489: A Man Can Be Made To Do Exactly Anything. The Dark Truth About Brainwashing.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jocko Podcast 489 explores the power of thought control, the vulnerability of the human mind, and historical brainwashing techniques. Jocko and Echo discuss a declassified 1956 CIA document on psychological manipulation, drawing from Korean War POW cases and Soviet tactics to show how beliefs and values can be deeply altered. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 489 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:05Jocko Willink?

  So, how much do you control your own thoughts? Let me ask you that question.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Me?

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, you're trying to, you're trying to form your mind, form your brain in a certain way, right? Well, let me ask you this, when you're making a cake or you're making a loaf of bread, do you think that the ingredients matter?

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:28Jocko Willink?

  Like what you put into the bread is gonna make it taste a certain way?

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably.

• 0:33Jocko Willink?

  So, we have to be careful with what we put in there? And we have to be careful with what we put into our brains.

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  But how much do you actually pay attention to that?

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  What do you think? You paying close attention to what you put in your brain?

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Me?

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you, Echo Charles.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  You paying attention?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  I believe that I am. How about that?

• 0:55Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  Let me tell you that if you're not careful, you can be manipulated.

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  And, and, do you think you can be manipulated?

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Me?

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes. You think you can be manipulated? So good. But you can be manipulated to your core. Your, your beliefs can be changed, your values can be changed.

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  What you believe to be the truth can be changed and made false. And what you believe to be false can be changed and made true in your head. Now, usually when I, when I start thinking about that right there, I start thinking, okay, well, that seems a little bit extreme. And most people start to think, well, no, you know, I got my beliefs, I got my values.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  But I think it's very important to understand how malleable our minds are as human beings. And today, we're going to just dive into, I think, a very good description and example of how malleable our minds are. And this is a CIA document that was written in 1956. It's called Brainwashing: From a Psychological Viewpoint. And it, obviously, the timeframe, 1956, it's based on, much of it is based on prisoner, prisoners of war from the Korean War.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  And also on reports that were coming out of the Soviet Union and their prison camps and their gulags. And it is very enlightening to recognize how

• 2:35Jocko Willink?

  malleable our brains are. In fact,

• 2:39Jocko Willink?

  when you look at, you can look at like the life in Communist North Korea versus the life in South Korea and you've seen those, that that wide variation when you look at those two countries, right? Real obvious which one seems better, right? Seems like the South Korea is a much better way to go.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Seems like it.

• 3:04Jocko Willink?

  Right? Well, it's been that way for a long time. And during that war, and I don't quote me on these numbers, but there was a lot of prisoners of war taken by coalition forces, by the South, by the United States, by the, by us. And something like 60,000 of them didn't want to go back home because that's part of the Geneva Convention, or, or the laws of war is that when the war is over, you get to go back to your country, you know, if you're a prisoner of war. Well, about 60,000 of them were like, no, no, no, no, no, we're good. We're good. We'll stay right here.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Live here.

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  Yep. We'll, we'll stay here now. 50,000 of them went back, something like that. Well, what's a little bit harder to believe. So you can see that clearly it was real obvious to anyone that was even in a prison camp, under the coalition, under the Western coalition,

• 3:59Jocko Willink?

  the Democratic coalition, they were like, oh yeah, this is a better deal. Even though I'm in a prison camp, this is better. Well, of all the people that were captured in the North, there's like 20 Americans that said, I'm, I'm not going back. I'll stay.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  So that's one of the things that kind of sparked my interest a long time ago is thinking, wow, you got people that clearly are from Illinois, or North Carolina, or California, or Texas. They grew up there for 18, 20, 25, 30 years. They lived in freedom. And they got up to a prison camp in North Korea and were somehow convinced, oh, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick it out here.

• 4:48Jocko Willink?

  That's the power of what the CIA called brainwashing. So let's get into it.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  Again, the book is called Brainwashing From A Psychological Viewpoint. It's written in February 1956 and it was approved for release in 1999. So it's classified, it was classified secret back in the day. But the opening quote.

• 5:14Jocko Willink?

  Here's the opening quote. It says, and pay close attention. It says, "We know now that men can be made to do exactly anything. It is all a question of finding the right means. If we only take enough trouble and go sufficiently slowly, we can make him kill his aged parents and eat them in a stew." End quote.

• 5:44Jocko Willink?

  Now that's from a book called Verdune, written in 1939 by a guy named Jules Romaines. But that's what the CIA is saying. If you have enough time and you enact the right measures, you can make someone do anything. You can make a man do anything you want them to do, including eating, killing their own parents and eating them in a stew.

• 6:10Jocko Willink?

  So this is why it's very important that we protect our mind and we pay attention to what we're, what we're taking into our mind because there's powerful

• 6:22Jocko Willink?

  sources out there that are trying to manipulate us. All right, here's the foreword. "Brainwashing as a term was originated by a reporter who is interviewing Chinese refugees. It has gained a worldwide currency and has been applied to a wide range of techniques, mass education of communistic country or citizens, though fault control in Soviet and satellite countries, techniques of eliciting information as well as in intensive, individualized re-education of beliefs of a few selected individuals."

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  Such uncritical use of the term has done nothing to reduce the impact of on the public and officialdom generally of the confessions of such men as Cardinal Medenci and especially of the results of treatment of prisoners of war by Chinese communists. So this guy, Cardinal Mzenti, Minzenti, he was a Hungarian guy, he was a Catholic, and when the communists took over, he was forced to make like confessions to his crimes and whatnot. So they use him as an example in here. So it says the term itself, the term brainwashing, the term itself is anxiety producing. It's connotation of special oriental

• 7:39Jocko Willink?

  knowledge of drugs, hypnosis, and other exotic and devious means of controlling human behavior creates credulity among the uninformed. Meaning that it makes us willing to accept like this mysterious thing that can control us. A more prosaic view is that the techniques used in producing confessions and conversions are readily understandable in terms of ordinary psychological principles and have been used especially by police states for centuries. So when this term came about, it was, it was like, oh my gosh, this is a, this is this new thing and they, the communists have

• 8:21Jocko Willink?

  this figured out the drugs and, and hypnosis and all these weird things if they're getting mind control. And what this document says is like, no, actually it's not, it's not a big mystery. It's psycho, ordinary psychological, psychological principles that had been being used for a long time. And as we start talking about, and we're going to start to recognize some of them. It is now clear that the Russian methods of obtaining information and confessions have been developed by MVD. So the MVD was like their ministry of internal affairs and I'm not going to try and say the Russian words for it, but the MVD, it was in charge of like law enforcement, it was in charge of prisons, it was also in charge of things like traffic safety and it was in charge of the gulags.

• 9:07Jocko Willink?

  It was in charge of internal migration, like moving around. So it had a huge amount of control over the country. And their method of obtaining information and confessions have been developed and earlier versions of this organization over the century, but especially during the last 35 years of systemic effort to elicit information or confessions. The Chinese have their own tradition of tolerance for brutality. They are influenced by the Russians, but place more emphasis on converting the prisoner to communistic beliefs, at times behaving as typical eager beaver revolutionaries. In sum, the methods are police methods developed

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  by trial and error to suit the needs of the police state. No scientists, no drugs, no hypnosis, no hypnosis, no new psychological principles have as yet been involved. So you had two different things that was going on. You had the Russians that were trying to get confessions. And they were trying to get confessions for propaganda. But the Chinese were trying to straight up like convert you into their belief system.

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  Early in the review of the diverse information cataloged under the term brainwashing, even in serious scientific articles, it became evident there was a need for a better coordination of the work on this topic and more work directed at specific problems and issues. It was therefore concluded that this list limited effort was best devoted to, one, clarifying the concepts connoted by the term brainwashing, and two, relating these to such basic psychological principles as learning, perception, and motivation, and three, specifically discussing the brainwashed person as an involuntary reeducated person. This is like horrifying, isn't it?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  That you can be changed.

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  And it goes right into it. All people are being read, reeducated continuously. Yeah, I mean, if that, that is so true today with that damn phone that's in your pocket.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  That's ready to just re-educate you. As soon as you get 30 seconds of time, you're gonna go a little bit of re-education.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:27Jocko Willink?

  From your social media.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but just, just, and it feels like, it feels like everyone would kind of know that if you present it to them like, hey, you realize this? You know, given what that means, since you realize this going on, most people would be like, yeah, but not as much to me kind of a thing. But at the same time, it makes you think of what are the things that are capable of re-educating you, you know? And you're like, holy shit, they're everywhere.

• 11:52Jocko Willink?

  And one of the things that I think, as I was reading this document, is, okay, like if I said, okay, Echo Charles, I'm gonna take you, I'm gonna put you into a prison camp and we're gonna go through what I'm gonna do to you. You're gonna come out the other side with a changed personality. Everyone would accept that, right? Everyone, well, most people go, oh yeah, you know, I could see how my beliefs could get changed. Some people are like, no, I'm firm in my beliefs. You couldn't change me. But that's a small percentage of people, we could probably convince them. But what we don't know is what are the long-term effects of what we're living in right now?

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:24Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, they put a red dye number five in, in drinks, right? And for a long time, it's like, oh, well, we don't really, you know, it's just gonna make the liquid turn red, but, but there's bad health effects over time where you go, oh, actually, this is really bad for you. That's where we're at right now with social media, with staring at screens, with the music that you're listening to. Like, how much did the music that you're listening to get into your head? Because for me, I always kind of separated the lyrics of the music that I was listening to. If it was a good lyric that I agreed with, I'd bring it on board. And it would be, what's that bias, uh, confirmation bias, right? Like, I think

• 13:07Jocko Willink?

  discipline is cool. So when I hear Henry Rollins singing about discipline, I'm putting that into my register.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, letting it in.

• 13:16Jocko Willink?

  But when I hear some other song that I like the song, but I don't like what they're singing about, I could just let it go, no factor.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:24Jocko Willink?

  So, but, but is that always true, right? And?

• 13:30Jocko Willink?

  How much control do you have? And if you're not paying attention to it, where does it impact you? So we are constantly being reeducated all the time.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  It feels like just, shoot, it's all different levels too. So like even just the fact that you're conscious of like, hey, I, I take on board lyrics of the song into my own like value system or whatever you're taking on to. Versus some I don't, just the fact that you're conscious of making that differentiation is, is kind of part of the process in a big way. So, you know, some people if, or I don't, I mean, I'm assuming some people, they don't even make that distinction. They're just like, oh no, I like listening to it and I'll sing along with their lyrics or whatever. Maybe, yeah, I listen to what they're saying, but like, I don't. The decision is not consciously made to take it on board versus reject it, you know, kind of a thing.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  And then that may influence them or that, that'll make the music that they listen to, whatever it may be, influence them in a very specific way. Versus you, it influences you in, it still influences you, but in a different way. See what I'm saying? So now you have this filter that kind of makes the music land on your brain, just in a different pattern, in a different way. Versus this way over here.

• 14:42Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And maybe, you know, my conscious choice was like, I want to be that way. And also I think people are, they have some kind of inherent like taste in music. Or there's, when I heard like hardcore music for the first time, I was like, oh yeah, this is what I've been looking for. Here it is. You know, it's, oh, this is, yeah. When I heard Black Sabbath for the first time, I was like, oh yeah, this is why, this is why, this is the music that is in my head. You know? Yeah. Whereas other music, it was like, oh, well, I, I'm, you know, I was like a Beatles fan when I was a little kid. And, you know, I really liked the Beatles. I mean, the Beatles is the Beatles.

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  But it's, but it was like, it was not quite delivering what I wanted, but I didn't know it yet.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 15:31Jocko Willink?

  But then when I heard heavier music, I was said to myself, oh, this is what I've wanted to hear. But then there's, you can take that to an extent where there's music that now that's even harder than that, which I don't really like. So.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's like it has to kind of thread the needle of that perfect like zone like Beatles. You were getting some good stuff, but not quite enough. And then.

• 15:53Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever heard the things where they say what such and such a band sounds like to someone that's never heard them before?

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's that too.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Bro, I've listened to that. I've seen videos like that and it's a song that I've heard many, many times. But watching someone listen to it for the first time makes me hear it a different way. Which is weird, which kind of is another one of those ingredients where it's like, bro, you don't know how sit stuff is landing on you to the full extent that it is, you know?

• 16:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, music is can be so persuasive, even you know, if you're in your mood.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like you can get fired up for music.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Bro, you can get all kinds of things.

• 16:31Jocko Willink?

  So what are you putting in your head? Like we like, we can all admit that if we hear a freaking kick ass song, it will elevate our mood, right? We either good, like good party song or or a good like heavy metal, like rock and roll workout song. Like we know that it can change our mood. So now when you start thinking about what that does over time and what you're so it's we know it, we know it'll have an immediate reaction. But what is it doing over time? And yeah, that's.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this about music in general. So this dawned upon me a few years ago where

• 17:09Speaker 01

  do you ever like when you hear a new song that you really like, a new one, you really like? Do you play it over and over again? Like on repeat or you just like, oh, put that on the playlist and hell yeah, it's part of the rotation.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  A little bit of both. It has to be a really good song for me to go, wait a second.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:28Jocko Willink?

  Because when you hear a song for the first time, you're not, you don't quite have it, but there'll be like one little thing that'll catch you. And then you listen to it again and it starts to build. So you have to kind of listen to a song for me. I don't know about you, for me, generally speaking, I have to listen to a song, maybe three or four times before I go, oh yeah, I get this song.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Well, see, I mine is the exact opposite where to me, I you know how people will be like, oh, you know how some people, they just love music. Let music, you know, they just love the idea of music. And then within that, there's certain music that they like better than others for sure. But they love music, right? So it I realized to myself is where I'm currently at where I do love music, but in this in a real contrasty way, because there's certain types of music and certain songs that I would literally rather listen to nothing, like turn the thing off completely. And then there's there's certain songs that, yeah, the moment I hear there is a specific amount of songs that I can think of that are, when I first heard it, I just put it on

• 18:27Speaker 01

  repeat for like weeks, just that song, to the point where now.

• 18:32Jocko Willink?

  Why is that different from what I said?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 18:37Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  No, you said you had to listen to it three or four times, like all this stuff like, yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess randomly, that's that's way more rare to me where I'll be like, wait, this song is actually sounding good.

• 18:46Jocko Willink?

  So you listen to one song on repeat for weeks?

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, on it's almost like I like this song more than the person intended on me liking this song, because I'll literally reject the rest of the songs that I like on my playlist or whatever for this song for like weeks.

• 19:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  And.

• 19:02Jocko Willink?

  What's the last song that happened with?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Actually, what's currently actually, I it's not on repeat anymore, but it's on kind of repeat with some other ones. There's a song called Loading by Central C. It's a British rapper, dude.

• 19:18Jocko Willink?

  It's called Loading?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Loading.

• 19:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  And, bro, I listened to it on the way down here today.

• 19:23Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Every single day.

