A State of Fear: How the UK Government Used Fear to Control You in a Pandemic by Laura Doddsworth (Author, Journalist, Photographer and Filmmaker) Joining me in this episode is journalist, photographer and filmmaker, Laura Dodds, who discusses how the UK government used fear to control people during the 2009/10 Global Flu Pandemic. We discuss the ethics of fear and how governments use fear, and how it was used to control us in a pandemic, and why the use of fear may have been ethically questionable. We also discuss the impact of the pandemic on our perception of the world, and the role of fear in shaping our perceptions of others. This episode is brought to you by Gimlet Media and edited by Annie-Rose Strasser. The opinions expressed in this podcast are our own, not those of our employers, and do not necessarily reflect those of any organisation or organisation. We do not own the rights to any of the music used in the podcast. This podcast was produced for noncommercial use, unless otherwise specified. If you have a dilemma you want us to discuss, please contact us at bit.ly/AStateofFear and we will try our very best to resolve it. Thank you for any amount you can manage - we are committed to making this podcast accessible and fair use of all our resources, including but not limited to: audio, video, audio, and social media and other forms of media, including blogs, social media, to ensure that it is factually accurate and fair and accessible to the widest possible. Thanks for listening to the fullest possible use of the best practices, and we do our best to ensure we can be heard across the world. in the best possible listening and the most accurate representation of the highest possible possible, and most authentic representation of what we can achieve the most effective use of our best efforts. Love you. - thank you for listening and sharing this podcast and sharing it on social media? and we appreciate the feedback we can help us all be a voice in the world - we really do appreciate your feedback and support the work we can do best. -- Thank you, thank you, you are amazing! - Tom Bell Timestamps: 1: 2:00 - 3:30 - 4:40 - Why fear is a powerful tool 5:15 - Is fear a tool? 6:20 - How fear works?
00:00:00.000Joining me now is Laura Doddsworth, journalist, photographer and filmmaker, author of A State of Fear, how the UK government weaponised fear during the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:00:09.000Thanks very much for joining us to talk about this book, A State of Fear, which is a bestselling book, I understand, Laura.
00:00:31.000You know, Lord Sumption called it an important book.
00:00:34.000It had reviews in Telegraph and the European Journal of Psychotherapy, some great reviews, but the Sunday Times bestseller list didn't actually protect it from one of the worst book reviews known to man in the times.
00:00:50.000Objectively, one of the worst ever won.
00:00:53.000Well, maybe I'm not very objective as the author, but it wasn't a great review.
00:00:56.000Much mention was made of my previous work.
00:01:00.000There's one book where I photographed and interviewed 100 women about their vulvas, their vaginas, for an exploration of womanhood.
00:01:07.000And you might have read the review and think that in real life, I'm followed around by a chorus of high-kicking vaginas.
00:01:22.000We've got a, this is a quote from the advisor on SPIB.
00:01:26.000Do you know what that is advisor on SPIB?
00:01:28.000Are we talking about like that nudge unit and all that type of stuff?
00:01:31.000I know exactly what this is because this is somebody that I interviewed for my book.
00:01:36.000SPI-B is the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviors.
00:01:41.000They're a group of social Scientists, behavioral psychologists, various social scientists, and what they do is give the government advice in times of emergency, such as a pandemic.
00:01:54.000And I interviewed several of them when I was researching my book, A State of Fear.
00:01:59.000And this one here broke cover actually to speak to me because he was so concerned about the way the government was using fear and behavioural psychology.
00:02:09.000I mean, to not to not mince our words, the government used fear to control you in lockdown.
00:02:15.000And in a sense, perhaps it's something that we would have anticipated and something that we can appreciate.
00:02:20.000Sometimes I try to approach the extraordinary events of the last couple of years In good faith, not to the denial of what is evident and plain that there have been regulations, legislations and advantages that have been accrued through that period that appear to point to an agenda, but at least not to lead to conclusions.
00:02:43.000Perhaps you and I together through the course of our conversation can highlight a case for how the pandemic was a revealing period, how we learned about how power functions, How we learn about how propaganda operates and how we are manipulated, how our behavior is affected by messaging.
00:02:58.000Starting with this quote, Laura, that we've just referred to, the way we've used fear is dystopian.
00:03:03.000We have a totalitarian government in respect to propaganda, but all governments engage with propaganda.
00:03:08.000The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable.
00:03:12.000Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.
