In the first half of the show, psychiatrist Carole Lieberman talked about the fear of Friday the 13th, as well as Doomsday phobias. Clinically called Friggatriskaidekaphobia, at least 21 million Americans have fears around Friday the 13th. It stems from fears around the number 13, and Friday, which has been considered an unlucky day. Fridays have seen stock market crashes, and are considered bad days to begin projects or take journeys, she elaborated. Negative thoughts about Friday the 13th can gel in the unconscious mind and lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, or people become more aware of negative events that happen on such days, and this confirms their superstitions, she explained.
Doomsday phobia or fear of the end of the world is connected to one's fears around their mortality, said Dr. Lieberman. In discussing the May 21st Doomsday date popularized by Harold Camping, she noted that "because the world is so uncertain today more than ever...with so much unknown that seems to be threatening us...it's easier to get people to believe these kind of things." She also talked about her psychological studies of "bad girls," as well as the meaning of dreams.
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In the latter half, Mark Dice, a muckraker out to expose the abuses of the New World Order, discussed the various ways that 'Orwellian' technology is beginning to violate not only our privacy but our civil rights. We are in many ways living in the world depicted by George Orwell's book 1984-- "the power hungry officials, the perpetual state of war, [and] how the fear-based propaganda system works," he commented. Among the disturbing technology advancements, he cited facial recognition software used by companies like Facebook to identify people posted in photos on their site, as well as smart phone apps like 'Recognizr' that can identify a person's face by cell phone camera, and pull up personal information on them.
He also talked about the use of MRI of the brain to decipher what people are thinking, as well as mind control technology in which voices are beamed into a person's head to create illusions like God is talking to them. For the 2012 Olympics in London, a company called Sound Intelligence is lobbying for a contract to place microphones on the street that can record sound from 100 yards away, and supposedly detect "hostile speech," he added.
News segment guest: Mitch Battros
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