The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1004: Memory | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

Misconceptions about memory are abundant, so Jessica Wynn is here to let us know which ones we're better off forgetting on this latest Skeptical Sunday! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday: Our memories are more complex than just being videos that we can simply file away and retrieve at will. There are three main processes that characterize how memory works: encoding, storage, and recall. Forgetting is a feature, not a bug. Some memories are more easily recalled than others, and our memories can be manipulated by a variety of factors. While hotly debated, the concept of "repressed memories" doesn't seem to have the science to back it. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with Jessica Wynn. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1004 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you do. get your podcasts. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today, I'm with Skeptical Sunday co-host writer Jessica Wynn. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. And Jessica, I appreciate that you smiled even though we're not doing this on video. It's nice. I introduce you, you smile. Even no one can see it but me, but you still try. I was raised right. I was raised right. You were. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form

conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, though, we do skeptical Sunday. We're a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic. Topics such as why tipping makes absolutely no sense. The lottery, reiki healing, ear candling, self-help cults, bottled water, energy drinks, diet pills, targeted advertising, and more. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, cyber warfare, crime, and cults, and more. It'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show.

Just visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. In this episode, we get into some abuse stuff. So I guess this is a trigger warning. I'm not really sure how to do trigger warnings, but since I feel like I should do a trigger warning, that's your trigger warning. Our understanding of memory is controversial. It's questioned, it's doubted, it causes arguments, it makes headlines, affects legislation, and influences civil and criminal trials. Scholars, psychologists, politicians and lawmakers debate ideas about repressed memories, implanted memories, and with the limitations of memory actually are. So, what is agreed on, and what should we be skeptical of when thinking about the past? Is it possible to tap into our unconscious and stir up, forgotten memories, should that be permissible in court? So many questions, too many to remember,

actually. And writer Jessica Wynn is here short term to discuss what we've learned in the long term about memory. Yeah, hey Jordan, thanks for having me. By the way, folks, in this episode, we use the term repressed memory here, more or less interchangeably with recovered memory. Now, that's not totally accurate, but we thought it was better to be simple and consistent here. So when you hear repressed memory, we're more or less talking about recovered memories. So do you consider yourself to have an excellent memory? Sure, yes. I think it's probably pretty good,

but my wife would definitely disagree. And now that I think about it, my memory is probably crap just like most people's memory. Yeah, it might be, but I think it all depends on what we're remembering, right? Like, what specific memories do you have from February 3rd, 2024?

Oh, probably a typical day. Not exactly sure off the top of my head. It's a while ago. Yeah, sure. I mean, that's tough, right? It was over a month ago. But what specific memories do you have from September 11th, 2001? Ooh, a lot.

But that's so different, right? So different. It was 23 years ago, first of all. But people imagine their memory is like a video that we file away. And when we remember, we just open that file. But our brains do not work like that. And if there's no emotion around an event, like the events of February 3rd, it's difficult to remember specific detail.

but emotionally loaded events like 9-11, they make memories easier to recall. Yeah, that makes sense, right? I'm not going to remember the oatmeal I-8 on February 3rd, but I do remember right where I was when I heard about this and talking with my roommate and who called me first and seeing ICQ messages or AOL and some messenger messages,

whatever, pop up from friends who lived in Europe, and they were like, what's going on? And I'm like, what are you talking about? I just woke up, it's 9.30 in the morning or whatever. That was really something. So do we just forget the mundane thing? things generally? Is that how it works? No, I mean, definitely not. But memory is, it's an act of process, right? And forgetting is part of that process. So there's this misconception that forgetting is

bad, but it's important to forget. So we don't have to like sift through everything that ever happened. That would be a really inefficient way to be. So we remember mundane details that have no significant events around them sometimes, or we remember the mundane things that happened before and after a significant event. Like you, like I remember the color sheets that were on my bed on 9-11, but I don't know if I could tell you what color sheets are on my bed right now. And with confidence, I can describe what the landline telephone next to my bed looked and sounded like and what clothes I put on that morning. But I'm also confident that a lot of those details, are going to be wrong.

Why would they be wrong? Well, when you recall a memory, you're actually remembering the last time you remembered the memory. Uh-huh. And every time you remember it, you're exposing it to being manipulated. This makes sense. So I'm not remembering the actual event. I'm just remembering the last time I remembered the event. So every time I remember something, it's one more abstraction away from the actual event, I guess.

That's crazy. So manipulated by what? I mean, if it's in my brain, am I just manipulating myself? Is that kind of where we're going with this? Yeah, sure. I mean, all our senses can manipulate a memory, right? So can our emotions, experiences, other people, for sure. Even our other memories influence our recall. I'm sure most of us can think of a time someone told, even if it's a mundane story, like somebody mentions something and we thought, really, did that happen? Like, hey, no, our auntie was there, remember? And I'm like, she was. Okay, so now I remember her being there. And every time I remember that instance, I'll remember a person that may or may not have been there. But it might not be, like, drastic.

But every time we think of a memory, it's going to be different. Okay. So our memory gets fuzzy. But is there a reason for this? Do we know how memory works in the brain? I'm guessing it has to do with limited space and you can't just remember everything because of that. Yeah, of course. So we remember the important stuff.

hopefully. But the simplest, like, textbook definition of memory is, is it's a continued process of information retention over time. So memory helps us make sense of the present and future, and it's central in learning. And the three main processes that characterize how memory works are encoding, storage, and recall. That's funny because it sounds like computer lingo. I mean, we're kind of all born with an iPhone 11 or something like that for brains in many ways. It's actually pretty incredible. Yeah, it's really incredible and it's incredible how we develop that over time. Like, we're not born with it. If you ever hear someone say they remember their births, they are mistaken. I actually saw Matt Damon on Stephen Colbert last night talking about how he remembers his crib,

but the brain cannot form memories that last into adulthood prior to two and a half. And memories really patchy from ages three to seven. That's interesting. I feel like, I definitely remember crying in a crib, but I'm also like maybe I was four and my parents were just like, get rid of this noise machine for just two seconds. I'm going to ask about that because I swear this happened, right? But then again, crying in a crib, what a vague thing that happens to literally everyone that I could have seen on TV, right? Right, right. All right. So that's good news for parents to know.

