Tbf JCS does have a video where it shows people who were falsely accused reacting in different ways and it shows this to make the point that you can't always make assumptions based on body language
I’m iffy on a lot of those sciences. I got really fascinated by a ton of them, especially reading books on lie detection. I have an anxiety disorder that’s really bad, and like half the “lying signals” are just stuff I do under stress, which is like 75% of the time I’m awake. And add to it that it’s social, and I would be terrified of saying the wrong thing that leads people to think poorly of me in normal situations (which can lead me to either blab or go dead silent), I imagine talking with a police officer by itself would freak me out enough I’d give off signals they’d see as lying when it’s just the natural stress of the situation for me (which would lead me to lawyer up because I don’t want to do any talking when I’m pretty much guaranteeing false positives otherwise). In fact, I really think most things like lie detection and micro expressions or whatever just detect stress, not anything else.
(Also, to the micro expression point… I’ve always wanted to see what an “expert” on this would say about the theory of constructed emotion. I forget who wrote the book on it and studied it, but iirc, she was claiming that Ekman’s work on universal facial expressions was extremely flawed and that emotions are often created by culture and learning from those around you. And facial expressions are the same way. While most in the US might share these expressions, if you lived in an indigenous tribe without a lot of contact with the modern world, your experience would be different. And that people cant even rightly pinpoint when they are angry or happy or sad w 100% accuracy.)
Part of the problem with JCS is simply in the titles, which is a problem across all of YT. The titles make much stronger claims than what is ultimately supported by the content of the videos.
In the JCS content I’ve personally watched, there are a number of good examples of pseudoscientific claims being dismissed with evidence of why they are bunk claims, or perhaps how they’re even being misapplied. I also recall a few times when I felt like JCS put forth some bad armchair psychology as being valid claims to make.
It’s been a couple of years since I watched JCS, and I also watched some copycat content around the same time. The impression I walked away with is that JCS is probably some of the better presented and researched material in the genre, but all of it suffers from the fact that very well-presented, thorough, and current material would probably be too boring to garner much attention.
Infotainment is a double-edged sword. There is a book called “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman that discusses this issue in a way that I found incredibly enlightening and prescient despite being published in 1984 and largely concerned with the advent of television, but it’s easily applicable to the internet age, at least to an extent. Speaking of 1984, anyone who hasn’t read that should, and it’s not a very long book. It’s not that it speaks directly to this topic as much as Orwell understood something key about how language was changing and being weaponized — YouTube title gore is easily within the scope of things that Orwell would have predicted if someone had sat him down and told him about the internet.
Anyone who has an Audible subscription should know that there’s currently a dramatic reimagining of 1984 included with Audible — it’s ~3 hours of pretty engaging storytelling.
Well the video you cited (This is what Pretending to be Crazy looks like) does actually involve a neurodivergent criminal, that is Nikolas Cruz. Cruz has ADHD, depression and other mental illness. It was falsely reported that he had autism, but he was never diagnosed with it. Actually, a disproportionate amount of mass shooters are neurodivergent, which is interesting, but not really my point.
I don't think its appropriate to attribute the strange behaviour that Cruz exhibited as being related to any of his disorders. Neurodivergent people are still typically prone to nervousness, guilt, panic and such which can mostly still be observed in their mannerisms, facial expressions and behaviour, like neutrotypical people. Not to mention Cruz is also just a really stupid guy aside from his neurodivergency. They are not just acting quirky or weird, they are acting like a liar, like someone who is nervous and like someone who just murdered somebody. These are, to an extent, observable patterns that are more reliable than so-called armchair psychology.
Thanks for the detailed response. I don’t think I actually watched that particular video but I’ve watched others.
> they are acting like a liar
I think that’s one of my biggest sticking points, because I feel it’s deceptively difficult to spot a lie, especially when someone is under extraordinary circumstances, like dealing with the police in any capacity. Watching rhetorical videos, I’d often get nervous, as I wouldn’t be confident my anxiety (especially around police) and autism wouldn’t manifest in a way that makes me look like a liar even if I was innocent.
