random people, and then follows everyone who interacts with it online. I mean, it's just obviously fake nonsense.

[Todd Rose]

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

[Jason]

Exactly.

[Todd Rose]

So effective.

[Jason]

I had a post like this. It was from Cory Doctorow, and he writes about technology and stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And he said, yeah, there's an Israeli

[Jason]

tech company that is actually working with Delta Airlines right now. Where they do, it's like algorithmic pricing. It's like they find out who you are based on your IP and they might charge you more if you're in Silicon Valley or more or less.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And not everyone knew about that.

[Jason]

And I was like, oh, man, people are going to be so pissed at Delta Airlines when they find out that they're doing this. No, the top comment was, of course

[Jordan Harbinger]

the Jews are doing this to us. And I was like, Delta Airlines are Jews. And they're like, no, dummy. The first thing he said was, Israel's

[Jason]

doing this to us.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I was like, no. A company based in Israel is hired by an American airline and all of the American airlines to do this to you. It's not the Jews, you absolute nincompoop. And it was just like, didn't matter. And people were like, oh, Jordan's getting ratioed here.

[Jason]

How? We're onto you. And I'm like, to me, what do I have to do with that? It's my post.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm the one that put this out there. What are you talking about? And it was just these comments had hundreds of upvotes. And I was like, this just does

[Jason]

not seem like normal people activity.

[Todd Rose]

It is so manufactured China's been really great at it. Russia has been doing it for a while, but Iran mastered it. And it's so clever. So if we take away the, like, awfulness of it, that's really smart. You can't beat us militarily, I'll tell you. So we have more private opinion data on the American public than anybody. We predicted Trump's final vote percentage in the last election within half a percentage.6 months in advance because Gen Z was not telling the truth. Black and brown men were not telling the truth about their willing to vote for him. So I'm just say that because when you look at the private views, it's a completely different country. We are so similar in our views, it's hilarious. And then you look at the public opinion and we look like we're this close to civil war.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes, that's what people are saying. We're so close to a civil war. And it's interesting because, man, I'm in such a bubble because I know Jewish

[Jason]

people here, obviously, and they're like, I carry a gun now because I have so many threats against me, but I don't really trust my neighbors less. They're fine. Nobody's done anything to me yet.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's like, yeah, because you're online and you're seeing all this, but guess what? That's an army of bots.

[Jason]

Yeah, yeah. In Iran or China. In fact, I watched this documentary recently about Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist that got murdered in the Turkish Embassy by Saudi Arabia, for those who don't know. And they were talking about how he got his profile initially got big, and it was on Twitter.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they exposed the bot farm in

[Jason]

Saudi Arabia and there were something like 10,000 people there in this building. And each one of them had maybe a few dozen or a hundred accounts or something. And they were using these dex to

[Jordan Harbinger]

tweet and manufacture this. And now you can do most of

[Jason]

that probably with AI AI. And Jamal Khashoggi would be like, hey, I kind of disagree with this thing that Mohammed bin Salman did. And it would be like thousands of

[Jordan Harbinger]

people be like, you're a traitor. We're going to kill you. And it just turned out to mostly be bot activity.

[Jason]

And then, of course, they murdered him in the embassy. But that was the government doing that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It wasn't like he couldn't walk down

[Jason]

the street because civilians were all angry at him. Oh, there's that journalist.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No one wanted to kill him other than the government.

[Jason]

And they made it sound like, oh, he had so many enemies. Look at that guy.

[Todd Rose]

And if you think about it, what it does is it creates a cover for behaviors like that was unacceptable. Well, it's kind of like he had a cover. Lots of people felt. But it's so easy to do once you realize that this is a war that we're losing. We didn't even know we were fighting. If you think about my friend Mike Milken gave me this. So I want to credit him. When we started uncovering these things and we found like this AI enabled bot farm that China was running through Pakistan and they were going after the American dream. And I was like, that's weird. Why waste your time? And he's like, look, Mike's like, you can't beat us militarily or even economically if we're really got our act together. So what would you do? What you do is you actually destroy the social trust, the very fabric, right? You actually start to get us to see each other as enemies. And you think about right now, was it close to. Almost half of Americans think other Americans are the greatest threat. This is really effective. If it were true, then we should call a spade a spade. If we really were that divided, if we really did have these wacky beliefs that we were consolidated around, we should say it. It's just not true. And the reason I bring this up is that the distinction between private truths and public lies is important because the way you solve it is very different.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Now I invite you to blindly and uncritically follow us into this ad break. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by SimpliSafe. Have you ever looked into a home security system and then you just backed out once you saw the contract? These traditional systems, they want you locked into multi year deals, huge cancellation fees.

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[Jason]

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[Jason]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jason]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. The course again, all free 6minutenetworking.com now back to Todd Rose.

[Jason]

We can't just say, hey, new legislation. You have to tell the truth about the things you believe on the Internet.

[Todd Rose]

You can't do that from my mind. It's not really a legislative solve, right? There's some things that are going on. Remember one thing that has helped a little bit as we start to teach people. Maybe the people you're listening to are just bots and they're not like actually representative of anything. When X did the sudden reveal of the location of all the accounts, remember

[Jordan Harbinger]

this I was going to bring this up. Yes. Where? So for those who don't know, it was like, American Patriot 1234. She's been tweeting hardcore about the influx of immigrants and how they're taking all the jobs.

[Jason]

And then X. Yeah, Elon at X. Love him or hate him, he was kind of like, I'm going to make

[Jordan Harbinger]

it possible for everyone to see where

[Jason]

these accounts were created. And it was all like, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's like, these accounts are created and being used. This person's not American. This is not the white blonde chick on the profile photo.

[Jason]

No, it's a bot in Bangladesh. That's all it is.

[Todd Rose]

My colleagues were the ones that worked with him on it around this. You can't give people a heads up that this is going to happen because they'll do it. So you just all of a sudden sprung it on people and it became this game of like, oh, really? You say you're a MAGA supporter, you're literally in Bangladesh or. And you realize, like, how much of it was just bullshit.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I saw somebody tracking these and it

[Jason]

was like this influencer who had 300,000 subscribers and tweeted almost exclusively about immigration. As soon as they got exposed that they were in Nigeria, they shut their account down three days later because they were like, well, the jig is up. No one believes that I'm Pam from Nebraska anymore, so I'm done. This is over.

[Todd Rose]

So we're doing some things, like, it'll help. But ultimately I do think one thing is we have to get to the place individually where we realize you cannot trust your brain to tell you what your group thinks anymore. You can't. It is just impossible. I'm pretty sure, like, the number of my super liberal friends who were like, yeah, defund the police. I put that up there. I'm like, you don't believe it? But they're like, so convinced. And then they tell themselves, well, they don't really mean defunded, but that's just a way to be like, I don't want to go against my group. They're like, no, I'm sure that this is what they believe. So it feels like you're just wrong. You have to stop by saying, like, whatever you think your group believes, you just take with a grain of salt. Which is not a bad thing in the sense that we should get back to trying to think for yourself just a little bit. Not the worst thing in the world.

[Jason]

Yeah, not the worst thing in the world. It does surprise me that part of it Is just. It makes you shake your head because you look at somebody like, I don't know, Dan Bilzerian, right? And he's like, I'm run for Congress and the Jews are doing this. And it's like, how dumb do you have to be to follow somebody like this? How dumb do you have to be to look up to somebody like this?

[Jordan Harbinger]

What is going wrong in your life

[Jason]

where this person is an influence on you that you don't think is negative? Nothing about this person stands out.

