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The Joe Rogan Experience

#2419 - John Lisle

with John Lisle

Published November 27, 2025
Visit Podcast Website

About This Episode

Historian John Lisle discusses the history of CIA mind control research, focusing on MKUltra, its OSS roots, and figures like Sidney Gottlieb, George White, and psychiatrist Ewen Cameron. He explains how the program was structured, the drugs and psychological techniques that were tested, the disastrous impacts on unwitting subjects, and the near-total lack of oversight. The conversation expands into government secrecy, real versus fabricated conspiracies, cognitive dissonance, cult dynamics, social media disinformation, and how human psychology shapes both science and belief in conspiracies.

Topics Covered

CIA covert operations Government secrecy MKUltra Bioweapons research Cult dynamics Media trust and propaganda AIDS and HIV research controversy Conspiracy theories Trauma U.S. politics and elections

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Quick Takeaways

  • MKUltra was an umbrella for at least 149 subprojects that funneled CIA money into hospitals, universities, and prisons to test drugs and psychological techniques-often without subjects' knowledge or consent.
  • Many notorious MKUltra experiments, from Operation Midnight Climax brothels to Canadian psychiatrist Ewen Cameron's "psychic driving" and chemical comas, permanently damaged patients while producing little useful intelligence.
  • Sidney Gottlieb structured MKUltra to diffuse responsibility-funding outside experts through front organizations so he could claim safety and ethics were their job, not his.
  • Internal and external oversight of the CIA largely failed during the Cold War; even inspectors general admitted they feared career retaliation if they challenged illegal programs.
  • The most effective "truth drug" the CIA found was often a placebo plus suggestion-telling people they had been given a truth serum or hypnotized, which lowered their resistance more reliably than any chemical.
  • Propaganda operations sometimes mix true historical abuses with false claims, as in Soviet disinformation that cited real U.S. experiments to support the lie that AIDS was created at Fort Detrick.
  • Human beings-including scientists-are extraordinarily good at rationalizing away contradictory evidence, a tendency that underlies cult behavior, bad science, and persistent conspiracy beliefs alike.
  • Social media and bot networks have created a new landscape of information warfare, where foreign and domestic actors can manufacture outrage and confusion at scale.
  • John Lisle's archival work shows how much of MKUltra's story survived only because some boxes escaped destruction and a few lawyers preserved depositions outside formal court records.
  • The conversation argues that abuses being exposed is paradoxically a sign the system still works better than a world where press and Congress report no abuses at all.

Podcast Notes

Introduction and John Lisle's MKUltra Project

Opening and David Chase adaptation

Joe notes John is working with David Chase on a series about MKUltra based on John's book "Project MK-ULTRA: Sydney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MK-ULTRA" (title as described in conversation).[0:42]
Joe says he is endlessly fascinated with MKUltra and jumped at the chance to talk to the author before the series comes out.[0:33]
John emphasizes that the second half of his book focuses on MKUltra's consequences for society and its victims, and on the failures of oversight that allowed it to happen.[1:21]

Lack of accountability for MKUltra perpetrators

John explains that MKUltra victims launched multiple lawsuits against the CIA but got only small payments, while those who ran the program faced virtually no consequences.[1:32]
He frames part of his book as an examination of how such a program could operate with so little oversight inside a U.S. intelligence agency.[1:44]

John Lisle's Path into Intelligence and Mind Control History

Academic background and OSS connection

John says he studied history of science for his PhD at the University of Texas and wrote his dissertation on "science attachés"-scientists sent to U.S. embassies abroad with intelligence value.[2:17]
These attachés interested the CIA because they could talk to foreign scientists and quietly collect information on overseas research.[2:39]
Research on scientists in intelligence led him to Stanley Lovell and the OSS research and development branch in World War II.[3:09]

Stanley Lovell as prototype for Gottlieb

John explains that before the CIA there was the OSS, and Stanley Lovell ran its R&D branch, which invented weapons, disguises, forgeries, and conducted drug experiments, including "truth drugs."[3:27]
While researching Lovell, John found depositions in which Sidney Gottlieb described looking back at OSS files and Lovell's experiments when he was first assigned to run MKUltra and "didn't really know where to begin" on mind control.[3:50]
John sees a direct line from Lovell's work in the OSS to Gottlieb's MKUltra blueprint.[4:09]