You know, no kids, daddy never dropped you. Your memory is faulty. One of my good friends swears he knows this event that happened before he was born and his mom is like, Yeah, he told me this story and it's totally a thing that happened, but I'm like, hello, that's obviously not the case. It's like a random guess or he heard you talking about, come on. Anyway, it's a good reminder as well that I don't have to do anything special for either of my kids because they're just not going to remember anything anyway. I can tell them we spent every weekend at Disneyland. Yeah, you actually could. You know, that science proves our brains are not developed enough to consolidate and form a long-term memory until after like 30 months. So what's happening, to the people who claim those really early memories are you're forming a memory from trusted stories, pictures, and the media, right? People do this and it's unintentional.

But just like all the other parts of our brain that develop and change as we grow older, so do the parts that deal with memory. But just to survive, a baby's got to remember some things. Don't they have to know who their parents are? You know, when I go to pick up a random stranger's kid at the park, as I often do. Oh, my God. No, kidding, of course. They scream and they cry because I'm not their father and they know that.

But honestly, whenever I pick up like a kid who's playing at our house, if I'm not the parent, they'll often be like, ugh, they just freeze up, right? Because they don't really know me. Oh, totally. I mean, but what you're doing is you're confusing recognition and memory. And they are different things. So baby brains are forming procedural memories, which makes sense, right? There's an ability to perform tasks.

and that function of the brain, it gets stronger as we go through childhood. So at six months, you can be taught like a basic action, but you can only remember it for about 24 hours, they find, but not 48 hours. So you have to be retought it. So at a nine-month-old remembers basic functions for about a month, but not three months. So it develops quick, and the older you get, memories become easier to retain. Until you hit about 44 in my experience, at which point... Why did I walk in here?

Things start to go downhill. Yeah, why do I walk back in the house thing? Unfortunately, it's been happening to me since I was like 15. All right. I've heard so much about repressed childhood memories. It's almost like a cliche. But is that actually a thing? I think the most common thread that I see online or in true crime or even in my inbox

is people who encountered abuse as kids. But then as adults, they don't or can't remember it. And it's just sort of lurking in the background waiting to be rediscovered, which it often is by a therapist. and then all hell breaks loose. Right. And that whole idea of repressed memory, everything I have researched, it all points to know. Memory repression is not a tool of our brains.

Okay. So you sound pretty confident and sure about that, but it definitely comes up over and over and over again. So can we just completely discount this? Of course not. And it's just the opposite. Like there's so much in the orbit of repressed memory. memory that it's actually daunting to discuss, right? So psychoanalysis was and is full of questionable practices. And one idea from it is that some memories are so traumatic that our conscious mind

sort of hides them away and buries them in the closet of our brains in that dark, forgotten corner of our unconscious. That concept seems difficult to prove. Is there science behind that? Well, As luck has it, psychoanalysis gives therapist magical powers to dig out memories that are buried in those dark corners of your subconscious. So psychoanalysis thinks we're just too stupid to remember a significant thing, especially if it was traumatic. Yeah, it's kind of insulting, right? Yeah. I mean, there are a few events in my life. I definitely wish I could forget, like, my entire first marriage.

But unfortunately, life can be unpleasant. but you don't have to relive those unpleasant experiences over and over. Like not thinking about them, it's not repression, it's coping. It's just life. But people accept the idea that trauma leads to a complete memory blockage. Basically, something super bad happens and your mind just, I don't know, can't handle it. So it puts it into cold storage or whatever. Right.

But that is a completely irresponsible concept to push on people. The question of repressed memories is one of the most heated, debates in modern psychology, but all I have found is that the belief in repressed memories results in damaging consequences in clinical, legal, and academic situations. Okay, so basically, repressed memory is not a real phenomenon. So where did the idea of repressed memory come from in the first place? Because it didn't just come out of nowhere. I mean, it seems like everybody knows about this thing that doesn't actually exist. Yeah, I don't think you'll be surprised that this idea of repressed memories is all thanks to that most famous mother lover

Sigmund Freud. He had this endless tower of misguided and debunked ideas, and Freud proposed repressed memories are a defense mechanism against traumatic events, but he based this on zero scientific evidence. Which is on par for Freud, I think. So what did he base it on? I'm guessing it's some silly Well, yeah, tell me. Everything Freud is silly, right? So in the beginning, Freud was a hypnotist, right? Like a lot of psychologists were.

And it turns out he was a really clumsy one. So he liked to claim that he furnished his office with a couch to make it feel less clinical. But it had more to do with that whole, you're getting sleepy thing combined with his clumsiness. So one of Freud's first piece. patients had all sorts of physical symptoms that medical doctors couldn't explain at the time. And she was really happy to lie on his couch, but she didn't succumb to his crummy hypnosis skills, and she just wanted to talk. And when she started to get better after talking about her terrible childhood, boom, the whole concept of psychoanalysis was born.

Wait, so the whole lie down and tell me about your mother thing. That was just an accident because he was terrible at hypnotizing people and bought a couch randomly. So they could fall on it. Yeah, totally. It turns out it was not a happy accident, right? Like Freud developed the concept of repression based on this one patient. Then he made this huge leap saying everyone's current symptoms are related to the past. And without scientific proof, he claimed when someone experiences trauma, the mind

removes that event from conscious awareness automatically, leaving the person unaware that this horrible thing happened. It's like, well, why do I remember my ex-husband, Freud? Like anything, this is just an easy solution to human nature. And he was feeding off the feeling we all have that, hey, there has to be a reason I am the way I am and I want to blame something. Wow. I suppose I can understand the desire to blame something, especially something other than oneself for messed up life, messed up relationships. But this whole concept of repressed memories, it seems a part of our understanding of memory. Like I said, at the top of the show, it's basically a cliche at this point. And I've gotten letters in the Feedback Friday inbox from people

saying, hi, my sister who hasn't done anything with her life is now going to a therapist that says we were sexually abused as kids because we had repressed memories. And she's like, but I'm successful and I don't remember any of this. And part of our answer, if memory serves, was like, isn't it convenient that your sister who hasn't done anything is now like reverse engineering a cause for why that might be the case instead of looking at like the other reasons that it might be now of course people who suffer trauma have all kinds of problems that can lead to them not doing well later in life like that's why we put the trigger warning in there and also why i want people to give us grace on this episode however in this case the other sister was like yeah when when we went on vacation to

such and such no i remember that and we were not abused by like the neighbors at our timeshare or whatever it and the sister's like, you have to remember, you have to be against mom and dad allowed it to happen. And the letter was about how this is tearing their family apart. And I'm going on a little tangent here, so I apologize for that. But it's so interesting how it must just be really tempting. If I had a twin brother and he was crushing at life and I was just bouncing from job to job and couch surfing, I too might be like, huh, well, clearly I have the genetics and I had the upbringing.

