Okay, we are alive. Hi, this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey. It's on today's show. I'm a very special guest. His name is Joel E. Dimsdale. Last name is spelled D-I-M-S-D-A-L-E. It's just published a book, and you can see it here if you're watching it on Rock Fen or X. Dark Persuasion, a history of brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media.

It's an excellent book.

I have a copy of it right here, a hardbound copy that I've read through and made a lot of notes.

And he has, this is not his first book.

He also published, I think in 2020, a book titled, Anatomy of Malice, the Enigma of the Nazi War Criminals.

And Dr. Dimsdale is a distinguished professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSD.

He's the author of over 500 publications, and he obtained his BA degree in biology from Carlton College,

and then his MA in sociology, and then an MD degree from Stanford University. He obtained his psychiatric training at Massachusetts General Hospital, then completed a fellowship in psychobiology,

the New England Regional Primate Center.

He was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School from 1976 until 1985 when he moved to the University of California, San

Diego, good choice, great school, great location in La Jolla. But like I said, we're going to talk

about this book, Dark Persuasion, really interesting book and a lot of information that I hadn't read

before. So Dr. Joel E. Dimmesdale, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Excellent. So for people that may not have heard your name, maybe your other books,

maybe you could talk a little bit, maybe add to the bio I read, and what got you interested

in writing this particular book, Dark Persuasion?

Most of my professional life, I've been interested in issues of the

physiology of stress and sleep. But I've also been very interested in how people make bad decisions,

terrible decisions that aren't even in their own best interest.

That led me to writing the earlier book, Anatomy of Malice,

where I studied the Nazi cabinet ministers who were on trial at Nuremberg trying to understand their behavior,

how were they persuaded to do these dreadful things. I finished that book, and although I learned a lot,

...