Page 91 of Shielding Instinct

“Apples grow on trees. The enemies use the apples to transport electronic data collection to your home. Apples have seeds—I’m making this up, by the way.”

“Got it. Yes, apples grow on trees. Yes, apples have seeds.”

“Those seeds aren’t natural. They are put there by the government to be brought into your house and spy on you and your family. We all know an apple a day keeps the doctor away. But you must leave the apples on the store shelf to keep the government away. Apples are full of fiber and are good for your health. But not anymore because the government wants you weak, and so they are using the apples to get to you and your children. Apples are in the stores. Be afraid. You might have given an apple to your teacher as a child. But as an adult, you know the truth. Stay away from the apples! It flashes through the sequence very fast.”

Hawkeye looked left and right, then pulled out onto the side road. “That’s similar to a sales technique my dad used. He used a series of questions where he knows the answer is yes. You and your wife want to make a wise decision about your vehicle. Yes. You told me that the most important thing about a vehicle is your family's safety. Yes. You both agree that you would prefer a car with good gas mileage. Yes. And you both want a black car. Yes. And so, it makes sense that you choose this car here because of its safety record, gas mileage, and black color. After saying yes so many times, the customers’ brains feed them the next ‘yes’ as a natural progression, and then he makes the sale. Something like that?”

“He was manipulating the customer with that technique. But it wasn’t nefarious or an enemy state trying to undermine the basic tenets of civilization. This is getting the brain to agree with a truth and then be presented with a non-truth. Your dad didn’t do that. But to use that example, they try to get the person's brain to think, “I agree, yes, that’s right.” If the propaganda is inserted too fast for the brain to focus on it, it immediately focuses on another truth. The brain is acquiring that information in a factual string. With repetition, it will be perceived as a fact. It will formidably tie actual facts to the propaganda, so it’s hard to untangle once the knot is made and pulled tight. More so when it’s a trusted influencer or shared with you by trusted people—friends and family.”

“Then what?” Hawkeye asked as he looked down at the GPS.

“Once these non-truths are accepted as truths, they add another layer of non-truth until all the true statements have been dropped one by one, and it’s just a string of mind manipulation. Over time, the information is moved from the front part of the brain where executive function and processing live, and it moves to the back of the brain where facts are stored. There, it’s no longer analyzed. It is a fact that lives deep in the brain.”

Hawkeye flicked on his blinker.

“We go up this road until you hit The Social Club with the beer-drinking pigs and take a left,” Petra said. “I came along this route yesterday on the way to the tidepool.”

“Beer-drinking pigs,” Hawkeye sounded that out. “Don’t leap around like that, please. Let’s stick with the idea that social media videos are made as tools of foreign interference.”

“Absolutely. And incredibly dangerous. Let me ask you this, Hawkeye, how hard would it be to change your mind from a known and accepted fact to a truth?” Petra asked.

“I don’t know.” He reached for his water bottle. “Give me a situation.”

“Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address—a known fact you were taught. You weren’t there. You didn’t see it. It’s learned from trusted resources, both from people and from writing. What if I came to you and said, ‘Hey, look, Hawkeye. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but they were pulling the wool over your eyes. The truth is that we never had a president named Lincoln. In fact, the history books are lying to you because they don’t want you to know that the sixteenth president was a woman. Her name was Abigail Melrose, and all mentions of her name, all images in any form, were destroyed by people who didn’t want you to know the truth about that time.’ Would you believe me?”

“No.”

“Sit with that for a minute. What would it take for you to believe me?”

They sat in silence as Hawkeye’s face clouded. “Nothing. Nothing you could tell me or show me would make me believe that we’ve had a female president in the nineteenth century.”

“The Lincoln propaganda worked. A society believes in him.” Petra held up jazz hands.

“Come on, Petra.”

“Obviously, there really was a Lincoln, and obviously, I’m being illustrative with that scenario. But I wanted you to feel your stomach clench as you gripped at your belief and braced against me, telling you that your understanding of the facts is incorrect.”

“You’re right. It was a physical reaction. I braced.” Hishahasounded strained. “Interesting in a horrible way. And so, what do we do about that kind of foreign manipulation?”

“Throughout history, people who want power must find ways to make others conform. Psychology is easier and cheaperthan weapons and bombs. What did America do in the Middle East when it went into Iraq? Shock and awe.” Petra shrugged. “The psyops was to make the people think they had no chance against the might of the United States. That’s not all. The motto in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan was ‘win the hearts and minds.’ The emotions and the thoughts.”

Hawkeye exhaled.

“This is a form of that. However, foreign entities aren’t trying at all to win the hearts and minds of Americans. They’re trying to form fissures and make people doubt that truth exists.”

“To what end?”

“A society that isn’t cohesive is weak. Remember how we talked about survival of the fittest? Remember how we talked about those who were ostracized would probably die? Add this thought in—”

“Petra, how dystopian is this conversation going to get?”

“Off the charts dystopian. Brace yourself. In my lab, we’re also researching how artificial intelligence and the ability to manipulate images and audio mean no one has a solid base to trust truth. Everything can be produced to support any line of thinking. It’s going to get harder and harder to know up from down. I predict that this is going to lead to psychological trauma for the entire world. Our brains aren’t built to look at everything and interpret whether it’s real or an illusion. We’ll exhaust ourselves and still never know. Yup, unless laws go into place on a global scale, we are really and truly going to haveseriousmental health issues.”

Hawkeye stared out the front window. It looked like he was holding his breath.

“Yeah, this is the kind of fun stuff I think about all day.”

“It must be terrifying in your head,” he whispered with a quick glance in her direction.

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