Well, wait a minute. What if there's a massive serious flaw that no one remembered until now? That would explain it. You can just escape the accountability for your own choices by making up something of like, of course, some this way. That was it. That was it with Freud. Like he even knew what his patients were like, quote unquote, remembering that they weren't actual events. But he still pushed this idea of repression because it got him attention.

Yeah. It got him patience. And he was even gifted his now, like, iconic famous cow. by some wealthy client, right? Oh, geez. So he wrote about this. People believed because, like you said, how convenient. And it keeps this whole, like, mind keeps the score hypothesis going and implies that trauma can be discovered.

So for people who subscribe to the idea of repressed memory, the goal of therapy aims to, what, make the unconscious memories conscious again? Yeah, I mean, sure. that people definitely believe this, but in my research, I notice, like, believers in repressed memories, they base it on three ideas, whether you're the therapist or the patient. You think that you can repress traumatic experiences. You think those repressed traumatic experiences can cause your psychiatric disorders. And then you think that recalling trauma is necessary to heal. And without looking at the science, like these people, it makes me wonder what's wrong with my brain. I mean, I can lay in bed at night thinking about the time in middle school. I was at a party and it was the first time I got my period and I was humiliated, right? Yeah. But why do I remember that, Mr. Freud? It haunts me. That sounds like a different kind of therapy might be in your future, but I'm still unclear. Is it possible to forget an extremely intense experience and then remember it again later?

How would we know either way? Okay, well, this is what experts have been fighting over since Freud, right? So if we fast forward to the 1990s, we can look at this whole phenomenon of when therapists were proven to be accidentally implanting people with false memories. Ooh, how was that possible? Are they, it's like the machine from the movie inception to put something in your brain. That's crazy. I know. And I think that some people would probably use that machine if they could, right?

but therapists were using, and still do, use what could be harmful techniques when they think they're helping. And it's techniques like hypnosis or suggestive imagery. And patients are open to this. These people kind of just want repressed memories to be true, which seems kind of counterintuitive. Like, hey, there's a horrible thing that you didn't know about. Oh, I want to know everything about this horrible thing. It's like, oh, maybe I maybe I don't want to know. That was the other thing from the letters of my feedback Friday inbox is people being like, Maybe I don't want to know. I have a great relationship with my parents.

I don't, maybe I don't want to know if they let me get abused and I just forgot about it. Right. And, you know, sad. It's not just counterintuitive, though, right? It's counter all these credible psychologists, neuroscientists and psychiatrists who all agree the subconscious process of repressed memory. It doesn't occur. And it's unreasonable to believe that's how memory works without anything proving it.

I guess it's crazy to think that there's a secret part. of my brain that has sole authority on deciding which events I can and cannot handle. You know, there are definitely some nights and weekends I would like to forget, too, and some that I forgot due to probably consumption of beer that I wouldn't have chosen to forget. But I don't really need to remember the time I wrote Libby Walker a love letter, and then she showed the whole school. Can I repress that, please? That'd be great.

I don't want to freak you out, Jordan, but I've seen that letter online when I've Googled you. Oh, my God. Tell me you're kidding. Of course, of course. But Libby, if you're listening. You know what's funny is she did hit me years ago. And she's like, hey, I checked out your podcast. And I'm like, remember that time that I wrote you that letter and you showed the whole

school? And she's like, I thought you promised in college we'd never talk about that again. Because I wrote it in middle school. We ended up going to high school together, as one does from middle school. Then we went to the University of Michigan at the same time and kept in touch out. So I was like, could I have written a note to a girl that moved after like two months? Why does it have to be to a girl that ended up going to college? with me and is like friends with a bunch of my friends. But I guess she just bought the house across the

street. Yeah. Like hey, still have that letter in my trapper keeper. Got to show your parents and the wife and the in-laws get a good laugh out of it. Yeah, it was pathetic too, just as you would expect. All right. So do believers of repressed memories think I can instruct my mind to forget certain things or is it kind of an automated process? No. I mean, I think a lot of people believe that, that you have the capability to forget stuff. And it's just definitely not true. The best advice I did come across from experts is, like, this Libby letter trauma you have, it's you can just think about something else.

But people are convinced of repressed memories. And there are explanation for what's going on with these, like, you know, lost memories. Sometimes things happen when we're really young and so they're just forgotten. And not deliberately, not magically repressed. Sometimes people have actually shared the event with somebody else and then they forgot they told people. That's also not magic or repression. It's just called forgetting. Okay.

So kids are often silly and forgetful as well. So should we just discount memories from when we were little? I don't know. Of course not. You know, there is this possibility that as a kid, but we didn't know the event was horrible. so we don't think about it. And for most people, though, traumatic events are remembered. Okay.

And it can be subjective, but, like, you can be too young to recognize abuse or trauma or whatever and grow up like I did and realize, like, hey, that was pretty messed up when my older brother taught me to roll joints when I was five. Ooh, if that's true. It's true. I didn't smoke it and it was fine. I just had the little fingers that were good for rolling. But my point is we have to stop using the explanation of repression because there's other tools the brain's using.

Like the good old push it down, cover it up, never address it, coping mechanisms of life. Like this is just how we survive. It's not proof that we don't remember significant trauma, right? Like sometimes we think of something. We're like, oh, man, I haven't thought about that in so long. And we kind of shudder at the thought, right? that's conscious repression. Again, it's not a magical mind

automatically deleting traumatic events from our thoughts. That makes sense. I've definitely got some of those where it's like, oh, remember that time that I did that thing and it was really dangerous?

Wow, that was scary. And I will change, I will stop thinking about it because otherwise I feel like, wow, I almost fell out of a window and died. That's really scary and would have been super sad.

I don't want to think about that. But yeah, it's not that I don't remember it. It's just that my mind consciously I don't want to keep torturing myself with that stupid thing. Here's something you should implant in your memory. The deals on the products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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And it's actually quite sad because it's often combined with real issues that you can just see or hear in their stories. There was one woman I saw in a video, and God knows where this was, Unsolved Mysteries or something like that, some OG show like that. And she was just convinced that she had been abducted by aliens.

And her whole thing was she was married on another planet and she had kids and a family there and it was like one of the alien leaders had married her. And of course, in reality, she was just like a lonely mess here on Earth and it was quite tragic. Right. And so she created this kind of sounds awesome, right?