• 19:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  On repeat that and yeah, I don't know that it would be your jam, but it's good.

• 19:28Jocko Willink?

  What uh what emotional trigger, what emotion does it get you in?

• 19:34Speaker 01

  That particular one?

• 19:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  I don't know, just, I don't know, that's like a real general one.

• 19:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  So it's not like, you know, some songs will make you feel like sad and you like feeling sad, you know, that's true. And then some makes you feel fired up and aggressive, you know, and you like, it's like that, but this one's a real general, like, it's kind of a kind of a faster paced one, but it's like, it's not like aggressive and angry or nothing. It's just, I don't know, good times, I guess. Yeah, but it's not even good times that that, you know, like good times is like little party songs or something like that.

• 20:02Jocko Willink?

  Loading.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:04Jocko Willink?

  What's it about?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  I don't know himself, whatever, any of these rap songs.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Just himself, what he's about, you know, what is that, how he is, you know, young guy or whatever. Just some fun rap songs.

• 20:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  He has a couple of them that are good, but that one in particular for sure.

• 20:21Jocko Willink?

  And so you're saying that you will go and get into one song for an extended period of time?

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's almost like certain kind of music I like more than the normal, you know, like abnormally. A lot. And then some like the straight up hate. Like I'd rather listen to literal silence than play these songs. And there's a lot of those too.

• 20:42Jocko Willink?

  But to get back to the subject here, what we're talking about is we know, both of us know a hundred percent that just a music, musical sounds will impact the way we feel. And, and then we could go a little bit further and go, maybe they impact how we're thinking.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Yes. And I do, no, you're absolutely right. And, and if you pay attention, so especially, okay, you like blues or okay, so there's blues, the kind of the genre or whatever, but then there's like sad songs.

• 21:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Right. Which not necessarily are blues, but you know, like sad love songs, breakup songs, like the, you know, like there's songs that are sad. Songs that are happy, some of the songs that are aggressive, some are violent, you know, all this stuff. Some that have principles, you know, like all this stuff.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Some sad songs are really good and they make you feel like sad.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Right? Okay. So here's one to look into.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Black guy, country singer. I think his name is Dax, maybe.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  No, I just discovered this like two weeks ago, maybe. And he has a song called Lonely Dirt Road, I think, if I'm not mistaken, something along the lines of.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Black guy, like you look at him, you're like, oh, you wouldn't think, but it's, it's country. So anyway, good song, like it's fucking pretty solid. And then, but it's, it's really like, um, and this is what the song is about too. It's like, you know how like as, as a, you know, as a man, as a provider, as the leader of the family or whatever. You can't, you have no time to feel sorry for yourself, you know, you, cause you got to work to do and all this stuff or whatever. But at the same time, this is just what it's kind of about where sometimes you do kind of feel sorry for yourself a little bit, but you can't let nobody see that, you know? So it's kind of like this lonely dirt road is the part where you can get all that out, kind of an idea, right? So it's like, okay, you know, it's a good song, but you listen to the lyrics and you start like,

• 22:27Speaker 01

  you start forcing the dots to be created, you know, like, oh yeah, I feel that too, even though when you really like detach from you're like, no, I don't.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  But when you're into the song, you're kind of like, yeah, man, I feel this guy. I feel this guy's struggle. Like it's kind of my struggle too, a little bit. You kind of get, how much you feel it, that's depends on the day. But I'm just saying it has literally has that influence. He can, he's singing about a situation that you can literally not be in. But you feel like you're kind of in that situation too, sometimes, you know? So how much is that? How much of that is going on?

• 22:58Jocko Willink?

  Such good examples of the malleability of the mind. And you remember Red Dawn?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  So when he, when the dad's like in the internment camp and there's just loudspeakers playing and they're just going off on communist propaganda.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:14Jocko Willink?

  I like that scene.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  And you know, you, you know, some people like you, you'd fight against that for a long time, but then you think, well, man, how long does it take?

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:26Jocko Willink?

  All right. So again, all people are being reeducated continually, continuously. New information changes one's beliefs. Everyone has experienced some degree of conflict that ensues when new information is not consistent with a prior belief, especially a basic one concerned with such problems as religion, uh, sex mora, mores and political ideology. This is a normal experience. Most individuals are able to resolve the conflict by one means or another. Many do so by integrating the new with the old. So, okay, they're just kind of laying out that, yeah, we, we have new ideas and we go, oh yeah, I've never really heard that before. I didn't think about it. It's a good point.

• 24:05Jocko Willink?

  And you kind of integrate them in. You find a way to make them fit or they don't fit and you kind of reject them.

• 24:14Jocko Willink?

  The experience of being brainwashed in our sense differs in that the inconsistent information is forced upon him under relatively controlled conditions after the possibility of critical judgment has been reduced or removed by such measures as production of excessive fatigue, isolation, deprivation of various sorts, and sometimes physical torture. When reduced to extreme dependency and confusion, the individual is ready to react favorable to any person or idea which promises to end his painfully confused state. At this point, the re-education begins, as described in the analysis of control pressures.

• 24:59Jocko Willink?

  So, again, so important to think about this, not just in the idea of being in a prison camp, but when you take people and they're tired because they're working all the time, or they're isolated because their girlfriend dumped them, or their boyfriend dumped them. There's deprivation of various sorts, like you can't afford this, you can't afford that. You get in those states, all of a sudden, your mind, you can't, your judgment fades, and all of a sudden, these new ideas are coming in. And before, you'd be like, oh, new idea, but I have this old idea, and we'll integrate it, or we'll be able to defend it. But if your judgment's eroded, and now all of a sudden, your mind becomes open, which you know, as you know, I'm very positive towards the open mind, but here we have a

• 25:43Jocko Willink?

  brain that is being forced open and all judgment removed.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  So it can kind of be, like, having an open mind on purpose is so you can be open to new beneficial things, but forced open is kind of like now you're open to just things.

• 25:59Jocko Willink?

  And this goes to military boot camp, right? Because what are they doing in military boot camp? Oh. Sleep deprivation, making you tired, depriving you of certain things, isolating you. Physical torture, no, but are you doing, you know, P T, are you getting dropped down to do? So you have that stuff happening there. And it's the same thing in any, you know, when you start looking at like cult scenarios. This is, I mean, obviously a cult scenarios. It's like make the people tired, isolate them from their family.

• 26:31Jocko Willink?

  Put them in situations that are uncomfortable. Like that's exactly what's happening there.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Brother of cults, they actually target people who don't have a strong family structure. So that it's way easier.

• 26:42Jocko Willink?

  Isolate them.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're in the, in the military. Is that why they call it indoctrination? Don't they call it indoctrination?

• 26:50Jocko Willink?

  They do call it indoctrination. And, and actually, so when I was in boot camp, they asked me something about boot camp. We, we had to fill out probably like an early form of, of like a critique to make sure that abuse wasn't happening or something like that. You know what I mean? Like an early form of that. And the, the question, one of the questions was like, you know, what, how has your boot camp and experience been so far? And I wrote, I think the brainwashing is working well.

• 27:21Jocko Willink?

  And, and the, I guess it couldn't have been too much of a, of like a critique moment, an anonymous critique. Because the, the, whatever they're called, the chiefs that were running, the recruit chiefs that were running the program for us. The hell were they called? How can I not remember that? The R D Cs?

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Well, it was a while ago.

• 27:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was a while ago. Anyways, the chiefs that are running it, that are like the drill instructors for Navy boot camp. They read mine out loud. Like they were reading a few of them like, oh, yes, your problem. And they, they go, oh, and this guy thinks he's being brainwashed. Well, tell you what, you know, something like that. I was kind of like, oh, that's kind of funny that they read this out.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  But you're, you said it wasn't torture and I, I agree with that, even though I haven't been through boot camp before this, but. But it did provide many experiences that you one might want some relief from.

• 28:15Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And which is that's really what torture is, right? I just want relief, this whole purpose of torture in a way, right?

• 28:20Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  That's just sadistic, I guess.

• 28:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 28:24Jocko Willink?

  Going on, how individuals will react to attempts to elicit information to confess falsely to brainwashing, as we have defined, it depends on the intelligence, personality and experience of the individual and on the knowledge and willingness of the captors to persist in techniques aimed at deliberately destroying the integration of a personality. With such willingness, there appears little doubt that an individual can be brought psychologically to the point where involuntary re-education will take place.

• 28:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting, right? Now, look, when you join the military, you've got to have some level of, you know, let's say patriotism, right? You've got to have some level of patriotism, you're not, I mean, I would hope, you have some level of patriotism, like, oh, I think that the nation, let's talk of the American military, some part of you goes, yeah, America is a country worth serving, it's it's worth sacrificing for, therefore I'm going to join it. So, the, I believe that's what makes it a little bit more of an indoctrination as opposed to a brainwashing. Now, if you were to take someone that was from America, but you wanted them to go and serve in a opposing country, you'd have to brainwash them.

• 29:42Jocko Willink?

  Because maybe you'd you'd want them to think that America's bad.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  But they believe that America's good.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, huh, yeah.

• 29:49Jocko Willink?

  But it's a pretty disturbing thought when they say that there's little doubt that an individual can be brought psychologically to the point where involuntary re-education will take place. Continuing on, up to now, police methods developed by trial and error have not fully exploited the psychological basis for the results thus far obtained, nor have all restraints in treatment of prisoners been cast aside. Note, too, that the restraints referred to need not concern direct physical torture. It is not necessary to use direct physical means to reduce a person to a state where involuntary re-education can take place.

• 30:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Don't even need to torture you. Brainwashing conceived as involuntary reeducation then represents one extreme of a continuum of treatment by and resistance to captors. At the other end of this scale is active voluntary collaboration with the enemy. In between are varying degrees of brutality and subtlety of treatment and degrees of resistance thereto. So we can get the full outcome where you're just full on collaborating. Or you can get, I'm gonna resist. That's the other end of the spectrum. And then there's varying degrees of brutality to make it happen.

• 31:06Jocko Willink?

  Clearly, policies concerning treatment of repatriated captives will depend on where the individual is placed on this scale. At one end, there is the legal jurisdiction for treason at the other psychiatric treatment. So if you get released, you might be, they're calling you a treasonous person because you collaborated. But it's like, wait a second, this dude got tortured. He got brainwashed. The view presented therein has several implications. First, the public should be given information which will dispel the mystery which appears to have surrounded the concept of brainwashing. Second, those responsible for establishing policy returned for returned prisoners have as a first problem the determination on the scale between involuntary reeducation and voluntary collaboration.

• 31:50Jocko Willink?

  A particular individual stands. Third, the human organism need not be a complete pawn of his environment until extreme conditions are created. Man is adaptive and with some knowledge of what to expect from his captors and an understanding of his own reactions. He can develop means of resisting. He can be helped in this by prior knowledge of the treatment he can expect and his own reactions to it. And again, not to dive too far into this, we've covered it before, but you know, the one thing that happened in the Korean War was guys broke and going into the Korean War. The, the word was, hey, you don't break, you give name, rank, serial number. That's it. If you give up more than that, you're a traitor.

• 32:33Jocko Willink?

  And sure enough, they could break anybody. And so everyone felt like traitors and so they made adjustments to the code of conduct. And we've covered that with some of the POWs that we've had on here that were from the Vietnam War.

• 32:48Jocko Willink?

  Going back to this fourth, the truly brainwashed is a psychiatric, not a legal problem. His treatment should be therapeutic, not punitive. Recovery can be anticipated since the brainwashed person placed in his normal environment will tend to revert to his prior belief. That was positive to hear. You get back to your normal environment, you'll hopefully get back to your previously existing beliefs. Fifth, brainwashing can be successfully accomplished on the basis of present knowledge by anyone sufficiently interested in acquiring and understanding of the psychological principles involved. The shit ain't hard. That's what they're saying there. Six, it is possible that the best long-range defense against brainwashing is to make it politically disadvantageous for a country to permit it its use.

• 33:31Jocko Willink?

  So they're like saying, hey, there's no real good way to resist it. The best way is just to make it a bad thing to do, which is crazy. Fast forward a little bit, scope and aim. The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of the brainwashing process. There will probably be well over a thousand classified and unclassified documents, articles and books directly related to Soviet and satellite techniques of interrogation and brainwashing. Approximately one-third of the available classified and unclassified sources were examined to provide the findings of this study. By far, the greatest proportion of this material has come from prisoner of war sources of World War II and the Korean conflict. Considerable additional material has come from refugees, intelligence sources, and civilian nationals who have been released from incarceration behind the Iron Curtain. So what's interesting about that is World War II POWs.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, you had what happened over in the Pacific. It's one of the earliest books we covered was

• 34:25Jocko Willink?

  The Forgotten Highlander, right? Who was in the Japanese prison camp, just awful. And then you had, obviously, on the European front, prisoners of war. But that was different in terms of the brainwashing that they did and that the communists were doing.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  This might be a side note, but kind of the more my brain is like going deep on

• 34:46Speaker 01

  rabbit hole, brainwashing the, you know how, you know, these expressions like, um, you know, expression, the sum of the five guys you hang out with is you or what, whatever. And they also on top of it, the idea that we've talked about many times where it's like, hey, if you hang out with, with a certain kind of group, like you kind of end up being like that group. Even if you're not like that in the beginning, you know, it's kind of like, oh, that's just, you know, if people hang around or even listen to this or whatever, and you talk about jujitsu all the time. That's why people start joining jujitsu slowly, you know, kind of a thing. It's like, bro, how much of that is like just going on? Right? Your friends are brainwashing you, but everyone's kind of like, and I guess technically it's not the washing part. Well, then again, it is though, right?

• 35:27Jocko Willink?

  That was the statement that was made. We are all continuously being reeducated.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, reeducated.

• 35:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, reeducated is a nice way of saying.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Brainwashed, straight up. Yeah. It's just, I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, is it for good or bad?

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  I think that's

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Intentional versus

• 35:41Jocko Willink?

  The key thing is like, brainwashing you for my benefit is different than brainwashing you for your benefit. Cause I think it's kind of good if I brainwash you to start training jujitsu and lifting and eating clean, right? It's all good.

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward, this, this study is, oh, by the way, this is just a PDF. You can get it online. The CIA has it on their freaking website. That's where I got it from. The CIA, like they have it posted.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Part of some other propaganda.

• 36:06Jocko Willink?

  Uh, this study is written from the viewpoint of professional psychology as a systematic approach. This has not been done before, although many previous analysis have of course made some of the psychological, made use of some of the psychological ideas. The present approach attempts to make full use of the current psychological principles and explaining the process of brainwashing. Uh, fast forward a little bit, statement of the, statement of the problem. Western usage of the term brainwashing has caused it to be applied from time to time to each of the following situations, and they go through all these different ones. Individual or group indoctrination of the masses behind the iron curtain, which is always an interesting one. When you see entire groups of people believing the same thing, or at least largely believing the same thing.