00:03:15.000So there was an explicit intention To use fear, it's interesting to note that in the end, we're dealing with a basic palette of emotion, rage and fear and shame.
00:03:24.000And even when something feels secular, mechanical and bureaucratic, its resources are quite emotional and deep.
00:03:31.000And that obviously raises ethical questions.
00:03:33.000Do you think that there was an ethical breach in the way that this pandemic was handled?
00:03:38.000Do you think that they understood things that they didn't convey?
00:03:41.000And do you think that they highlighted aspects of the pandemic, whether that's medically or socially?
00:03:49.000Wow, there's so much to pick up on there.
00:03:52.000But I'm going to go back to your first point that you approach this with good faith.
00:03:56.000And I think that's really important because when I wrote the book, there were a lot of people that just said to me, well, why?
00:04:49.000If this was a laboratory experiment, if a psychologist wanted to put their fingers in your brain, reach around and use fear to control you to see what happens, Then they would need to go through an ethics approval procedure.
00:05:24.000The advisors that I interviewed for A State of Fear, the ones who spoke to me on the record and those who spoke to me anonymously, I asked them all, what is the plan for de-escalating fear?
00:05:38.000What really worried me and sent chills down my spine, actually, were a couple of advisors who were not only very content with the use of fear because they thought it was proportionate in a pandemic, Because pandemics are frightening.
00:05:51.000But they said, well, hang on a minute.
00:05:54.000We will move from this to the next crisis, which is climate.
00:05:58.000And I think that, you know, there is a risk here that governments lean on fear and nudge, which is a form of behavioural psychology and propaganda, to shut down debate, legislation, disagreement, in fact, because these covert ways to influence you are successful and they bypass all that kind of procedure.
00:06:16.000So if you, you know, the The COVID pandemic and the lockdown created what academics have called a window of malleability.
00:06:25.000Our habits changed and that meant we were ripe for more change.
00:06:30.000You know, it's a great time then to push the idea of changing habits towards, say, net zero goals.
00:06:37.000When you say covert, what covert modes were utilised?
00:06:45.000Do you think that the entire Endeavor is to a degree covert because they were not explicit about their operation.
00:06:54.000It's obviously incredibly convenient that many of the things that were used to mobilize fear and compliance have subsequently been demonstrably untrue, whether that's the efficacy of the medication.
00:07:33.000But back in February 2020, World Health Organization documents showed that at that point it was very well understood that COVID risk was stratified according to your age and your clinical status.
00:07:46.000So the elderly or people with particular comorbidities were more at risk.
00:07:51.000By March 2020, we locked down and the government's obviously asked this panel spy be a question.
00:08:05.000I know from talking to these advisors.
00:08:06.000They were worried about things like You know, the poor old working class chap missing football in the pub, you know, it's kind of classist assumptions going on here.
00:08:14.000And so Spy B advisors reply with this whole gamut of suggestions.
00:08:18.000One is that people's sense of personal threat needed to be increased because they were complacent, because they understood the risk to their demographic group.
00:08:28.000Another way of looking at that is that people understood very well what the risk was.
00:08:33.000They understood the risk to their age.
00:08:35.000If I think back to that time my mum started shielding long before they were supposed to.
00:08:39.000She's in her 70s, she's got terminal lung condition, she's poorly, her and her husband hold themselves up.
00:08:45.000I on the other hand was trying to finish a big photography project and I thought right okay You know, my work might be thrown off the table for a while.
00:09:58.000And in the event where it becomes steals first, when it becomes when in the event that the people have correctly deduced that they are not at risk.
00:10:10.000Then in order to elicit fear, you have to mislead them.
00:10:16.000So it's not only covert, it's duplicitous at that point.
00:10:19.000If people have correctly deduced, oh, I'm not really at risk, so I should go out.
00:10:22.000In order to make those people afraid, you have to deceive them.
00:10:27.000Let's have a look at some of these assets.
00:10:29.000These are obviously assets that are derived from the UK.
00:10:31.000Why don't you post in the chat some of the assets from your country?
00:10:35.000They won't regard them as assets, they will.
00:10:37.000we all regard them as propaganda, quite rightly.
00:10:38.000So if you're in America or if you're in Canada, why don't you tell us the most egregious examples
00:11:14.000That's why our economic systems, social justice systems, are all reflecting this sanctity of human life.
00:11:20.000Elsewhere, it looks like elitism, control, opportunity for regulation, opportunity for profit, are the mandates that drive the way the culture functions.