Right, like, oh, I'm important on this other planet where people love me. It's like, oh, man. But it is, like, really depressing. She's not alone in those stories. Like, a lot of people do that. And they're just justifying the idea of false memory because they hear about it. Like, everybody hears a repressed memory. And then there's the clinical definition of something called disassociative amnesia, which is published in the diagnostic and statistical manual of. mental disorders or the DSM. I've heard of that. The book does come up often on the show, and I know it has issues here and there. I'm not up on the specifics, though. Yeah, I mean, I think that book has a ton of issues, but as far as memory science goes, like I did a little digging, and the panel that put together the DSM includes no memory experts, and the definitions it lays out, they carry significant risks in clinical and legal settings. You mentioned that the concept of memory also affects public policy. So how does this affect the law, for example? Well, in the 80s and 90s, the United States was swept up in like this baseless conspiracy theories about satanic cults

committing rampant abuse all over the country. Do you remember this? Yeah, the satanic panic, right? Is that what this is? A.k.a. This is the time when every album I bought from Sam Goody was heavily scrutinized by my parents. Right, right. And it started with accusations. of satanic abuse at this one preschool in California. And it was compelling, right? So talk shows and news, it spread these fears. And there were hundreds of allegations that were investigated. In 1988, Horado Rivera.

Of course. Yeah, of course. He aired this primetime special called Devil Worship, Exposing Satan's Underground. And he just alleged thousands of children. and were being sacrificed by satanic cults in the U.S. every year. He interviewed Ozzy Osbourne and then blamed heavy metal music for luring kids into Satanism. Hey, we couldn't find a memory expert, but we did book Ozzy Osbourne. I can just see my parents watching that way back when you could actually understand some of the things coming out of Ozzy Osbourne's mouth.

Oh, poor Ozzy. I know. It was, I don't know if it was Ozzy or Otto or what, but it was the highest rate. television document. It was considered a documentary at the time. Oh, wow. 20 million households watched and parents were, of course, collectively freaked out. And not long after the Harado thing aired, Oprah did a show warning about how dangerous satanic

cults are and that they were coming for your children. It's crazy. Man, people were compelled by Geraldo and Oprah. Oprah was charming. I don't know what, I never quite got the Haraldo thing. Even as a kid, I was like, that doesn't seem quite accurate. It's wild how much disinformation those two are responsible for. And it's like their fans are in a cult, actually.

It's absolutely mind-boggling. Yeah, they are the cult. The real cult was the people you were listening to about cults the whole time. And I mean, but people listen to them. And so, boom, here we are, the satanic panic unfolded. And I want to say that I'm 100% against banning books, but some should just never be published because these TV specials, they were based on several books published in the 80s with titles like The Courage to heal, which is also known as the Bible of Incompetent Therapists.

Oof. And there was the 1980 book called Michelle Remembers, and it was co-written by a therapist and his female patient. It discussed his brilliance in uncovering her memories of childhood satanic abuse, and it was a bestseller. Wow. The two of them divorced their partners, married each other, and laughed all the way to the bank, I guess. Oh, wow. There's this really depressing documentary about it, and it shows just how insane they were. The patient's sister said in the documentary that she believes Michelle is, she's living in hell.

The story haunted their family for years. She said, you know, we pretend we're a family, but there's always that feeling of, like, how could you do the job? damage you did by telling the story that wasn't true. So these repressed memories of satanic childhood, they put Michelle's family under investigation, and then tons of therapists in the 80s and 90s, they got obsessed with rooting out evidence of satanic cults sexually abusing children. And they believed memory suppression was a tool of satanic cult abuse. It sounds like something you would see in a conspiracy theory, but it's done by therapists, which is really disturbing. So it's so silly to think, oh, so satanic cultists have magical powers that involve psychological mechanisms to make you forget.

How convenient. And also, nobody can identify. No experts can identify these. But like random people who worship Satan, they're just so well versed on these that they can pull the trigger on a whim. And then to battle it, it's like, oh, psychoanalysts to the rescue. You know, it becomes like this terrible superhero movie, right? But they believe through hypnosis and careful questioning that these therapists can bring horrible memories back and root out the devil. So the combo of this repressed memory theory along with the satanic panic, it was insane.

It does sound absolutely out of control. Is there a kernel of truth to this? Like were there any cases of satanic cults actually influencing children, but it was nothing like this? No, no, no. Is there a shred? Nothing. No. Just nothing.

Zero. Crap. Zero. I mean, I guess it's good. What? Not crap. It's good. No satanic cults. To be clear, I'm not a fan of satanic cult. I'm not a fan of satanic cult. Darn. I mean, there were huge investigations in the 90s about it. But the FBI, they found no evidence ever of any secret, organized cult of satanic child abusers anywhere. But people still went to jail for it. You know what people are going to say. Oh, the FBI found no evidence of satanic cult. That's because the FBI is the satanic cult. You know, have to email me, folks. I know where your heads are. So I can't believe people actually went to jail over this nonsense. That part, that's horrifying. Yeah. And it also discounts people who are having actual abuse, right? But even as cases slowly collapsed and like the skepticism prevailed, defendants were going to prison and families were traumatized and millions of dollars were being spent on prosecutions. A lot of people went to jail for decades convicted of these

like hideous crimes where the sole evidence was these repressed memories of long-forgotten abuse coming to the surface. But research came out that showed these techniques used by therapists to quote-unquote recover these memories. These techniques also work really well to implant false memories and create like realistic, recalled experiences of things that never happened. Wow, that is terrifying. So imagine, just imagine, getting convinced. convicted of using a child in a satanic ritual and you go to prison, your life is ruined, you go to prison and people who thought they knew you are shocked and they don't want to talk to anymore, you know, friends, family, maybe even your spouse.

And it's just completely nonsense. Yeah. It's such a nightmare. Oh, yeah. So do people still believe memory repression is a weapon used by cults or whatever? Or is that era kind of passed? No. I mean, unfortunately, it's still around.

I mean, online conspiracy groups like Q&N on, right? Like they have a lot to do with this. kind of thinking. In 2021, the New York Times ran an article titled, It's Time to Revisit the Satanic Panic. And they were equating the whole Pizza Gate thing to the Satanic panic. Wow. Okay. So PizzaGate, for those blissfully unaware of what this is, and I wish I were one of you, actually, that was the sort of QAnon slash Alex Jones slash internet kooky conspiracy that alleged, I think it was Hillary Clinton had children held in a, they were captive in a pizza shop, basement and then it turned out the pizza shop didn't even have a basement, a fact which was

uncovered when a crazy terminally online conspiracy neckbeard dude waltzed in there with a rifle demanding to rescue kids in the basement that didn't exist in the first place. You got it right. And I bet that guy wishes he could forget he did that, right? Yeah. There was an FBI agent in the article. He had worked on a lot of the satanic panic cases And he said that, you know, when people get emotionally evolved in an issue, their common sense and their reason, they just go out the window. So people believe what they want and need to believe. And that seems to be the basis for many lost memories of abuse. There was a difference between satanic panic and Pizza Gate, which is pretty huge, though.