[Todd Rose]

What's interesting to me in this space is one of the most frightening private opinion pieces of data we have is the amount of resentment in America right now. It is significantly higher during the Great Depression. The number of people who think society is just unfair and are resentful about it. The problem is at a neuroscience level, when you become resentful, it's a signal like, stop cooperating. You're getting screwed. It's time to compete. So you become zero sum in your thinking and sort of burn it down. The behavioral economics research on this is so funny, but where it's, if we're playing a trust game and you start to screw me, I will zero you out. Even if I get nothing, I can still have $5, but you get 10. Screw you. We're both getting zero. It kind of explains the behavior in society right now where we're just like. And now under resentment. I don't know how much you've read like Rene Girard, which on mimetic desire worth reading. It is so good. So he basically showed that as humans, we copy, right? We imitate including what other people desire. But one of the things that he was really good at was showing that once we get into this rivalry where we're all resentful and competing, ultimately it leads to, you need a scapegoat, right? Why am I getting screwed? And Jews have historically always been a great scapegoat because they punch above their weight. They're small enough to not be able to do anything about it and successful enough to, like, that's plausible. They might control everything. And so then it's like, my life sucks. I'm resentful. I don't feel like I have any power. They're telling me, this group that I probably don't even know very many people is the cause of all my problems. Get them.

[Jason]

I follow these people some on social media and what they do is that they'll go on. I think it's Omegle, one of these chat things where you can just chat with a random person and it matches

[Jordan Harbinger]

you and they'll go on there. And they're talking to people who hate Jews and they post it. And there's one guy who pretends to

[Jason]

also not like Jews, but he's Jewish and he's a comedian. He asks people like, how many Jews

[Jordan Harbinger]

do you think there are? And the guys are like, dude, there's at least 1 billion.

[Jason]

And he's like, what if I told

[Jordan Harbinger]

you there were only 15 million?

[Jason]

And they're like, that's ridiculous, man. You gotta Google that. And he's, I did Google it yourself.

[Jordan Harbinger]

15 million. Well, wait, the Jews control Google. And it's. No, think about it. You're telling me that half the world's

[Jason]

population is Jewish and that's why you're oppressed.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's a smaller number and it's, wow, how can they do all this when there are only that many people? And the guy's.

[Jason]

It's almost like they're not doing all this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then it's like this chat ends because the guy's like, no way.

[Jason]

It can't be that.

[Todd Rose]

It's exactly right. And it's. What's sad about this particular one is we found right after October 7th, the thing that had gotten everybody nervous was Harvard Harris had released a poll that said 61%, I think it was right, of Gen Z, said Hamas was justified. So not that, like, care about innocent kids. Like the rape and murder of 1200 innocent people was justified. It was like, if that's even close to true, that is terrifying.

[Jason]

Yeah, we're cooked, as that generation likes to say.

[Todd Rose]

No, it never was higher than 7%. And because of the ability to manufacture these illusions, they were targeted directly at Gen Z. And then you get them streaming out and you remember the. I remember one video of the young woman. At least she was honest about it. They were protesting and someone, they interviewed her and she asked friends, what are we mad at again? What are we here for? So it's so effective to get that. So then what we found was once we realized that this was intentional and we started helping with a bunch of other agencies to start throttling down some of this fake content you watched even their public belief in it just collapse as the content disappeared. So it's like. And again, look, reasonable people can have different views of what's going on in the Middle east right now, and anyone that doesn't care about innocent women and children is a monster. But when these illusions take hold and the fringes start to dominate our discourse there, it now becomes almost impossible to solve it at all. And we're left with the thing that's scary about the scapegoating is historically, it usually just ends in violence. Right? It ends in violence toward the scapegoat. And then the thing resets.

[Jason]

It does. It's a complicated situation because a lot of these Gulf countries, for example, manufacturing a lot of animosity towards Israel. But what is that metaphor? It's the dog chasing the car.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I guarantee you that if Saudi Arabia

[Jason]

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

[Todd Rose]

Hey, this is the enemy of my enemy. Keeps me from having to get dethroned.

[Jason]

Exactly. In this country, there's a joke where it's like, oh, Cuba's about to find out why we don't have free health care. They're going to get some freedom. Yemen's gonna find out we don't have free healthcare. They're gonna get bombed.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's crazy. But this is what a lot of

[Jason]

leaders in other parts of the world are doing. They're like, ok, we really need to lean on, hey, it's the Jews, or, hey, it's Israel, or people do it with Iran too. Like, oh, we can't do this. We gotta have ball work against Iran. And it's all there. Because in many ways, if we don't do this, it's, wait, how come you're

[Jordan Harbinger]

a trillionaire and I'm a subsistence farmer? Like, people are gonna start asking very

[Jason]

uncomfortable questions about why this dude has two yachts. One for his mistresses from Russia and the other one's for his wife.

[Todd Rose]

It's a hundred percent and it's so easy to activate that every time. I, like, allergic to politics. I'm like, registered independent. I like, I think they're all just terrible. But my favorite is when my otherwise reasonable, progressive friends have a view of Trump, which may or may not be right, as this narcissistic sociopath. And they're like, and he's completely controlled by the Jews. And I'm like, okay, so on the one hand, here's a guy that doesn't care about anybody else and just wants his ego. And yet it doesn't make any sense.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Jeffrey Epstein.

[Jason]

Something, something, blackmail tape, something, something, Netanyahu. I mean, you really have to go down this weird web rabbit hole of everybody's in the Mossad and everybody has pee tapes with Donald Trump and the Jews.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's why people get more ridiculous with

[Jason]

it, because you have to make more and more crazy leaps in order to make it make sense, because otherwise it doesn't make sense.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And the other explanation is, hey, this

[Jason]

doesn't really add up. And it's no, what if we add in this other crazy conspiracy theory? Now it all adds up, and it's

[Todd Rose]

layers and layers of it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, conspiracy theorists, what they do is they connect dots that are not there. That's what a conspiracy is.

[Todd Rose]

What's funny is, is all the people that do this, and then they're like, you know those dumb QAnon people. I'm like, you sound very similar. I hate to tell you.

[Jason]

Yeah, it's crazy to me, but it

[Jordan Harbinger]

does seem like it's.

[Jason]

Again, the majority of people believe this,

[Jordan Harbinger]

but it's good to know it's not

[Jason]

the case, because that would be terrifying,

[Todd Rose]

honestly, like, if I didn't do the research, if I didn't have the data, it still feels to me.

[Jason]

It does feel that way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

People are gonna go, I feel like Todd is wrong. Cause when I read the book, I

[Jason]

was like, I feel like you're wrong, but there's data that says that it's not wrong.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So why do I still feel like you are? Because of what I'm looking at online.

[Todd Rose]

Yep, it's exactly right. And the easiest way out of this is touch grass for just a minute and go have one conversation with your neighbor. Like, it's comical how fast you're like, oh. And then it'll be like, okay, so maybe not my neighbor, but we're like, okay, talk to one other person. It's crazy how fast you're like, oh, I'll give you an example I thought was funny is. So we look at the research on highly polarized issues. So abortion, for example, it splits in the abstract at identity level as pro life, pro choice. And those people are like, die hard in those camps. And they think the other side isn't just wrong. They think the other side's evil. Right. You either hate women or you want to kill babies. And there's just real, no grayer, no nuance.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Todd Rose]

But then we have these methods that will take that and break it down into its concrete. Like, okay, what does that mean From a policy standpoint? It's 70% of Americans are literally identical. Identical in their views. Yeah, we should probably not make it that easy in the third trimester. You know, life of the mother. Rape, incest. Otherwise, someone's got to make this choice. Or it's like a very nuanced that you have, like, uber consensus on, and yet the people that have the identical profiles split almost evenly as pro life, pro choice, and they're like, those people. I'm like, they're you. They literally believe the same thing you do. And we've gotten to this point of false polarization where we just see each other as bad and so we don't even engage anymore.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's crazy that it's the virtue signaling

[Jason]

that's polarized and different, but the actual beliefs are very similar, if not the same. That's what's crazy to me.