Early Drug Experiments: THC, Truth Drugs, and World War II

OSS truth drug experiments with THC acetate

John notes that before LSD, OSS researchers experimented with THC acetate as a potential truth drug, injecting it into cigarettes for subjects to smoke.[4:57]
• The hypothesis was that THC would lower inhibitions and make captured agents more willing to talk during interrogation.
Joe laughs that they were basically giving people joints; John agrees they were essentially just getting people high.[5:03]
Harry Anslinger, the crusading anti-marijuana bureaucrat, sat on the World War II truth drug committee overseeing THC experiments, which John calls ironic.[5:23]

Impact of WWII-era drug experiments and Nazi parallels

John says OSS, Nazis (in concentration camps), and the British all conducted truth drug experiments during WWII.[5:20]
They mention methamphetamine use in the Nazi army and later postwar LSD experiments by both British and U.S. militaries.[9:57]
John describes a U.S. Army LSD experiment where two soldiers in a padded room hallucinated: one mimed smoking a cigarette and offering an imaginary pack to the other, who declined saying he couldn't take his "last one" despite seeing an empty hand.[11:05]
Joe comments that in the early era they genuinely didn't know what LSD would do and were gathering basic reaction data.[11:12]

THC experiment outcomes

John says THC did not make people tell the truth, but recordings showed subjects spoke about 40% more words per minute-just rambling about unrelated topics.[16:36]

CIA Schemes Against Castro and Bizarre Covert Plots

Using drugs to discredit foreign leaders

The CIA considered dosing Fidel Castro with LSD (e.g., via doctored cigars) before a public speech so he would seem insane and lose credibility.[11:43]
Joe notes the inconsistency that they tried to kill Castro as well, questioning why they would focus on LSD if they could poison his cigars.[12:05]

Non-lethal discrediting plots

John describes a plan to put thallium depilatory salts in Castro's shoes to make his beard fall out, undermining his masculine image.[12:21]
Another idea was to distribute fake photos of Castro surrounded by women with a caption like "My ration is different" to stoke public resentment that he enjoyed luxuries while Cubans suffered.[12:48]

Assassination schemes using scuba diving

CIA brainstormed planting a beautiful, booby-trapped shell on the ocean floor that would explode when Castro picked it up while diving.[13:26]
• They concluded they couldn't design a shell large and striking enough to guarantee he would approach it, so they dropped the idea.
Another plan was to gift Castro a scuba suit laced with poison or a disease-causing fungus, using a lawyer involved in Bay of Pigs prisoner negotiations as the courier, but that lawyer had already given Castro a suit.[14:11]
• Joe is incredulous that this was "the best they could do" given the stakes.

Structure of MKUltra and Drug Testing on Prisoners

MKUltra as an umbrella of subprojects

John explains MKUltra consisted of 149 documented subprojects under one umbrella name.[17:04]
These were farmed out to independent researchers at hospitals, prisons, and universities, often without them even knowing they were funded by the CIA.[17:11]

Lexington Narcotic Farm and Harris Isbell

A central MKUltra site was the Lexington Narcotic Farm, run by Dr. Harris Isbell, where addicts and prisoners were used as test subjects.[17:15]
Whenever Gottlieb had a new drug, he would send it to Isbell, who would administer it to inmates and send reaction reports back.[17:38]
Tested substances included psilocybin, LSD, heroin and many other compounds; the CIA saw heroin as a way to induce addiction in captured agents and then leverage withdrawal during interrogation.[17:45]
• Joe notes this heroin plan actually makes sense strategically, though it is obviously unethical.

Perverse incentives and heroin "rewards"

John describes the irony that Lexington was supposed to help people get off drugs, yet research subjects were rewarded with injections of heroin from a "drug bank" window or small parole benefits and cash.[18:43]
• Participants could choose between a favorable parole letter plus some money, or a direct heroin injection, incentivizing deeper involvement in experimentation.