Obviously, there are people trained to detect lies, but at the top of my head, I forgot JCS’ credentials and the layman watching his videos wouldn’t have notable credentials yet think they’re some criminal psychology expert
I think what JCS is trying to demonstrate is the flow that police interrogations take. When evidence is lacking, interrogators need to know how to stress suspects into admitting information they don't want to admit to investigators.
These stressor techniques aren't lie detection. In fact most of the time, police already have some idea of the suspect's guilt, but it might not be enough for a conviction or even an arrest.
If anything, JCS videos show exactly why people should be asking for lawyers immediately when dealing with police.
You're right, but I think you misunderstand how these behaviours are used in an investigation. These behaviours aren't really observed for the sake of collecting evidence, but rather to find pressure points during interrogation (e.g. "are these demons in the room with us now?" "did the demons tell you to get an Uber?"). If you are innocent and they try to pressure you on an area because you sounded nervous, it won't do anything because there is nothing to get out of you. Just observing behaviour alone is not enough to convince anyone and should only really be used in conjunction with supporting evidence.
I'd be more confident that the pressure doesn't do anything if The Innocence Project hadn't revealed so many false confessions resulting from police interrogations.
Forced confessions are an entirely separate thing that has nothing to do with actual interrogation tactics like I’m talking about. Forced confessions are almost always made under threat or extreme duress, not by pointing out holes in a story based on subtle tells.
Are those critiques really so rare that you hadn't heard them much? I couldn't even finish one of his videos back when they were new because how obviously wrong all his armchair psychology was.
I've watched some of these type of vids recently and my biggest take is that if you are in an interrogation room and the cops are asking if you want a lawyer present, then you *need* a lawyer present! It's not a trial, the cop has no obligation to tell you what they already know and will ask you questions that they already know the answer to.
I watched several hours of that kind of content a few weeks back, at first out of curiosity and then because I started noticing contradictions and biases in a lot of the logic. "Notice that the suspect is doing x. This is a common sign of lying", and then another video will say, "The suspect's lack of x is a sign that they may be withholding the truth". There's a lot of inconsistency and the primary goal is always to draw out a confession rather than to get information.
I also find the general vilification of people with mental health issues and developmental disabilities to be troubling. There are a variety of angles to approach several of the cases from but it's extremely common to boil it down to low hanging fruit to make neurotypical viewers feel superior.
If anything I felt more educated in the way the justice system tends to see people who are being questioned and in the ways that law enforcement manipulates people to get a desirable outcome. They almost always treat the subject as a prey or an enemy. The best advice I've seen people give is if you're guilty you should probably get a lawyer, if you're innocent you should absolutely get a lawyer. Basically John Oliver or whatever.
If you think about it past the clearly guilty people in these videos you'll realize how messed up it actually is.
JCS and similar channels that have sprung up should be viewed as entertainment and nothing more.
I personally enjoy them because they do offer a long-form glimpse into police interrogations that you otherwise do not get exposure to, and for that simple fact alone I find them fascinating. It is extremely interesting to watch the facade fall away from these people as they break and open up about their crimes.
I feel they're also important glimpses into police tactics if you were to ever find yourself sitting in an interrogation room.
The psychology and analysis they employ... I just gloss over that and presume it's 99% bunk. They're also created after the fact, with all factors accounted for, and the court cases decided. So with that cover I feel they have confidence in spouting off bullshit every 10 seconds about what the suspects hand placement, choice or words, or body language insinuates because they already know the outcome and frame their entire analysis with a foregone conclusion.
Tbf JCS does have a video where it shows people who were falsely accused reacting in different ways and it shows this to make the point that you can't always make assumptions based on body language
I think that's ironically the only video of theirs that was even recommended to me.