00:11:53.000We might have to leave YouTube So there's a link in the description join us exclusively on rumble right now because I'm going to say things that still because the who's power still extends to the domain of YouTube where on rumble we can speak freely to convey love not to convey hate to convey unity not yet more division like when you so let's just go we're going to rumble now, um like The vaccines don't prevent transmission and we're not trialled to prevent transmission.
00:12:23.000And asymptomatic people could not... 96% of asymptomatic people tested did not spread the virus and there was a type of PCR test available as early as March 2020 that could demonstrate that.
00:12:36.000So any propaganda predicated on that idea was false.
00:12:41.000Whether they knew it at the time or not can be contested and can't be proved, but it was false.
00:12:47.000So anything like tell him I always keep a safe distance, irrelevant in most cases.
00:12:51.000Tell him you never bend the rules, irrelevant in most cases.
00:12:53.000Tell him the risk isn't real, irrelevant in most cases.
00:13:16.000Another way of looking at that is, one in three people experience it so mildly, they don't know they've got it.
00:13:21.000But it was twisted around always to be frightening.
00:13:23.000I mean, those stills we just looked at, they're really grainy, the eyes are looking at you.
00:13:28.000It's supposed to make you feel like if you've killed, you know, if someone's died, it's your fault.
00:13:32.000Don't look at what the government might be doing wrong, which is maybe care homes or lack of PPE or hospitals being built like, you know, cities for infection.
00:14:44.000It's about encouraging you to make the so-called best choice.
00:14:47.000But that's all predicated on somebody knowing what's best for you.
00:14:50.000It's covert manipulation with the assumption that the person making those nudges has the moral authority that I would require before trusting them with making that choice on my behalf, which I bloody well wouldn't.
00:15:04.000And so this is just good use of propaganda, good use of semiotics rather than nudging.
00:15:10.000I'd say so, but I think it is, you know, it's incredibly well staged.
00:15:54.000But it didn't show you other key performance indicators.
00:15:57.000So you know how many people died, went to hospital, didn't say how many children had dropped off the register at school, or how many people have missed their cancer appointments, or what had happened to mental health stats.
00:16:08.000The focus was always on these very deathly COVID stats, to the exclusion of everything else.
00:16:14.000Laura, what I feel is that a helpful analytic tool with the pandemic and perhaps anything really is to remove the subject and then observe the behavior around it without the biases that the subject induces.
00:16:27.000And what you can see here is how power functions when it comes to organizing our reality.
00:16:34.000You highlight this information, you eliminate this information.
00:16:40.000He had a Terrifying array of information to share with us, including that a significant amount of the funding for the vaccine rollout, excuse me, came from the military.
00:16:53.000But when it came to the response, the military were involved to a sort of like a staggering degree, like that.
00:17:01.000My first response to this was, oh, really, this is an inadvertent crisis to which authority is responding by capitalizing on it.
00:17:12.000Like, oh wow, we've got the opportunity to regulate now, we've got the opportunity to shut down the censor, create protest law, introduce surveillance.
00:17:19.000But it seems like everything that happened was beneficial when it came to centralized state power and was detrimental to individual freedom and the ability to have an open discourse about the various potential Another bit of information, the Cabinet Office spent £586 million in the last three years with a vast majority going on public health awareness campaigns during lockdown.
00:17:42.000Let's have a look at that bit of propaganda from Scotland and please post your favourite propaganda in the chat.
00:17:49.000This is what you mentioned earlier using images from horror.
00:18:16.000What we have on the right is what it reminded me of when I racked my brains, which is a scene from The Exorcist, which has an age rating of 18.
00:18:23.000So, you know, they said these ads were to target 18 and above, but there was no way to stop children from seeing it.
00:18:28.000And what an ad like that has the potential to do is to disrupt intergenerational relationships long term.
00:18:35.000I think it's really created a lot of suspicion between people.
00:18:50.000And I think that takes me back to the existential crisis, this whiplash of shock I felt when we when we locked down because before that I'd had this idea that we were free.
00:19:01.000You know that I had agency that I could choose pretty much what I did in my life and that we were part of a democracy and then an emergency hits and you find out that the most basic of freedoms you took for granted are not real at all.
00:21:00.000Have you known people that have taken their own lives as a result of the psychological impact of being placed on lockdown?
00:21:06.000What about the fissures that it has put between people from different cultures with different values?
00:21:11.000It's interesting to note, Laura, that there's a class impact here,
00:21:17.000and that particular effort was made to manage what you might call in our country working class people in America,
00:21:23.000blue collar Americans, people that do necessary work.
