Do your stories shape the future—or do they quietly shape you first?

And when the next war shows up wearing a hoodie, a meme, and a "totally harmless" plotline… how would we even recognize it?

In this episode, we talk with August Cole — co-author of Ghost Fleet and Burn In and co-founder of Useful Fiction — about why fiction can do what white papers can't: grab attention, build foresight, and help people rehearse decisions before reality demands them.

We get into "strategic surprise," why the information environment is the missing chapter of the last decade, and what it means when cognitive warfare becomes hyper-personalized—so everyone is fighting their own battle. (Yes. That's as weird as it sounds. Also: unfortunately real.)

If you've ever felt your agency slipping, your feed steering, or your brain quietly drafted into a conflict you didn't sign up for… this one's for you.

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• Useful fiction: why story can carry serious ideas farther than doctrine

• Strategic surprise: what it is, why institutions keep getting blindsided, and how narrative reduces it

• Ghost Fleet, 10 years later: what aged well, what changed, what got left out

• The attention economy: when incentives + algorithms start shaping behavior at machine speed

• Useful fiction vs. propaganda: credibility, trust, and why "too clean" stories fail

• "You may not be interested in cognitive warfare…" (but it's interested in you)

• Why cognitive warfare is getting harder to detect: personalization at scale

• The simplest anti-doom message that still matters: you matter

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August Cole — augustcole.com

Useful Fiction — useful-fiction.com

Books: Ghost Fleet / Burn In

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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.

⸻

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.

Do your ideas belong to you—or are they secretly running the show?

If identities can calcify into cages, how do you melt them back into something alive?

In this episode, we talk with therapist and writer Mike Ross about the weird life of ideas: how they form, how they spread, and how they quietly start making decisions for us. We go from punk rock and tattoos to liminal spaces, Robin Williams, Gen Alpha chaos ("67"), emotional granularity, and Mike's concept of cognitive alchemy—naming and reshaping the stories and feelings that shape us.

If you've ever felt lonely online, stuck in your own head, or hungry for something more real than the feed, this one's for you.

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• The weird life of ideas: when thoughts become "drivers," not visitors

• How identities calcify (and what it takes to loosen them)

• Why the early Internet felt like salvation—and the modern feed feels like a beige matrix

• What we lose when algorithms replace serendipity

• Liminal spaces and why they mess with us (in a good way, sometimes)

• Tattoos, punk rock, and identity as signal

• Robin Williams, grief, and the stories we inherit

• Gen Alpha chaos and the mysterious "67" energy

• Emotional granularity: getting specific about what you're feeling

• "Cognitive alchemy": turning stuck inner material into something usable

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• Mike Ross — (add your preferred link/handle here)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lordofthestrange/

https://lordofthestrange.substack.com/

⸻

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.

⸻

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 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.

⸻

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.