In the 80s and 90s, actually hundreds of children were interviewed and questioned and they used leading questions and techniques. that could implant these memories. It was wild. There was just this combo of seemingly credible people saying the occult is everywhere. Then there were kids who started to believe these horrible satanic things happened to them. And then there was kids who didn't believe that. They just wanted the questioning to end. So they simply admitted to things that later on they retracted.

You know, luckily, I guess if you want to look at a positive of PizzaGate, no child ever came forward or they didn't question any children regarding Pizza Gets. So the implanted memory there happened to the people who were reading post after post about Pizsagate. Yeah. But when you go back to satanic panic in like 1994, researchers with the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect found that, again, investigators could not substantiate any of roughly 12,000 accusations of group cult sexual abuse based on satanic ritual. But by then, by the time they came out with those findings, over 200 people were already in jail. Oh, my God. Yeah, many were still being accused.

Oh, my God. Even though nothing was proven and the evidence all fell apart. What, 200 people. That's just a tremendous amount of lives around. Oh, my God. It's heartbreaking, right? But a lot of those people were eventually freed, but it was sometimes after years. I think it's pretty famous, the West Memphis 3.

That whole thing was they were convicted. of murders that they did through satanic sacrifice. And that was in 94. They were freed in 2011. Like, it was proven that was all baloney. And then in 2013, a Texas couple were released after 21 years in prison for satanic sacrifice of children. The state awarded them $3.4 million from the state has a fund for wrongful convictions.

But thanks, but nothing buys you those. years back. No, basically you can retire because you're unemployable anyway. And hopefully, and sorry for the 21 years you didn't spend with your kids if you even had kids because now you're too old to have. Like, that's just horrific. I mean, there's, oh, that's so sad. So the memories are implanted in the victims or they're implanted in the accused, right? Do people know they're admitting to crimes they didn't commit? Because people do that for plea deals all the time, right? Like, just say you're out of the store and you'll get probation. Yeah. And it's like, all right, fine.

There's examples of everything you mention, right? It can't, memories can be implanted in victims or accused or whatever. But people deny crimes. And then after interrogation techniques are used, they sometimes doubt themselves. This is why you shouldn't say anything when being interrogated, why you want your lawyer present, because there's just a long history of people confessing to things they did not do. And, oh, I wanted to mention this for what it's worth. Harado, he apologized. Oh, for the satanic panic special?

Yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure he gave back all the money that he earned from that, too. And like, oh, man, that thing that made me super famous in the 90s, I'm so sorry about that as he drives his tears with $100 bills. Sorry for all that fake satanic stuff. How nice of him. But it wasn't just Geraldo who owed an apology, obviously. I mean, there's a lot going on here, a lot of moving parts. Yeah, I mean, there's countless malpractice lawsuits against therapists who use,

impressed memory techniques. That makes sense. Like these therapists, though, I mean, they all, they do believe they're doing good, but in every case I've come across, the therapist lost, and then they were told their practice is harmful. Yeah, this is anecdotal, but I have heard that a lot of the repressed memory stuff comes from the same therapist. Like, if you're a therapist and you've been practicing for 40 years, there's maybe like one iffy case where maybe somebody doesn't remember a traumatic event, but then there's other therapists where like every single patient they have, has repressed memory issues and traumatic events that they don't remember.

And it's like, uh, what are the odds that you get the, the 0.1% of everyone else in terms of the type of patient. So one would think then that mental health clinicians would treat these practices as anathema, right? Okay, these don't work. They're harmful. You think therapists would be trained actively to avoid this practice. Come on.

As a lawyer, you're always seeing like continued learning how to manage your client's money because you can't put the money in your own bank account. or move it around. You got to keep it in the trust and it's super strict. And you can't, you know, there's like a lot of guidelines. They hammer these things on quite a bit because if you get it wrong, you'd go to jail. Right. And I mean, you would think that would. So you'd be the same in with clinicians. But sure. New research I was looking at is showing between 60 and 90 percent of modern mental health clinicians believe traumatic memories can be repressed. At a popular therapy now, it's called EMD.I. which stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. It involves moving your eyes a specific way while you think about a traumatic, repressed memory, and somehow that's supposed to help you heal. I can't really wrap my mind around it, but there's no scientific research. There's no testable hypothesis about this technique as it pertains to repressed memories.

But a study of clinicians finds 93% of them believe, these traumatic memories can be repressed and retrieved this way. Research shows, too, like, just the general public, like, they believe we can even repress an act of murder. It seems the belief is, well, I can't remember large parts of my childhood, so I must have been abused. There must have been something bad in those blank spaces because otherwise I would remember. And then it's like, let me get to work remembering this stuff because I'm looking for a cause

for my current woes. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's not just abuse, right? So we could get away from the abuse aspect of it because it's depressing and sometimes it's real. But there are lots of lab experiments that prove memories, whether they're good or bad, they can be implanted. The ethics of these kind of studies can be questioned, but there's like a really famous study called the Formation of False Memory Study. And it's also known as Lost in the Mall study. So they got a family member to talk about five things that happened during.

during the subject's childhood, but one of the things would be made up. And that made up thing was the time the subject got lost in the mall when they were five. 80% of people, they were all in. And they said, oh, yeah, I remember getting lost in the mall. And then 40% of them, they added details they weren't told. Wow. So you can make everyone a liar pretty much. Yeah, kind of, but they're not liars, right? It's just a plausible situation. Sure. One, they trust that family member. Two, They went to a mall as a child. Three, they've seen home alone so you can get lost. But the memory, there you go.

It's implanted. And more recently, a study was done showing adults a photo of them in a hot air balloon as a child. Okay. And 100% of those shown this photoshopped picture remembered the experience and 50% spoke about like really specific details. of something that never actually happened. That's incredible. I know. You just show someone a picture of them in a certain situation, and they're just like, oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember riding on an airplane wing. That definitely happened. Exactly. Like, they're given no information, just shown the photo and we believe it, right? So, oh, yeah, I remember that day. The examples like that, they go on and on. Like, if it's plausible, then the memory is quite easy to implant.

