11/22/20 - The Medium, The Message, & The Horizontal Bop

Todd & Brian begin with some obligatory "analysis" of Trumptown's post-election conspiracy orgy including more conversation about why both Trump and down ticket Democrats had their electoral posteriors handed to them: has the Moderate Majority finally reclaimed its place at the wheel? Or, will it again be shouted down by loudmouth extremists? Also, what's Trump's post-term role with his increasingly unstable base and how will that affect the new Resistance™ party? Is something even more dangerous than Trump coming? Around 34:00, the conversation pivots wider to "institutional terra incognito", the point at which history stops rhyming, comfortably habitual thinking, and Marshall McLuhan's classic phrase: "The medium is the message." Is the important issue our new technology or how we use it? The answer isn't simplistic; the simple act of writing provides an instructional example why! 

 

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McLuhan, Postman, and Carr: get to know them!

11/15/20 - Demagogues & Prairie Dogs

The afterglow is now the aftermath. Essentially two episodes in one, Brian and Todd begin by reflecting on how the vibe has changed since Biden's victory speech then touch on fundamental social psychology. What happens when cognitive cliches begin breaking down and we're forced to explore unfamiliar ground? Is too many choices as bad in the political and informational marketplaces as it is on Netflix? What's the relationship between age and wisdom? Around 53:00, the conversation pivots. Why do Democrats seem to always lose even when they win? Bill Maher offered a very familiar answer! Is the Moderate Majority in danger of being surrounded and marginalized by the loudmouth extremist minority? What happens if they're forced to choose between competing demagogues in 4-year's time? Will an increasingly fragmented boutique news help social media make that possible? Book your Toddzilla Children's Party before it's too late!

 

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11/9/20: The Election Afterglow, The Moderate Majority, The Social Media Disease

The Moderate Majority spoke! Todd, Brian, and millions around the globe are relieved and indulging in the afterglow of relieved liberation and overdue hope. Enjoy it while it lasts! We discuss how the podcast's overarching topic, the Social Media Disease, is going mainstream, how both extremes were repudiated in the same election, the art of changing one's own mind, and erecting bridges: everyone's individual responsibility if we're collectively serious about The Great Coming Together. And, hey! What if we all just STFU about politics for awhile? Also, this "stop the steal" silliness and how does someone as personally vile as Donald Trump still get over 70-million votes? Oh yeah! We begin with a late eulogy for Eddie VanHalen. 

 

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11/2/20: 2020 Election: The Nero Referendum & Defending The Electoral College

Todd & Brian reflect both on where we've come from and where we're going as this electoral reality show finally ends. We explore the side effects of direct democracy's mob rule and why the Electoral College is absolutely essential. Also, how do we "rehumanize" ourselves and each other? What's the best case scenario to avoid post-election chaos and violence? Is it inevitable? How will our various factions perceive President Harris if Biden wins only to resign? What are the wider effects of our burgeoning "no compromise!" culture? Pre-election anxiety and fatigue: is it universal outside the fanatic's camp? What's the relationship between one-issue voters and Haidt's Elephant? Our media celebrities and influencers: are they simply clever fiction writers and talented performance artists? Winter: is it finally here? We'll know in a week.

 "Safeguard" documentary: https://www.amazon.com/Safeguard-Electoral-College-Trent-England/dp/B08H6KH9QV

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10/26/20 - Addictive Outrage, Empathy's Path, A Nation in Heat

Todd & Brian return discussing the direct parallels between ideological and theological religion and what Dan Carlin calls The Heat: trivial outrage manufactured to manipulate media consumers for advertising profits, and how it affects us as a society. And, does it matter if our outrage triggers are fake? Is social media contributing to a literal devolution and destroying eons of self-domestication? How do we reclaim our human empathy? Are we returning to naked barbarism as we become slaves to emotional impulses that just "must" be expressed/inflicted? Also, fertile revolutionary soil and how it's the suffering who are susceptible to Snake Oil Demagoguery, Manchurian propagandists, the Electoral College, and Mencken's disturbing concept of irredeemably. What if there is no solution?

