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Language: en
this is where I believe the the public
disdain for CIA comes from CIA recruits
us and another one of the lessons they
tell us is that they recruit us for
something known as moral
flexibility that just sounds horrible it
just sounds horrible it sounds like the
book you recommended right a billion a
billion Wicked thoughts that book is so
good for anybody that has a strong
stomach when you hear moral flexibility
you have the same reaction right oh that
sounds horrible but it sounds so good so
moral flexibility is essentially the
idea that you
can move you can shift your ethics and
your morals around some other objective
right if you don't have that if you have
strict morals and strict ethics you're
not going to do well in clandestine
operations you're just not you have to
have flexibility to say what becomes
your guidepost is it protecting
Americans yes it becomes honestly as as
again this is where people don't like
CIA cia's mission is a American
privacy that's it right that's the goal
it goes I'm child of the 80s I love
American privacy I love it the most I
know that's so out of fashion right now
it is out of fashion I think it's crazy
everybody should want Primacy for their
own country they absolutely should and
if you're an American the fact that we
have the freest country in the world do
we have problems yes are our problems
anywhere like other countries problems
no spoken by somebody who's been in
other countries it's nuts man it's
incredible how people lose perspective
they never gain perspective they're
trapped in their own perception about
how bad America is America's messed up
I'm not saying it's not we're like we're
an adolescent country in the
developmental stages of a country we're
just over 250 years old I think we're
just under 250 years old we're freaking
adolescents we're teenagers of course
we're all [ __ ] up right what teenager
do you know that has it all figured out
we've got we've got growing to do but
let's not negate the progress that we've
made just because we're not where we
want to be yet right but either way
moral flexibility is this idea that you
can change your personal ethics to fit a
larger goal ours is American Primacy CIA
believes and and the the government of
the United States believes that as long
as America is the strongest country in
the world the world is a safer place to
Americans if you don't like the way that
sounds then you don't want to work in
the government right we're not worried
about the security of Nigerians we're
not worried about the security of
Australians we're not worried about the
freedom of human rights in you know Sri
Lanka that's not our first goal it might
be somewhere at like goal 75 goal number
one keep Americans safe give Americans
every opportunity to succeed in a world
that's dominated by the United States
it's going to be dominated by somebody
exactly right so this idea of moral
flexibility is a big part of what CIA
recruits us to do they recruit us
because we have have moral flexibility
to make that American Primacy Mission
happen and then they also teach us that
when you are engaging with somebody a
Target and that Target has potential
value to the
mission sometimes you have to Veer from
your own ethics about dealing with
people to meet them where they are so
that you can get into their private and
secret life and guide them to where you
need them to be did that mess with your
head or do you find that easy I found it
thrilling I wouldn't say I found it easy
it's a there's a learning curve there
but it was absolutely thrilling it's
like you said something you enjoy doing
right something that brings you
excitement learning how to manage people
like manage them on I say manage we
learned how to manipulate people that's
what CIA Tau us how to do we weren't
making friends with these folks right
you're finding this the most powerful
most uh vulnerable people in the world
who have access to secrets that keep
American safe that's not a big
population there's really only a small
population that has that level of access
that level of secret access right you
had to find them you had to befriend
them you had to get into their secret
life you had to get them to commit their
their s the safety of themselves and
their family to you and then eventually
your real goal is to institutionalize
them so that you can basically leave and
a junior officer can step in to maintain
that relationship do you reveal who you
are at some point sometimes sometimes
you reveal Who You Are are sometimes
it's better to leave what we call a fig
Leaf where they think they know who you
are but they're never really sure
because if they were sure they might
self-destruct right right that's another
thing another predictable human thing
human beings like to self-destruct we
feel like to self we like to
self-destruct what yeah we all carry
this self-destruct button on our chest
that's what we say right a big red
self-destruct button so when we start to