Placebos, Hypnosis, and Psychological Manipulation Techniques

Power of the "truth drug" threat

John says an ironic finding was that simply telling a prisoner they would be given a powerful truth drug was often more effective than any drug itself.[20:42]
• Believing they had no control, subjects felt less responsible for divulging information and thus relaxed their resistance during interrogation.
Joe suggests giving them a sugar pill could be enough if the story around it is strong.[20:18]

The "hypnotic situation" and Martin Orne

Psychologist Martin Orne ran an MKUltra subproject and proposed the concept of a "hypnotic situation"-creating conditions where a person believes they are hypnotized, even if they are not.[21:26]
In one scenario, an interrogator pretends to hypnotize a subject and tells them their hands will grow warm; hidden heaters under the table warm their hands, convincing them the hypnotist has real power.[21:59]
• Once convinced they are hypnotized, subjects can rationalize talking by saying they "couldn't help it," similar to the truth-drug placebo effect.

Operation Midnight Climax and Domestic LSD Experiments

CIA dosing of its own staff

John says early MKUltra activities included dosing CIA office coffee pots with LSD to see how employees reacted, justified by fears the Soviets might contaminate a city's water supply.[26:14]
Joe notes that a notorious French town mass poisoning sparked CIA interest in hallucinogens after ergot-contaminated bread caused many hallucinations and deaths.[26:35]

Operation Midnight Climax and George White

Joe describes Operation Midnight Climax: CIA-run brothels with two-way mirrors where unsuspecting clients were dosed with LSD and observed.[27:17]
John explains that George White, a former OSS operative and Bureau of Narcotics officer, ran these operations and had been recruited by Gottlieb because of his prior experience dosing people during OSS truth-drug trials.[28:05]
White enjoyed his work, often dosing friends and acquaintances for amusement; some victims suffered severe, lifelong psychological damage after surprise LSD doses.[29:27]
• John recounts a case where White dosed two women at a dinner, one of whom had her one-year-old son present; one woman ended up institutionalized for life, plagued by paranoid delusions.

The Wayne Ritchie case

John tells the story of U.S. Marshal Wayne Ritchie, who drank punch at a federal building Christmas party in San Francisco, began hallucinating, and later attempted a bar robbery in a fog of confusion.[31:45]
• Ritchie believed a robbery would fund his girlfriend's move to New York; a patron knocked him out with a beer mug, police arrested him, and he lost his job and social standing.
Decades later, Ritchie read about MKUltra and George White in the Washington Post, realized the punch had likely been spiked with LSD, and discovered White's diary entry for that day: "Federal Building Christmas Party."[32:55]
Ritchie sued the CIA but lost because he couldn't conclusively prove he had been dosed, leaving him without legal redress.[33:37]
John quotes a letter George White sent to Gottlieb after Operation Midnight Climax, boasting that he "toiled in the vineyards" because it was "fun, fun, fun" and that the operation let him "lie, cheat, steal, rape and pillage" with official blessing.[1:00:34]

Ewen Cameron, Psychic Driving, and Canadian MKUltra Experiments

Who was Ewen Cameron?

John introduces psychiatrist Ewen Cameron at Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute, a leading behaviorist who believed personality was entirely shaped by environment (nurture).[29:51]
Cameron theorized that if you could reduce a person to a "blank slate" by inducing extreme stress, you could then rebuild their personality however you wanted.[30:33]

Psychic driving and stress induction

Cameron discovered "psychic driving" when a patient recoiled hearing a taped recording of herself recalling negative messages from her mother; he repeatedly replayed it, intensifying her distress.[31:51]
He developed a method of playing negative messages thousands of times through headphones, then later switching to positive scripted messages to "rebuild" the person.[32:31]
Joe asks if this was based on anything; John says it was essentially Cameron's own idea, not grounded in solid prior evidence.[33:23]

Chemical comas, sensory deprivation, and ECT

Once the CIA began funding Cameron (after reading about psychic driving), he expanded to placing patients into chemical comas for weeks or months while playing taped messages by their pillows.[34:47]
He also subjected patients to extended sensory deprivation with goggles, earmuffs, and cardboard tubes on arms to maximize stress and disorientation.[34:55]
Cameron used high-intensity electroshock as well, aiming to regress patients to an "infantile" state where they lost bladder control and basic self-care abilities.[35:39]