You know, I could Photoshop you into my childhood photos, and if the circumstances, were plausible, you could believe it's a photo from your childhood. With AI, this is going to get out of hand, right? Because you're going to be able to be like, all right, I want 13 hours of video of this person hanging out at my summer house in the 80s. And you'll just be like, I guess I did grow up with Jordan Harbinger. How weird. I don't remember this.

But actually, now that I think about it, I do. So I've actually had a memory stolen, no Photoshop needed. I really don't want to out this person because they're kind of a public-ish figure. but I told this story about seeing a celebrity on an airplane and something they did on the airplane. And then later on, I heard this person tell this story on a piece of media. And I was like, what the heck? That's definitely my story. But without you.

Oh, yeah. Without me. It happened to them suddenly. And then this person wrote a book and they put it in the book. And I was like, what the heck is going on here? And I thought that was so odd. And I knew the person who wrote the book for this particular thought leader. and I was like, hey, FYI, what do you think of this story?

And he's like, oh, yeah, you know, that was a later ad, actually. And I'm like, I'll tell you why, because I told that story. Wow. And it's my story. And the writer was like, that doesn't surprise me at all. I feel like a lot of the stuff this person told me happened to them is just like stuff I read about on the internet that's different. Has him added in there.

It's like, this guy doesn't have a real personality. He just like borrows things from the internet and makes them his own and convinces himself that it happened to him. It's so freaking weird. That kind of thing I did not come across. Like he just sounds like a sociopath or like mentally ill. Like I don't know if that's anything going on with the memory, but that is insane. I think he implanted memories in himself.

Right, right, right. Like, oh, I wish that happened to me. Yeah, he wanted the memory. So he's like, I'm going to just pretend that this is my memory now. Hey, I mean, that might be what a lot of politicians do, right? They say if you say something over and over again, people believe it. So if it's in a book, it's not your memory anymore, Jordan. There you go.

There's like so many suggestive techniques like that. And they can affect us when no one's even trying. You know, memory researchers, they make a really good point that traumatic and other really significant events. They're well remembered. So complete memory loss for traumatic events, it's rare. It's like really, really rare. and usually involves brain damage. There's no documented accounts I could find of memory repressed Holocaust survivors or survivors of Japanese concentration camps or New Yorkers from 9-11.

I mean, people with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, they often suffer from flashbacks and intrusive memories. You know, it's like just the opposite of repressed memories. So the issue seems to be clinical psychologists who believe in a repressed memory. treating patients who also believe in repressed memories. Yeah, I mean, it's turtles all the way down or, I don't know, memories all the way down, I guess. There is scientific interest in what therapists know about the functioning of memory, and the findings always show a high percentage of clinicians believe in repressed memory theory. So what are psychology majors learning?

Because when it's in a $900 textbook, it's got to be real. It must be correct. I will say, I will give these textbooks credit. that in psychology textbooks, they give Freud just like a little paragraph now, like one of those little boxes in the corner, so they don't spend a lot of time on them. You might have heard of this guy. Forget everything you heard about this person. Right, right.

This gloss over this. But, you know, we just have to look at more than the psych majors because there's so many professions that work closely with victims and patients and witnesses and suspects. And they need accurate memory training because there's so much opportunity for, implanting memories. Increasing these professionals, you know, increasing their awareness of potentially harmful beliefs about repressed memories should be a priority in clinical and legal work, as well as for psychological scientists. It does seem like skepticism of repressed memory. It's the highest in legal psychology. And that's great because it led to a standard on what kind of testimony is

allowed in court. Yeah, that's good. I vaguely run the remember this, as I haven't repressed all of law school yet, I vaguely remember this, the gatekeeper for expert witnesses, the Daubert challenge. It's like the ultimate test for experts. Oh, yeah, totally. And they have to prove their testimony is based on like sound science and can withstand scrutiny. So insurance companies rely on, it was a U.S. Supreme Court case called Daubert versus Dow pharmaceuticals. The insurance companies rely on it for injury claims because a Daubert motion seeks to exclude presentation of expert testimony. And under the Daubert standard and expert's testimony, it must be based on the scientific method and it has to help the jury understand evidence given.

So through this, like judges have the power to admit or not admit expert testimony. Right. This is important because otherwise you could just hire any quack scientist who supports your thing. Right. You'd be like, yeah, you can detect water using this magic pencil. Everyone knows this in my industry. It's like all the other scientists are like, no, that is fake. And then you give those guys equal weight. It's totally unfair, right? So the expert witness has to help the jury understand the science as well. They can't just be like, I'm an expert. Trust me, bro. If that doesn't happen in a satisfactory way, the judge can say, look, you can't even bring this guy in the courtroom or the jury is free to disregard the evidence or the testimony entirely.

How does this affect memory, though, in the courtroom? So because of this, it can just eliminate testimony based on just memory. I mean, this is still debated. Like, in France, in 2017, they wanted to increase the statute of limitations for sexual abuse prosecutions because the idea was victims might repress those memories and it might take them years to uncover their traumatic experiences. But in the courtroom, there's many reasons we would do that, right? Like, more plausible than repression, like shame, fear, all things like that could be at play. You know, it's better than losing decades of your life in federal prison because you're accused of abusing children in a satanic cult.

The great deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. It is your support of our advertisers that keeps the lights on around here. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all in one searchable, clickable place, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Now, for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. You know, if you're abused when you're a kid and then you're 17 or 16, you don't want to just dig all that stuff up. Maybe you just let sleeping dogs lie. But then you're 30 and you're like, no, that was messed up. I want this guy to go to jail. I get it. That said, testimony must be credible. So that keeps a lot of repressed memory testimony out of the courtroom, I would hope.

Yeah, definitely keeps what's called repressed memory testimony out. You know, the word repression became so controversial after that whole satanic panic thing. Right. So it's just by another name now. Clinicians adopted the term dissociative amnesia, which is just repressed memory with a fancier name, right? So in 2013, that pesky DSM did not include the word repression or the phrase repressed memory, but defined. dissociative amnesia as an event so traumatic it causes the, quote, inability to recall autobiographical information. That's kind of scary because it's basically repressive memory in a trench coat. And then it's like, oh, well, as a judge, I know about repressive memory being fake, but this is different. It's dissociative amnesia. And there's an expert here.

So maybe we should let them in. And that's sort of scary. It's almost like not a loophole, but an ugly way for. for fake evidence to get into your trial. And if you look at it, dissociate of amnesia was not mentioned in pre-1990s work on repression. So it's just like a workaround.