• 36:48Jocko Willink?

  Indoctrination of key personnel inside communist controlled countries to maintain their political reliability.

• 36:55Jocko Willink?

  In the interrogation process by which positive information of intelligence value is obtained from individuals, that's kind of a different aspect of it. For group indoctrination of prisoners of war, besides an attempt to obtain defections and demoralized military personnel, this process appears to have been used as a selective device to ascertain which progressive or opportunists might subsequently be amenable to more intensive process as defined below. So meaning like, oh, I can check and see how everybody responds to this light level of brainwashing, and then I'm going to identify some people that are ready for this. Number five, the intensive individual process during which individuals are deprived of their critical faculties and subsequently come to believe as true that which prior

• 37:39Jocko Willink?

  to the brainwashing, they would have designated as false. I'm going to change your mind. The fact that the term "brainwashing" has been applied to so many situations has caused a great deal of confusion in attempting to learn more about it and attempting to develop sound practices and policies for coping with it. As we shall explain more fully in this study, we find the term "brainwashing" to be most useful when it is applied strictly to denote the involuntary re-education of an individual during which a change is developed in the perceptual and intellectual organization of his personality. It's like a freaking straight up change. So that he will, one, accept as true certain ideological principles, which he would not

• 38:23Jocko Willink?

  have accepted as true prior to the change, and/or to admit that certain events have a true and factual basis which he would not have admitted formally. These false beliefs may be transitory. In fact, there is a good reason to believe that false beliefs resulting from brainwashing will break down spontaneously when the individual has been removed for a period of time from the oppressive controls. So that's brainwashing.

• 38:50Jocko Willink?

  It should be noted that brainwashing, so defined, does not emphasize what happens to the individual, but what happens within him.

• 39:00Jocko Willink?

  The change represents a more or less complete re-education of his value system. This change is brought about in a rigidly controlled environment using pressures designed to create and sharpen internal conflict within the individual. The individual is forced to resort to problem-solving behavior, and the net effect is to the brainwashed state. Two simultaneously processes are present. The first is characterized by a progressive deterioration and demobilization of the individual's critical and judging capacities. So that's the first thing you do. How can we get rid of your ability to make decisions and judge things? I'm going to diminish that.

• 39:43Jocko Willink?

  In a true sense, the individual loses all sense of perspective.

• 39:49Jocko Willink?

  The second process is the learning of beliefs he would have previously rejected as he seeks to gain some structure for his crumbling personality.

• 39:59Jocko Willink?

  The criteria of success of brainwashing are: 1. The observed conviction and sincerity with which the individual expresses he changed ideology and beliefs concerning palpable events; 2. The length of time his changed beliefs are maintained after the individual has been removed from the control environment; and 3. The amount of surprise and confusion that accompanies his discovery that he has been brainwashed during his subsequent recovery.

• 40:28Jocko Willink?

  And here's a, you were mentioning indoctrination. Indoctrination and even education can lead to false beliefs. These processes are most effective when the individual has gaps in his knowledge, or his understanding of the meaning of certain events is sufficiently tenuous that he has little difficulty in accepting a new and different interpretation. Brainwashing, however, involves the re-education of well-established beliefs and implies that the individual resisted the re-education. It is this very resistance with its internal conflict we maintain is the very core of brainwashing. So if you don't really have beliefs...

• 41:10Jocko Willink?

  And I just like put beliefs in your head that they just consider that indoctrination and reeducation.

• 41:18Jocko Willink?

  But when you have beliefs and I take those beliefs away and add contrary beliefs, that's brainwashing.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  You wash them away.

• 41:25Jocko Willink?

  Damn. And here we are just talking about just changing people beliefs and reeducating them and we're getting reeducated all the time.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:32Jocko Willink?

  It's, you know, this is the internet rabbit hole. Is, is like the most productive reeducation camp and ever existed, right?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:43Jocko Willink?

  And the way the algorithm will feed you. Like it will take you down there. It's reeducated, it's brainwashing you because you watched one video. And then you, it feeds you another one.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:56Jocko Willink?

  And then it doesn't go, hey, hey, the guy watched a, a video about, you know, pro whatever.

• 42:05Jocko Willink?

  And now we need to show an anti whatever. No, it's like you clicked on pro, we'll give you another pro, we'll give you another pro, we'll give you another pro, we're just gonna keep taking you down there.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you'd be, if you pay attention, it's kind of alarming now, kind of very alarming. As to all the different things that they can influence you with. So all the way down to like. Okay, let's say kids, right? Especially these ones that are like. Kind of ambiguous, you know, where it's like, okay.

• 42:33Jocko Willink?

  What, ambiguous kids?

• 42:35Speaker 01

  No, kids are, raising kids is like, there's not, basically if there's not just one way to do it, you know?

• 42:40Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  So, you know, health, fitness, you know, all this stuff. So if you even have one. Like basically I could, it stands to reason that, that the algorithm could convince you, effectively convince you that all kids are bad. All of them. So they need to be punished, right? So let's say, I don't know, there's many different philosophies, right? Where it's like, no punishment is kind of this last resort thing that should never happen. And you know, whatever, right? Let's say you're on that thing you believe in, it's working for you. Let's say like effective, successful children, they're teenagers on their way to, uh, whatever, you know? Maybe some young ones, you know, as well. And then you get fed this stuff and then the more you see it, the more it can kind of sort of slowly convince you that, no, no, no, they need.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  More punishment, otherwise this and this and this. And then you're like, oh, wait, I never thought about that part of it. Then it feeds you another one and another one. And they start depriving you of the effectiveness of what you've been doing. Meanwhile, so it's like reshaping kind of the way you see it just a little bit.

• 43:39Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  And then now you bring it to your real life and you have that on your mind. And how does that affect your behavior? Just a little bit, you know? And then over time, it's like boom, just that one teeny tiny little thing. But the point is, but it kind of applies to everything. Like everything. Okay. You ever watch these ones? You know, every once in a while, I don't know. My algorithm feeding me this every once in a while where like just real like rare accidents. You know, kind of like somebody's like walking their dog on the side, like in a city and then a tire flies out of nowhere. It's kills them, you know, or whatever, or almost kills them or whatever, right? These real rare accidents. Right? Kind of makes me nervous a little bit like.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Get it by a tire or something like that. Or one of these things. It's like, it's like a reminder that it can happen. Right? But it doesn't really feel this desire to understand really the probability necessarily. That part is irrelevant. See what I'm saying? Cause the more that you see it, the more it feels like, oh, this is happening everywhere. See what I'm saying? So it kind of just changes your mind of the whole thing. Now you're all nervous. In my case.

• 44:40Jocko Willink?

  Watch out for those tires. No doubt about it.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Everywhere.

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  In the process of securing information of intelligence value, the procedures used by communists, although admittedly harsh, do not appear to differ substantially from those customarily used in eliciting military information. The systematic, systematic demoralization of captives does not appear to be a major objective. And so they, they're using the same thing. Like if I was trying to get information from you before, before brainwashing was a thing. I'm trying to get information from you. Cool. I'd, you know, keep you from sleeping, deprive you from food, keep you isolated. I'm going to get information from you. So they're saying the setup there is kind of the same thing. And understanding of brainwashing is important in several contexts, some among which are the following.

• 45:27Jocko Willink?

  Intelligence might be more fully protected if military and other personnel subject to capture could understand brainwashing and could be trained as well as possible to cope with it. So they're saying, oh, you might be able to outlast it a little bit. Might not be able to. Dealing properly with brainwashed individuals depends heavily on understanding their condition. For the truly brainwashed psychiatric psychiatric treatment is in order. For the deliberate defector, legal processes are appropriate. So they're still worried like, you know, Echo is just gonna get in there and just be soft and just give up information.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  He's a collaborator. We're gonna punish him.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  So how do they work it then? It's like, is there a certain threshold that you gotta meet as far as resistance goes?

• 46:07Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's what this is about.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  That's what this is about.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  So what's the threshold?

• 46:11Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't get into the actual threshold, but you know, the, when you talk, you know, talking to the POWs that were tortured. It was like you, you resisted as much as you could.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:20Jocko Willink?

  And then when you couldn't resist anymore, you gave them as little information as possible.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, bro, cuz you don't have to think about it for a long time to understand, bro, people are gonna break at different points. So one guy who's good, like, what's the difference? Like, where's the line?

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  There's no line.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  You, you gotta write, what, in the rulebook or the laws or whatever? It's like, hey, you gotta last seven days. You gotta. And if you last six days, crime. If you last seven, no crime.

• 46:43Jocko Willink?

  No, that's not what they're doing. That's not what they're doing.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  How do you determine it though?

• 46:47Jocko Willink?

  You don't. That's why the, the rules were like, resist as much as you can. When you have to break, give them as little information as you can. That's what we're doing. And it was a code of honor.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:58Jocko Willink?

  It was like a code of honor, like, hey. And that's why some guys, when they'd break, they'd feel all dejected. And like, they let everyone down and somebody be like, hey dude, you lasted longer than me. You know, we all, we, everyone's got a breaking point. They're gonna find it.

• 47:15Jocko Willink?

  The propaganda value of false confessions has been great. And the fear-producing impact of brainwashing in the public mind is a matter worth considerable concern. Public understanding of the process should help considerably. So that's a good thing. They wanted to say like, oh, that dude just brainwashed. You know what I mean? Like, you see an American on TV saying America is terrible and communism is, is great. They go, oh, that guy's just brainwashed. Don't worry about it. You know what I mean? It's kind of a good, good little move by the CIA.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:43Jocko Willink?

  And, and it's true.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say.

• 47:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's true. Yeah. It's a hundred percent true. But imagine when you're, when, when people didn't understand what brainwashing is and you see an American airman that's saying, yes, I dropped chemical bombs. We didn't drop any chemical bombs. Oh, he's been brainwashed. Okay, we get it.

• 48:01Jocko Willink?

  A clear understanding of the process is important if governmental agencies are to make rapid progress toward further research and understanding and to develop consistent policies to make meet the problems of brainwashing. So again, this is like what you're saying. Like, we didn't even understand what the hell was happening. And all of a sudden it's like Echo gave up information, send him to court martial. It's like, no, Echo gave up information or Echo made a confession because he was brainwashed. So we had to figure that out. And yeah, you know, did you, did you watch the show Adolescence?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, the one, the first one.

• 48:36Jocko Willink?

  You only watched the first one? And then what? You, you, you didn't like it?

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Correct. Not enough to keep watching.

• 48:42Jocko Willink?

  Kind of the underlying theme is that is, is basically about brainwashing, right? Because you got, the underlying theme is that the kid is being brainwashed or reeducated or influenced by influencers and by social media. And that's why he commits this crime. And it's kind of the similar thing that they're saying here is like, oh, we got this problem that we don't really know how to deal with yet. And now we're trying to learn about it. So in Adolescence is like a presentation of it for, I don't know if there's been too much,

• 49:24Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if there's many other movies about it. Not that it's a movie, it's a series. I think it's on Netflix. I really like the actor, Stephen Graham. He's, he, and he's just a great actor.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Wait, which one is Stephen Graham? The dad?

• 49:39Jocko Willink?

  The dad.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's in Snatch, Tommy.

• 49:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And he's in This Is England. And This Is England eighty-six, and This Is England eighty-eight, and This Is England ninety, which are epic programs. But.

• 49:53Jocko Willink?

  That that's what they're, one of the things they're presenting in that show is that like, oh, there's this thing happening and we need to pay attention to it.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:01Jocko Willink?

  You know, you gotta pay attention to what your kids are seeing all the time. And, you know, I think, you know, they kind of chose the incel extremity.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 50:12Jocko Willink?

  But there's countless extreme, extreme movements that you could find. That you could utilize for, oh, we could have done it about this extremity or that extremity. They, they chose the, uh, the one of like the incel. What's the pill that you take when you don't like women anymore?

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Um, there's red pill and black pill. So I think the, well, there's red pill, blue bill, black pill and purple pill. That's the whole, all of them.

• 50:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  But.

• 50:41Jocko Willink?

  Red pill is like.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  You're now aware of human nature or the women's human nature, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

• 50:48Jocko Willink?

  Red pill.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  It's red pill.

• 50:49Jocko Willink?

  And then what's black pill?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Black pill is like, now you're angry and then it's like full destruction.

• 50:54Jocko Willink?

  Full destruction of.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Women and everyone.

• 50:59Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So that show is essentially then would be like a black pill scenario?

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Red pill usually, well, not usually, but red, black pill is what do you call pre this, pre.

• 51:09Jocko Willink?

  You get red pilled first and then you get black pill?

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:12Jocko Willink?

  And then what's the other?

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Black pill is like a form of giving up, like nihilism.

• 51:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. And, and then blue pill, what's blue pill?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  That's you're in the matrix plugged in like.

• 51:20Jocko Willink?

  Does anyone get bla- blue pilled? Cause you have people get red pilled?

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. You get blue pilled when you, when you fall in love with a girl, according to the doctrine.

• 51:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  You're blue pilled when you fall in love with a girl. And you just, you become a simp and like, listen to her, you know, traditional, I don't, you know, like contemporary, traditional. Beta husband, I guess, maybe that's a blue pill. Like, oh, yeah.

• 51:46Jocko Willink?

  Okay. There's one more pill that we're missing, missing. You got red, blue, black was the last one?

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Purple.

• 51:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay. What's purple?

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Purple is like, it's all kind of true, you know?

• 51:56Jocko Willink?

  What's all?

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Like blue pills, there's room for blue pill.

• 51:59Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Behavior and values and there's value to them in a practical sense. And then red pill that still exists as well. So you're kind of, kind of aware of that as well, you know? So you're kind of in the, in, you're an in betweener essentially.

• 52:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  The red pill guys really frown on all pills except for the red. From what I understand, I don't know.

• 52:18Jocko Willink?

  Do they found on black pill?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you gave up and you're like, even though it feels like anyway, like every once in a while, when I'll come across these things when they talk about the pills. It feels like they kind of understand the black pill. They kind of understand.

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, like hey man.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Look what's happening to our guys, you know, they're, you know, they get it. Kind of a thing.

• 52:35Jocko Willink?

  So I'm right in saying that the movie or the show adolescence is about that niche little extremism of black pill. Like this guy couldn't get his girl, couldn't, the girl didn't like him or whatever, so he killed her.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I haven't seen the, the whole series yet, but if, if in fact it kind of had the vibe of him just giving up on the whole girl thing. In one way or another, and then that caused him to kill, then yeah. But it could be, I don't know, maybe what might be called extreme red pill. Like where it's like, I'm aware of the female nature, so I'm angry about it and I'm like, kill. Yeah, maybe that's a black pill scenario. I don't know. I'd have to see the thing.

• 53:17Jocko Willink?

