There was a time when childhood unfolded slowly. Conversations happened face to face. Curiosity built over years. And ideas about relationships, intimacy, and identity were shaped gradually, through experience, through awkward conversations, and through real life.

Today, that timeline has collapsed. In a matter of seconds, a teenager with a smartphone can access a world that was never designed for them. A world driven by algorithms, by dopamine, by content that doesn’t just reflect reality, but distorts it. And the question we have to ask is this: what happens when an entire generation learns about sex, relationships, and human connection from the internet?

Well, in this episode, I’m joined by Irish educator and researcher Eoghan Cleary, a man working on the front lines of this shift. We delve into the early exposure to pornography among teenagers, the increasingly violent and addictive nature of online content, and how social media, and now AI, are actively shaping sexual norms in real time. We talk about regulation, responsibility, and whether society is moving fast enough to protect young people, or if we’re already too late.

Links

• Dark Finds: Explained YouTube Channel (SUBSCRIBE)
• HOW IT FALLS APART | Audio Experience 🧨
• Patreon 🙌🏼
• Dark Finds IG 💀
• Dark Finds Book 📖

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Owen Cleary's Work

01:06 The Impact of Early Exposure to Pornography

03:53 The Nature of Modern Pornography

06:37 The Role of Violence in Pornography

10:47 The Algorithm and Its Effects on Content Consumption

12:44 The Dangers of AI in Content Creation

18:20 Legislative Challenges and Solutions

23:55 The Need for Accountability in the Digital Age

27:25 The Evolution of Sexual Expectations

33:54 Creating Healthy Conversations About Sex

35:37 The Impact of Pornography on Youth

38:31 Navigating Parental Conversations about Sex

41:04 Normalizing Discussions Around Sexuality

44:41 The Role of Social Media in Sexual Development

51:06 The Effects of Social Media on Attention and Behavior

56:14 The Need for Boredom and Creativity in Youth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s guest is a man who has sat across from some of the most dangerous minds in modern criminal history.

Jim Fitzgerald wasn’t just a former FBI profiler. He was an investigator who helped crack the Unabomber case. A linguistics expert. A behavioral analyst. A man who has spent decades studying how monsters think — and the clues they leave behind.

In this episode, Jim takes us from his early days as a local police officer to the high-pressure corridors of the FBI’s New York office. We talk about the politics inside law enforcement. The reality behind criminal profiling, what it is, what it isn’t, and the mental toll of chasing offenders who don’t want to be found.

We dive into the Unabomber investigation, and the power of language in identifying a suspect. If you’ve ever watched Criminal Minds, you’ll hear how art imitates life, as Jim later stepped into Hollywood as a technical advisor, ensuring the psychology felt real.

Links

• Dark Finds: Explained YouTube Channel (SUBSCRIBE)
• HOW IT FALLS APART | Audio Experience 🧨
• Patreon 🙌🏼
• Dark Finds IG 💀
• Dark Finds Book 📖

Keywords

FBI, profiling, criminal minds, law enforcement, forensic linguistics, Unabomber, 9/11, crime, investigation, police

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this conversation, I’m joined by Heidi Langbein-Allen, author of Save the Last Bullet — a book that tells the story of her father… a child in Nazi Germany who was swept into the machinery of war. Not a general. Not a willing ideologue. A boy molded by propaganda, shaped by fear, and a handed a rifle before he understood what it meant to be a man. We talk about how young minds are formed, and deformed, by ideology. How indoctrination works. How authority becomes unquestionable. How rhetoric slowly turns into violence. And how, at the height of World War II, children were told something unthinkable: To save the last bullet for themselves.

Links

• Heidi's book
• Dark Finds: Explained YouTube Channel (SUBSCRIBE)
• HOW IT FALLS APART | Audio Experience 🧨
• Patreon 🙌🏼
• Dark Finds IG 💀
• Dark Finds Book 📖

Takeaways

• "The parallels that struck in the book were the level of propaganda."
• "When you do that to young minds, you mold them and then they become unquestioning of authority."
• "It was an instruction: save it for yourselves and you use it to kill yourselves."
• "The consequences would be fatal."
• "It illustrates the inhumanity or dehumanization of war that occurs still today."
• "It takes a massive show of disagreement and massive amounts of population expressing that."
• "The rhetoric becomes sort of a possibly a good idea, right, to have a war."
• "We haven't fallen too far from the tree branch, right, from our chimp ancestors."
• "It’s a playbook that involves instilling fear and intimidating people."
• "The vast majority of soldiers don't talk about their experiences."

Keywords

World War II, child soldiers, propaganda, extremism, historical narrative, trauma, indoctrination, Nazi Germany, personal stories, resilience

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.