Dan Carlin's "A Recipe For Caesar": https://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-319-a-recipe-for-caesar/

10/12/20 - The Whitmer Plot, Michigan's Militias, Socialism's Facade

Brian rejoins Todd just in time to discuss the plot to kidnap our governor, Michigan's militias, the psychology of extremism, and the ongoing destruction of social and governmental norms. What are these groups fighting against and do they have a legitimate point buried beneath their theatrics? Is socialism a cult destined to lead to disillusionment and a totalitarian state whose main purpose is maintaining the utopian illusion? We also discuss data overload, Manchurian Propagandists, as well as free speech and the responsibility that comes with it; when does free speech become destructive? Can we tell the difference between propaganda and information? Has propaganda become so ubiquitous that it's actually replaced objective fact without us realizing it?

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MUSIC: The Limbos & Paul Vernon

10/5/20 - The Trumptober Surprise; Leo Ryan & The Dennis Doctrine

Todd's a bit cranky this weekend,Trump has the virus, and we all "wish him well." Do we? Do we really? The trustpocalypse: it's telling how many suspect the dramatic diagnosis may be part of his reality show's season finale. Todd also discusses our unprecedented institutional meltdown, his chronically "angry" tone and the distinction between honesty and truth. He also pays a personal tribute to a childhood idol, Bob Gibson, and shows how Leo Ryan's Jonestown example adds texture to the Dennis Doctrine and the firm belief that fanatical sectarians should be exiled not engaged: "the switch is internal." Also: Trump's social momentum, applying the Useless Shit Epiphany to turning 50, and Toddzilla's Tribe: where exactly is it?

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10/1/20 - On Morality & Fanaticism; Conformist Suicide

"When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something... but that it is a moral imperative that we have it... we join the fashionable madmen, and then...the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble. And I suspect we are already there." -Joan Didion (1965
) 

 As a follow-up to the last episode, this trimmed and updated re-post connects Didion's fanatic test to the moral certitude manufactured by propaganda and its architects using social media as a delivery super weapon. Also, public vs. private opinion, the Cradle of Reason, how propagandees can respond to competing propagandists, and keeping the you in you. 

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Music: Yellow Candy & Paul Vernon

9/28/20 - An Invasive Species Gazes Into The Abyss

Todd & Brian discuss whether the "divine" human species is in fact both bipolar and invasive, the difficulties that come from gazing into the Abyss, and moral imperatives vs. self-righteousness: how narcissistic morality becomes naked authoritarianism. Also, where solutions to the informational anarchy crisis must begin, when the ends smother the means, how a species can summon both altruism and barbarity, and let's kill Rousseau's Noble Savage once and for all. Yes. More easy listening to help you escape the world's troubles!

 

Music: Paul Vernon and Yellow Candy

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9/21/20 - Steinbeck, Murrow, and The Social Media Disease

Continuing the Social Dilemma theme, Todd and Brian delve further into the social, psychological, and personal effects of more than a decade of social media, including meeting members of their direct families for the first time directly via Facebook. Also, Todd's argument against monetization, digital reunions and the bizarre new expectation that, somehow, everyone from every epoch of our lives now deserves a seat at our virtual table. We also discuss the failed utopian vision of "informational democracy" and the essential nature of gatekeeper, learning how to both use these platforms as tools and sabotage the Zuckorithm, as well as possible macro and micro solutions. Is this a triage situation? The show closes with a surprise appearance by Edward R. Murrow and why informational anarchy and intellectual autonomy, not climate change, is the crisis of our time. 

 

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Murrow's Text: https://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_lights_in_a_box_speech 

Music by Paul Vernon

 

9/14/20 - The Social Dilemma: War of the Virtual Worlds

Todd and Brian discuss The Social Dilemma, the new Netflix documentary probing the exploitative, corrosive, and polarizing effects of social media, both psychologically and socially. Also, the addictive nature of the medium, how it manipulates evolutionary psychology, the potentially dangerous side effects of performance withdrawal and how, once you escape, you become an organic organism in a digital ecosystem. We also tinker with solutions and discuss the horrific dystopia awaiting us if we fail to find them. Hint 1: It's the people. Hint 2: The tube: it's social media and Google!

• Like it? Tell a friend. Even on Facebook! 
• Reserve your seat on Toddzilla's 2021 Motivational Speaking Tour now! 
• Children's parties: 50% off for a limited time!