  So that idea that you could, and one of the things, cause I've watched some interviews about it, but they, one of the things that Stephen Graham said is he

• 53:27Jocko Willink?

  didn't want the parents, he wanted the parents to be normal. Like mom and dad still together, normal working job, had a house, no, like they had food, like it, it's a good, it's like a normal background. He didn't want it to be like, oh, well, the dad's an alcoholic, the mom beat him or whatever the case may be. It was like, no, this is normal. And therefore to make it more evident that this kid was reeducated.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:53Jocko Willink?

  And that's basically what we're looking at a document from nineteen fifty six saying, oh yeah, you gotta be aware of this stuff. And then that show says, oh yeah, gotta be aware of this stuff. And there's, like I said, there's a lot of different extremism's that you could get into on the interwebs. You know, I mean, there's, I mean, obviously the, the big one that we've seen a lot of is, you know, Islamic extremism, extremism where people are converted to extreme Islam through the interwebs. That's a, that's, I would say probably the most prominent one, but there's a bunch of them. So they're looking at it, they're showing it and they're saying, hey, you better be aware of this.

• 54:38Jocko Willink?

  Just like that's what this is. That's what this document is for.

• 54:42Jocko Willink?

  All right. The concept of brainwashing is frightening, just like it's frightening in that show. Mothers and sons who go into the military, mothers of sons who go into military service against the Soviets, Soviets or the Chinese must concern themselves with the fact, not only that their sons may be killed or wounded, but that their mental processes may be distorted if they are captured. Just as knowledge that the Soviets have thermonuclear weapons has dampened the national feeling of security. So brainwashing has created the belief that our opponents are mysteriously formidable.

• 55:14Jocko Willink?

  Wouldn't that be weird though? Is like your, your son goes away to war and he gets captured. He gets brainwashed and he comes back different. You know, when I was a kid, there was people that got involved in various cults and the parents would send, uh, get them captured and get them deprogrammed. Have you heard of that? Yeah, deep program. Yeah, deprogrammed. Like there was a couple prominent cults that are out there. You can see him pretty, pretty prominently and I knew kids that started going down those roads and their parents sent and had them kidnapped and taken and deprogrammed. So I guess, you know, I was trying to think of what, what your reaction would be like if you're a parent

• 55:57Jocko Willink?

  and your kid gets all of a sudden is a totally different human, which by the way that happens, like your kid gets into like heavy metal music and all of a sudden they got long hair and they're freaking, you know, screaming and yelling like that because you're a parent, you're like, wait, what's going on? Or they get into gangster rap music and you're trying to, you know, steer them in the right direction in life and all of a sudden they're out like getting their gangster rap attitude on. Yeah, well.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  I feel like in real life, if someone's that influenced by music where they're like squared away and then they become.

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  I think you're about to.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  What?

• 56:31Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're, okay.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Bear with me.

• 56:34Jocko Willink?

  In real life.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  In real life, yeah.

• 56:35Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you're talking about 12 year old, 13 year old, 14 year old kids.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:39Jocko Willink?

  These kids are very influenceable.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Here's what I would say, that, again, I'm totally talking out of school, but I don't know, this is what I feel, this is a data point.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  If someone's not a gangster person and they listen to gangster rap and they become a for real gangster person, you know, carrying a gun. And going, starting in trouble, robbing or whatever they, gangster people do.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  I would venture to suspect that there's other things going wrong or something that's, that's empty or not there. I don't know. It doesn't feel, then again, I'm just, I'm, I'm drawing upon my very specific experience with music and gangster rap, by the way. Where, man, I just can't get there. I can't get there to be like, oh, I want to go do dangerous, destructive thing, even as a 12 year old. Which I was listening to gang, that gangster rap at that time too. Not fully, not just gangster rap, you know.

• 57:37Jocko Willink?

  So, let me ask you this question, because you, you went where I thought you might go, but not quite. If a kid starts listening to gangster rap, they're talking about dealing drugs and carrying a gun, right?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 57:50Jocko Willink?

  And that kid is influenced by that and he decides, okay, I'm gonna try and find a gun, I'm gonna start looking to sell drugs, right?

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:57Jocko Willink?

  We're agreeing that that can happen.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I say, I put it this way, my whole point of what I, what I said is like, there's other parts of his life that are empty.

• 58:06Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  And are unfulfilled or whatever, then that kind of stuff takes hold. So, I think if like you just come from a quote unquote, normal family, pretty balanced. No like neglect, no, no, nothing like that. Everything's like, kind of squared away. I'm not saying tip top, but squared away.

• 58:21Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  The, the probability of you being.

• 58:23Jocko Willink?

  That's a big ask, by the way.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  I can dig that for sure.

• 58:26Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so really, to be like, oh, it was the gangster rap that did it. Well, it's like, I don't know if that's completely correct.

• 58:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Let me pose this question then. If that gangster rap music was filled with, or you know, take whatever drug, you know, Grateful Dead, you know, doing drugs, like that was a huge part of that, like whatever scene you want to take, which is negative. If that influence was replaced by something positive.

• 58:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, like Jason Wilson with the cave and taking those kids and bringing them in and teaching martial arts and teaching them about discipline and teaching about faith. And all of a sudden, these kids that could be going down the wrong path and influenced in the wrong direction, all of a sudden they're influenced in the right direction.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:12Jocko Willink?

  So I, I think that would be considered brainwashing, right? But maybe not because we're just educating them in a positive way that's going to be helpful to them.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, re-education.

• 59:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I don't know how this lands on this whole back and forth we have, but you know, constructive, like constructive is always harder than destructive. Destructive usually, usually has to do with something that's kind of effortless a lot of times, or something that's like quick, like over the short term, kind of a dynamic. So yeah, if you have something empty in your life to construct something in there that's positive is going to take like repetitive overtime.

• 59:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  And effort, by the way. And then when it's destructive, it's, it almost feels like you fall into it almost.

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, I, I will always say that building is easy, building is much more difficult than, than breaking down.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Jocko Willink?

  And so, you know, we've talked about this before. Remember flipping over the chessboard?

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Jocko Willink?

  It's like, yeah, you get to a certain point in the game where you're like, I don't want to play this game. You flip over the chessboard. That's way easier than going, all right, I'm going to learn the game. I'm going to get good at it. And people do that with life.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:20Jocko Willink?

  People go, oh, you know what? This game that everyone's playing of being squared away, of being responsible, of trying to earn money, trying to save money, trying to do the right things, trying to treat people with respect. That's a hard game to play.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Jocko Willink?

  And they look at it at a certain point and go, you know what? It's easier just to flip over the chessboard and just not do any of it. Some people are just unaware of the game and it's just, they're just going to kind of muddle along in life. But some people actively just flip it over and say, yeah, I'm out. So yes, I agree. It is easier to be. Part of something that is destructive than it is to be part of something that builds. It's not, not just a little bit easier. It is way easier to be, it's way easier to sit in the back of the classroom. And say, school is dumb than it is to sit in the front of the classroom and study and work hard. It's way easier to sit in the back of the classroom. That was me, dude, sitting in the back of the classroom. Like, school is stupid. I'm going to the military. You know what I mean? It's just like a total rock.

• 1:01:12Jocko Willink?

  But it's harder to sit in the front of the classroom. And now it doesn't appear that way at the time. Because the person that's sitting in the front of the classroom, they're getting like privileges. They're getting like, oh yeah, you get, you're getting a respect. And the person in the back of the classroom, he's kind of like the hard, you're like, well, I'm, I'm not buying into the system. It's easier. It appears harder to be like, oh, I'm not playing that game. Screw the teacher, all that. It seems like that's the harder thing to do, but it's actually, it's actually easier. And, and many of our little decisions that we make when we're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old is like, I'm doing the hard thing. I'm not just gonna listen to what my parents say. It's like, oh yeah, that seems like the harder thing to do. Cause it seems like it'd be easier to play the game a little bit.

• 1:01:55Jocko Willink?

  But it's actually easier to be, oh, I'm not doing that. Screw this. And so that's kind of where we end up diverging our pathways in life. And that's why for me, going in the military was so beneficial because all of a sudden it was like, you're going to be massively influenced. Here are the rules you're going to operate within. And you volunteered for the rules, by the way. And we're going to pay you money. And you're going to be part of this team and you're going to get, you're going to be a, a, a constructive member of society. Which is a huge step up, you know what I mean? From being an idiot. So here you go. You're going to be a constructive member of society. You're going to move forward. And, and that seems like the harder thing to do. But.

• 1:02:39Jocko Willink?

  It's like, it's actually in some ways easier. Because hey, get me in the program, man. I was like, well, I joined the military. It's like, hey, you got a clean slate. Do, do what you're supposed to do and you're going to be able to progress in life.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the military and, and some constructive programs that are like rigid and thought out or whatever. Oh yeah, it makes it a lot easier. It was just easier in a different way though. So if you, the, like I said, and like you've said, it, to, to do the wrong thing tends to be easier.

• 1:03:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Like, cause it's, cause it's like effortless. You're not like, oh no, I mean, maybe it's some metaphysical thing. I don't know, but to fall down the hill is easier than to climb the hill. You know, it's like, everything is like, it's just harder. But yeah, it's like, I guess we get it in our little rebellious minds almost in a way where it's like, oh wait, I'm not going to follow the herd. The sheep. It's, it's harder to make my own path.

• 1:03:30Jocko Willink?

  Which, which is sort of, sort of some major rationalization going on there, right? Dude, I'm not going to freaking follow the herd.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:37Jocko Willink?

  It's like, oh, you mean, you're not going to work and get a good job?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Be strong, successful.

• 1:03:42Jocko Willink?

  In society, that's, yeah. I'm, all these people working out, freaking, you know, playing sports, screw those guys, they're a bunch of jocks. It's like, okay, so what are you going to do instead?

• 1:03:53Jocko Willink?

  So I think that getting the positive education and positive influence on kids is so. That's why I'm very excited about the way the warrior kid. Cause that is a very positive movement in a very positive way to look at it. Cool. Okay. What am I going to do? Eat clean, study, work out, treat people with respect, earn, try and earn money. Like those are all things that I think are very, they're, they're, they're such a good path.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Jocko Willink?

  It's such a good path to be on and it's so easy to not be on that path. So easy to not be on that path.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Jocko Willink?

  But your life's going to be a lot harder if you're not on it.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  It's really good and I don't want, obviously I'm not going to give anything, but, but it's.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  We'll just go with the books then, because the movie is very reflective of the books and connected us, but it touches on things like in a, in a specific way, because like you have like this, you know, this protagonist that has to, you know, you know, basically go through the, what, what do you call it, the hero's journey, you know, go through his little arc, he starts weak and then at the end he wins, whatever, he's a hero. So like, you know, there's little mo, there's not little, but there's movies like that where you get all inspired and I want to do this, like, um, uh, for example, Rocky, right? That's one where it's like, boom, he develops himself, he's this great boxer, he defeats the guy in the end, right? And everyone gets fired up, I'm gonna go box, I'm gonna go work out.

• 1:05:13Jocko Willink?

  He didn't beat the guy in the end, but.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  I'm thinking Rocky IV for some reason, but.

• 1:05:16Jocko Willink?

  Eventually he beats the guy in the end.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, and it's this big thing and it's like, oh, he kind of motivates you to train and making training look good and, and, and, uh, cool and all the, and real influential, right? Positive like things, but it's kind of just, it's kind of narrow, not in a bad way, just for the story and it makes the story great, for sure. But way the warrior kid is like, there's all these different elements that are part of that journey that like, um, that, you know, the guy goes on. And so it kind of glorifies a bunch of things. And those, I mean, not a whole bunch, but like just a handful of things that are all beneficial and hard in real life, but it inspires you to want to like do it, you know? So, yeah, it's different like that.

• 1:05:54Jocko Willink?

  Plus you're in the movie.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I am in the movie, yes. Very influential.

• 1:05:58Jocko Willink?

  All right. Uh, next, we now, we turn now to a more detailed explanation of just what happens to the mind and body of the demoralized and disorganized person who can properly be described as brainwashed and to a consideration of how this state can be brought about. You're just vulnerable when you're demoralized and disorganized, you're vulnerable. We shall describe the general processes evolved in changing the behavior and the beliefs of an individual when his environment can be fully controlled. These processes are complex and they involve the basic principles of learning, perception, motivation, and physiological deprivation. Communist control techniques. Understanding brainwashing as a phenomenon, a phenomenon which culminates in a false confession delivered

• 1:06:43Jocko Willink?

  with conviction and humility to antisocial intent and specific criminal acts, requires both a knowledge of communist control techniques and an analysis of their impact upon the normal personality.

• 1:06:56Jocko Willink?

  This section describes the battery of pressures applied to the prisoner and his behavioral reactions to these control pressures. In the following section, an attempt is made to analyze the psychological impact of these assaults upon the personality during the course of brainwashing. This reminds me, I was talking to Andy Stumpf one time, and he was an instructor in second phase at BUDS. And he did pool comp on the guys where you have in the bottom and they take your air away. And he was just describing how well he knew what the students were gonna do. Based on the pressure that he put on them. Like, if he saw this reaction, he would know, oh, this guy's running low on air. If I do this, he's gonna bolt. Or if I do this, he's gonna panic.

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  Or if I do this, he's gonna calm down. And he just, you know, he was talking about the movements of their fingers. Like, watching their hands. And if they started to do this particular movement, he knew that they were gonna try and bolt to the surface and he had to be ready for it. So, this reminds me of that where these, because if you remember earlier in this document, it says that these people weren't like psychologists. They're just freaking prison guards. And interrogators that were like, how do we break these people? And eventually go, oh, hey, put him in there a little bit longer. Hey, don't let him see, and let, cook him a little bit more, you know, whatever the case may be.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Remember, or not remember, but you know the idea of a good cop, bad cop?

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  I wonder if they just trial and error their way through that as well, you know? Like, because it, I mean, that's really what that is, interrogation.

• 1:08:25Jocko Willink?

  And how long would it take to figure that out? It'd be like, if you and I were freaking partners as cops, you know? I'd be like, dude, you were able to get him to talk. And you were like, well, I just asked him a few questions. You were like, rough with him and I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. That looks, seems like it works. Good cop, bad cop, all day.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think good cop, bad cop would work on me 100%. Even if I knew, because like, you know, I don't know, people are more so, like, I like. Like talk like fucking talking to people, you know, like sometimes to my uh anyway, so yeah, like so like if someone wants to talk about some cool stuff, you know, like I'm always down to like, talk about it, you know, kind of a thing. And so like, yeah, if someone's being mean and real like anti like sociable, like not nice to me and like mean or whatever. And I'm like, fuck, I don't want to hang out with this guy. This guy sucks, you know? And this is just a program running in the back. I know I'm committing, what do you call accused of a crime or they're, I understand that part of it, but that program's always running where I'm like, I don't like this guy. I don't like how he's talking to me and all this stuff. Meanwhile, if he rolls in, I get it. You guys think I did this

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  crime, but like we're kind of bro-ing out a little bit. And bro, maybe, maybe I attribute, I give trust, maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's that. Like I kind of give trust too easy if they're nice, you know, kind of a thing. Cause I don't know, I guess there's something really special about a nice person. And then you contrast it to develop that need that I always have for like someone be nice to me or whatever, or nice back to me or whatever. And so now I have this deficit that this bad cop has been jamming me up with. And then here comes freaking kind of my bro in a way. And where it's kind of like this weird like illusion that it's not me and my bro against like this dick guy. We relate on that level, you know? I'll just give it right up.