The case of Mary Morrow

John recounts the story of Mary Morrow, a doctor in training under Cameron who had administered shock treatments to others before suffering her own breakdown.[35:11]
• She became anorexic, failed exams, attempted suicide, and was admitted as a patient; Cameron persuaded her to return to Allan Memorial for treatment.
She believed she would avoid ECT because it required consent forms she had not signed, but Cameron had since dropped consent procedures and shocked her anyway.[36:31]
Post-treatment, she was babbling, incontinent, and unable to dress or apply makeup; her mother noticed her calls becoming more incoherent.[36:51]
Mary's sister eventually forced her way into the hospital, found Mary unrecognizing and "bug-eyed," and removed her after days of reorientation.[37:03]
Mary later attempted suicide again and, along with other former patients, sued the CIA in the 1980s for supporting Cameron's experiments.[37:37]

Lawsuits, Depositions, and Discovery of MKUltra Documentation

Canadian victims' lawsuit and settlement

John explains that the Canadian victims' suit against the CIA was settled out of court for $750,000 total, which shrank further after legal fees.[38:37]

Depositions as historical gold mine

As part of that case, lawyers deposed Sidney Gottlieb, Robert Lashbrook, CIA director Richard Helms, and many victims, producing thousands of pages of verbatim transcripts.[38:57]
The main plaintiffs' lawyer, Joseph Rauh (spelled in transcript as Rao), kept these materials; after his death they went to the Library of Congress, where John later found 823 pages of Gottlieb's testimony among them.[39:00]
John bases much of his book on these depositions, using perpetrators' and victims' own words to describe what happened.[39:08]

Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, and surviving MKUltra files

John outlines how the 1970s Rockefeller Commission and Church and Pike Committees first publicly revealed CIA drug experiments and abuses.[58:27]
Former State Department employee John Marks then filed a FOIA request for all documents on these experiments, prompting CIA archivist Frank Laubinger to discover six or seven boxes of MKUltra material that had escaped destruction.[58:31]
• Those boxes had been sent to the CIA records center years before Gottlieb and Helms ordered mass incineration of MKUltra files upon retirement.
These rediscovered files, released alongside committee hearings, provided detailed insight into MKUltra subprojects that would otherwise have been lost.[59:23]
John notes we still don't know exactly what was in the destroyed files; Gottlieb's secretary later said they included personal papers plus secret and "secret-sensitive" materials.[1:00:06]

Secrecy, Oversight Failures, and the Vicious Cycle of Intelligence Abuses

Impact of MKUltra on John's worldview

John describes himself as naturally skeptical but says learning about OSS and MKUltra expanded his sense of how far governments will go in secret.[1:03:08]
He recounts OSS "Operation Fantasia" as an example of absurd psychological warfare schemes that conditioned him to take even outlandish proposals seriously as historical facts.[1:04:05]

Operation Fantasia and glowing fox psywar

Ed Salinger, familiar with Japanese culture, proposed exploiting Shinto fox-spirit myths (kitsune) by creating glowing foxes as omens of doom to demoralize Japanese soldiers.[1:05:05]
Plans included fox-sound whistles, artificial fox odors, and eventually capturing foxes, painting them with radioactive luminescent paint, and dropping them off Japan's coast.[1:05:01]
Tests showed raccoon fur held the paint, and painted foxes could swim ashore from Chesapeake Bay, but the paint washed off by landfall.[1:05:30]
Salinger then proposed taxidermied glowing foxes fitted with human skulls and loudspeakers, lifted by balloons over Japan to broadcast propaganda, but the concept was abandoned once the atomic bomb tests succeeded.[1:05:51]

Congressional apathy and lack of external checks

John describes how, during the Cold War, Congress often refused to even hear about CIA operations; one senator told a CIA officer not to tell him what they were doing in Chile.[1:14:49]
He argues that checks and balances only work if legislative branches are both empowered and willing to exercise oversight.[1:15:03]