9/11/20 - The Illusion of Knowledge & Democratized Opinion 2.0

Are we creating the democratic utopia many naively envisioned at the Internet's birth? Or, are we descending into hell on Earth unleashed by informational anarchy and the freed, and anonymous, human beast? A prelude to my deep dive into Ellul's Propaganda, this episode begins with a description of the DIKW pyramid then moves on to how Plato's Illusion of Knowledge fable applies to the digital Matrix dominated by Social Media, Google, and ostentatious sophists posing as "influencers."

Also: a discussion ofDr. Elias Aboujaoude's stellar book Virtually You and a one-sided examination of the God-Devil duality lurking inside each of us. Like it? Share it!

 

The Social Dilemma: watch It! https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224

Dr. Eli: http://www.eliasaboujaoude.com

His book: https://www.amazon.com/Virtually-You-Dangerous-Powers-Personality/dp/0393340546

9/10/20 - Cyberspace Monkeys & The Boiling Caldera

Former radio personality, psychologist, and current PR guy, The Professor joins the show as perhaps the perfect co-host discussing propaganda and hyper-connective technology's unknown effect on an oblivious public. Todd then chats about mail-in voting and the looming post-election storm, a minor kancel kultur attack and the ensuing process of deciding whether to continue a "Singing For Helen Keller" podcast, and what it's like being ahead of the curve then watching people slowly catch on. 

Thanks for your patience, subscribers and new listeners. Like it? Share it! Then prepare yourselves. ;)

8/19/20 - Intellectual Populism, Enemy of the People, The Humanovirus Sh*tshow

Detailing the gloriously organic results coming from a month of social media, news, and podcasting detox. Also, boutique "news" & democratized opinion's relationship to mob rule: Ibsen's Enemy of the People, the humanovirus and its ubiquitous invasive species traits, the Dennis Doctrine, and podcasting without Sausage Party Hope and with a severed validation stream leaves one pesky unanswered question: "why the f**ck am I doing this?"

More Drew Michael: https://www.youtube.com/user/drewmichaelcomedy/videos

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6/19/20 - Discourse? Or Just Waiting To Talk?

On the Social Media Disease: how exhibitionist combat and agitprop disguised as "debate" is having an effect on verbal comprehension and the ability to engage in meaningful organic conversations. Also, demagogues exploit and thrive on chaos, boycotting the for-profit Media Division Complex in favor of each other, and the switch: it's internal. It's still the people.



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6/18/20 - A "Real Conversation"? Allow Me to Retort...

You say you want a real Great Racial Awakening™ dialogue? Great! Quit proselytizing long enough to take a stiff drink and have a listen. Remember: when you clicked you asked.



Also: supporting lockdown protests and the 2A while mocking militia stalkers at the capitol, burning heretics and blasphemers at the free speech stake, influencers exploiting and monetizing catastrophe and chaos, electoral Ground Hog Day, and why Biden's VP choice is maybe more important than anything. Like it? Share it!

More: www.facebook.com/escapingthecave.com 

6/16/20 - Activist Media, Dogma as God, Marrow of Humanity

When the entire media's just abandoned their "objective" pretenses, where do you go? Also, digital detox and cutting the incoming noise, homogenous consistency of thought throughout a congregation qualifies as "religion", retained ideological attorneys, the difference between organic human beings and their virtual online projections, and the Marrow of Humanity: who we are when no one's looking. Don't worry. I'll get to the protests, riots, and thought-crime purges soon enough. Prepare yourselves accordingly!



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Beware the airlock: www.facebook.com/EscapingTheCave

11/12/16: Des Moines to Brooklyn, IA - Exploiting Fecalphelia

Destination: Iowa 80

Even on top of a bivy, sleeping on a cold trucker’s lounge floor isn’t restful, especially with a full-blown cold. So waking up at 5:30 to medicate, caffeinate, and migrate to the interstate wasn’t as much an inspired choice as an inevitable chore.

East Des Moines was brisk, but with no wind and with hot coffee keeping me warm, standing at the nearby I-80 ramp beneath a stunning heartland sunrise was pleasant. Even inspiring.

Joan Didion's 'On Morality': The Extremist Test

 

There's a Bob Dylan lyric in Highlands that always makes me smile: "She said, "you don't read women authors, do you?"" For whatever reason, I typically don't with one very significant exception: Joan Didion. I bought We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, a non-fiction collection, with Orwell's. She's fantastic. Slouching Toward Bethlehem's essays/articles are on par with Mencken's, if less vitriolic and venomously entertaining! On Self-Respect and On Morality are worth finding and devouring.