[Todd Rose]

It is wild right now. You'll have, for example, you take any issue when it comes to, say, the DEI stuff versus, like, turns out overwhelming majority of Americans across every demographic are like, yeah, there is some discrimination. That's not okay. But also, we believe in meritocracy, and there are ways to solve this that don't require discriminating against other people in return. And you're like, yeah, that's a very sound position. It's just not what the fringes on either side believe. But they're so convinced everybody has these extreme views and that they have to essentially pick a side. And so if you're a Democrat, you're like, I don't hate minorities, so I guess I got to go over here and I'm anti racist now. Or if you're Republican, you're like, I do think we should acknowledge that racism's real and sexism is real. It's like, oh, are you that progressive? So now you're like, ah, but no. So you go over here and you're like, it's not a problem.

[Jason]

And lose my seat if I mention this in public. Yeah, of course. Exactly.

[Todd Rose]

Wow.

[Jason]

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

[Todd Rose]

It's going to be uncomfortable. But this is why there's a couple of ways, ways out of it. Right? One is individuals that deal with the dissonance. Right? Which, trust me, your life is way better. If you want to conform and go with groupthink, go for it. That's up to you. I think there's downsides to that. The only truly really bad decision is when you conform to something that the group didn't even want, because now you're destroying the very group that you're trying to belong to. It doesn't benefit anybody but fringes that try to manipulate through manufactured consent. So there's a handful of things, right? Some of it's so stupidly obvious, but in liberal societies we developed over a long time the norm of tolerance. Not because you endorse that, but because, you know, it's way worse. The concept of tolerance came out of the religious wars in Europe where it was like, dude, I think you're evil. I'm gonna try to kill you. Well, I can't quite get the upper hand now you're killing me. My kids are gonna kill your kids. And we're like, hold on, no one's winning. What if we just said live and let live? It's okay, we don't have to all agree, but we can mind our own business. We can not have to feel like we have to control everyone. So those norms that we're shredding right now are quite important. But the other thing is, I said this earlier, but I think it's worth hitting on. So when they're collective illusions, historically, the bad news is, is they become self fulfilling. The good news is they're pretty fragile because they're lies. And if you pursue the right strategy, you can actually unlock change in a hurry. But it's not persuasion so often. So like right now, I'll give example, like under free speech, people are fully convinced, Democrats are fully convinced that other Democrats don't care about it anymore. There's other issues are more important. So even like the ACLU now is one thing that we do. You're like, it was the thing that you do. Like it was a really important thing. They're convinced. But in private it's just not true. In fact, Democrats have slightly higher commitment in private than Republicans. But everybody basically still wants that. So say, okay, there's a problem. So I go tell my more influential center left people, okay, we gotta do something. And then they go out and be like, guys, free speech is under attack. It's really important. We gotta solve this. That doesn't actually shatter the illusion, it reinforces it. And let me give you an example how not to ever solve this problem. Remember that say no to drugs campaign?

[Jason]

Yeah, of course, like the DARE program and just say no.

[Todd Rose]

This is your brain on drugs. Yes. Okay, so this comes about in the 90s and 2000s because the government had a slight uptick in first time drug use amongst teens. Mini pot, very small bump. They freak out and they're like, we gotta solve this.

[Jason]

Nancy Reagan's like, I'm on it, just say no Mic drop.

[Todd Rose]

My spiritual advisor told me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. My astrologist told me to tell you, just say no. We're done here, folks.

[Jason]

You're welcome.

[Todd Rose]

So you get the best ad agencies in the country. They spent a billion dollars trying to get kids to just scare them straight. From a marketing standpoint, it was amazing. The typical American teen saw three ads a day for six years. The problem was, the whole premise for this was that the reason kids were trying drugs is they were curious about drugs. But even back then, private opinion data existed that showed that wasn't true. Kids were kind of skeptical, but they were under this massive illusion. They thought that most American kids did drugs.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I can believe that, dude. The irrelevant old white guy frying eggs.

[Jason]

This is your brain on drugs.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Any questions? And then you're like, you talk to your doctor and you go, so is my brain frying? And he's like, no, that's actually complete bullshit. And you're like, well, wait a minute. This is a dumb movie called Walk Hard where this guy, comedian, he walks

[Jason]

in and there's two people smoking pot. And he's like, oh, my gosh, should I try that? And they're like, no.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And he's like, I wouldn't want to get addicted to it.

[Jason]

And they're like, it's not addictive.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then, I don't know, man. I wouldn't want to go crazy and hurt someone and like, oh, no, it doesn't really do that.

[Jason]

It's not that kind of drug.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know.

[Jason]

It seems like it's got to be really expensive. It's cheapest drug there is. And the guy's like, what the hell?

[Jordan Harbinger]

What's the problem here? Yeah, it's just so ridiculous.

[Todd Rose]

Well, this is this campaign, right? So into the illusion, you blitz them with a billion dollars of ads, trying to scare them straight. What the kids took from the ads was, this must be what we're doing. Why would adults try so hard to get us to stop? No kidding. That campaign caused an increase in drug use. So you don't do that. But what's nice is under illusions. The way you deal with it is just social proof. And so it's basically, I gotta hear it from people like me. So talk to your neighbor. Hear it from people I admire or cultural artifacts. So I'll give you an example. We've done some work on this with Hollywood showrunners and stuff, where I'm like, I'll give you the private truth about what people believe, where there's illusions. And if you want to tell a better story. So in the success research, for example, oh, everybody wants to be famous and rich. So do you remember Modern Family?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Todd Rose]

So season 10, episode 13, they wrote a whole episode. Cam is an acting vice principal has to put on a play. The idea is show the illusion, reveal the truth. And because if I like Modern Family, which I did, you have this parasocial relationship with it and your brain treats members of the characters as part of your in group. So if I hear it said in these shows or movies, it has an outsized effect on what I believe that we believe. So there's ways to deal with this. But ultimately it's a whack a mole game unless people start to internalize the you're being manipulated. And here's the things that you need to do right to be able to not let that affect your life.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You should support our sponsors. Everybody's doing it well except for those people.

[Jason]

And we don't want to be like them now do we?

[Jordan Harbinger]

We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Quints. I simplify what I wear day to day because figuring out an outfit is one more piece of mental load that I don't need. There's a reason Steve Jobs had a uniform. Fewer decisions, more brain power for things that actually matter. That's why Quints has been my go to. I just want quality, comfortable pieces that look good, fit well, don't cost a fortune. I also like stuff that looks clean and timeless. Quince really nails that. Their fabrics feel elevated. The fits are easy. Everything just works without needing to overthink it. They've got great spring staples like 100% European linen shirts, shorts from $34, soft Pima cotton tees, pants that are relaxed and comfortable but still polished enough to wear almost anywhere. Jen's a huge fan as well.