• 1:10:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, it starts off talking about the suspect and they have, you know, kind of talk through what the suspect is. And, you know, the implications of this are significant in a nation in which, in which the state owns all property. Whenever anyone works for the state and where the own, where everyone works for the state and where the only approved opinions may be held, a person who has accidentally broken or lost some of the people's property, who has made a mistake, who has not worked hard enough, who has talked to a foreigner, or has merely expressed that what he inferred was an innocent opinion. May be ipso facto guilty of a crime against the state. So if you're just like a little bit lazy, that's a crime against the state.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Jocko Willink?

  You see what I'm saying?

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:10:53Jocko Willink?

  So they kind of talk about that, then they talk about the, the accumulation of evidence. According to communist ideology, no one may be arrested unless there is evidence that he is a criminal. According to the practice of the MVD, this means that when an individual falls under the suspicion of the MVD officer, this officer must accumulate quote, evidence that the individual is a quote criminal, and take this evidence to the state prosecutor who must then issue a warrant before the arrest is to be carried out. This is the old, show me a man, I'll show you the crime. Um, and they use statements, they use, they use informants to get this information. They talk to their friends, they talk to their associates and they do surveillance. And then they find out what you're doing wrong, dude.

• 1:11:37Jocko Willink?

  Uh, members of the MVD complete, compete with each other in trying to turn up suspects and secure their conviction. So get that going for you, which is just a freaking nightmare. They talk a little bit fast forward, talk about the, the arrest procedures. According to communist theory, men should be arrested in such a manner as to not cause them embarrassment. And the police should carry out arrests in a manner which does not unduly disturb the population. You know what that, what is that? Those sound kind of nice, don't they? It's like, according to communist theory, men should be arrested in a manner such to not cause them embarrassment and not disturb the population. So that sounds pretty good. This sounds like, oh, they're being fair, right? What does it actually mean? Nighttime arrest.

• 1:12:19Jocko Willink?

  So the midnight knock on the door has become a standard episode. Uh, the, the police are well aware of the fact of the unintended, that the intended victim forewarned by his previous surveillance and the changing attitude of his friends is further terrified by the thought that he may be awakened from his sleep and taken away. So it sounds like super positive, but it ain't.

• 1:12:42Jocko Willink?

  Talk about the detention, and there's more information in this document, but the detention prison in most of the large cities of the Soviet Union, the MVD operates detention prisons. These prisons contain only persons under investigation, whose cases have not been settled. These places are apparently very clean. They have medical facilities and they have an exercise yard. The typical cell is a small cubicle, 10 feet by 6 feet, containing a single bunk and a slop jar, no other furnishings. And it goes on to say that the typical cells, of course, be, such typical cells, of course, will not be found in all prisons, especially not those which are older improvised, but the general aspect of the bareness and complete

• 1:13:26Jocko Willink?

  lack of access to the outside world is characteristic. So they're gonna get you into total lockdown. That's what happens. And then you get to the regimen within the detention prison. The arresting officers usually do not give the prisoner the reason for his arrest beyond that in the warrant which they read to him. They usually search him and also search the place in which he lives. They then take him directly to the prison. Here he's asked a few questions about his identity and personal valuables and his outer clothing are taken from him. These are carefully cataloged and put away. He may or may not be given a prison uniform. He is usually examined by a prison physician shortly after his incarceration. The entire introduction to the detention prison is a, is brief and carried on without explanation. I read all that just to get to that point. It's like, we're not even telling

• 1:14:10Jocko Willink?

  you why you're here, dude. And we're not telling you anything that's gonna happen. Within a few hours after his arrest, the prisoner finds himself locked up within a cell. Prisoners within detention cells follow a rigid regimen. With some variations, this regimen is standard throughout the Soviet Union, has been adopted by nearly all communist countries. The rigidity of the regimen may be relaxed or tightened by the direction of the interrogator. And then it goes into this indefinite period. He's totally isolated from other people. He's not allowed to talk or communicate with anyone else, including other prisoners. Uh, fast forward a little bit, the hours and routine of the prisoner are rigidly organized. He's awakened early in the morning and given a short period in which to wash himself. His food is brought to him. He has a short fixed time in which to eat it. The standard diet is just adequate to maintain nutrition.

• 1:14:56Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, at all times, except when eating, except when he is eating, sleeping, exercising, or being interrogated, the prisoner is left strictly alone in his cell. He has nothing to do, nothing to read, no one to talk to. Under the strictest regimen, he may have to sit or stand in his cell in a fixed position all day. He may sleep only at hours prescribed for sleep. Then he must go to bed promptly when told and must lie in a fixed position upon his back with his hands outside the blanket, bank blanket. If he deviates from this position, the guard outside will awaken him and make him resume it. The light in the cell burns constantly. He must sleep with his face constantly toward it. Just like little things to just jack you up.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  So the, that, um, not telling you?

• 1:15:39Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Anything like what's going on? So it's like leaving this mental void. Cause we live this in everyday life as torment, by the way, where, I don't know. You're, okay, like what's an easy one? Okay. A, you know, you're at work and your direct supervisor says, hey, the boss wants to see you in his office right now. Oh, why? Don't know. Or can't tell you whatever. Either way, we don't have the, it's almost like our brains like really don't have a good time. Really go into like these.

• 1:16:12Jocko Willink?

  Panic mode.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, these dark places. And yeah, so I kind of learned a little bit about that is that because the human imagination is like super vast, right? So, um, and then of course we.

• 1:16:22Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you learn a little about this?

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  I don't know, internet. So. The, the, so it's like vast. So you know how like, we always think negative versus positive, right? Like, and I don't mean like, we're negative people. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying like, it's easier to spot a problem than something that's going correctly. You know how like, that whole phenomenon, like in a person, you know, like it's easier to find mistakes. It's a, you know, like loss aversion. That's another thing where it's like, hey, we, we over index on what we would lose rather than, and under index on what we'd gain. It's like this, all this stuff that we're like programmed towards the negative for survival mechanism, whatever. Oh, so when there's a gap in knowledge, it's like, we gotta, we need something to hang on to that's positive or relief or whatever. Otherwise, bro, our brain, and this is what

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  causes the torment, our brain just goes into imagination mode and it's all negative. And you'd be surprised how much horror you can imagine, you see in your brain. So now it's like, you could, you know, your brain can go to the, like a bad situation, then it can go to the worst case scenario, real quick. One of my fired, what is there a definite, like, and again, the more torment, or the more time that goes on, the more torment. See what I'm saying? So your brain just gets allowed to just grow and grow and grow in that negativity, in that dark space, you know? So now you're just, it's more torture than like, you just wanna know, like, we all know this, we've all felt this, where it's like, bro, I would rather you just, like, fire me, freaking yell at me, yell at me in front of everybody. I don't care. Just tell me what's going on. See what I'm saying? I just wanna know, you know, kind of a thing?

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Cause we don't like that torment of the unknown, you know?

• 1:17:53Jocko Willink?

  And that's why they're very effective with this.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  So your brain is like, almost like it has to latch on to something. It's just struggling, thirsting, hungering to last, latch on to something. Good, bad, freaking whatever. So boom, that's, there's your, there, your, what do you call it? You're opening your brain up. There it is, right there. Vulnerable. The first thing you put in there, you're just gonna latch on to it now. See what I'm saying?

• 1:18:21Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, this regiment within the detention cell is in itself a most potent weapon in the hands of the MVD. It has been developed and refined over a period of many years and is used literally on thousands of prisoners. It is highly effective in breaking the will of prisoners, so much so that the MVD officers are convinced that there is literally no man who cannot be brought to do their bidding.

• 1:18:48Jocko Willink?

  Talks about the effects of this thing, a major aspect of prison experience is isolation. Man is a social animal. He does not live alone. From birth to death, he lives in the company of his fellow man. His relations are with other people and especially with those closest to him are most important to him, are almost as important to him as food and drink. When a man is totally isolated, he is removed from all interpersonal relations which are so important to him and taken out of the social roles which sustains him. His internal as well as his external life is disrupted. Exposed for the first time to total isolation in an MVD prison, he develops a predictable group of symptoms which might almost be called a disease syndrome. The initial appearance, then he starts to talk about like what it looks like. Cause like remember I talked

• 1:19:33Jocko Willink?

  about Andy Stumpf like seeing, oh, this guy doesn't have much air left. Here's what he's gonna do. Here's what they see. Initial appearance, bewilderment, then he becomes after a few hours confused and dejected. And then, uh, within a short time, most prisoners become alert and begin to take an interest in their environment. Fast forward a little bit, then they start to get anxiety, then they start to make demands. They demand to know why they're being held and protest as why, protest that they're innocent. If they're foreign nationals, they may insist upon seeing their consul or officers. Some take a you can't do this to me attitude. Some pass through a brief period of shouting, threatening and demanding. Try to fraternize with the guards. And then fast forward a little bit, after a few days, it becomes apparent to the prisoner that his activity avails him nothing.

• 1:20:19Jocko Willink?

  And that he will be punished or reprimanded for even the smallest breaches of his routine. They just know what they're gonna do. Yeah, that's brutal.

• 1:20:28Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, he becomes increasingly anxious, restless when his sleep is disturbed. The period of anxiety, hyperactivity and apparent adjustment to the isolation routine usually continues for one to three weeks. As it continues, the prisoner becomes increasingly dejected and dependent. He gradually gives up all spontaneous activity within his cell and loses all care about his personal appearance and actions. Finally, he sits and stares with a vacant expression, perhaps endlessly twisting a button on his coat. He allows himself to become dirty and disheveled. They know that this is what's gonna happen.

• 1:21:03Jocko Willink?

  It's weird, you know, as often I always, I always talk about that dichotomy is that human beings are so

• 1:21:11Jocko Willink?

  unique and at the same time, they're all the same.

• 1:21:17Jocko Willink?

  Uh, fast forward a little bit, he goes through the motions of his prison routine automatically as if he were in a daze. The slop jar is no longer a defense to him. At this point, the prisoner seems to lose any restraints of ordinary behavior. He may soil himself, he weeps, mutters and prays aloud to himself. He follows the orders of the guards with the docility of a trained animal. Indeed, the guards say that prisoners are reduced to animals. It is estimated that the average case it takes from four to six weeks of rigid total isolation to produce this phenomenon.

• 1:21:49Jocko Willink?

  That's disturbing. Four to six weeks, bro, and you're don't give a shit about anything.

• 1:21:56Jocko Willink?

  His, fast forward, his sleep is disturbed by nightmares. He ultimately reaches a stage of depression in which he ceases to care about his personal appearance and behavior and pays little attention to his surroundings. In this stage, the prisoner may have illusory experiences, a distant sound in the corridor, it sounds like someone calling his name. The rattle of a footstep may be interrupted as a key in the lock, opening the cell. God may speak to him in his prayers. He may see his wife standing beside him. His need for human companionship and his desire to talk to anyone about anything becomes a gnawing appetite like the hunger of a starving man.

• 1:22:31Jocko Willink?

  Uh, also, the newly arrested prisoner does not know how long he'll be confined. How will he be punished? What will he be charged with? That's the same mystery that you were just talking about. Another simple and effective type of pressure is that of maintaining the temperature of the cell at a level which is either too hot or too cold for comfort. A continuous heat at the level of which constant sweating is necessary in order to maintain body temperature is inverating and fatigue producing. Sustained cold is uncomfortable, uncomfortable and poorly tolerated. Still, another pressure to, is to reduce food ration to the point to which the prisoner experienced constant hunger.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  So that hunger thing is like, that's kinda it, right? That's kinda like the key, the gateway, the whole like thing to brainwash someone. In a way, when you think about it.

• 1:23:25Jocko Willink?

  Is it just hunger? No, it's all this stuff.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  So it's not like hunger, hunger. It's like a sort of hunger, right? To create this hunger. So let's say, I don't know, let's say you're to have a basic need of somebody, right?

• 1:23:37Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're talking hunger in the broad sense.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 1:23:40Jocko Willink?

  Hunger for food.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Jocko Willink?

  Hunger for companionship, hunger for knowledge, hunger for understanding, hunger for cleanliness.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  Safety of like, and I think that idea goes so deep, even into our subconscious sometimes. Like even, so let's say how, let's say not in an interrogation situation. You can effectively create any type of hunger you want, like a hunger for XYZ. So let's say you don't have many friends, we'll say.

• 1:24:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Right, so you have kind of a hunger for friends, whether, whether you're a, um,

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  you know, whether you're aware of it or not, kind of a thing. But let's say you have, let's say you have just kind of a little bit, something that's actually tolerable. I could present things to you that are, that make having friends very, we'll call it appetizing. To kind of give you the feeling of hunger for the friend. So like, you know, let's say, okay, let's go back to food then, right? So you know how like a food commercial? You know, or a soft drink commercial, like it'll be like appetizing. Like sizzling right off the thing like it'll be appetizing, you know? So you don't even necessarily have to be okay. So you ever watched the show diners, drive ins and dives? Have you ever heard of that? Okay, so it's basically this guy goes around and visits little restaurants that are diners, drive ins or dives or whatever. These little restaurants, cool little boutique restaurants kind of.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  And they show the ingredients that go in and how you cook it and then it comes out and all the patrons of the place is like, oh my gosh, so delicious. And I mean, it's a very appetizing show.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  Make you hungry.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. And you don't even have to be hungry to when you start watching it, bro. By the end, you're kind of hungry, even though you just hate. It's like that. It's a very effective show in doing that, right? So what it does is you don't have the hunger, but it creates this appetizing environment. So not creates this kind of perception of hunger. So you can do that in in all different kinds of ways. So if you have just a, let's say you have two friends, right? And then you can present over time, a scenario where now having more than two friends, we'll say a bunch of friends is very, very appetizing. And a lot of ways is like, or to diminish your current state. It's the same kind of thing. It's just inverse a little bit where it would be like, hey, if you only have two friends, it's kind of like you have to start asking yourself like, why do you only have two friends?

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  You know, like that kind of stuff. And over time, you're kind of like, wait a second, I need, I need more than two friends. Then at a strategic point, you can present like, hey, under these circumstances, you can get two friends. And you're, and since you have that hunger, you'd be, you'd be willing to do more things for it.

• 1:26:13Jocko Willink?

  Same saying. You, you're correct. And you know who your friend is going to be?

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  The state.