The vicious cycle of secrecy

John articulates a "vicious cycle of secrecy": secrecy creates plausible deniability; plausible deniability encourages reckless behavior; reckless behavior leads to embarrassing revelations; embarrassment prompts demands for even more secrecy.[1:18:06]
He notes the CIA's "family jewels"-a compendium of past illegal acts-eventually leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh, exemplifying how secrecy-fueled excesses ultimately surface.[1:18:37]

Internal oversight and inspectors general

John highlights that CIA inspectors general, such as Lyman Kirkpatrick and John Ehrman, knew MKUltra activities were "illegal and unethical" but failed to stop them.[1:22:56]
Kirkpatrick later admitted he feared losing his job if he pushed too hard, illustrating how internal watchdogs were deterred by career risk.[1:23:13]
Gottlieb and Helms later ordered destruction of MKUltra files in violation of CIA regulations but suffered no repercussions, showing internal control breakdowns.[1:23:41]

Gottlieb's justifications for file destruction

In depositions, Gottlieb initially claimed the CIA was "drowning in paper" and needed to destroy files for space, which John and Rauh considered an obvious pretext.[1:24:33]
He then argued destroying records was necessary to protect "sources and methods," which Rauh challenged by pointing out the files were already secret.[1:25:08]
Pressed further, Gottlieb finally admitted he was embarrassed by what MKUltra had done and by how little scientific value had been gained for the lives and money spent.[1:25:24]

U.S. Politics, Incentive Structures, and Corruption

Congressional dysfunction and re-election incentives

Joe and John discuss how congressional approval ratings are very low while incumbency re-election rates are very high, pointing to structural issues.[1:07:13]
John notes that in heavily partisan districts, the real contest is the primary, which rewards the most ideologically extreme candidates since the general election is essentially predetermined.[1:07:43]
They suggest electoral reforms such as open primaries, ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and ending gerrymandering might incentivize better candidates and behavior.[1:08:25]

Financial incentives and insider trading

Joe complains about members of Congress becoming extremely wealthy on modest official salaries, raising questions about insider trading and corruption.[1:10:16]
He argues that when officials worth hundreds of millions still serve in Congress, it's unlikely they are purely motivated by public service.[1:10:21]

Perverse incentives not to solve issues

Joe recounts Representative Luna's claim that many politicians do not really want to solve polarizing issues because they fundraise off of them.[1:11:38]
He describes hot-button topics like abortion, guns, and immigration as "beach balls" kept aloft for perpetual campaigning rather than resolution.[1:13:17]

Real Conspiracies: CIA and Drug Trafficking Examples

Barry Seal and Mena, Arkansas allegations

Joe summarizes allegations around pilot Barry Seal, depicted in a Tom Cruise film, who allegedly flew cocaine into Mena, Arkansas with protection from political figures.[1:16:55]
He recounts a story of two teens who reportedly witnessed a drug drop and were later killed, initially ruled accidental deaths before a private autopsy found stab wounds.[1:17:04]

Freeway Rick Ross and CIA-linked cocaine

Joe describes how drug dealer "Freeway" Rick Ross, later a podcast guest, unknowingly bought cocaine sourced from CIA-linked networks and was prosecuted, while proceeds funded covert operations.[1:18:26]
Ross learned to read in prison, studied his own case, and discovered misuse of the three-strikes law, ultimately winning release and later legally selling cannabis.[1:19:27]
John notes that CIA domestic actions like MKUltra were themselves violations of the agency's charter, which forbids operating inside the U.S.[1:20:08]

Liberty vs Security, Press Exposés, and Independent Media

Daniel Schorr and the liberty-security pendulum

John cites journalist Daniel Schorr's idea of a pendulum swinging between security and liberty, where extreme security would mean police in every bedroom and extreme liberty means little security.[1:29:17]
He argues you don't actually want the pendulum to stop; you want ongoing tension and regular exposure of abuses as a sign the system still works.[1:30:14]
John warns that a day when press and Congress only praise those in power and report no abuses would signal a loss of liberty, not utopia.[1:30:23]