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She gets everything from jewelry to luggage

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[Jason]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jason]

That's why I love the iPhone 17

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jason]

Right now at ATT, ask how you

[Jordan Harbinger]

can get iPhone 17 Pro on them with eligible iPhone. Trade in any condition for requires trade in of iPhone 15 or higher, excluding iPhone 16e and 17e. Requires eligible plan terms and restrictions apply, subject to change. Visit att.comiphone or visit an ATT store for details. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. They make the show possible. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the [e-mail] deals if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code. Email us, somebody here will get you. Jordanordanharbinger.com, we're happy to dig up codes for you. It is that important that you support

[Jason]

those who support the show. Now back to Todd Rose keeping kids off drugs campaign thing. Now that you say it caused an uptick in drugs, it makes perfect sense and it's almost funny, except for the results were disaster. There was one where this guy's like, he finds his kid's weed in a cigar box or something and he goes,

[Jordan Harbinger]

where did you learn how to do this? And the kid goes, you alright?

[Jason]

And.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I remember thinking, dude, people's parents are doing this too. Am I the only kid who doesn't smoke pot?

[Todd Rose]

I had that exact experience. I learned it by watching you. I'm like, oh, I didn't realize reasonable adults smoke pot.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This guy looks functional.

[Todd Rose]

He came home from work, he's got a job.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Todd Rose]

He's got pants on. Yeah, yeah. It's like the exact opposite of whatever they thought they were doing. But history is littered with counter examples where under illusions, if you use social proof, including again, we all get to be part of that a little more authenticity without putting your Whole job at risk goes a long way in shattering illusions in your groups. But marriage equality is a phenomenal example. 2003, 30% approval for gay marriage. Activists and academics met in. I think it was Chicago was like, listen, do not try for marriage. The public's not ready for it. It'll backfire. Private opinion actually had a slim majority. It was the love is love crowd and libertarians who were like, I don't care. But they all thought that people in their churches, people at their work, oh, they care. So there's an illusion they were smart enough to realize this persuasion, this trying to convince people to change their minds doesn't work because it reminds them, oh, everybody else must not really agree with this because you're knocking on my door trying to convince me to change my mind. I kind of already agree with you. So a bunch of them peeled off and went to Hollywood and started just telling stories. Will and Grace is like the famous one, even Modern Family, right? And it's not just put it in the background. And it's the fastest change in public opinion ever recorded. It went to 70% approval in the span of, like, 14 years. And that sort of exponential change in public opinion doesn't happen if people privately don't agree with it.

[Jason]

It's a floodgate opening of people going, oh, I can express that this is the least important thing in my life now, or that I totally fine with it. And, yeah, that's really interesting.

[Todd Rose]

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

[Jason]

I see.

[Todd Rose]

Wow. But he sat and watched it, and it became like, literally the Hamilton of its time. Runaway. Sold out every night, he said. I watched the audience every night, not the play. He said, they laughed at all the right parts. They laughed at things you wouldn't find funny if you really believed in communism. And so he realizes that the problem wasn't that everyone believed. It's that they all thought, they believed. And he wrote this phenomenal manifesto called the Power of the Powerless, which you can get for free, you download. It's like, worth reading, where he realizes the problem's an illusion and he's like, well, if that's the case, then there's only one way out of this, right? Is that people have to find that responsibility to live in truth again, because we're so used to living in the lie. And they went about these, called them small works. They were non political. They literally, like, would have, like a literary club so people could start to write poetry a little bit more authentically. And people made fun of him. Like they were like, you're so naive, like, they have all the guns. You're going to overcome this with authenticity and personal responsibility. But it happened so fast that, like, literally no one saw it coming. The KGB missed the Velvet Revolution. The CIA missed it. Even Havel, just before the revolution, the 12 days that overthrew the government, he was on an international radio doing an interview and he said he was trying to rally the troops. And he was like, look, revolutions take a long time. Stick with it. I probably want to be alive to see the end of it, but I'm committed to it. Three months later, he was the first democratically elected president of a free Czechoslovakia.

[Jason]

So crazy. That's wild.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's incredible.

[Jason]

I did not know that story. I was an exchange student in the former East Germany and I remember asking

[Jordan Harbinger]

how many people were like, really Communist?

[Jason]

And my host father was like, I don't know. We didn't exactly have data on who. Totally didn't believe in the system. But there are a lot of people

[Jordan Harbinger]

died driving into the other country or going over a minefield or trying to

[Jason]

get over the Berlin Wall or trying to sneak out on a train. And they dedicated a lot of resources to not letting us do that, you know, a lot. Landmines, machine gun nests. There's a listener to the show, she'll write me after this. She told me that she was a kid and she had family in East Germany. And every time they would go to East Germany on the train and come back, the border police would pull her aside because she was a kid and

[Jordan Harbinger]

go, where are you really from?

[Jason]

And they would ask her to say things and try and see if her dialect would slip into an East German dialect because it's slightly different and she wasn't East German. So they always let her out. But she's like. I remember every time they would pull me aside away from my parents and ask me different questions.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Where are you really from? How do you say this word? Read this sentence for me to see

[Jason]

if she would slip into an East German dialect.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You don't dedicate that kind of resources. When you have a bunch of true

[Jason]

believers and it doesn't matter, it's not a thing you wouldn't have to worry about.

[Todd Rose]

Are the guns trying to keep you in or, like, it's a dead giveaway.

[Jason]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Then when the wall fell, my host

[Jason]

father told me, he's like, pretty much everyone who could went there. I mean, you had people riding on the top of cars because most people didn't have a car. And then you'd fill the car with your neighbors, and then somebody would get in the trunk, and another person's like,

[Jordan Harbinger]

drive slowly, and I'll hold on to

[Jason]

the top of the car because I want to go.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And there's this old documentary footage where border guards, like, I'm not going. There's nothing for me over there. As people are just streaming past them. And there's a German joke that says

[Jason]

the old president, at the time, his name was Erich Honecker. He was like, the president, or whatever you'd call it, of East Germany. And the joke is, hey, man, don't forget to turn out the light. Because the last person in a room turns out the light in Germany. So they're like, hey, Eric, don't forget to turn out the light.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you want to go there, you can. And they're like, all right. Don't forget to turn up the lights, buddy.

[Jason]

Everybody's out of here.

[Todd Rose]

I love it. Again, this is that scale where, like, repressive regimes have understood the need to control that narrative and manufacture the illusion, because that's the best way to keep people in check. There's not for nothing. Regardless what you think about the war, there's a reason Iran turned off the Internet for the last 45 days. The last thing that they want is for everyday people to be able to say anything about because it would be the end for them. We look at that, we tend to think, oh, wow, these governments doing this. Okay? But now come back into our lives and realize that the same kind of manipulation is being directed towards us in more small ways around our identity groups and around. And it's all happening online and. And part of it is just realizing we're not special. It's happening to me too. I wrote the book on it, and I guarantee you, I fall for the same stuff. It's everywhere right now, it seems.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You mentioned earlier, we're wired for this. So why are we wired for this?

[Jason]

Obviously it has something to do with social cohesion and things like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I wonder, is there any sort of

[Jason]

FMRI experiment that shows, like, hey, when I conform to the group, I get a dopamine hit? Or I don't know, something along those lines?

[Todd Rose]

Some of my favorite studies on this. Yeah. So we've been wired to be with groups, not against them. We just. We're not a lone wolf species. And that makes tons of sense from a survival standpoint that you would just be like, there's an old saying, better wrong together than right alone. Just like, you're gonna survive being the dude that's like, you guys are all wrong. I'm like, well, good luck to you.

[Jason]

Yes. Have fun out there.