00:21:26.000They were temporarily, what do I want to say, deified or at least celebrated before being damned once again when it was convenient to do so.
00:21:34.000In our country, a lot of key workers and health workers were celebrated primarily through the medium of rainbows and meaningless platitudes.
00:21:41.000But when it came to paying them more, those pay rises were not offered.
00:21:47.00034,000 key workers in New York City, of course, lost their jobs because of a refusal to undertake certain medical procedures.
00:21:55.000So it seems to me that, taken as a whole, this period of time created a world transfer.
00:22:54.000That was our former health minister, now reality TV star, Matt Hancock, was offering up that you're killing your granny.
00:23:00.000Don't know how you could possibly Kill your granny, given some of the revelations that have since come out about the lack of clinical trialing for transmission and that asymptomatic people were scarcely infectious.
00:23:13.000But nevertheless, the propaganda has been spread and the damage has been done.
00:23:17.000I know elsewhere when it comes to matters like climate change, which let me know in the chat where you stand on that, it's normally 15 minute cities, taxes on ordinary people.
00:23:26.000It's seldom This is why we are going to control corporations in this way.
00:23:31.000It's interesting that many of the measures suggested amount to ways of controlling and prohibiting the freedoms of individuals.
00:23:39.000What do you feel like is the next wave and how do you think it will continue to be utilised Laura?
00:23:47.000You said so much I want to bottle it and drink it very slowly but you know There's plenty more than that came from, mate.
00:24:37.000You're right because actually mate, we're all quite susceptible to propaganda as discerning adults, but children, who knows?
00:24:45.000And also, I think the contract between us and those that govern us has been irrevocably altered, broken, I might argue. I can never trust centralised
00:25:51.000People can be manipulated You know, in our time, in our time and who'd have thought that we'd see it?
00:25:56.000We've seen the mass evocation of fear and propaganda to gain compliance for something which nearly all of us were not at risk from.
00:26:05.000I'm not saying COVID wasn't a serious disease for some people, but I think we've only just swerved terrible times and we see what can happen.
00:26:14.000You know, you talked about the vaccine before.
00:26:16.000There were people that were told no jab, no job.
00:26:18.000They lost their jobs if they didn't want to be vaccinated.
00:26:20.000And there are many reasons an individual might not want to be vaccinated.
00:26:24.000You know, there are still countries, I think the US has only just lifted its its ban on federal like federal workers were sacked if they weren't vaccinated and you couldn't visit the country unless you were vaccinated.
00:27:04.000Well, That's done because once upon a time the enemy was a country that would drop a bomb on you from another country, right?
00:27:11.000A red button over there in some snowy country.
00:27:15.000Then the enemy was somebody who might strap bombs to their chest, a terrorist.
00:27:19.000But in the case of a virus, you know, we're all the enemy, we're biohazards.
00:27:23.000There was a doctor on TV, Dr Sarah Jarvis, in 2021 who said breathing is an offensive weapon.
00:27:30.000I was scouring the newspapers at the time for examples of this.
00:27:34.000There was an Israeli newspaper that called ultra-Orthodox Jews who were breaking the rules, Covid insurgents and bioterrorists.
00:27:43.000You know, the language that was used to describe human beings for breathing, for moving about or choosing not to accept a medical intervention was stunning.
00:27:53.000It was extraordinary to watch how they managed their previous demonization of ordinary people by using perhaps and having not yet caught up with some of the lexical changes that have taken place in recent years to and to recognizing oh no we're condemning people now like of course notably in the United States of America there had to be a great deal of work done In communities of color, because there's a natural, what do you know, suspicion of centralized authority.
00:28:27.000There's some other comments in our locals chat.
00:28:30.000If you're not a member of our locals community yet, press the red button on your screen.
00:28:33.000Join us on locals, like Seabuck77 who says, in my experience, our local blue collar community refused to wear masks and was skeptical of this whole thing.
00:28:41.000The middle class went along until it split.
00:28:42.000Half have woken up, And the woke far left white collar are the ones we see driving around wearing masks in their car.
00:28:48.000Now certainly it became politicized even prior to the sort of condemnation around Trump.
00:28:54.000I remember initially Joe Biden being like, openly we can pull up the clip if we want to, Joe Biden saying that he wouldn't take a vaccine until it was verified.
00:29:03.000And of course people say that they didn't participate in the politicization of the medications or the responses.