Rise of independent journalism and social media

Joe observes that many major investigative stories now originate with independent journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, not legacy outlets.[1:31:03]
He notes that some independent reporters left mainstream organizations after encountering ideological red lines and now publish directly via online platforms.[1:32:22]
They discuss how social media both enables rapid dissemination of evidence-backed threads and simultaneously amplifies hoaxes, requiring new literacy skills.[1:32:32]

False Memories, Satanic Panic, and Disinformation

Satanic panic and recovered memory methods

John links some extreme MKUltra claims (e.g., ritual abuse, holographic lizard illusions, fetus-eating) to techniques used during the 1980s satanic panic, especially "recovered memories" via hypnosis.[1:56:41]
He cites psychiatrist Bennett Braun, who lost his medical license and paid $10 million to a patient he had convinced she committed cannibalism and infanticide via suggestive therapy.[1:57:23]
John notes that a prominent MKUltra conspiracy claimant's husband said he learned his memory-recovery techniques directly from Braun and the same professional society that fueled satanic ritual abuse narratives.[1:57:31]

Hypnotic regression and UFO abductions

Joe discusses John Mack's book on alien abductions, built on hypnotic regression, and raises concerns about leading questions shaping subjects' stories.[1:58:51]
He notes that the widely publicized Betty and Barney Hill abduction narrative may have seeded cultural expectations that then appeared in later hypnotic sessions with other people.[1:59:41]

Historical witch crazes and suggestion

John compares this dynamic to European witch crazes, where preachers talking about demons and witches were followed by bursts of accusations and alleged possessions in the communities they visited.[2:00:15]
They mention early printing press bestsellers about spotting witches, showing sensational beliefs were mass distributed from the outset of print culture.[2:00:49]

Human Memory, Cognitive Dissonance, and Scientific Paradigms

Leon Festinger and When Prophecy Fails

John recounts Leon Festinger's study of the "Seekers" cult, which predicted a specific date for a world-ending flood and promised rescue by a spaceship.[1:39:36]
When nothing happened, some members left, but those who had sacrificed the most rationalized the failure by claiming their intense belief convinced God to spare the world.[1:40:48]
Festinger coined "cognitive dissonance" to describe holding contradictory beliefs-e.g., "our prophecy is divinely true" and "the world did not end"-and resolving it through powerful rationalization.[1:40:54]

Non-falsifiable beliefs and the "Last Thursday" example

John uses the idea that God created the universe "last Thursday" with full memories intact as an example of a non-falsifiable belief: no evidence can disprove it, but that doesn't make it true.[1:41:22]

Thomas Kuhn and scientific revolutions

John summarizes Kuhn's view that scientists work within paradigms, doing "normal science" by solving puzzles that confirm the paradigm's predictions.[1:42:34]
Anomalies-observations that don't fit predictions-are usually ignored or rationalized until they accumulate to crisis levels, opening space for a new paradigm that explains both old successes and anomalies.[1:43:33]
He argues Kuhn essentially described cognitive dissonance in scientists: their stubbornness in defending a paradigm is actually part of how science ultimately progresses.[1:44:12]

Cult Dynamics and Mind Control in Practice

Stephen Hassan's BITE model

John references Stephen Hassan's BITE model (Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotion) as a realistic framework for understanding mind control in cults rather than sci-fi "Manchurian Candidate" scenarios.[1:48:10]
He notes behavior control (restricting movement, sleep), information control (limiting outside news and teaching distrust), thought control (mantras, us-vs-them thinking), and emotion control (guilt, fear, loyalty) work together to shape members' actions.[1:48:20]

The Austin cult and "Holy Hell"

Joe describes the Austin-based cult featured in the documentary "Holy Hell," led by a former gay porn star and hypnotist who became a yoga guru.[1:49:49]
The leader created a ceremony called "the knowing" where, after long preparation and selective granting, he would touch followers and they experienced powerful, seemingly psychedelic spiritual experiences.[1:50:22]
Even members who later denounced his sexual abuse and manipulation still described the "knowing" as the single most profound moment of their lives, illustrating the potency of expectation and suggestion.[1:51:41]
Joe notes the common cult arc in documentaries: an initially idyllic community and shared purpose that eventually devolves into one leader exploiting members sexually and financially.[1:52:19]