[Todd Rose]

One of my favorite studies that a colleague of mine did in the Netherlands, he was like, yeah, conformity. Like, a lot of the conformity studies we do are so artificial that you're like, yeah, does anybody really have that experience? It's like the classic, like, ash line experiment where we put you in this room and judge lengths of lines. You're like, no one's doing that, though. So he was like, let me pick the most subjective thing I could imagine. And he was like, it's who you think is good looking. That is such a personal thing. Okay. He's like, I wonder if conformity goes that far. So he did this super clever FMRI study. So he brings people in and he's like, we're just doing this study rating faces. It's just like, hot or not, right? Like, and he's going to give you, like, couple hundred faces and you rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how attractive they are, with 5 being the hottest. So you're doing this in the scanner and then so a picture comes up. I'm like, oh, five. As soon as I give it a score, instantly above my score, it shows you what the average was for everyone who's done the study before you. So this is a group. You don't know. It's not even that important of a group. But what was super clever is they have you do all that and at the very end they're like, oh, shoot, it didn't record your scores. I'm really sorry. If we pay you a little more, would you just quickly do the. And they don't show the group scores anymore and just quickly have you re rate them. So when you're in your brain, when you are told that you're five, oh, it's a five, two. And by the way, the group data was all bullshit, completely made up. There was no other group. Half the time the group agrees with you, the other half, it doesn't, in a far way. And then kind of a little bit in between. When the group confirms, oh, you said five. The group says five. It triggers a dopamine reward response. The same brain areas that hard drugs activate. Just saying, like, do more of this. This is awesome. When you are told you're against your group, it triggers what's called an error signal. There's these very special neurons called spindle neurons that cascade electrical signal all across your brain. They disrupt everything else. Memory, attention, saying, something's wrong, start paying attention. It's that hardwired, right? Not surprisingly, when we gave them the test again, almost everyone moved their scores on attractiveness to be close to the group. And they had no idea they did it. They swore they hadn't changed anything. And they randomized them. They didn't even really know. You saw a couple hundred of them, but it's just, oh, shit, I'm way far away from my group on who you think is attractive.

[Jason]

Such a personal choice.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But how did they know who to

[Jason]

shift their rating on if they didn't have the ratings from the group in front of them?

[Todd Rose]

Their brain remembered. So it's that instant where I rate this face. I'm like, five. And the group says one. That error signal instantly. And so what happens is you get this instant, almost like flashbulb kind of memories. Like, what is going on in my environment right now? Something is off. It's not even, like, conscious. You're not even aware of it. It's just. It's evolved for survival. But then you pair that with. So how do you judge what your group thinks? And you're like, the loudest voices repeated the most, right?

[Jason]

The most extreme loudest person who's willing to constantly berate everyone.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It reminds me of those experiments.

[Jason]

They have a bunch of confederates. And then there's one person who's the test subject.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's like, okay, which circle is bigger?

[Jason]

And everyone's like, pointing to the small one.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you think it's a small, raise your hand. Then the person who's.

[Jason]

Wait a minute, that's clearly the smallest, not the biggest.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They're looking around and their hands, like, slowly goes like, oh, I guess I am wrong. And it's like they're just. They won't even believe their own eyes at that point.

[Todd Rose]

It was wild about those studies. Solomon Ash was the first guy to do them in, like the 50s. And they were obsessed about what happened in World War II. Like, how could so many people commit atrocities? Like, they're not all evil people. So what led them that? So he showed that the exact studies where it's like, they'll literally just lie. The objective truth, the different circle sizes. It wasn't hard. There's an. Obviously a right answer, right? They're all saying the wrong answer and you go with it. What was wild, though, is afterwards, in those studies, Ash would interview them and be like, okay, all right, all right. You could fess up now. That wasn't true. And like, about half of them would be like, yeah, but I didn't want to. What was the point? Why am I going to stand out? A subset of them swore up and down that they actually saw what the group told them to see, really.

[Jason]

So their brain just changed the visual.

[Todd Rose]

So he was like, ash, like, that's not true. They're lying. A colleague of mine in Georgia actually said, well, wait, we have FMRI now. So he redid the entire study and found that for a subset of people who conformed, it changed in their visual areas of their brain. What it was they were seeing. We are so wired for this. And again, if that were really true, that's what your group wants out of you. There may be some trade off where you're like, am I really going to stand on my own? Like, I like X, but your whole group likes Y. Does it matter? Maybe I want to be with the group. But collective illusions are. It's a lie. The group doesn't even believe this. So you're conforming to it is actually literally changing the group. Right? And you destroy the group that you actually want to be part of.

[Jason]

Is this how bad social norms or corrupted social norms develop and come into play?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because people think because a social norm

[Jason]

exists that everybody agrees with that. I'm thinking primarily, I guess, of racism, for example.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So there's so many people that grow

[Jason]

up in a racist environment. And this is an embarrassing example. I think I might get in trouble for this. But my dad's family, half the family,

[Jordan Harbinger]

is kind of racist.

[Jason]

Michigan in the 50s and 60s and 70s. It was just a little bit racist.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's weird, right?

[Jason]

Because they're like teachers in Detroit public schools, but they say racist stuff all the time. But my dad is not at all. And he was very much, hey, we don't talk like that at all. And I'm like, but Uncle Bobby and Uncle Steve. And he's like. My mom was like, don't look, listen to anything. These people say because they are racist. And it's bizarre because they had the same upbringing. They grew up in the same house, they went to the same schools, everything.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I am almost convinced that they don't really necessarily believe this. Like, how are you a teacher in a Detroit public school where almost all the students are black? And then you make all these really inappropriate, horrifying jokes at family parties. What is true? You care about your students. So what are. You dedicated your life to these people? What the hell is.

[Todd Rose]

Exactly right. So first of all, you did a good job. You won't get in trouble with your family because you said half. So everybody in there could be like, why was not the racist half?

[Jason]

Everybody goes, well, it's not me. It's.

[Todd Rose]

Yeah, it's not me.

[Jason]

Yeah, it's Uncle Steve.

[Todd Rose]

Well done. So you're exactly right. So there's actually some really good private opinion research on this during integration in the South. So a guy named o' Gorman did this research where he found that white Southerners privately were done with, like, segregation. They were like, this doesn't make any sense. I don't really want this. But they were so convinced because of the norms that this is definitely what everybody else believes. And they're faced with, do I stand on principle but lose my group, like my actual community? And so most of them literally upheld and fought against desegregation, even though they were privately for it. And people go, that can't be true. No, listen, again, people want to belong. That's such a powerful force. Right. So at risk of losing your community, I'll just go along with this. Those norms, they just stick around. They're so hard to get rid of. I'll tell you another one that we know for sure right now is female genital mutilation in Egypt.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Todd Rose]

What a horrific norm. We know, as a matter of fact, over 90% of adults in Egypt do not want that. Parents don't want to hurt their little girl.

[Jason]

That's interesting. I'm doing a show about this right now, actually. It's funny. Good timing.

[Todd Rose]

But you think about how that works, right? They're still convinced that most other people are okay with it. In that culture, that norm has consequences. If you don't do this, she is unmarriable. Like, what, 10 years later? And if that's your retirement, basically, you're playing a dangerous game. You're like, I'm pretty sure everyone believes this. I don't want to do this, but if I don't do it, they're stuck.

[Jason]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

And uncut versus cut. I don't care. I don't even believe any of these wives tales.

[Jason]

She's going to cheat on me if she has a clitoris. Like, none of that makes any sense to me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But grandma really wants to do it, and we're just all going to turn a blind eye while she commits this

[Jason]

atrocity in a basement somewhere.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's crazy because it's the opposite

[Jason]

of what you think. You think it's like, oh, these old men are so gross. They're just doing this for the patriarchy. The guys don't care.