00:29:08.000It was the other side's fault that that happened.
00:29:11.000But that's the kind of sort of tribalized chit-chat that don't Get us nowhere.
00:29:15.000It seems to me that it was a great opportunity to control, to demonize, to divide, to censor, to smear.
00:29:23.000Like the Twitter file revelations about true information that was shut down and controlled.
00:29:29.000The number of highly credible scientists whose contributions to the conversation was shut down, smeared, because it didn't go along with this information.
00:29:40.000It seems in retrospect, correctly, many people were smeared as being anti-vax.
00:29:44.000By the way, they changed the meaning of the word anti-vax in the dictionary during that period.
00:29:48.000So again, as I say, the subject itself is of limited interest
00:29:53.000because we live in a fast-moving time defined by an ever-shifting news cycle.
00:29:59.000But the behavior that it revealed is fascinating.
00:30:02.000We can see how powerful interests will collaborate.
00:30:05.000We can see how apparently innocuous, free, global organizations like the WHO are able to assert
00:30:11.000and continue to assert incredible control over the way that information is promulgated.
00:30:18.000And many of that ain't been rolled back yet.
00:30:21.000Can I ask you, please, Laura, about forthcoming potential ways
00:30:25.000to terrify and control the population?
00:30:28.000I feel like-- what's this Time magazine?
00:30:30.000WHO, "This emergency's over, get ready for the next one."
00:30:34.000New pandemics are always being rehearsed all over the gaff.
00:30:38.000They're always spending money doing sort of like weird games
00:30:44.000Some of the anomalies I'd like to point out is when you have the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
00:30:49.000significantly donating to the WHO, I think behind only the nation of Germany
00:30:54.000in their level of donations, I would prefer that elsewhere,
00:30:57.000that organization hadn't invested heavily in vaccines.
00:31:00.000Now, you might say, well, that's a cohesive response.
00:31:02.000They believe in this type of regulation and this type of medical response.
00:31:05.000But when it is profitable and when it affords that degree of influence, it seems to me like there's a great opportunity for democracy.
00:31:12.000It seems that what we're being offered in lieu of democracy now is limited debate within tiny tiny cubes of discourse while a centralised authority continues to assert its agenda.
00:31:27.000What do you reckon is going to happen mate with like forthcoming pandemics and forthcoming like climate change type stuff?
00:31:33.000Well you know sometimes I tune out of the specifics because the thing is the principles are always the same.
00:31:40.000What people won't want to hear, but it's the truth, is that your brain is a battlefield.
00:31:45.000And it's not just the terrain, it's the target.
00:32:29.000Whatever you think of climate change and whether it's man-made or not, and what the response is, do you know how they're trying to influence you and manipulate you?
00:32:38.000You know, scriptwriters for films and series, they're invited to workshops For instance, there was a workshop for scriptwriters about how to increase vaccination uptake.
00:32:51.000I mean, I know people talked about it because on soap operas in the UK, and let us know if this happened in your country, there was just sort of like casual bits of chat about, have you had your booster shot yet?
00:33:10.000This kind of thing's been going on for decades.
00:33:11.000It's the history of the BBC and governments have had hotlines to soap opera managers and broadcasters forever.
00:33:18.000I think what's different is how out in the open it is.
00:33:20.000Now I've got documentation about the scriptwriters being invited to talk about vaccination uptake.
00:33:25.000And there was a scriptwriter who spoke to me anonymously, again, so he doesn't destroy his Hollywood career, for my new book, Free Your Mind, because the stories are just fascinating.
00:33:34.000You know, when you watch your soap opera for a bit of light entertainment in the evening, well, I bet you don't, I don't, but millions of people do, you know, switch off, enjoy it, fine, but be mindful.
00:33:44.000They are constantly trying to socially engineer you.
00:33:47.000There's a big, big soap opera here in the UK.
00:33:49.000They had Just the kind of cheesy vaccination scene you're talking about.
00:33:59.000There was a couple of ethnic minority characters talking quite virtuously about how they'd had their vaccine.
00:34:04.000And then a white woman comes onto the scene, ironically called Karen, and she hasn't had it and they call her one of them anti-vaxxers and make fun of her because she's buying cigarettes but she won't get the vaccine.
00:35:10.000We're wading through woke, but we're not wading through water.
00:35:13.000The point of the graphic is to trick you into thinking that this climate crisis is there on your doorstep.
00:35:20.000One day you might walk out on the cities underwater.