• 1:26:19Jocko Willink?

  The good guy interrogator, that's about the rule.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 1:26:22Jocko Willink?

  Nailed it.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  So, and that goes for any kind of like thing where you need relief from or fulfill, you know, like.

• 1:26:28Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's, that's the whole setup.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:30Jocko Willink?

  Every one of these deprivations is so they can offer it to end.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:35Jocko Willink?

  If you cooperate.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Here's the, here's the kind of sinister part right there that landed on me.

• 1:26:40Jocko Willink?

  This whole damn thing is sinister.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully. But this one was kind of especially since, because it's kind of understated. Whereas the temperature being a little bit too cold or a little bit too hot, just a little bit, because let's face it, that's tolerable. But it just slowly gets less and less tolerable, right? And then when the relief comes, the relief is less obvious until, and then when it comes, you're like, it, it impacts you more than you might think. Like you ever, you ever spent a day and you just, for whatever reason, just didn't eat or didn't drink water or something like that? And didn't realize you were thirsty or hungry? And then like, for some reason, you eat like something super like benign, like nuts or something. You're like, these are the best nuts in the world. You know what I'm saying? So it's kind of that phenomenon in a way. So it gets, it takes, it catches you off guard.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  And you'd be like, bro, why am I freaking loving these nuts? What are nuts in my face? Why is nuts in my face?

• 1:27:31Jocko Willink?

  Why are you loving these nuts?

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  Actually.

• 1:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Sorry, bro, you set yourself up. I couldn't resist that. I apologize to the world.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  You were correct about that whole discourse right there. But the, okay, so actually, here's a better example. This happened to me. Where I was like thirsty or whatever. I guess I didn't drink water that day or maybe, you know, whatever. And then I drank some milk randomly. And I was like, bro, this milk is like, this is the best milk I ever had in my life. Cause you don't think of milk as something to quench your thirst, you know? But I'm drinking this milk like it's freaking the last milk on the freaking planet. And I was thinking to myself, why am I freaking just enjoying this milk right now? I was like, bro, cause I didn't, because I'm probably dehydrated in a small way. Not like, oh, I'm just freaking out of training jujitsu or something where I need water, but drinking milk after it's like, it's, it doesn't land as much. See what I'm saying? But just that little, when it catches you off guard, it hits you harder. See what I'm saying?

• 1:28:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, man.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  Bro, I'm telling you, it's the same idea. This is the same concept is like, if you're ready for a punch in the face, or if you're in an environment where getting punched in the face is like normal. You're going to handle that punch. But if you're like at the post office and the guy across the kind of punches in your face, you're going to be like, you're going to be impacted by it more. See what I'm saying?

• 1:28:40Jocko Willink?

  Dude, do you think they'll have a torture in here where they have to listen to you for a long period of time?

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, this is how it works.

• 1:28:52Jocko Willink?

  I'm telling you too. I mean, straight up.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Bro, I'm telling you.

• 1:28:56Jocko Willink?

  For real.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, if you understand, you're gonna see where these things are coming from.

• 1:29:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Especially the catching you off guard thing, I'm telling you.

• 1:29:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  All right, please continue. Thank you for that, by the way, that information.

• 1:29:07Jocko Willink?

  Ah, the effects of isolation, anxiety, fatigue, lack of sleep, uncomfortable temperatures, chronic hunger, produce disturb disturbances of mood, attitudes and behavior in nearly all prisoners. The living organism cannot entirely withstand such assaults.

• 1:29:27Jocko Willink?

  Now they talk about the interrogator. The interrogator of prisoners is a tiring and emotionally trying procedure. Uh, no formal training in psychology, psychiatry, pharmacological, pharmacology, physiological, or physiology is included in the curriculum. So these trainers are just like, they're just dudes. These are probably the worst people. Trainees do, do receive information from experienced police officers on how to prepare a dossier, how to size up a man, how to estimate what sort of methods used in breaking him. But the instructors draw entirely upon police experiences. They have a contempt for theoretical psychiatry and, and psychology. They're just like, these are, these are bad people.

• 1:30:10Jocko Willink?

  These are, when you're, when, when the job list comes out, I'm like, what do you want to do? You're like, yo, I want to interrogate freaking prisoners. Power trip to the nth degree. Um, the interrogation itself, here's one line from the interrogation itself. It's not up to me to tell you what your crimes are. It's up to you to tell me. Statements which lead to a perplexed prisoner to rack his brain for an answer. Um, interrogation's almost always carried out at night. Possibly because the physical and psychological effect of night interrogations produces added pressure upon the prisoner. He is deprived of sleep and placed in a state of added uncertainty by never knowing when he will be awakened and questioned. Typically, he will be awakened suddenly by a guard shortly after he has dropped off to sleep without explanation.

• 1:30:54Jocko Willink?

  He is taken from a cell and down several corridors in small barren interrogation room equipped with a desk and a chair for the interrogator and a stool for the prisoner. The lighting is arranged that the prisoner can be placed in a bright light while the interrogator sits in relative darkness. Fast forward, the interrogator adjusts his attitude toward the prisoner according to his estimate of the kind of man he is facing. If the dossier indicates that the prisoner is a timid and fearful man, the interrogator may adopt a fierce and threatening demeanor. If the prisoner is thought to be proud and sensitive, the interrogator may be insulting and degrading. If the prisoner has been a man of prestige and importance and in private life, the interrogator may call him by his first name, treat him as an inferior and reprimand him and remind him that he's lost all rank and privilege.

• 1:31:36Jocko Willink?

  If it is known that the prisoner has been unfaithful to his wife or has committed some crimes such as embezzlement, the interrogator may blackmail him by threatening exposure or punishment unless he cooperates. All these and many other tricks may be employed. So again, I just keep thinking of Andy Stumpf, just knowing what to do to break people underwater. Because I think Andy Stumpf, he was a BUDS instructor for like three years and he only passed like between two and four people the entire time. Almost invariably, the interrogator takes the attitude that the prisoner is guilty and acts as though all his crimes are known.

• 1:32:16Jocko Willink?

  It goes through this, the first interrogation sessions are nearly always concerned with the complete review of the entire life experience of the prisoner. Dude, I think you could make the, I think you bait the interrogator quit.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Thank you for that.

• 1:32:34Jocko Willink?

  The interrogator wishes to know about a prisoner. About a prisoner's background. The reviews of prisoners' life may occupy several interrogation sessions. Like, a lot. It has several purposes. First is, purpose is to complete the prisoner's dossier.

• 1:32:54Jocko Willink?

  It's so fitting, dude. Imagine that, you just turn the tables on the interrogator and just break him by not stopping talking. That's how I feel today, dude. I feel it in my heart.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  The thing is, you're kinda right. And it's a thing, too. So you ever?

• 1:33:13Jocko Willink?

  Here we go.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Exhibit A. I don't know if it was a joke or not, but it was like a girl who got kidnapped. And then she convinced him to let her go.

• 1:33:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Actually, I think it was a joke, because the girl would shut up.

• 1:33:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  But yeah, I think, but I think in a way, it's like, it's like the tables being turned, though.

• 1:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  Where it's like, hey, if the girl who got kidnapped starts to kinda play, almost in a way, the good cop to the kidnapper. Like, oh, the guy's like, oh, wait a second, you know, like, he's, she turns the tables on him, in a way. Where now she's brainwashing him, giving him a little bit of what he's already hungry for, or whatever. See what I'm saying?

• 1:33:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That happens. It's been, it's been happening a lot lately. The prisoner taken from a cell after a long period of isolation, safety, and despair usually looks upon the first interrogation as a welcome break. This is what you were getting at. The mere opportunity to talk to someone is intensely gratifying, usually as much taken aback by the fact that his crimes are not specified, and his guilt is assumed. They're getting treated right out of the gate like you're just guilty. And then there's pressures applied by the interrogator. This was your recommendation, relatively friendly attitude is how they started off. And then, after a while, the interrogator becomes hostile, begins to apply pressure. Some of the pressures which can be applied simply by altering the routine with which the cell has been described.

• 1:34:39Jocko Willink?

  Continuous and repetitive interrogation. They make them stand throughout the interrogation. Many men can withstand pain of long standing, but sooner or later, all men succumb to the circulatory failure it produces. Fluid in the legs, edema, blisters.

• 1:34:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, delirious state, disorientation, fear, delusions, and visual hallucinations. Hallucinations. Periods of long standing are usually interrupted from time to time by interrogation periods during which the interrogator demands and threatens while pointing out to the prisoner that it would be easy for him to end his misery by merely cooperating. And that's the whole thing that you just set up. You get him hungry in a multitude of different ways. And now you've got him standing, blisters, edema, muscle failure, like total disaster. And you can end all this. All you have to do is just cooperate. It's a general policy that the interrogator must obtain the written permission from his other superiors before using extreme coercive measures.

• 1:35:41Jocko Willink?

  Generally speaking, when interrogator strikes a prisoner in anger, he does so unofficially. The act is usually an expression of his exasperation and evidence that he himself is under emotional stress. So they just talk a little bit about that. And then there's the friendly approach. You know, we get the good cop and go through all what that looks like. And of course, the interrogation friendly and rewarding behavior can last for several days. You're just keeping the person like guessing, right? Who am I going to get today? It's straight up good cop, bad cop. As soon as the interrogator decides that no new information is being yielded, the regiment of constant pressure and hostile interrogation is resumed. So you're nice to him until you're like, oh, he doesn't have anything else to give me. Then you go hard again. Throughout the entire

• 1:36:25Jocko Willink?

  interrogation period, the prisoner is under some form of mental, medical surveillance. And this is because the unintended death of a prisoner during interrogation procedure is regarded as serious error on the part of the prison officials. Yeah, makes sense. It's been said that the interrogator approaches the prisoner with the assumption that he is guilty. However, the interrogators not know what specific crimes the man may have committed. In fact, it's quite clear that most of the people arrested by the MVD have not really committed any specific serious crimes at all. Experiences taught them that if they put enough pressure upon the prisoner, sooner or later, they will get him to confess to acts which can be interpreted as a major crime. Much of the activity of the interrogator can be looked upon as the process of persuasion. Yeah, I guess that's a way of putting it lightly.

• 1:37:10Jocko Willink?

  The interrogator approaches the prisoner with the knowledge that the man is actually a criminal by communist definition. For example, according to communist theory, acts that are, acts are judged by their objective effects rather than by the motives of those who committed them. Thus, if a prisoner through an honest mistake has damaged a piece of machinery belonging to the state, he is a wrecker. Doesn't matter what your intent was.

• 1:37:35Jocko Willink?

  Ultimately, under constant pressure and persuasion, a prisoner usually agrees to some statement to the effect of, by communist laws, I am a spy.

• 1:37:44Jocko Willink?

  And they, they, they break this whole thing down. I'm not going to go into it, but they break this whole thing down of how they get you to confess eventually. And even with what I just, by communist laws, I'm a spy. Well, guess what you said in there? I'm a spy. So they're going to get you little by little to make statements. The reaction of the prisoner to the interrogation, the way in which a prisoner reacts to the whole process of interrogation is to a great extent dependent upon the manner of man he is, his pre-existing attitudes and beliefs, and the circumstances surrounding his arrest and imprisonment.

• 1:38:23Jocko Willink?

  All prisoners have this in common. They have been isolated, have been under unremitting pressure in an atmosphere of hostility and uncertainty. The prisoner invariably feels that something must be done to find a way out. Death is denied him. Ultimately, he finds himself faced with the choice of continually, continuing inter- interminable under intolerable pressures of his captors or accepting the way out which the interrogator offers. So they just keep that pressure, keep that pressure, and eventually they get you to break. And then, once they get you to break.

• 1:39:03Jocko Willink?

  We get into the trial. And now you get, now you're taking the person that has confessed the crime. When the prisoner has finally reached the point of admitting his crimes and the interrogator have agreed upon a protocol satisfactory to both of them. He experiences a profound sense of relief. So now you're kind of happy. You're allowed to, and they make you even more happy. They allow you to sleep. They give you better meals and some exercise. And then they'll have this show trial confession, which will be made public publicly. And the real acts will be sort of, you know, defined as criminal. So you admit these things and it's like, oh yeah, you admit these things.

• 1:39:46Jocko Willink?

  So, so clearly you're a criminal and it gets gnarly. The punishment, according to communist theory, the purpose of prison system is to rehabilitate criminals through wholesome work, productive activity and education. For this purpose, prisoners are transported to Siberia or the Arctic, where most of them spend their terms working in mines and construction projects under brutal and primitive conditions. Those who are fortunate enough to receive any, any education during this procedure are educated by further indoctrination with communist ideas. And then they do a comparison, and I kind of brushed up against this comparison in the beginning, the Russians versus the Chinese.

• 1:40:26Jocko Willink?

  In China, at the moment at least, this is 1956, the period of detention is greatly prolonged. The Chinese make extensive use of group interaction among prisoners in obtaining information and applying pressures and in carrying out indoctrination. The goal of the Chinese detention and interrogation procedure is primarily that of ensuring that the prisoner will develop a relatively long lasting change in his attitudes and overt behavior that will be sustained after his release so that he will not again constitute a danger to the communist state. So again, the Russians are looking for a confession for propaganda. The Chinese are looking to change what you believe. Physical torture of the traditional sort is more common. Manacles and leg chains are frequently used. Detention facilities are more primitive.

• 1:41:12Jocko Willink?

  The Soviet objective is one of securing a confession in a relatively short time. The Chinese objective is that of indoctrination, of converting the victim to communism, and the process may be prolonged for years. Brainwashing is but one of many techniques used. Frequent lectures and constant and intensive social pressures are also prominent elements. Some persons who have emerged from Chinese prisons have been made, have been characterized by amazingly altered political beliefs and immediate loyalty to communism. They have indeed been described as the most thoroughly brainwashed of all.

• 1:41:52Jocko Willink?

  While the story of the Chinese indoctrination is an interesting and impressive one, we believe that is the interest of clear thinking to confine our use of the term "brainwashing" to the systematic breakdown of a personality, which is deliberately brought about for the purpose of securing false confessions. I think that they say that. I mean, to me, it's much more horrific to think that you actually now believe in communism, as opposed to you made a coerced confession. I don't, I don't know why they say that. Maybe that's because they needed to defeat propaganda. And if you make a confession, then I'm like, oh, don't worry, he's just, he's just, uh, brainwashed. But if you really, truly believe it, it's like, well, is he really brainwashed, or is there something to it? I don't know. I'm not 100% sure why they break it down like that.

• 1:42:38Jocko Willink?

  The process of brainwashing is essentially one in which two paths are being followed. One is the demoralizing pro, uh, process, the result of which is to reduce the victim's critical facilities or faculties to the point where he no longer discriminates between true and false, logical and illogical. And again, these are the kind of things where...

• 1:42:59Jocko Willink?