[Todd Rose]

Yeah, there's like a small subset of religious zealots, but you're right. So we see this in our data, too. And some of the explanations for it are like, a little bit of misery loves company, or like, I had this happen to me. So therefore, to suddenly say, like, this isn't okay or this isn't good, it's kind of tough to do that. But it's funny how many of the guys are like, I don't care. We're like, oh, the men are doing it. And you're like, hey, if we can't accurately understand what's driving this problem, you have no chance of solving it.

[Jason]

There's a story, you probably know this. There was a community, I think, in somewhere in sub Saharan Africa where this was commonplace. And the pastor, who was a man,

[Jordan Harbinger]

suddenly decided, this is really gross and

[Jason]

not hygienic and there's no reason for us to be doing this. And so he went up in church, where everybody goes to church. It's one of those kind of.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And he goes, this is not something

[Jason]

that God actually wants us to do. And everyone was like, what? And so every sermon, every Sunday, he

[Jordan Harbinger]

was like, by the way, there's nothing in the Bible about this. God does not care if we do this. This is something you are doing. If you're doing this, you're doing this. God's not telling you to do this. This is on you. And the village was like, oh, okay,

[Jason]

I guess we just won't do that anymore. And it was basically like they just stopped.

[Todd Rose]

So this is what's important is these collective illusions. The most powerful things are like, okay, the people I admire, he's a social meaning maker. For him to say it is like, okay, well, obviously like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So this is the pastor playing cards at Mrs. Salt's.

[Jason]

Whatever village is the same thing. He just shattered the reality of the collective illusion. We don't need to do this. And everyone was like, oh, God, thank God, thank God.

[Todd Rose]

And what's nice is then one person just needed the pastor to say it, and they're like, we're done. And then the other person's like, oh, and my neighbor's not doing it. You know, I mean, and it sort of snowballs. Like, we all have different thresholds.

[Jason]

Like, oh, we have a choice. We have a choice. We don't have to do this to our kid now.

[Todd Rose]

Yeah. And what you see in a lot of the research is, but is like, it often just takes one person. So when you do those same, which circle is bigger if you have one other person, doesn't matter how many other people are lying. One other person telling the truth is enough to get the other person. It's like, I'm not alone. So it's like that initial willingness to be honest about your views. I think people underestimate, like, how profoundly powerful that is to enabling other people to start being honest too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Nothing like realizing your beliefs and your behavior don't match to give you that low grade existential dread. Good news. You can also distract yourself with the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. Running a small business means every hire matters. A bad hire can cost you time, money, and momentum. A good hire that can help you grow your business. This gives me flashbacks to a nightmare

[Jason]

hire in my previous company that really stunted the business, and even talking about it now makes my blood pressure go up.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jason]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jason]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jason]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Todd Rose]

and

[Jordan Harbinger]

Doug there's nowhere I wouldn't go to

[Jason]

help someone customize and save on car

[Jordan Harbinger]

insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it

[Jason]

muttered means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Todd Rose]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

[Jason]

What is this your first date?

[Todd Rose]

Oh no. We help people customize and save on

[Jason]

car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We're married.

[Jason]

Me to a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league. Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty. Don't forget our newsletter Wee bit Wiser. The idea is something specific and practical

[Jason]

that'll have an immediate impact on your

[Jordan Harbinger]

decisions, your psychology, your relationships. In under two minutes, just about every Wednesday. If you haven't signed up yet, I

[Jason]

invite you to come check it out.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It really is a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. Now for the rest of my conversation with Todd Rose.

[Jason]

I'm not trying to pat podcasting on the back, but it does do this for certain people. Like, look, if you're listening to this and you live in New York City or Chicago, most of what I say here is on the show with the guests is interesting enough. You listen to it, obviously, but it's not world changing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The emails I get from people that

[Jason]

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

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was news to me when I started listening to your podcast. You don't have to have the same religion or you can Marry somebody who's not from your area or the same belief system as you. This show was like the first time

[Jason]

that idea had ever been communicated to them. And that to me is crazy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ideas like this, shows like this and

[Jason]

any other podcast for that matter, any other Internet media can shatter these collective

[Jordan Harbinger]

illusions because you're the only voice that

[Jason]

they have in their head that is not echoing the exact same things as their neighbors in some of these small communities.

[Todd Rose]

And what's interesting is these illusions shatter at the speed of trust, right? So what's interesting with the podcast space is you've built a very dedicated following, right? So sometimes you go these fragmented media ecosystems like, yeah, there's no more Oprah anymore. Yeah, that's true. There's not like a person that now that's fine. But the people that listen to you trust you. You know what I mean? And you have a relationship, so when you say something, it actually matters in a way that it doesn't at scale with. We just get a famous celebrity to say it. No, were choosing in to listen to you. To your point too is I found it wild the amount of emails and stuff I get from Iran. Like, I literally just got one last week from a graduate student in Iran who's doing her dissertation on collective illusions. And she's, huh, I think that maybe I'm like, yeah, maybe don't be too loud right now. Like, give it another month. Yeah, you might be okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Finish your dissertation in London.

[Jason]

How's that sound? Yeah, let's get you a visa to get out of there. You reminded me of something when you mentioned trust.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I find it so ironic that China,

[Jason]

Iran, Russia and other low trust societies are the ones that are like, we need to make sure people in America don't trust each other. And we need to chip away at that trust.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because when I think of low trust

[Jason]

society, I think of post Soviet countries.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because when I lived in former Yugoslavia,

[Jason]

I remember talking to people there and they were like, it's not that I don't trust my neighbor.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't trust anything, anyone. And I was like, really? What's it like growing up and you don't trust anyone? It's, oh, yeah, my dad's best friend

[Jason]

murdered him with an axe. And it's like, why? They were both in the intelligence services and like, they got drunk and like, I don't know, something happened. He murdered my dad with an ax. I'm like, that doesn't sound like a random argument like this. And it's like, no.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And in East Germany, you would Go

[Jason]

and look at your Stasi file, which is the state police, like the secret police for people to know. And they had counseling on the second

[Jordan Harbinger]

floor because you'd go and you'd look

[Jason]

at your Stasi file to find out which one of your like student friends was spying on you. And you find out it's like your wife and your brother and your dad and they're all reporting on you. And so your faith in all of your closest relationships is immediately destroyed because you've read this file and it's like there's no trust for the most part.

[Todd Rose]

Then you look at like, why post Soviet satellite states have had such a hard time rebuilding. Because social trust is like a threshold variable where free societies just don't function below a certain level. The counter example there, and I've spent some time there, is Estonia, which has done a phenomenal job. They have some of the highest levels of social justice, but it was intentionally cultivated. They were lucky enough that when the Iron Curtain fell or went up, they had access to the radio through Finland. And so they didn't lose complete and they kept traditions alive. Subtle ways to signal to each other that they hadn't bought in to the stuff. So they've recovered a lot faster. But it worries me here in the US So we now have the lowest levels of social trust ever recorded in the United States.

[Jason]

That does not surprise me at all.

[Todd Rose]

And this is where collectively is both a problem and part of the solution. Which is the single best predictor of social trust is perceived shared values. If I think you share some of my basic values, I'm inclined just to trust you till you prove me otherwise. Right. So what if we share a lot of fundamental values, but the illusions have led us to believe that we don't? So then we end up losing trust. Like the results the exact same. So destroy the trust that we have each other. By forming false polarization and driving a resentment to sky high levels, you can do a lot of damage to a country that you would never have been able to do with guns.

[Jason]

Yeah. So it's not just distrust in institutions, it's distrust in other people.