get our into trouble M you start to lie
and then you tell compounding lies
because you're trying to get yourself
out of the situation that you got
yourself into inevitably you're going to
land on a point where you're like I just
need to come
clean whoa that's something that we do
right and then you've got the people out
there who refuse to lie because they're
so afraid of that moment that they only
tell the truth yeah well when you only
tell the truth guess what you
do whoa I'm I'm evaluating myself
internally like crazy right now so uh
keep going so so we're why do we like to
self-destruct we like to self-destruct
because we in our in our brains we
create this low probability outcome
where all will be forgiven and we be
able to
reset what we don't like people can
reinvent you can always reinvent you can
never reset there is no this isn't
freaking Nintendo right there's no
hitting select or start and starting all
over again you just don't get to do that
you got to finish the game and then you
can restart you can reinvent you can
recreate but you can't go backwards you
can't reset so true we keep thinking we
keep thinking that we can reset we keep
thinking that we can go back to the
blank slate that you already said never
actually existed we can't we have to
keep playing the game you have to you
can Retreat or you can advance but you
can't restart the war you're in it
you're in it and you've only got one
chance you've only got one ride on this
rock that circles in One Direction Right
Time only goes one way until we find out
how to do it otherwise this is just
where we are you've got to accept that
reality you can't perceive something
different you have to accept the reality
that you're going where you're going two
things happen when you accept that
reality the first thing is that you
learn that everything that's happened
that you would is that that you would
think that your instinct tells you to
just reset and start over reset and
start over just whitewash it all
reformat the disc and let's start over
again so we like to self-destruct
because we are misinterpreting the
moment right because we are telling
ourselves a lie in our head right we're
telling ourselves that it's better to
start over than to start where we are
wow it's never better to start over you
are the you are a fantastic example
because you accept it you are the sum
total of all of your experiences good
and bad you are 0 to 7 7 to 13 13 to
whatever age you are now you are all of
that sum of all of that experience and
all of your learning you you use the
Mantra don't forget who you are or
remember who you are is that what you
say remember who I am what you're really
remembering is everything that brought
you to where you are you can't pick and
choose you can't reset it that is what
it is and it's a [ __ ] superpower but
it's a superpower for everybody it's a
superpower for everybody I'm nowhere
near the financial success that you are
I'm nowhere near the achievement that
you've achieved I'm nowhere near the
notoriety that you have nowhere near it
but you still invited me to come here
there's something I offer of value that
made this conversation interesting and
relevant to you we all have that kind of
power what we call Wasa Wasa is the
Arabic word for influence right we all
have that kind of Wasa we just have to
learn to lean into the Wasa that we have
and leverage it to achieve what we're
trying to achieve to build what we're
trying to build we can't just reset it
and start over we and we spend so much
time people spend so much time bemoaning
their background instead of leveraging
it into something amazing turning it
into something productive right and and
what ends up happening is the reason
Espionage works the reason business
works is because human
beings laughably predictable human
beings are always happy Edgar Allen post
said people are never truly happy until
they're
unhappy because you're unhappy as soon
as something makes you happy you start
to worry about when that happiness is
going to be taken away by something that
makes you
unhappy so you can never actually reach
happiness your your your average person
is happy as long as they're unhappy
because that's when they're content they
believe
well everything's everything's miserable
I can't get worse than this that's so
weird so when in Espionage you're
looking for those people you're you're
always looking for the person who has
access to Secrets because once you find
the few people who have access to
Secrets there's a high probability
they're miserable because everybody's
[ __ ] miserable so then all you have
to do is use the skills to get into this
miserable person's secret life and make
them think that you're doing it because
you care about them as a person when in
fact you just care about their access
because what you really are after is
American Primacy and then once you get
that person to trust you because they
bring you into your secret life you just
drain their secrets feed it back to
American legislators and you prepare