And the subtle but really significant name change, it's muddied the waters and provided a cover for this continued practice of psychotherapy that involves repressed memories. It's kind of like if you, oh man, asbestos is bad for us. Oh, you know what? Here's a new thing.

We're going to call it, I don't know, I can't think of a clever name right now. Cotton candy. We're going to call it cotton candy insulation and we're going to, you know, fireproof thing. And everyone's like, oh, great, I like the sound of that, but it's still cancerous and carcinogenic. Yeah, that's really gross. So is this an American phenomenon or you said France earlier? Yeah, I mentioned France. I mean, it's more like a Western world thing.

Repressed memories in the UK, they were examined and I love this name. They have the British False Memory Society, which is a charity for people who claim they are falsely accused of a crime, specifically on the basis of a false memory. Wow. And they've looked at thousands of cases since 1993 and find that it's like 84% of women accusers claim they recovered a childhood memory of abuse while undergoing some kind of psychotherapy and a lot of it involves hypnosis. Ooh, okay. There are a lot of ways to decipher that statistic. There's a slippery slope here on a multiple sides. I know, I know. It gets dangerous because you want to believe everybody, but there's other things going on. It could mean women who are abused are more likely to seek therapy, maybe, of course. And it could also mean, though, that memories can be implanted by these therapists. Maybe both can be true. But a lot of the cases that this charity research, they found the accused to be innocent. I'm not sure what to do with this information. Obviously, we want to believe any victim who comes forward. Of course. But we also have to adhere to the standards that our justice system is laid out and make sure that we're adequately investigating so that we don't end up putting the wrong person behind bars and running their life.

I mean, we see it happen all the time for murders and stuff like that. It's just terrible. Yeah, of course. I mean, and a lot of countries are just trying to unblur that line here. Like there's a Dutch group called the fictitious memory group and there's false memory, Deutschland and Germany. but they all have similar discoveries. In the U.S. and the U.K., there's a similar organization called the Innocence Project. These organizations, they're necessary.

They're not, like, out to blame these victims, but it's 73% of jurors, 50% of judges, and, like, 65% of law enforcement believe in long-term repressed memory. So those statistics are similar in other countries, too, but this, notion of repressed memory, it's just highly problematic. Has there ever been a repressed memory recovered that is like really good? You know, oh my gosh, my uncle was super rich and we went on this camping trip and I helped him bury treasure and I just forgot all about it. That sounds awesome. I mean, I didn't come across that, but it would stand a reason. Like that would be true too. I suppose. Why won't my therapist uncover the memory that I'm a princess and I was just robbed of my fortune and title? Still traumatic. Yeah. I'm still traumatic. I'm still traumatic.

sure. But I don't want to make light of anyone's traumatic experiences. I just want to highlight how flimsy this repressed memory concept is. So, you know, remember, this doesn't just involve these big traumatic events. Like, I argue with my sisters about insignificant childhood things all the time. And we're all probably a little bit wrong. Aren't we all somewhat wrong pretty much all the time? That's kind of how the whole thing works with the brain, right? It's just a different interpretations of reality. And then people remember different. parts of something. That's why we all fight all the time, right? There's this, there is this collective misinformation phenomenon called the Mandela effect. Have you heard of this? Yes, sure. But is that a memory thing or is that like a parallel universe conspiracy type idea? When I was reading about it, it just seems like most examples are spelling errors or like silly rumors or the fact that when we're kids, our memory just stinks. And yeah, yeah, that was named after Nelson Mandela because like a ton of people vividly remember him dying in prison in the 1980s, even though he lived until 2013. Yeah, it's like a glitch in the Matrix. And it is so bizarre how our brains can play

tricks on us like that. There are so many examples of the Mandela effects. But what's interesting is when you look at the stuff, when you Google it, you'll find that a lot of it has to do with kid stuff. Some of it's just got to be like kid memory is terrible. And so now as adults, we all misremember a bunch of the same stuff. Like, I can. could have sworn the monopoly guy had a monocle. And now you're like, oh, he did, right? He's running and he's got a monocle. No, he doesn't have one, actually. Yeah, I mean, that's a classic Mandela effect example. You know, another one's the spelling of Berenstain Bears. Like, people swear it was spelled with E-I-N instead of A-I-N. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is tricky. I saw that we have those

books in our house. And I was like, oh, it's Berenstain. But to be fair, bear, I couldn't spell my own last name when I was little, let alone one is complex and vowel heavy as barrenstain. Besides, who knew there were Jewish bears? Come on. I mean, well, I guess you could go to a gay bar in Tel Aviv, right? But we might be talking about something different. I don't know.

Didn't see that coming. My last name has no vowels. So that was like super confusing as well. Oh, yeah. But my sister, she just entertains the idea that, no, we're not remembering it. There's just some tear in the fabric of space and time, and something came, and it changed the spelling of our childhood books. And in reality, it's just the Mandela affects a result of false memories and the power of suggestion. Like, we hear something so many times again that our brains start to fill in the gaps with what we expect to be true.

Maybe your sister could take those memory pills advertised on TV. Is there any truth to those? I mean, surely good nutrition helps our brain in memory, but I don't know about. a straight up pill. Yeah. I mean, when you really start to think about it, like the concept of memory enhancing drugs is so appealing, but pills that dramatically enhance our memory are fictional. And if they were real, they would not be available to everyone through the mail, right? Like, it's more the ethical implications of memory enhancing drugs that I think are interesting. Like, think about it. If those drugs actually worked, who would really have access to them? You know,

would they be creating an unfair advantage? in education or at work. Do you think I slash all of us have memories implanted in our minds? Definitely. Like, think about all your alien abductions. Right. True. You got me on that one.

It's just all so like the Matrix. It's eerie, isn't it? You know, how do I know which memories to question now? Yeah. And think about, like, what you said earlier, about adding memory implantation into an AI simulation. Yeah. And just creating a memory you would.

never, never question. Yep. This is just taking us into an ethical dilemma. Like, who would decide what memories are implanted? And what happens if something goes wrong and the memories cause harm or distress?

Oh my gosh. That's kind of bound to happen. Yeah. This is the conversation that needs to happen, right? We have to have strict regulations and safeguards in place to ensure that memory implantation

is used responsibly and ethically because it is going to be used. But it's kind of. coming. Like, we have to face these questions. How so? Well, in 2014, so it was like already 10 years ago, scientists discovered how to implant false memories in lab mice. What? Wow, that sounds like a sci-fi movie. How do they know that they can do that? So, I mean, there were these neuroscientist nerds, right? I think this was at MIT. I think experts is the term you're looking for, but continue.