[Todd Rose]

I would argue that's the trust that matters the most. So when I think of trust institutions, maybe this is just like semantics, but I think about as confidence through transparency and accountability, I have confidence that this institution will do what it says and isn't going to have too much grift. And so, yes, trust requires vulnerability. Right. Trust requires that I can't actually know. And that's the kind of stuff you have to have with your fellow citizens that on the whole, I think most people can be trusted. That small thing. Think about it, like, even in the free market, like, if I'm a mom and pop shop and I sell stuff to Walmart, in theory, if they don't pay their bills, I could sue them, but not really.

[Jason]

Not really. They're gonna bury you in paperwork for two decades.

[Todd Rose]

Of course, you have no recourse. None. So there's like even this trust that they will pay their bills. Right? That trust erodes like basic free markets don't even work. And so it's like a very clever.

[Jason]

Imagine going to a restaurant. You have to pay up front, even though you're not sure what you're going to get during the meal. That's annoying. And it's like, okay, well, I'm going to go out less and maybe I go to the places that still allow

[Jordan Harbinger]

me to do this. We don't let just anyone in because

[Jason]

we get stiffed on the bill all the time. You got to do a credit check before you go out to dinner.

[Todd Rose]

And look at the spiral where rather than treat crime seriously, look, we can get at the underlying causes of it or whatever, but the idea that you're going to excuse crime in some of these cities and now all of a sudden plays are like, I guess we lock up our deodorant now.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes, you lock up the deodorant.

[Todd Rose]

And then I go in and go. It's like, ridiculous. You go into like a CVS and you're like, I just want a deodorant, but now I gotta find someone to open it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like, you ring the bell, no one shows up. And I'm like, geez, I'm about to steal this just so I can get

[Jason]

out of here and go on with my life.

[Todd Rose]

But they're doing it in response to stupid policies that basically decriminalize theft. And then the signal that sends to everyone in the community is, there must be a lot of criminals here because these guys are having to lock up everything. It's certainly not convenient. And so then I'm. It changes my view of my neighbors. It's like this spiral, and you're like,

[Jordan Harbinger]

this is San Francisco, man.

[Jason]

They had all the shoplifting. You couldn't do anything about it. So the store would lock everything up. I stopped shopping there because I don't want to spend an hour at CVS getting razor blades, waiting for an employee to come unlock it, walk it up to the front. I'm like, for God's sake, this is

[Jordan Harbinger]

Taking way too long. It's easier for me to just order

[Jason]

it on Amazon with everything else.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Then Walgreens closes and then everyone goes, oh, they're closing the drugstores in this area.

[Jason]

It's because they hate poor people or whatever. And it's.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, it's because of these dumb ass policies and all of the theft that was done by 0.1% of the people

[Jason]

that walk in here.

[Todd Rose]

All you had to do was take care of that. And you know, it's funny, the defund the police one is such a good example too, because I spend so much time trying to teach senators and congresspeople about this just to help them understand. Like, if you want to do right by your constituents, you can't just assume the 10 people call on you all the time. But the defund the police is like, in Seattle, San Francisco, a few other places, policies were implemented and let's just give them the benefit of the doubt. They thought that's what people wanted. They thought that was. Obviously, politicians want to get reelected. So, like, the last thing I'm gonna do is do a bunch of stuff that everyone hates. I think people want this, so I get ahead of it. I implement policies. They were disastrous. Not my opinion. They've rolled back all those policies because they were terrible. It'd be one thing if the people of Seattle were like, no, we kind of want this. Then you get to live with, like, your choices. Yeah, it's tragic when it was like no one really wanted it, but we all thought that's what we wanted.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is what happened in my neighborhood in San Francisco.

[Jason]

I went there, I visited a friend. I was like, oh, I'll walk you back to the train station. And then I did a loop and I walked back to my place. And I see this dude who broke into a bike garage, which is like

[Jordan Harbinger]

a freestanding thing with like a building

[Jason]

with a roll down metal grate. And I saw him slide under there and I was like, holy crap, he doesn't see me. So I called 900. They're like, the police are busy right now. Can you wait? And I'm like, sure. I'm just gonna stay out of sight.

[Jordan Harbinger]

41 minutes later, they show up with their guns drawn.

[Jason]

And they're like, is he still there? I'm like, yeah, he's stolen like 10 bikes already. He just keeps going back.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He knows no one's coming. He's piling these things up and he's gonna ride them all back. He's just taking them out one by one. So they get him out of there.

[Jason]

They're like, are you sure it's him? I'm like, there's one guy in there with burglary tools. You're gonna find him. It's a tiny one room thing. And then they go like, oh, there he is. He's right here.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So they drag him out from under

[Jason]

the thing, and they're like, drop your

[Jordan Harbinger]

weapon and your tools. They drag him out.

[Jason]

I have to go testify, right? Because I'm the witness. I don't even think he had bail. He just basically, they let him out and then he, like, never showed up to court. Surprise.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They catch this dumbass jaywalking because he's

[Jason]

a brilliant individual who can't even follow the most basic of laws when you have a warrant out for your arrest.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They finally get him in there and

[Jason]

the jury lets him go, basically because

[Jordan Harbinger]

they're just like, oh, we think maybe that this was motivated by racism on

[Jason]

part of one of the witnesses and stuff like that. And I was like, you think that?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I watched this man, who is also

[Jason]

ambiguously white, I can't even tell, Break into a building.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I stood there for 41 minutes

[Jason]

because I wanted to frame him for stealing bikes. Even though they caught him with burglary tools and stolen bikes. And there's video footage of the whole thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then they were like, time served. And I was like, you know what, jury? You deserve the neighborhood that you live in. When this is your bike and your car is getting broken into, don't shed a tear because this is what you are doing to yourself. And I thought to myself, how many people in that jury room were like, let's throw the book at this guy.

[Jason]

But then one person was like, this is all systemic racism against this dude. And it's like, all right, let me just get out of here.

[Todd Rose]

And everybody else is like, yeah, I want to get out of here.

[Jason]

Yes.

[Todd Rose]

Or I don't want to be called a racist.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes.

[Todd Rose]

That's the irony of all that, is the use of those kind of tools to silence people only works when we call everything racism. It only works because people aren't racist. No one in the KKK is like, please don't call me racist.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's a good point. I had not thought about that.

[Jason]

You're right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because if you get that cranky old 1960s guy in there and they're like, that's racist.

[Jason]

And he's, yeah, I don't like people who are brown.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's like, oh, well, that weapon didn't work. Yeah, Melvin's not Going to vote not guilty. Melvin wants to go home, too, but he doesn't care.

[Jason]

He wants to put him away.

[Todd Rose]

But yeah, so it's so clever. Oh, I actually don't like racism. So you threatening to label me as that is really quick to silence powerful.

[Jason]

Exactly. Yeah. I'm not a fascist, but I found one of the quickest ways to shut people down who are like, you're basically a Nazi. I'm like, yeah. And. And they're like, oh, crap, that was my car.

[Todd Rose]

It just kind of ended. That was all I had.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was all I had.

[Jason]

I thought you were going to defend yourself.

[Todd Rose]

It's.

[Jason]

No. You want to call me a Nazi

[Jordan Harbinger]

for something, that's fine. I'm literally Jewish.

[Jason]

But you go off and they're like, well, crap.

[Todd Rose]

That's like the mental equivalent of closing the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah. You played your one card, now it doesn't work.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was all you had.

[Todd Rose]

That's all you had.