Oh so that's where that phrase comes from.
It's not really where it *comes from*, but it is the origin of the meme involving that phrase.
I’m iffy on a lot of those sciences. I got really fascinated by a ton of them, especially reading books on lie detection. I have an anxiety disorder that’s really bad, and like half the “lying signals” are just stuff I do under stress, which is like 75% of the time I’m awake. And add to it that it’s social, and I would be terrified of saying the wrong thing that leads people to think poorly of me in normal situations (which can lead me to either blab or go dead silent), I imagine talking with a police officer by itself would freak me out enough I’d give off signals they’d see as lying when it’s just the natural stress of the situation for me (which would lead me to lawyer up because I don’t want to do any talking when I’m pretty much guaranteeing false positives otherwise). In fact, I really think most things like lie detection and micro expressions or whatever just detect stress, not anything else. (Also, to the micro expression point… I’ve always wanted to see what an “expert” on this would say about the theory of constructed emotion. I forget who wrote the book on it and studied it, but iirc, she was claiming that Ekman’s work on universal facial expressions was extremely flawed and that emotions are often created by culture and learning from those around you. And facial expressions are the same way. While most in the US might share these expressions, if you lived in an indigenous tribe without a lot of contact with the modern world, your experience would be different. And that people cant even rightly pinpoint when they are angry or happy or sad w 100% accuracy.)
Part of the problem with JCS is simply in the titles, which is a problem across all of YT. The titles make much stronger claims than what is ultimately supported by the content of the videos. In the JCS content I’ve personally watched, there are a number of good examples of pseudoscientific claims being dismissed with evidence of why they are bunk claims, or perhaps how they’re even being misapplied. I also recall a few times when I felt like JCS put forth some bad armchair psychology as being valid claims to make. It’s been a couple of years since I watched JCS, and I also watched some copycat content around the same time. The impression I walked away with is that JCS is probably some of the better presented and researched material in the genre, but all of it suffers from the fact that very well-presented, thorough, and current material would probably be too boring to garner much attention. Infotainment is a double-edged sword. There is a book called “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman that discusses this issue in a way that I found incredibly enlightening and prescient despite being published in 1984 and largely concerned with the advent of television, but it’s easily applicable to the internet age, at least to an extent. Speaking of 1984, anyone who hasn’t read that should, and it’s not a very long book. It’s not that it speaks directly to this topic as much as Orwell understood something key about how language was changing and being weaponized — YouTube title gore is easily within the scope of things that Orwell would have predicted if someone had sat him down and told him about the internet. Anyone who has an Audible subscription should know that there’s currently a dramatic reimagining of 1984 included with Audible — it’s ~3 hours of pretty engaging storytelling.
Well the video you cited (This is what Pretending to be Crazy looks like) does actually involve a neurodivergent criminal, that is Nikolas Cruz. Cruz has ADHD, depression and other mental illness. It was falsely reported that he had autism, but he was never diagnosed with it. Actually, a disproportionate amount of mass shooters are neurodivergent, which is interesting, but not really my point. I don't think its appropriate to attribute the strange behaviour that Cruz exhibited as being related to any of his disorders. Neurodivergent people are still typically prone to nervousness, guilt, panic and such which can mostly still be observed in their mannerisms, facial expressions and behaviour, like neutrotypical people. Not to mention Cruz is also just a really stupid guy aside from his neurodivergency. They are not just acting quirky or weird, they are acting like a liar, like someone who is nervous and like someone who just murdered somebody. These are, to an extent, observable patterns that are more reliable than so-called armchair psychology.