Sure, sure. Expert nerds. And they used a technique called optogenetic. And this uses lasers to stimulate these genetically engineered cells. So essentially they figured out how to reactivate a memory by flooding certain neurons with laser light. And then they figured out which neurons triggered fear. So they placed this little guy in this really safe space he was familiar with. They engaged this memory laser thing and the mouse froze and displayed dismal. distinct fear response. And the mouse was reacting as if it had received an electrical shock when it hadn't at all. I won't go into like details, but they scared the mouse to death. Oh, poor mouse.

That's crazy. First of all, I didn't know you could actually get scared to death. But is that possible to try on humans? Not that I'm volunteering anytime soon, but that's scary. Yeah. I mean, according to those researchers, the only leap left between that experiment and doing that to a human. It's just technological innovation. Okay. Well, that's terrifying, right? Tell me some good that can come from all this so we don't have, I'll have nightmares about this. Real or implanted nightmares? There are so many positive. Sure, there are, I swear. So this could lead to scientific memory suppression that we want, right? This could cure PTSD, depression or other disorders. Like, it could make people with substance abuse issues, forget their addiction,

That's incredible, you know, and a lot of the research is done with the hopes of curing Alzheimer's because they think they'll be able to reverse engineer memories that are lost to the disease. Oh, wow, that's amazing. But could erasing a memory, even a bad one, erase a portion of the person themselves? I mean, now we're getting philosophical, right? It's kind of like, what is our personality and our life experience separate from who we are? Of course. But it's definitely a philosophical discussion that needs to happen. Though it can be painful, our negative memories do define us. But I think for you and I, that means one thing where somebody who's debilitated by PTSD, they could see it differently than us. So there's also questions like if you erase the memory of a bad X from your past, are you erasing the lessons you learned about love? The larger point is here that there are negatives. So,

we need to brace ourselves, but for all the good it could do, we have to encourage that while at the same time understanding that the neuroscience, it could allow for witness tampering. It could implant false patriotism in people under a brutal dictatorship. It's super complicated. It also could be I watch the BORN movies too much, you know. I can see that. Yeah, it could be that too. So is it the matrix or inception becoming reality? I mean, it's actually quite freaky that this is all happening. It seems inevitable, but wow, it's closer than I thought, I guess. But it is happening, right? I mean, we have to look at both sides of it. And the ability to actually do this is thought to only be like four or five decades away. So definitely warn your children. There is a federal research group called

the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. And they have said that they're just four years, four years from a brain implant capable of altering PTSD-related memory. That sounds like the beginnings of some CIA mind control type stuff. Y'all know I'm not a conspiracy guy, but dang, like if you're, oh, we can alter your memory with this chip, but it's just for medical stuff. It's purely therapeutic. Come on. That's not going to survive scrutiny for very long. You know, we have to focus on the good stuff.

Like, it doesn't have to be doomsday. There's an NYU professor who has a proposal for a microchip in the human brain that will allow a human internet interface, making the mind like a search engine as well as improving our memory. So in theory, he thinks we could essentially back up files to prevent someone from tampering with our actual memory. Huh. I've seen the NeroLink video where the guy can play chess with this brain machine interface. It's incredible. It's so incredible. world's first cyborg, I guess. Still, though, not making me feel too much better, but wouldn't it also allow a hacker to hack your brain and your memory? I mean, it's not quite that simple, of course, but it would be possible. And that's really scary. Yeah. I mean, that's why we have to have these discussions, right? You're just emphasizing how important ethical dialogue is and it needs to start. So these techniques are being developed and discussions on the regulations and oversight,

must happen to prevent human rights violations or miscarriages of justice, you know, there are moral implications around technology and memory, but there are so many positive and life-improving possibilities, too. So above all, it's just, this is a great reminder to approach our memories with a healthy dose of skepticism and curiosity. Well, I wonder how I'm going to remember this conversation. It's been quite traumatic. Thank you for bending our mind. Jessica. Of course. And thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of skeptical Sunday to Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. Show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes on the website as well. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at

Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, and you can find Jessica on her substack between the lines, and we'll link to that in the show notes as well. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace, Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing things you hear on the show. Also, we may get a few things wrong here and there, especially on Skeptical Sunday.

So if you think we'd really drop the ball on something, definitely let us know. We're usually pretty receptive to that. Y'all know how to reach me, Jordan atjharbinger.com. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose. of the skepticism we doled out today. 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. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about junk science. There is this anti-establishment sentiment that leads to blanket science denial, which is enormously problematic and seems to be growing. There is so much false information on the Internet, it's very easy to just baselessly claim that legitimate information is false. We're having to reckon with the fact that the internet is doing this to us. It's very much a double-edged sword.

It's giving us all the information, and so it's very hard to censor things. But then also we have all of these lies and charlatans, and this stuff propagates like wildfire. And it's an enormous problem. It's just such an alluring narrative. It's so easy to peddle. We want it to be true so bad, but it's not real. You need to be equipped with some ability, some set of skills, to be able to discern the validity of information, particularly scientific.

Platforms like YouTube have had to make adjustments to their algorithm because they have come to understand how much they have been facilitating this destruction of our sociological fabric by allowing people to travel down these rabbit holes. It's very attractive narrative, right? It gives you sense of purpose. It's a big problem. That's why we're in the post-truth era. Whatever you want to find on the Internet, it's there.

All the truth and all the lies. When you wrap your identity around a false cause, you're eliminating yourself from some other possible contribution that you could be making. I'm crusading against this thing. Yeah, we should remain driven and encourage others to do the same. I think it's the biggest problem facing mankind. If you want to increase your scientific literacy and not get suckered into believing weaponized hogwash and passing it off to your friends and family's fact, check out episode 745 with

Dave Farina with Dave Farina on the Jordan Harbinger show. Hey, it's Adam Carolla. Not sure if you heard, but I do a podcast Monday through Thursday. Wherever you listen to podcast, I team up with the very best comedians in the world, plus critical thinkers and all-around nut jobs and offer my personal insight on current events, the state of the nation, and the stories you may have missed. As the world gets crazier every day, you can stay fairly sane. I'll keep you there.

I'll handle the crazy. Nuance is often lost on today's world, but you can find it right here. Available wherever you listen to Finder Podcast, I'm Adam Carolla, and I approve of this message. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format.

Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you

get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.