[Jason]

Here we are. I'm just shrugging it off.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What are you going to do now? I wonder if this whole trust thing, does this fuel populism or is that

[Todd Rose]

kind of like it does when trust gets below a threshold we're looking at in the rearview mirror right now, and especially when there's a lot of uncertainty in the world. Instead of think as we the people. Right? Part of being in democracy with hundreds of millions of people is it's an imagined community. Right. I'm not going to meet most everybody, but feel like we're part of community. When that breaks down, it's resorting to tribes as fast as possible. And so you'll see it. In this case, it's political a lot. But they'll just keep going smaller and smaller to the group that I feel like I can trust, and then I'm going to cling to that like a life preserver. And that's why, you see, like, right now, it just doesn't matter if I'm a Republican. It's like, what do we believe? Just tell me what we believe. And you're like, weren't you guys the ones that were about free trade? And you're like, now you're like, tariffs. And you're like, wait. Or wasn't the left, like, counterculture, free speech, this and, like, what?

[Jordan Harbinger]

It just turned out they just wanted

[Jason]

people who agreed with them. Oops. I saw this funny joke the other day where somebody was, like, railing against Palantir, right? This company that kind of, like, spies on everybody and is, like, working with all these three letter Agencies and is

[Jordan Harbinger]

owned in part by Peter Thiel, who is gay. And this person was like railing against them.

[Jason]

And their bio had all of this, like sort of progressive stuff in it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And this very clever sort of right wing troll replied, I support queer owned businesses. And it was like, what are you gonna do to the way you're gonna fight against that? What are you gonna say? And it was like, yeah, but not like that. No, not Peter Thiel. Not like that. It was the other gay owned businesses, the ones I like.

[Todd Rose]

That's amazing though. Yeah. That's the way out of this. When people are trying to play. This is. You just take it to the absurd. You escalate it up. Oh, like why support gay owned businesses? This is double down on this to your point. Yeah. Okay. So exactly.

[Jason]

Yeah. The virtue signaling thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I am wondering how we push back

[Jason]

on this lack of trust.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Can this even be rebuilt?

[Jason]

Leave us with something optimistic here, because I'd love that.

[Todd Rose]

This is what's really important. Social trust has been in freefall, but most people that study it think it as sociological. So they're like, countries with high trust have good welfare systems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a little carp for the horse. Again. The single best predictor of social trust is perceived shared values. This is a huge opportunity that we all have a role to play here. We, I promise you, Americans have unbelievable common ground in the values that matter most. You can get all the data from our website. It's like shocking. They're buried under these public lies. If you shatter those illusions, the first thing that changes is trust. Because it's, oh, wait, okay, no, you're on my site. You're one of me. And we all have a role to play, so we'll do our part institutionally. We've got lots of stuff in culture with music and television. Try to shatter them. We can do stuff. We have these conversations on your podcast with your reach. But everyday people are by far the most powerful. So we've go back to marriage equality. Yes, it was the television and stuff, but the real thing that changed it was the come out of the closet campaign where everyday people found the courage to tell the people that mattered most to them that they were gay. And when you look at the curve for approval of gay marriage, it looks the exact same, just lagging behind of the curve of do you know someone who's gay? It happened in my family, where it was one thing when it was an abstract question. It's another thing when it's my brother, right? And everyone's like, well, it's our brother. We just wanted to be happy. So when you're sitting there right now listening or watching this, and you're like, I don't know. I wish this were true, but I don't. First of all, go read the research and look at how many of our predictions have come true. Like, this is not rocket science. We're just not telling the truth. And then realize that you are part of the social proof. You don't need to go light your job on fire, right? You don't need to take risks like crazy, but have an honest conversation with respect with at least one person that matters to you. And again, we ought to be like, hey, I have a big Trump supporter. You can be like, hey, how about that? Or, listen, I care so much about you. I want you to know how I feel on this. If you don't feel like you can be honest, there's a close second, which is just inject uncertainty. So people are like, we're all for Camela. You're like, yeah, I haven't made up my mind yet. Tell me about that. It's like just introducing the idea that maybe, or I'm not so sure yet. It's amazing how many people will grab onto that. Oh, me there. I'm not sure yet either. But I promise you, if you could find that courage, we get out of this, it seems simple. Find the moral courage to be honest with the people that matter to you. Don't be an asshole about it. There's a way to be respectful and let people have their opinions too. The second piece is have the civic courage to make it safe for other people. In some ways, that's easier. If I'm sitting here and we're all hanging out and some super MAGA person's saying something, everyone's trying to shut them down. And I can be like, look, I don't agree with her, but let's hear out. She has a right to speak. That's pretty safe thing to do. Just to create the space for people doing stuff like that. You can make a difference in a hurry just like that. As one person starts being like, story you told, right? Oh, wait, so the pastor did so we don't need to mutilate genitals. This is okay, right? It will cascade and you will be shocked. And I promise you again, underneath these public lies are private truths that are pretty heartwarming. I think we'll be okay as a country if we can recognize the real nature of the problem and realize that we have a role to play in solving It.

[Jason]

Todd Rose, thank you very much. Let's not wait two and a half years to do the next one.

[Todd Rose]

Next time in person.

[Jason]

That's right. Thank you so much.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We're more connected than ever and somehow more vulnerable than we've ever been. Cyber crisis author Eric Kohl explains how AI driven attackers, corporate scale scam operations, and aging systems have turned everyday tech into. Into an open door.

[Eric Kohl]

Do you want to be 100% secure? You want your family to be 100% secure? It's easy. Pack up your bags, sell everything, move to Pennsylvania and become Amish. Because I'll tell you, I hacked a lot of things in my life I have not been able to hack a candle and a horse and buggy. If you have no functionality or no benefit, you can be 100% secure. And to give you a more realist example, my smartphone. As soon as as you add any functionality, you're decreasing security. Security and functionality are inverse. 100% security is zero functionality. What is the value and benefit? What is the risk and exposure? Is the value worth the risk? If the value of benefit is worth the risk, do it. If the value and benefit is not worth the risk, don't do it. And the reality is, and I always tell people, the most dangerous word on the Internet is the F word, and it's not worth what you're thinking. The F word is free. Free is not free. Because all times when you have a free app, you're basically allowing them to access your microphone or your camera or your pictures. If they ask you and you say yes and you give them permission, that's actually an authorized app and is allowed. And the reality is, most people don't even realize when they install these apps, they're hitting yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And allowing access. And if I want to make my smartphone 100% secure, smash it, burn it, throw it in a ditch, turn it off, and it'll be 100% secure. It's actually freaking scary of how much you're being monitored and tracked with your phones that you don't even realize it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Check out episode 1247 of the Jordan Harbinger show with Eric Kohl, and you'll start looking at your phone, your home, and even the power grid very differently. So, yeah, turns out the biggest thing dividing us might not actually be division. It's the fact that we think we're divided. We're guessing what everybody else believes, they're guessing what we believe, and somehow we all end up stuck in this weird social game where nobody says what they actually think. And the cost of that? Bad policies, broken trust, a whole lot

[Jason]

of unnecessary conflict and bad blood, as

[Jordan Harbinger]

well as vitriol online. But the upside, and this is the hopeful part, these illusions are very fragile. They only exist because we keep reinforcing them. So the moment you question the norm,

[Jason]

you say what you actually think, or

[Jordan Harbinger]

you just ask, wait, why is that? You start to break the spell. Which is a rare case where just being a little more honest and a little less performative actually makes the world a better place. So maybe we don't fix the entire country today, but maybe we just stop pretending that's a decent start. Anyway, all things Todd Rose will be on the website Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show. Also on the [e-mail] deals please consider supporting those who support the show. Don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com, i'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

[Jason]

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There's not a whole lot of bots there. Not yet anyway. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlauskis, Ian Baird, Gabriel Mizrahi Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in social science, extremism, or is just wondering

[Jason]

why the discourse in this country has actually gone completely to heck in a

[Jordan Harbinger]

handbasket, share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

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[Todd Rose]

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