  You know, this can happen to you in life, right? You can, you can be in a moment in life where you're so demoralized and things aren't, you know, when somebody tells you, hey, if you work hard, it'll pay off. Then you work hard, it doesn't pay off. You're demoralized.

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:10Jocko Willink?

  And what you think is true turns out to not be true. And that's the kind of thing where people are exposed, they're, they're, they're vulnerable to this brainwashing. Especially when you, you lose your job, even though you're working hard and now you're pissed off and now you jump online and now you're looking at, you know, uh, videos and watching reels.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:31Jocko Willink?

  Shit's starting to land a little bit too much.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  Well, you'd think, actually, when you think about it, even a little bit, that that is going on to most people in a lot of ways where, I mean, not to some crazy degree, but when you think about.

• 1:43:45Jocko Willink?

  Which part is going on?

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  Brainwashing and

• 1:43:47Jocko Willink?

  Oh, hundred percent.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  demoralization process and like that whole thing. I mean, can it? It almost stands the reason that pretty much anyone, you know, like, let's say you see a homeless guy on your freaking corner or whatever.

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  It's almost like it stands the reason that he went through that process too, where it's like, hey, especially when you map out something and you think, oh yeah, I'm going to get this certain payoff or whatever, and it doesn't come or it comes, it doesn't come yet or whatever. And then yeah, you slowly get demoralized. And then you have this, we'll call it a hunger for something else. It gets filled with the first thing available, or you're hanging around the wrong people or both or whatever. And then boom, now you're off to the races on that path. Now you're, and then you get that small payoff and you want it again.

• 1:44:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  You forget about that original path that you were kind of on. See what I'm saying? That demoralization process has taken hold. So essentially you get brainwashed into.

• 1:44:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  Position.

• 1:44:41Jocko Willink?

  Well, what you're talking about too is the second part here. It says, the other is the reorganizing process in which he is required to construct his confession, elaborate it, defend it and believe it. These are two processes which are going on all the time through the initial softening up usually proceeds the intensive interrogation and the initial, uh, construct of confession. And then they go through this like a hypothetical schedule of brainwashing.

• 1:45:11Jocko Willink?

  And the softening up, that's what they call it. Unpalatable food, regimented exercise and use of toilet facilities. Isn't it weird how you think of like, just taking away privileges from people and just, you can only go to the bathroom when I say. Withholding of reading materials, deprivation of tobacco, strict regulation and conditions of position of sleep. And then we get into the following emotional states are created within the individual during this systemic course of brainwashing. One, a feeling of helplessness in attempting to deal with the impersonal machinery of control. That's, that's every day, right? If you're not, if, if you look around the world, like what machinery of the world is there that you have no control over?

• 1:45:56Jocko Willink?

  Right? There's a lot.

• 1:45:59Jocko Willink?

  Initial reaction of surprise, feeling of uncertainty about what was required of him. That's another thing that we can experience like, what do I gotta do to win, man? What do I gotta do to get ahead?

• 1:46:10Jocko Willink?

  A developing feeling of dependence upon the interrogator. It's when you start watching those videos and you're like, I gotta watch this again, dude. A sense of doubt and a loss of objectivity, feelings of guilt. Isn't it weird how much, isn't it weird how much social media is kind of like, gonna make you feel guilty?

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Guilty and scared, I think in a lot of ways, not scared, scared, but just a little bit of.

• 1:46:35Jocko Willink?

  A questioning attitude toward, toward his own value system. A feeling of potential breakdown, i.e. that he might go insane. A need to defend his acquired principles and a final sense of belonging.

• 1:46:55Jocko Willink?

  So that's why those cults and extremist movements. That's it right there. That's how they, that's how they get it. That's how it happens.

• 1:47:09Jocko Willink?

  That's where it comes into play and they break down each one of these things in, in pretty good detail.

• 1:47:19Jocko Willink?

  Each one of those has its own. You know, how do you really make those things happen? How do you really make the person feel guilty? How do you really make them question their own values? Like it breaks down how they're making these things? How they make them happen?

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's this like strong element of like the idea of rejection and then acceptance. So like, you know, people have this fear of rejection. I think that goes way deeper and it's way more uh way more sensitive to it than I think a lot of times we admit. Like, I guess that's like why people are scared of public speaking a lot of the time. The fear of rejection, like making a mistake in front of everyone. Now everyone saw my mistake and you know, it's like a form of rejection that you're experiencing. And then when you have a chronic

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  rejection, perception of rejection, it's like acceptance is the most massive like freaking fulfillment there is in that case, you know?

• 1:48:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, absolutely. That's what cults do, right? And that's, you know, cults, cults are a form of brainwash, but that's exactly what they do. You take, and like you pointed out, you take these people that are already, maybe they don't have the closest family ties, maybe they're not in a good situation where they're living and they're just super vulnerable. They're looking for acceptance. They're looking to be part of something.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:45Jocko Willink?

  That's what gangs do too, right? Like, oh, you're, you don't have any friends? Cool. We, we, we were, we're not just friends, we're brothers.

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:53Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 1:48:54Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, in your mind, the world is rejecting you. I am not a part of anything. Meanwhile, I'm looking at my neighbors. They got this nice family. I'm looking at the, you know, the football team over there, you know, they seem like this team, but I can't play football. I suck or whatever, right? I'm rejected by the football team, by the world. Like my environment is, is currently rejecting me. And then, yeah, you get somebody who's like, hey, come, come hang with us, you know? That probably feels good, you know?

• 1:49:21Jocko Willink?

  Hello extremists.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. What up? What are we doing? What are we doing?

• 1:49:25Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Oh, you, you kind of look like me. That's what I need over here. Like you're one, you can be one of us. You are one of us. You were born one of us.

• 1:49:32Speaker 01

  You've watched Higher Learning? Remember that show? That movie, Higher Learning?

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  When the guy, there's like, they go to college and there's all these different groups. There's like, kind of the Black Panther-ish group, has Ice Cube in it. Omar Epps in there, and then has, um, what's that guy's name? Michael Rapaport. He's in there and he's this guy, where he's directionless, he's constantly getting like, kind of rejected in one way or another. He's from Idaho, you know, kind of this kind of, not, what do you call, socially awkward type dude? And he's reading, and then just this mysterious figure, like, rolls up to him and is like, hey man, what's up? What are you reading? He's like, tells him the book, he's like, oh, that's a good book, man. Like, full, like, some acceptance. And he's like, like, yeah, man, you know, like, he's kind of weary, like, kind of like, what's up with this guy, you know?

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  And he's like, no, no, and he's like, um, he's like, hey, I'm not gay, man, get off me, or something like this, right? Like, don't, and he's like, first off, I'm not gay. He's like, he's like, no, I'm just wanted to see if you wanted to come hang with us, that's all. And he's like, kind of confused, he's like, wait a second, this guy's, because he's so used to the rejection. And he's like, this guy's kind of accepting me, you know? So he kind of goes with him. And then turns out, it's like this white supremacist group, and he just buys right in. And he ends up like, killing some people and all this stuff, or whatever.

• 1:50:47Jocko Willink?

  Was it based on?

• 1:50:51Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know.

• 1:50:52Jocko Willink?

  Is it based on like a true story?

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  I don't think it was based on a true story, but a lot of these.

• 1:50:56Jocko Willink?

  Michael Rapaport's a comedian, though, right?

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he's a funny, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:00Jocko Willink?

  No, but isn't he like a comedian, isn't that his job?

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but it is not a comedic role at all. It was like one of his earlier ones.

• 1:51:06Jocko Willink?

  I was waiting for the punchline on this thing.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it's a serious one, but it's, it's, it's, you can tell it's kind of a caricature of all these little separate elements that can happen in college campuses at the time.

• 1:51:18Speaker 01

  Full, a lot of exaggeration, because there's like, you know, like, there, the, um, like sniper shooting type scenarios, where you get, you know, it's like that, it ends up like that, but, um, but it does kind of highlight all the different elements of college. You know, and they kind of make it exaggerated or whatever. But, yeah, that's it. But anyway, it does play on that, right there. The world is rejecting you, and you'd be surprised what you can get accepted into and buy, buy into, you know? When you're in that situation, shows it.

• 1:51:47Jocko Willink?

  The last little section I wanted to cover here is, because I think it's, it's very. It's a good little system that they used. So check this out. Incessant questioning of this type tends to arouse doubts based upon irrational guilt feelings. The prisoner begins to question the very fundamentals of his own value system. One brainwashed priest reported that after interrogation, he really began to feel intense guilt about the very missionary work, which he had devoted his entire life to.

• 1:52:17Jocko Willink?

  Constantly, the prisoner must fight off potential breakdown. He finds that his mind, he finds his mind is going blank for longer and longer periods of time. He cannot think constructively. If he is to maintain any semblance of psychological integrity, he must bring to an end this state of interminable internal conflict. He signifies a willingness to write a confession. So they finally get this dude to write, you know, like, all right, you're gonna write a confession. And by the way, that's interesting. You could see like you take this priest who had done missionary work and they make him feel like that was bad. Right? Like this is how 180, your mind can be manipulated. You believe for your whole life, you're raised as a Christian and you're gonna go out, you're gonna help people.

• 1:53:02Jocko Willink?

  And then you, you now think that what you did is bad. Like, what were you doing trying to manipulate these poor people that were over in this other country? It's like, powerful.

• 1:53:12Jocko Willink?

  So now we get to this confession writing part. And it says, no matter what the prisoner writes in his confession, the interrogator is not satisfied. The interrogator questions every sentence, every phrase of the confession. He begins to edit while working with the prisoner. The prisoner is forced to argue against every change, every demand for increased self-incrimination.

• 1:53:39Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, like you wrote like, oh, I stole the bread. And then I'm like, dude, you need to write, I stole five loaves of bread. And you're like, well, I didn't steal five. You need, yes, you did. We have evidence. We have this little back and forth. This is the very essence of brainwashing. The prisoner has begun to argue for maintaining statements that he would not have accepted prior to the commencement of brainwashing. So you're like, I didn't steal five loaves of bread. I told you I only stole two. Well, you see what I'm saying?

• 1:54:13Jocko Willink?

  Every time that he gives in on a point to the interrogator, he must rewrite his whole confession. Still, the interrogator is not satisfied. In a desperate attempt to maintain some semblance of integrity and to avoid further brainwashing, the prisoner must begin to argue that what he has already confessed is true. You're like, no, I told you it was only two loaves. He begins to accept as his own the statements he has written.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:54:43Jocko Willink?

  Because like, I'm just trying to get you to break, like, just write a confession. And you're like, you know, father, I'll give you food, I'll let you sleep, I'll turn up the temperature, and you can sit down, and you're like, fine, I stole the bread. And I'm like, cool. But how many, you stole five loaves. And you're like, no, you didn't. Well, you at least stole two. Okay, fine, I stole. And you can see you just escalate this, escalate this.

• 1:55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he draws that contrast between, like, okay, I said I did the one, and then wait, now you're saying five. Like, five is like, I'm not going to confess to the, hey, look, I'll confess to the one. The five is dumb. In fact, the five becomes so dumb in my head, that, bruh, just, bruh, get off the whole five loaves thing, bruh. You know, bruh, hey, look, I can do two. It's almost like a negotiation process.

• 1:55:27Jocko Willink?

  Except for at the end, you're arguing that it's true that you only stole one. That's like the key component. And it says subtly, step by step, he has identified with a new value system. The prisoner uses many of the interrogator's earlier arguments to bustress his own position. He, this is the key component here. He believes what he has stated. So now you, you believe what you said. An interesting point is raised by the behavior of returned prisoners of war who had been brainwashed during the Korean conflict. Some of these individuals stood court martial. Others were vilified in the press. What a freaking nightmare. One wonders

• 1:56:08Jocko Willink?

  why they did not say, I was brainwashed. I believed at the time what I said over the radio in their own defense. Apparently, they could not explain clearly what had happened to them.

• 1:56:21Jocko Willink?

  One wonders if this inability to communicate their experiences related to a most interesting psychiatric finding that is virtually impossible for a recovered schizophrenic to tell what a psychotic state is like.

• 1:56:35Jocko Willink?

  All that he can say is that is unimaginably horribly horrible. Similarly, some of the brainwashed have characterized their own experience as indescribable.

• 1:56:47Jocko Willink?

  Which to me, that little statement there is like, we are being brainwashed and of course, we don't know it. Do you, if you had people, if you had friends, like, let's say during the COVID timeframe, where like, people, their, their, their values changed, like drastically.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:10Jocko Willink?

  They, and you'd be like, well, you didn't used to think that way. And they couldn't understand that you saw this radical change that had taken place.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:57:19Jocko Willink?

  Did you see some of that?

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  I was pretty sheltered during the COVID times, so no, I did not see that, but oh yeah, you know, you see it online or whatever, you know, two people going back and forth, all this stuff, but no, not in my real life, but that I'm an exception.

• 1:57:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's one example to me of people that you go, dude, like, where you, you didn't used to think like that.

• 1:57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:42Jocko Willink?

  And now you've, now you're saying that.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:44Jocko Willink?

  Like, are you sure this is kind of, are you sure about that?

• 1:57:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, um, we'll close this out, there's a little section called aftermath, and this is just to reemphasize what I just said, the victim literally forgets many of the events that occurred during the brainwashing process. So we literally don't know who we were.

• 1:58:12Jocko Willink?

  Which is very scary. Very scary.

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  I could see it though. I could totally see it. And if you could, you can, if you just kind of look around, you can see evidence of like how this is all just very, very like

• 1:58:23Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  But obvious almost.

• 1:58:25Jocko Willink?

  But I think it's the biggest warning is that you won't feel this happening.

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:29Jocko Willink?

  So, right?

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:30Jocko Willink?

  It'll sneak into your mind and change you.

• 1:58:36Jocko Willink?

  And look, we're not against change. If you're adapting better viewpoints and your, your growth in your perspective, hey, that's great. But just be careful and be suspicious and question things and question what you're hearing, question what you see and question what you think. And just employ critical thinking, right? And I think it's good to know the persuasion tactics. Like when you watch a YouTube video, you should understand that they're trying to persuade you. I don't care what, I don't care what YouTube video, there's probably 5% of YouTube videos that aren't trying to persuade you in one way or the other. They're trying to make, like, to, to, to put together just a raw informational video would be very, very difficult.

• 1:59:21Jocko Willink?

  So just about everything that you're seeing, just about everything that you're absorbing, just everything, anything that you're reading, they're trying to persuade you. And at a minimum, they're trying to make you think different. And like I said, sometimes that's good. Sometimes people trying to open your eyes to see some new reality. Great. Just be careful. Just be careful.

• 1:59:42Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's happening.

• 1:59:46Jocko Willink?

  Stay strong. Stay strong. Stay strong. Um, speaking of staying strong.

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  Real quick, this will, this will help.