00:35:22.000Although the Netherlands have managed to hold back rising sea levels with medieval technology, and we've got Thames barriers, you know, it's to frighten you.
00:35:32.000You know, there's no great clamour among the world's people to eat more insects.
00:35:36.000You know, we're not all going, oh yes, give me mealworms and crickets.
00:35:40.000But have you seen how many programs are talking about using insects, like in cookery programs or celebrities eating insects from Angelina Jolie barbecuing tarantulas, which was truly horrific to Robert Downey Jr.
00:35:54.000talking about a protein drink that's made from insects.
00:35:56.000You know, there is some kind of technocratic public policy do-gooders, academics and politicians that really want you to eat insects.
00:36:05.000So you'll see it everywhere in the media.
00:36:07.000Many of these have been regarded as and dubbed right-wing talking points.
00:36:13.000Let me know in the chat and the comments if you're aware of that.
00:36:17.000And let me know also how you identify in terms of your political persuasion.
00:36:21.000My personal belief, of course, is that neither right-wing nor left-wing party organizations
00:36:26.000are going to deliver to you the individual freedom that you will come to require.
00:37:22.000This is something, of course, I know a good deal about as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.
00:37:28.000I'm well aware of the role of compulsion and the role of stimulation in organising my behaviour.
00:37:34.000Similarly, though, and blessedly, I'm aware that none of the issues that I seek to resolve
00:37:41.000externally through material means can ever be resolved in that
00:37:45.000direction that without a spiritual awakening, without a willingness...
00:37:49.000to surrender the inner domain to a greater power, I am doomed to be subject to the stimulations,
00:37:57.000the coordinated stimulations it seems, that are externally being operated upon us.
00:38:03.000Now me, I feel like that the climate change conversation for me is bypassed by reverence and love
00:38:11.000for the environment that I evolved in harmony with.
00:38:14.000That I can see that we ought to behave respectfully towards our planet and that regulation and control when it comes to the protection and love of our planet and the species that we share it with should target first and foremost the most powerful corporate entities that currently enjoy significant subsidies from us.
00:38:33.000Wealth transfer and redistribution of wealth are already taking place.
00:38:42.000Now, as Laura was saying earlier, it's individual freedom that is the issue.
00:38:48.000Forget for a moment what your views are on medication.
00:38:51.000I reckon I'm intelligent enough to recognise that people have a variety of personal conditions, some that might warrant an enthusiastic response to a pharmaceutical intervention.
00:39:02.000And others that may be more cynical and skeptical.
00:39:05.000And this is not a reason to be cynical or let alone hateful to other people.
00:39:10.000Let me know in the chat and the comments.
00:39:11.000One of the things that offended me most was the way we were invited to be condemnatory, judgmental, and hateful to one another.
00:39:37.000And you wonder why the ratings are going down for soap operas.
00:39:41.000It's because they're shameless propagandists for government public health messaging.
00:39:46.000And in fact, there was a report that came out, I think last year, from the government's nudge unit.
00:39:52.000And Sky, the broadcaster, and it's called The Power of TV.
00:39:55.000And it's about nudging people towards net zero.
00:39:57.000And this is what I mean about it being more in the open.
00:40:01.000They talk about using the whole gamut of programming from news, which you'd like to think is impartial,
00:40:06.000to children's programming and cookery, travel, documentaries, product placement, everything in between,
00:40:12.000in order to make people compliant for net zero policies.
00:40:16.000It's quite astonishing that it's just out there in the open.
00:40:19.000And they talk about the historical use of TV for social engineering.
00:40:23.000So I would never tell people to turn off the TV, although there is a chapter of my new book with that title.
00:40:30.000But if you don't want to turn off the TV, you have to watch it mindfully.
00:40:34.000You have to understand that it's not a one-way process.
00:40:38.000They're trying to influence you as much as entertain you.
00:40:42.000And actually, you know, you were asking before what the dangers coming up are.
00:40:46.000I think people don't understand what a pivotal time we're at with artificial intelligence.
00:40:52.000So, at the moment there's a lot of buzz about generative AI, so ChatGPT, BARD, these really fun tools where you can ask it to write you some copy, ask you to write it some text, use it for research.
00:41:08.000That has the potential not only to be used to generate copy, but to manipulate you and nudge you.
00:41:15.000And I think people don't realize how far we're already in that world.
00:42:33.000And what that is reminiscent of is the kind of futuristic surveillance society, you know, that pre-crime, thought-crime territory of films like Minority Report.
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