Disinformation, AIDS Lab Myths, and Censorship by Noise

KGB disinformation linking AIDS to Fort Detrick

John explains a Soviet-backed newspaper in India, The Patriot, published a story claiming AIDS was created at Fort Detrick, embedding that lie among true accounts of U.S. drug and germ experiments.[1:57:11]
Other front papers around the world repeated the story and cited each other as independent confirmation, creating a false sense of consensus.[1:57:15]
He calls this tactic "censorship through noise"-flooding the information space with mixed true and false claims so people don't know what to believe.[1:57:55]

Bots, Information Overload, and Modern Psychological Stress

Social media bots and manipulation

Joe mentions analyses suggesting a high percentage of Twitter activity may be bots or paid operators, used by governments, NGOs, and political groups to manufacture apparent consensus or outrage.[2:02:05]
They reference the Russian Internet Research Agency, where young employees managed multiple fake profiles to amplify divisive content and each other's posts.[2:02:41]
Joe recalls work by Renee DiResta describing how Russian operators organized opposing protests in the U.S., like Texas separatist rallies across from Muslim gatherings, specifically to generate conflict.[2:03:56]

Psychological impact of global constant bad news

John notes that in a globalized, networked world, people are constantly exposed to the worst events happening anywhere, which likely harms mental health even though similar bad events always occurred historically.[2:04:59]
Joe argues that the internet, despite its psychological downsides, is preferable to a world where governments fully control the narrative, but people must find ways to avoid being overwhelmed by "psychological hail."[2:05:36]

Historian's Craft: Tracking Sources, Quotes, and Missing Pages

Chasing a misattributed Donovan quote

John details how he chased a colorful quote about OSS chief William Donovan through multiple books, each citing another, only to discover it was originally about OSS personnel in general, not Donovan specifically.[2:16:05]
He eventually traced it to Sterling Hayden's memoir, realizing later authors had altered the quote and subject, and notes that dozens of books repeated the distorted version.[2:16:49]

Finding missing interview pages with Vannevar Bush

For his first book, John sought thousand-page interview transcripts of science administrator Vannevar Bush; all pages were available except the two about Stanley Lovell and the OSS.[2:19:28]
He eventually found another archive copy at a different institution that contained the missing pages, a coincidence he calls crucial to his narrative.[2:20:05]

Stumbling upon a biological warfare meeting record

John also discovered he had previously photographed the minutes of a biological warfare committee meeting mentioned in Lovell's memoir, but only realized it while re-examining his old digital images.[2:21:09]
He says the detective-like archival hunt is one of the most exciting parts of doing history, even though readers usually only see the finished narrative.[2:21:58]

Bat Bombs, Incapacitating Agents, and Speculative Weapons

The WWII bat bomb project

John recounts the OSS bat bomb project: attaching tiny napalm charges to chilled bats to have them roost in Japanese buildings and ignite widespread fires.[2:36:06]
Napalm inventor Louis Fieser (spelled "Pfizer" in the conversation) developed miniature incendiaries; tests showed over-chilled bats simply crashed to the desert floor when dropped from planes.[2:36:34]
In one test a bat woke early, flew into a control tower, and burned it down, proving the concept's destructive potential but also its unpredictability.[2:37:06]
The project was ultimately shelved as the atomic bomb rendered such schemes unnecessary.[2:37:52]

Nerve agents and "war without death"

John notes that military researcher Luther Green worked on nerve agents and wanted a compound that incapacitated like them without killing, to enable "war without death."[2:38:26]
Gottlieb saw LSD as a possible mass incapacitant that could neutralize an enemy army so U.S. forces could capture rather than kill them.[2:38:38]

Closing Reflections on MKUltra, Psychology, and the Book

Human rationalization and autobiographical memory

John reflects that even his own narrative about how he came to this topic may be a convenient reconstruction rather than a perfectly accurate memory.[2:39:06]
Joe describes rewatching an old sitcom episode he acted in and realizing he had no memory of filming it, underscoring how fallible personal memory is.[2:39:56]