• 1:59:55Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  I think I'm certain this will help. And it's in the spirit of recognizing that this can happen, even in a way that you might not expect. So there's these little exercises, you might've seen these, but this is kind of like a, Big evidence to show. Okay, so if I were to ask you or anyone be like, hey, I'm holding something in my hand. Do you see this thing right here?

• 2:00:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  And we see it. And you say, okay, what if I put something right in front of your face? Do you think it's possible that you just wouldn't see it if I put it right in front of your face? You just physically would not see it, even though it's in literally in front of your eyes?

• 2:00:32Jocko Willink?

  Seems like there's cases where that could happen, but it seems unlikely.

• 2:00:36Speaker 01

  Doesn't land on you like obvious, right? Okay, so there's these little exercises. You might have seen this like, like a video.

• 2:00:42Jocko Willink?

  Does the gorilla one?

• 2:00:43Speaker 01

  The gorilla one.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  I was actually gonna say, well, there's that video where you watch the people passing the basketball.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:00:48Jocko Willink?

  Miss the gorilla.

• 2:00:49Speaker 01

  So that's kind of the story of your whole brain. And in, yeah, straight up. That's the story of your brain. It's like it has this, it needs, it has that, it's paying attention to it. Has this and that, that this and that, certain things it just accepts as it is. See what I'm saying? And it's all wonky like, we don't know. A lot of that is just some big dark area, you know, that we don't really know. Varying degrees of knowledge, we'll say, but just like that video, you don't realize that literally a gorilla, like if someone said, hey, if I put a gorilla right in front of your face, we don't see gorillas every day, put it right in front of your face, would you see it? Or would you literally not see it? You'd be like, no, it's pretty, I don't, can't imagine a situation where, if you didn't see that video, can't imagine a situation where I wouldn't see it.

• 2:01:28Jocko Willink?

  The video is you, you get told, count the number of passes between these five people that are holding a basketball. How many times they pass it to each other?

• 2:01:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:01:37Jocko Willink?

  Boom. And then you watch the video and you count them and you go, the video's over and they go, how many passes? And you go 17. And they say, did you see the gorilla? Walk through the center of the circle of people passing the ball. And you go, there was no gorilla. And they go, watch it again. And you go rewind, watch the exact same video and sure enough, gorilla walks right through there.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:01:57Jocko Willink?

  You missed it.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:58Jocko Willink?

  So you see, have you ever seen the thing where it says? Where you read a word and depending on which word you read, it sounds like you heard it.

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, someone's saying it.

• 2:02:09Jocko Willink?

  It was like green needles or something like that.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  I just saw that one.

• 2:02:12Jocko Willink?

  That one, that one is crazy.

• 2:02:14Speaker 01

  Same thing.

• 2:02:15Jocko Willink?

  It is crazy that you will, you will hear what you read and it's the exact same noise.

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  But depending on what you're thinking, you'll hear whatever it is you're thinking.

• 2:02:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:26Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking wild.

• 2:02:27Speaker 01

  So that one, you hear a recording that's kinda distorted, but not really.

• 2:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:31Speaker 01

  Really, you know, um, but here's the thing, it is distorted. When you don't read anything or listen to it, you're like, I don't hear anything. I don't hear either of them. But then if you, if you play, if you read, cause it has the two sides of the screen, right? If you read the one on the left side, that distorted signal sound says that word in your ears.

• 2:02:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:49Speaker 01

  Versus the other side says that word and just depends on which one you're looking at. So that one, bro, I rewound that one so many times. It was like, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat the system. Yeah. Bro, I couldn't beat it.

• 2:03:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  But if you don't look at any of them, you're like, it just doesn't sound like anything. See, Brian, that's the whole point right there. Where it's like, bro, how much of this is just your brain just freaking jumping from thing to thing and missing this and accepting this? And all of a sudden, your reality is literally different than what you might fully a hundred percent expect. That's going on every day.

• 2:03:21Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:03:22Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:03:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's why I think you gotta be really careful about, you know, what you're putting in there, what, what ingredients you're adding to the bread.

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause you don't want that bread to go bad. You don't want it to be junk. So just be careful. Pay attention. Keep an open mind, but damn, be careful what you let in there, right? Don't be letting the bad stuff in there. It's freaking gnarly. Uh, right on. Stay strong mentally with that. We're gonna stay strong physically as well, which means, did you lift yet today?

• 2:03:52Speaker 01

  No, not yet.

• 2:03:53Jocko Willink?

  You were saying when we got here. Actually, you did tell me that you didn't lift today because you said your mental acuity is lower when you have not exercised before we record. Accurate? And this was your first time picking up on that, even though I literally wrote about that in the book, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual?

• 2:04:12Speaker 01

  The answer is no, and not to split hairs here, but I said after I lift, I feel like my brain has like more circulation. So my mental acuity, even though I didn't use that word, is higher. I didn't say it's lower when I don't. I said it's higher when I do.

• 2:04:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, I mean, we saw evidence of low brain activity today.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  No, we didn't, but you know, hey, thank you, though, for, you know, your opinion. Nonetheless, it's true.

• 2:04:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  And it's true acutely and chronically, by the way. So the more you exercise, the more you, even like stuff, something as as low intensity as like walking helps circulation to your whole body.

• 2:04:50Jocko Willink?

  You call that roadwork.

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  Roadwork all day. Roadwork's more of a general term, but nonetheless, yes, you're correct.

• 2:04:56Jocko Willink?

  So you're gonna go lift later. I already lifted today. Feel good. Glad I did. I much rather would have lifted already.

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:05Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty much the feeling I always get. Although sometimes you're like fired up to go lift. Sometimes what's bummed me out is when I'm I'm supposed to go to bed at night, but I'm kind of fired up to lift in the morning. Do you think I should go lift then?

• 2:05:17Speaker 01

  No, no, it depends. Depends on.

• 2:05:19Jocko Willink?

  Just go do something? Go do go do some arms or something?

• 2:05:22Speaker 01

  Well, I'm always gonna advocate for doing arms for the most part, but you know, I don't know. Programming is very complex and different, you know, for everybody. So whatever you dig. Yeah, do it. See, hey, do it. See how it feels.

• 2:05:35Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:05:35Speaker 01

  Report back.

• 2:05:36Jocko Willink?

  We're lifting, we're training, you need fuel. So we recommend Jocko Fuel. Go to JacoFuel.com and get protein, get energy, get hydration.

• 2:05:47Jocko Willink?

  Get immunity, get height, get greens. By the way, our greens are legit. They taste good. Get joint warfare, super crow, all the things that are going to help you stay on the path physically and mentally. Check it out. We're at Walmart, Wawa, Vitamin Shop GNC, Military Commissaries, Afees, Hannaford Dash Stores, Wakefern, ShopRite, HEB down in Texas, crushing. Meyer in the Midwest, crushing. Wegmans, I think we got pallets on the floor in Wegmans right now. Harris Teeter, Downing, down in Florida, Publix, people were posting pictures of just grocery carts filled with Jocko Fuel. So, much appreciated. That's awesome. We're

• 2:06:28Jocko Willink?

  making good stuff to keep you on the path. Lifetime Fitness, Shields, small gyms everywhere. And if you don't have Jocko Fuel at your gym, or at your chiropractic office, or at your hair salon, or at your gymnastics gym, or wherever you're at, email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Also, check out originusa.com. We're talking a lot about Chinese communism today. We do not support Chinese communism. We do not support slavery.

• 2:07:07Jocko Willink?

  We do not in support internment camps. We don't support that type of activity. No. That's why we have Origin USA. You don't have to get your, you don't have to get your t-shirt made by a slave. You don't have to get your t-shirt made in a, in a factory that makes, oh, we make, in the Chinese factory, they make t-shirts and the destruction of the environment. They make them both there. You don't have to participate in that. You go to originusa.com, you can get boots, you can get jeans, you can get t-shirts, you can get hoodies, you can get jujitsu gi, did I say jujitsu gi's? You can get jujitsu gi's, rash guards, hunt gear, you can get everything that you need, training gear for life, all

• 2:07:51Jocko Willink?

  made 100% in America by freedom with American-made materials. Go to originusa.com and support America. There's no tariffs on this gear. No tariffs on the material. It's not, there's none. Why? Because it's made in America. Tariff free. Let's go.

• 2:08:09Speaker 01

  If you know, I've noticed Pete's been putting out some footwear hype.

• 2:08:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:16Speaker 01

  Like they're gonna be doing more shit. Some of those shoes that I don't know if they're out yet or what, but some of those shoes is like kind of more like the casual ones. Those are kind of my speed. Those look freaking sick.

• 2:08:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we're gonna have some, uh, looks like we're getting close to having some, what do you call them? I believe the term is lifestyle shoes.

• 2:08:34Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:08:35Jocko Willink?

  But by, and by that I mean sneakers. And by that I mean the kind of sneakers that you could skateboard in.

• 2:08:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:41Jocko Willink?

  You know, which should kind of let you know what we're coming with. So we're working on it, man. Luckily, some of these, uh, sole manufacturers that make the, the soles of shoes, they've brought some of their equipment back to America.

• 2:08:56Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 2:08:57Jocko Willink?

  And so now, because we can't, we hold the line. We're not making it unless it's American made. So now that we have some of these American sole manufacturers, bringing back to America their machines, now we can make some sneakers here in America. So there we go. Let's go. OriginUSA.com. Check it out.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. Also a store called Jocko Store. JacoStore.com. This is like, uh, you know, when you're representing on the path, right? We're staying strong. We're staying active, staying capable, right? Keeping the discipline so that we may have freedom. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, you're representing discipline equals freedom. You can get your shirts and hoodies. We got some socks. I know it builds a lot of hype on the socks.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  And you still haven't sent me a pair. By the way, did you give me my freaking?

• 2:09:45Speaker 01

  Want your shirt?

• 2:09:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:46Speaker 01

  Shirts?

• 2:09:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:47Speaker 01

  Hey, they're coming. I promise. Told you, hey, by the end of the month, that's one I can determine. And yeah, you got it. How about this? I'll send them to you today. How about that? Is that cool?

• 2:09:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  Okay. Nonetheless, nonetheless.

• 2:09:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:09:58Speaker 01

  For everyone else, discipline equals freedom, the idea of good, right? Sometimes we want to represent, this is where you can get it. So yeah, choco store.com, a lot of good stuff on there, check it out. Some hats on there as well. Forget, uh, for failed to mention that before. Uh, also the short locker, which is a new design, same deal. Discipline equals freedom, a little bit outside the box for the designs thinking. But good nonetheless, people seem to like them.

• 2:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Are the hoolygolf.com collab polo shirts on there yet?

• 2:10:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:10:29Jocko Willink?

  We're still working on it?

• 2:10:30Speaker 01

  They're still in transit, the whole process is processing, but yeah, be on the lookout for that. Uh, there's an email list, sign up if you want to be updated to like, you know, the new, new stuff. That's a good one. It's true. Well, I don't just send out emails for every little thing. That's the thing. So I'm not spamming. It's just like worthy of messaging and you know, you get it. Anyway, back to short lockers, new design every month, subscription, subscription scenario. Go on there, click on shirt locker, see some of the past designs, see what that's all about. It's pretty cool. People seem to like it. Anyway, everything is on choco store.com.

• 2:11:02Jocko Willink?

  Also check out primalbeef.com and coloradocraftbeef.com. Well, you need steak. Look, we love milk, a hundred percent.

• 2:11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:10Jocko Willink?

  A hundred freaking great dessert, tastes delicious, gives you protein. The ready to drinks, 30 gram protein, the powder's 22 grams per scoop. So like you can get your protein there, but you need some of that steak too. So go to coloradocraftbeef.com or primalbeef.com, get steak, get jerky, get beef sticks. Get whatever you need, burgers, hot dogs, get it. Awesome people, awesome steaks. Also subscribe to the podcast, also check out Jocko Underground, also check out our YouTube channel. Also, I've written some books. Miha wrote a book.

• 2:11:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:11:46Jocko Willink?

  Miha wrote a book. The book is called Modern Submission Grappling. One of my training partners, Miha, put it together very thorough. Very, uh, gives you, it gives you good context and structure to build your game around. In other words, have you heard of like the ecological, uh, systems of training? Where you don't get taught anything, you just try something. Uh, you try something in a certain environment until it either work, until you figure it out. So that's like a theory. I think there's some components to that theory makes sense. But I also believe that having learned many things in my life, it's it's good to be able

• 2:12:29Jocko Willink?

  to put information into a structure with context. And one thing that is very powerful about Mihal's book is it will help you take information of Jiu Jitsu and put it into a structure with context. So you'll be able to adapt it more easily. So check out Mihal's book. Also, I've written a bunch of books. I haven't written any Jiu Jitsu books. Well, I guess Warrior Kids kind of a Jiu Jitsu books. You might want to check those out for kids. We got a bunch of books, leadership, kids books. Check them out if you want to. Also, we have a leadership consultancy Echelon Front. We just got done with the muster down in, what was it, San Antonio? The next one is in Orlando in December. So it's gonna sell out. If you want to come down there, come and check it out. We have

• 2:13:11Jocko Willink?

  a couple of slots open left on the council, which is up in northeast Washington State. It's a very small group of leaders that show up there. And we get very granular, solving the problems inside your organization, inside your team, inside your life, quite frankly. So if you want to do any of these things, or you have a business and you need leadership help inside your organization, because you have some kind of problem, which all problems are leadership problems, we can help you with those as well. So for leadership, go to echelonfront.com, come to one of our events, or bring us into your company. Also, we have

• 2:13:52Jocko Willink?

  an online training academy, extremeownership.com. These principles that we teach, you must learn in order to lead and in order to travel through the world and make progress. We will help you. We'll give you the skills that you need. Go to extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization that just does an outstanding job helping our veterans.

• 2:14:24Jocko Willink?

  If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Also check out Heroes and Horses.org.

• 2:14:32Jocko Willink?

  And finally Jimmy May's organization, Beyond the Brotherhood.org. And if you want to connect with us, you go to Jaco.com or you can check us out on social media. Just be careful because there's an algorithm there and it'll, it's going to brainwash you. Fill your mind with a bunch of shit that you don't need. So don't let that happen. But you can check in with us real quick. I'm at Jocko Willink, Echo's at Echo Charles. Just, just check in real quick and then get out. We don't want you in there. We don't want you scrolling. We don't want you getting brainwashed.

• 2:15:04Jocko Willink?

  We want you all living. That's what we want.

• 2:15:09Jocko Willink?

  And thanks to our service members, men and women around the globe, sacrificing every day

• 2:15:17Jocko Willink?

  to protect our right to think free, to speak free and to act free. Thank you for what you do every day. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for protecting us here at home. And everyone else out there, the quote that kicked off this book said, "Man can be made to do exactly anything."

• 2:15:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, just make sure that you're the one that is in charge of your mind and you're the one that is deciding exactly what it is you want to do. Stay aware, stay alert and keep your mind free. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.