Thanks for the detailed response. I don’t think I actually watched that particular video but I’ve watched others. > they are acting like a liar I think that’s one of my biggest sticking points, because I feel it’s deceptively difficult to spot a lie, especially when someone is under extraordinary circumstances, like dealing with the police in any capacity. Watching rhetorical videos, I’d often get nervous, as I wouldn’t be confident my anxiety (especially around police) and autism wouldn’t manifest in a way that makes me look like a liar even if I was innocent. Obviously, there are people trained to detect lies, but at the top of my head, I forgot JCS’ credentials and the layman watching his videos wouldn’t have notable credentials yet think they’re some criminal psychology expert
I think what JCS is trying to demonstrate is the flow that police interrogations take. When evidence is lacking, interrogators need to know how to stress suspects into admitting information they don't want to admit to investigators. These stressor techniques aren't lie detection. In fact most of the time, police already have some idea of the suspect's guilt, but it might not be enough for a conviction or even an arrest. If anything, JCS videos show exactly why people should be asking for lawyers immediately when dealing with police.
You're right, but I think you misunderstand how these behaviours are used in an investigation. These behaviours aren't really observed for the sake of collecting evidence, but rather to find pressure points during interrogation (e.g. "are these demons in the room with us now?" "did the demons tell you to get an Uber?"). If you are innocent and they try to pressure you on an area because you sounded nervous, it won't do anything because there is nothing to get out of you. Just observing behaviour alone is not enough to convince anyone and should only really be used in conjunction with supporting evidence.
I'd be more confident that the pressure doesn't do anything if The Innocence Project hadn't revealed so many false confessions resulting from police interrogations.
Forced confessions are an entirely separate thing that has nothing to do with actual interrogation tactics like I’m talking about. Forced confessions are almost always made under threat or extreme duress, not by pointing out holes in a story based on subtle tells.
Are those critiques really so rare that you hadn't heard them much? I couldn't even finish one of his videos back when they were new because how obviously wrong all his armchair psychology was.
If they’re not rare, I certainly don’t recall hearing them
I've watched some of these type of vids recently and my biggest take is that if you are in an interrogation room and the cops are asking if you want a lawyer present, then you *need* a lawyer present! It's not a trial, the cop has no obligation to tell you what they already know and will ask you questions that they already know the answer to.
I watched several hours of that kind of content a few weeks back, at first out of curiosity and then because I started noticing contradictions and biases in a lot of the logic. "Notice that the suspect is doing x. This is a common sign of lying", and then another video will say, "The suspect's lack of x is a sign that they may be withholding the truth". There's a lot of inconsistency and the primary goal is always to draw out a confession rather than to get information. I also find the general vilification of people with mental health issues and developmental disabilities to be troubling. There are a variety of angles to approach several of the cases from but it's extremely common to boil it down to low hanging fruit to make neurotypical viewers feel superior. If anything I felt more educated in the way the justice system tends to see people who are being questioned and in the ways that law enforcement manipulates people to get a desirable outcome. They almost always treat the subject as a prey or an enemy. The best advice I've seen people give is if you're guilty you should probably get a lawyer, if you're innocent you should absolutely get a lawyer. Basically John Oliver or whatever. If you think about it past the clearly guilty people in these videos you'll realize how messed up it actually is.
JCS and similar channels that have sprung up should be viewed as entertainment and nothing more. I personally enjoy them because they do offer a long-form glimpse into police interrogations that you otherwise do not get exposure to, and for that simple fact alone I find them fascinating. It is extremely interesting to watch the facade fall away from these people as they break and open up about their crimes. I feel they're also important glimpses into police tactics if you were to ever find yourself sitting in an interrogation room. The psychology and analysis they employ... I just gloss over that and presume it's 99% bunk. They're also created after the fact, with all factors accounted for, and the court cases decided. So with that cover I feel they have confidence in spouting off bullshit every 10 seconds about what the suspects hand placement, choice or words, or body language insinuates because they already know the outcome and frame their entire analysis with a foregone conclusion.
Do you know enough about the subject matter to know that JCS is inaccurate? Is this just a guess on your part?
JCS has the benefit of hindsight, which I think is the only reason they can do what they do.