Book formats and narration

Joe asks about an audiobook; John confirms one exists and notes the same professional narrator voiced both his books, providing continuity.[2:39:53]

Final thoughts

Joe praises the depth of John's research, expresses excitement for the future David Chase series, and suggests they revisit the topic when the show is released.[2:39:38]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Secrecy without meaningful oversight creates a vicious cycle: it enables plausible deniability, which invites reckless behavior, which leads to scandal, which then justifies even more secrecy. Durable systems require both internal watchdogs who can act without fear of retaliation and external checks that are actually willing to look behind the curtain.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your organization or life do you rely on secrecy or informal practices that no one else can see, and how might that be encouraging riskier decisions than you'd make under scrutiny?
  • • How could you design a simple external check or feedback loop for a sensitive project you're involved in so that someone trusted can challenge your assumptions before problems escalate?
  • • What specific step could you take this month to make one opaque process more transparent to stakeholders who are affected by its outcomes?
2

Human beings are extraordinarily good at rationalizing away contradictory evidence-whether in cults, politics, or science-so you have to build explicit mechanisms that force you to confront anomalies instead of explaining them away. Progress often comes from the discomfort of facing evidence that your current paradigm or story might be wrong.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What is one belief you currently hold strongly where you've been ignoring or minimizing data points that don't quite fit?
  • • How might you deliberately expose yourself to intelligent critics of your position and structure a way to engage with their arguments without becoming defensive?
  • • What regular practice (for example, a quarterly "assumption review") could you adopt to re-examine the foundations of your key decisions or strategies?
3

The most effective tools of influence are often psychological frames and expectations, not exotic technologies: convincing someone they've been drugged or hypnotized can lower resistance more than any chemical. In everyday life, narratives you accept about what is possible or inevitable can shape your behavior as powerfully as direct constraints.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What stories about yourself or your environment do you currently accept as "just the way things are" that might actually be suggestions you've absorbed from others?
  • • In your current negotiations or leadership roles, how could you use framing and expectation-setting more consciously instead of defaulting to trying to push harder on people?
  • • When you feel stuck, how might you experiment with changing the story you tell yourself about the situation to see if your options open up?
4

Information environments can be weaponized by mixing truths with lies and flooding the space with noise, making it hard to distinguish reality from fiction. Modern literacy means tracing sources, checking provenance, and being comfortable saying "I don't know" rather than latching onto the most emotionally satisfying narrative.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What are the main information sources you rely on today, and how often do you actually trace a striking claim back to its original context or data?
  • • How could you create a simple personal protocol-for example, a short checklist-you follow before sharing or acting on a piece of sensational information?
  • • Which topic that you care about is most vulnerable to disinformation, and what could you do this week to map out trusted primary sources on that issue?
5

Structural incentives shape behavior more reliably than good intentions: from MKUltra scientists diffusing responsibility through cut-outs to politicians fundraising off unsolved problems, systems tend to get what they reward. If you want different outcomes, you have to redesign the incentives, not just replace the people.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Looking at a recurring problem in your team or community, what behaviors are currently being rewarded (or not punished) that keep that problem alive?
  • • How might you tweak compensation, recognition, or decision rights so that people are nudged toward the long-term outcomes you actually value?
  • • What is one small incentive change you could implement in the next month to better align everyday behavior with your stated goals?
6

Rigor in how you handle evidence-chasing original sources, checking chains of citation, and being explicit about uncertainty-is a competitive advantage in a world saturated with rumors and partial truths. Treating yourself like a historian or investigator, even in business or personal decisions, can dramatically improve the quality of your conclusions.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In the last major decision you made, how many of your key "facts" came from second- or third-hand sources that you didn't independently verify?
  • • What would it look like to adopt a historian's mindset on one important project-carefully documenting where each claim comes from and what level of confidence you have in it?
  • • Which current belief or plan in your life most deserves a deliberate source-tracing exercise over the next week, and what's the first step to start that?

Episode Summary - Notes by Sawyer

#2419 - John Lisle
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