this person to be turned over to a new
person that they never even led into
their secret life in the first place but
now you vouch what we call Advocate you
advocate for this new person who's
coming in which means your trust and
your credibility and their secret life
is automatically carried on to the
person that you introduce them to they
are now what we call
institutionalized assets they don't even
realize that their loyalty is not to Tom
and Andy their loyalty is to CIA and
they don't even realize
it all while keeping their hand off the
self-destruct button be and because
you're keeping their hand off the
self-destruct button because you know
remember how I was telling you sometimes
we leave them a fig Leaf I'm sorry I'm
just rolling here man if I'm cutting you
off interrupt me anytime no no that's
amazing when a spy realizes oh [ __ ] I'm
giving away Secrets what they think to
themselves is I need to go self-report I
need to go tell my boss I need to go
tell the police I need to go tell
something because if I'm caught
especially in the countries that we
steal secrets from if I'm caught they're
going to kill me they're going to kill
my wife they're going to kill my kids
they're going to kill my parents they're
going to make us all a public spectacle
to make sure that nobody ever does this
again so they're stuck between a true
rock and a hard place because they think
to themselves if I self admit what I'm
doing I might get killed if I keep doing
if I if I get caught doing what I'm
doing I might get killed so the
self-destruct button they have is to
pull away from you to like go into
hiding and then potentially to leak it
at some point in the future so then you
lose access to them immediately two
years down the road they still
self-destruct they still tell somebody
man this one time I was talking to an
American and I accidentally gave him
like the codes to our nukes and I
realize that maybe I shouldn't trust him
and then somebody reports them anyways
and families get get killed we have to
protect them from their own Natural
Instinct so a big part of what why we
continue to meet with our assets is so
that we can constantly cultivate and
train them to resist that urge right
there's no resetting how do you get them
to resist that urge what you're doing is
good I care about you positive
reinforcement what you're doing nobody
spies nobody spies for the reason they
think they spy just like you were saying
people don't want to know about business
people don't want to learn what they
need to learn they want to learn what
they want to learn I'm totally Mass here
Massac your own but people don't spy for
the reasons they think they spy people
spy for what's known as a core
motivation right we call it a core
motivation and there's only four core
motivations and they fall into a a uh
acronym that we call Rice r i
c rewards is a core motivator IDE ology
is a core motivator coercion is a core
motivator and ego is a core motivator
there we go those are it that's all you
got wow every human being is driven in
every decision by those four things dude
I love these rubrics These are fantastic
so when you when you recruit somebody
when you when you create a spy it's all
based in one of those four areas you
just have to know which of those four
areas is most relevant to that person
and you'll know which of those four
areas based on what you know about their
three stages of life so this person is
ideologically driven this person is ego-
driven this person is reward driven this
person won't do something unless you
hold a gun to their face you just know
it right and then you test it over
time so when you when you are managing
and handling a human asset they're a
human being they think that they're
giving you Secrets because you're their
friend they think that they're in some
kind of trusting relationship now maybe
you're their friend who also pays them
maybe you're their friend who who
encourages them to believe in the power
of democracy and they're in a communist
country who knows right so you're
feeding them whatever their core
motivation is but you're also inside
their secret life so you've got the
Loyalty piece covered the human response
to loyalty right the human response to
being in someone's secret life is that
loyalty that that falty you've got that
but you're also feeding them on an
incentive basis by hitting their core
motivation so those that's the magic2
so that's how you keep
someone resourced and charged so that
they don't ever press the button that's
waiting for them that self-destruct
button is always there just takes one
bad day one bad decision one moment of
weakness to press it it's all you got to
do is prevent people from doing that do
they believe if they press that button
that they'll get more lenient treatment
yes you believe that too man you've had
that conversation in your own head where
you're like if I just come clean if I
just admit the truth if I just share
whatever right then it'll be less bad
than if I don't there must be something
