What if your worst enemy wasn't a foreign adversary—but a virtual clone of you?

A digital twin that knows your habits, your cravings, your blind spots.
It knows when you're tired. When you're distracted. When you're easiest to influence.

Sounds like Black Mirror.
It isn't.

In this episode, we sit down with Matt Canham—former FBI supervisory special agent, trainer to NASA and DARPA, and founder of the Cognitive Security Institute—to talk about digital twins, social engineering, and why the human mind is now the primary target.

This is a conversation about prediction , personalization, and what happens when systems know you better than you know yourself.

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Key Topics

What "cognitive security" actually means—and why it's not psychology cosplay

Digital twins as behavioral models, not avatars

Why prediction beats persuasion every time

How social engineering exploits routine, not stupidity

Personalization as a structural vulnerability

Why awareness doesn't equal protection

The difference between influence, manipulation, and coercion

Why humans are easier to model than systems

What institutions are quietly preparing for

Where responsibility ends: individual brains vs. system design

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Resources + Links

Cognitive Security Institute
https://www.cognitivesecurityinstitute.org/

Matt Canham — speaking, training, and research on cognitive security
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-cognitivesecurity/

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WANT TO SUPPORT MAD?

Sponsor us.
We'll make you a weird, wonderful custom video.

Email: madwarfarepodcast@gmail.com
(Or just send snacks. Still counts.)

⸻

MAD Warfare™ is hosted by narrative strategist Jocelyn Brady and cognitive neuroscientist Sean Anthony Guillory.
Edited and produced by Amine el Filali.

Visit madwarfare.com for extra giggles.
Send your wishes, weird ideas, dream guests, and sponsorship inquiries (yes, again) to madwarfarepodcast@gmail.com.

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FAIR USE

This show is MAD enough to include homages, short clips, and references that provide vital context and/or moments of joy. We deeply respect every creator's work and use these moments for educational, artistic, and transformative purposes under Fair Use. If we missed an attribution or you'd like to collaborate, reach out—we're happy to chat.

Who wins when nobody knows what to trust?

If the biggest national security threat isn't hackers or spies—but bad communication—what happens next?

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Andrea Hickerson, Dean of Journalism at the University of Mississippi and founding director of the new Center for Information Advantage & Effectiveness, to distill how information actually moves, mutates, and manipulates us.

From deepfakes and dashboards to sports rumors, betting markets, and why "media literacy" might be the wrong fix entirely—this is a conversation about how narrative, tone, and trust quietly decide outcomes long before facts ever get a vote.

Welcome to the info war.

Why bad communication—not bad actors—is the real national security risk

Why dashboards create a false sense of knowing

Deepfakes: when quality doesn't matter, context does

How sports, fandom, and entertainment become information Trojan horses

Why famous people are harder to deepfake than regular humans

How misinformation sneaks in through tone, not facts

Why media literacy puts too much work on audiences

Media ethics vs. "just think harder" solutions

Who actually benefits when confusion spreads

Why trust collapses faster than truth

Center for Information Advantage & Effectiveness — University of Mississippi

Andrea Hickerson — andreahhickerson@olemiss.edu

Book: Fake Checking: A Journalist's Guide to Deep Fakes

Sponsor us.

We'll make you a weird, wonderful custom video.

Email: madwarfarepodcast@gmail.com

(Or just send snacks. Still counts.)

—

MAD Warfare™ is hosted by narrative strategist Jocelyn Brady and cognitive neuroscientist Sean Anthony Guillory.

Edited and produced by Amine el Filali.

Visit madwarfare.com for extra giggles.

Send your wishes, weird ideas, dream guests, and sponsorship inquiries (yes, again) to madwarfarepodcast@gmail.com.

—

FAIR USE

This show is MAD enough to include homages, short clips, and references that provide vital context and/or moments of joy. We deeply respect every creator's work and use these moments for educational, artistic, and transformative purposes under Fair Use. If we missed an attribution or you'd like to collaborate, reach out—we're happy to chat.

What happens when the information environment becomes too loud for the human brain to handle?
And why does it feel like everyone — kids, adults, institutions, governments — is getting overwhelmed at the same time?

We sit down with John Bicknell, former Marine and host of The Cognitive Crucible, to talk about the cognitive overload shaping modern life: from teenagers buckling under algorithmic pressure… to countries struggling to manage complexity… to why some global actors might actually weaponize chaos itself.

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Key Topics
• Why different groups (teen girls, teen boys, adults) are being overwhelmed at different tempos
• Gaming, porn, incels, self-image, comparison loops — and what's really driving these shifts
• Empathy: the healthy version, the unhealthy version, and the "weaponized" version
• Why algorithms trap us in bubbles and why escaping them takes effort
• The Law of Requisite Variety and what it teaches us about surviving complexity
• Cognitive noise: how stress, life chaos, and global events change what messages "get through"
• Why simple messages perform better in noisy environments
• How militaries (and adversaries) can exploit overloaded populations
• Space, sovereignty, China, the Kessler Effect… and why the next frontier of conflict might be orbital
• Cognitive security as our generational challenge

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Resources + Links

The Cognitive Crucible — https://information-professionals.org/podcasts/cognitive-crucible/
Information Professionals Association (IPA) — https://information-professionals.org
More Cowbell Unlimited — https://morecowbellunlimited.com/
"More Cowbell" SNL Sketch (homework assigned by John)

⸻

WANT TO SUPPORT MAD?

Sponsor us. We'll make you a weird, wonderful custom video.
Email madwarfarepodcast@gmail.com

—
MAD Warfare™ is hosted by narrative strategist Jocelyn Brady and cognitive neuroscientist Sean Anthony Guillory.
Edited + produced by Amine el Filali.
More at madwarfare.com.

—
FAIR USE
This show is MAD enough to include homages, short clips, and references for context, critique, and joy. All such moments are used under Fair Use for educational and transformative purposes. If we missed an attribution or you'd like to collaborate, email us — we're always happy to talk with humans.