truish about that do do people actually
like I'm I'm trying to put this on the
scale of like they're going to kill my
family everyone I know and love like
that's so heavy man and humans can be
gnarly in the
extreme do they actually get letter
treatment or is this like a Fool's
errand it's a Fool's errand it's a fo
when you're in a place where that's the
risk you've got to like you have to look
at everything through a lens of of
cultural norms right in a country where
it's a norm to make a public statement
through the mass execution of a family
line which is that's a country where
family name carries a lot of weight
Asian families family names in Asia
carry an incredible amount of weight
Japan we were just talking what is Japan
all about honoring what
ancestors everything so to bring
dishonor to the family name is such a
heavy thing that the self-destruct
button those people might press is
execution is just suicide you know what
happens if your asset kills themselves
they stay secure but you lose a source
of information so you can't let that
happen right there's lots of different
versions of a self destruct button the
trick is the the the mission is to make
sure that they never think that
self-destruct is the best option it's
always an option they always remember
that it's an option right I certainly
went through a phase in my life where I
was thinking dark Suicidal Thoughts
really many people do at in in C CIA in
that in that 13 to 25y Old pubescent
Andy okay there was absolutely like dark
nail polish like
my I don't like my stepdad my mom
doesn't pay attention my sisters are the
favorites you know I was running into
racial issues at school like there's all
sorts of stuff there and and you
certainly have those thoughts where
you're like what's the [ __ ] point
like is this really worth no one's even
going to miss me right like the the
amount of people who have had those
thoughts is is surprisingly large it
doesn't mean we take action on it right
it's an option right it's not really a
reset it's it's not you're not starting
all over again you're just ending what
you have when people are thinking about
smashing the self-destruct button do is
it normally to confess or is it do
people kill themselves it's normally to
confess confession is confession is
again this makes me sound like a just an
incredibly horrible person confession is
the worst of the two options from the
point of view of an intelligence officer
because if someone confesses then
they're no longer providing access to
information but they're also potentially
admitting that you were the one handling
them so now that brings a whole world of
pain on you plus if someone starts to
investigate you then how long before
they start to take apart the network
that supported you in that country or in
the field right now all of a sudden
there's like secondary and tertiary
levels of of risk exposure so confession
is our worst case scenario we would
rather an asset self destruct or just go
dark go dark meaning they just shut
themselves off from the world and I mean
it's still scary if they shut themselves
off from the world because you don't
know who they're telling what to but we
can control suicide we the blowback from
suicide we can't really control the
blowback from somebody who
confesses wof do agents and I don't know
if this is something that you can talk
about but when that happens like the
person goes dark do agents like get me
out of here like is it extraction time
usually it's extraction time is what we
would call a non-emergency
extraction um an an emergency extraction
is like no [ __ ] black airplanes are
going into the sky with boxes that have
oxygen tanks and you're like getting
extracted right that's we think that
that your threat to life or threat to
survival is imminent so we need you out
ASAP right we don't have time to tell
borders and custom that you're going to
be leaving we don't have time to tell
anybody we're we're just getting you out
that's an emergency uh xfill
exfiltration when we have a
non-emergency evacuation or a
non-emergency exfiltration then you can
usually you can go through the
established lines it's a race against
the clock because the question becomes
can you get across the border faster
than the person who went dark can turn
themselves in submit your name and the
bureaucrat the bureaucracy of the local
police force can get your name to the
border crossing agents right and
sometimes I mean if someone goes dark if
if someone goes dark and you've in 12
hours or less you can get yourself
across the border you're safe right
sometimes it can be 3 days sometimes it
can be two weeks and sometimes you're
you're on a mission that's so sensitive
that it's actually better to wait until
you see signs that people are coming for
you and then trigger the emergency
xville whoa right so how so let's say
that moment happens um do you have like
booby traps or something that you set on
the door I mean this is like straight up
movie stuff are you like paper in the
door and if it falls out you know
somebody's been in like what signs do
you look for that somebody's coming
after you yeah so um I'm going to stick
to the unclassified version of
course um so generally speaking when you
think that you're under scrutiny what we
call scrutiny or Advanced
scrutiny you are looking first for some
sort of active surveillance because the
dude who lingers too long outside your
apartment if they're if what if they're
what we would call a bumble buing
surveillance then yes a bumbling and
bumbling surveillance exists right
there's there's different levels of
surveillance so let's reverse engineer
you've got an asset the asset knows that
you are getting their secrets asset
turns you in well now the question for
the local police force or the local
intelligence service is do we wrap up
the person that we know is collecting
Secrets or do we observe the person
who's collecting secrets to see who else
are they collecting secrets from and who
else are they meeting with to report
their secrets too because now you have
the opportunity to unfold an entire
network it's a very similar problem to
what the police have do you take out one
drug dealer or do you follow the drug
dealer to find you know the larger
Kingpin so the first thing that we do
when we suspect that we might be under
scrutiny is amp up our situational
awareness to observe whether or not we
think we're being observed so yes
bumbling surveillance would be a
potential that you're being observed
usually bumbling surveillance exists
naturally like there are countries where
you just being a tall wealthy white guy
soon as you walk into that country
there's going to be some bumbling person
who's always like 17 feet behind you
with a newspaper walking around just
keeping an eye on you right for any for
any number of reasons we would expect to
see more refined sophisticated
surveillance so we would look for a team
we're trained to see teams of
surveillance foot surveillance vehicle
surveillance we're trained to know when
and how to look for closed C closed
television closed circuit TV and or
aerial drones we know when we can spot
them at the right time to confirm if
they're after us right and if we see
sophisticated surveillance then we can
trigger The Next Step so that's one way
that we would go about doing it the
other thing we would look for is
electronic signatures that were being
electronically surveilled there's
certain signatures there are certain
behaviors that you can look for in your
cell phone in your computer in your
laptop in your smart TV you know on your
smart devices there's certain things
that you can keep an eye out for that
that demonstrate that you might be
tapped where you might be under are any
those unclassified that you can tell me
about um I'm pretty sure that it's
unclassified to talk about um gaps like
delays if you start to see performance
delays in a device that is performing
normally that's a good sign that it's
being it's got an additional drag on its
internal CPU or its internal memory I'm
going to be so paranoid now so if your
Smartwatch is always working and then
all of a sudden your smartwatch has this
delay It's not catching the right time
it's not catching it's not connecting to
the Wi-Fi it's got some kind of Gap some
sort of digital Gap right that's usually
a sign that something in the internal
unit is draining it of its processing
power when a hack happens when an
information or a data hack happens
they're not usually very clean and
they're not efficient so they are very
energy intensive so for your watch or
for your phone or for your smart TV to
be sending your signal out to another
location all the time right is going to
constantly fill up it's going to take
all the demand on your RAM that's being
carried in your smart device so when you
see that it's an indicator does that
mean you run and hide not necessarily
it's just an indicator often times we
find indicators as very comfortable
things because if there's an indicator
that we're being surveilled then that
means it's not an indicator that as soon
as we step outside we're going to get
wrapped up into a van now we have time
we have time to get off the X as long as
we don't [ __ ] melt down right right
so and that's the big thing too when you
see surveillance on your Smartwatch or
surveillance on your smartphone your TV
starts to your smart TV starts to [ __ ]
and then you also see surveillance on
the street guess what every fiber in
your body wants you to do run run and
hit that self-destruct button right just
run I'm out of here as fast as I can
maybe if I get on a Tuk Tuk and it takes
me to a local airport and I pay some
local pilot $300 he'll just fly me to
Cambodia maybe no it's not going to work
that way you're going to get intercepted
15 minutes after you start the run like
the the way the human brain can
rationalize through a dangerous
situation and come to the wrong
conclusion it's incredible if you like
that clip check out the full powerful
episode here and I'll see you see you
there