Here's an excerpt from On Morality, written in 1965. That's significant, as you'll see. Crusading moral certitude isn't new. We were hatched in that fire; it's part of the American DNA and what makes us particularly susceptible to propaganda and makes this technologically amplified conflict between our moralistic ideological religions so dangerous. Didion's Lionel Trilling quote deserves its own space and I literally squealed when I saw she used the word, "agitprop!" And the last paragraph? Ooof! We need a test for those infected with the Extremist Virus. Joan Didion has it:

Propaganda or Education; Patriot or Traitor; Riot or Protest?

 In one of many examples of how he knew the herd better than it knows itself, Edward Bernays, the man who took "propaganda" and rebranded it "public relations,"pointed out in the late 20's that whether you perceive something as "propaganda" or "education" depends upon what you've adopted to explain the world for you: your belief system; which god you worship. That's shamefully self-evident and explains why most are, almost literally, physically unable to consume "their" "news."

Whether you would have seen our 18th century mobs as "patriots" or "traitors" depended upon the same thing: chosen identity and an adopted perspective skewed by subjective "faith." Stampeding herd dynamics functioned the same in Boston and Philadelphia as in Paris, Moscow, Havana, and Berlin. The difference between these four and ours is that our founders understood and feared the mob. They attempted to straddle saddling a temporarily useful but snarling and unpredictably dangerous beast with long-term stability and "liberty." 

The Crowd: Mencken or LeBon?

Several times over the last few years, I'd bounced a counterargument around in my notebooks: the possibility that LeBon's character sketch of The Crowd has it backwards. The existence of a mob mentality is unquestionable, but maybe it doesn't psychologically transform an otherwise reasonable individual into a frothing barbarian. Instead, perhaps the induced hypnotic flock-state simply unleashes the domesticated savage's suppressed impulses; ones that are always boiling just beneath his thin civilized veneer.

5/19/20 - The Stalker Militia, A Hydroxy Hardon, Woke Youth

So, about that whole "in this together" thing... Topics include Trump's bizarre and supernatural hydroxychloroquine erection, quarantine and consumerist withdrawal, free-rage extremism and Michigan's armed stalkers closing the capitol, ideological bleed-over, identity politics infecting the virus, humble ignorance, a COVID-exploiting Woke Youth Recruitment video seizing the national airwaves, and what happens when I go off my gated social media reservation and why it's becoming nearly essential to completely disconnect. This one gets harsh. Beware.

5/9/20 - Stories, Hope, and The Propaganda Paradox

Todd's adventures in leaving the house after 5-weeks, a quick review of the crappy Vaporesso Target PM-80, the supposed "wisdom" of the bewildered herd, belief and truth are mutually exclusive, atheists: leave the non-phallus swinging faithful alone, the crucial crusading distinction between religious & ideological zealots, and why the simple human need for hope probably makes us powerless against tasty propaganda.




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4/29/20 - Social Media Disease: A Cacophony of Nothing

Todd's merciful Bat Plague boycott continues with more spiritually uplifting content like: "F**k Subaru. I hate them and you should, too." Also, 2020's Jill Stein; Steinbeck, Salinas, and digital detox; social media "should" be regulated like radio; carnival barkers and data overload are killing democracy; the Wisdom of the People™ doesn't exist therefore populism is pandering to a screeching herd; and rejoice! The Devil's all up in ya! Can you feel him? 



--More: www.escapingthecave.com and www.toddzillax.com
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4/28/20 - The Blacklands Abyss

Taking an improvised break from Bat Plague punditry by focusing on more "uplifting" material like cancerous cynicism! Also, a few old hitchhiking yarns and the metaphysical notion of trail magic, losing your religion, the God/Devil parable, and ignoring the positive side of universal human duality. Just for optimistic kicks, I also muse about my podcast's course and its ultimate futility. A warm and fuzzy episode? Believe it or not, kinda. And, no Covid! You're welcome.



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4/27/20 - Hot Pockets & The Lysol Orgy

"Idiocracy 2: The Pandemic" continues. Todd discusses how the coronavirus hype has matched the reality, his digital detox, covid's ominous sign for star spangled socialist "revolutionaries", hot pockets, and how one quarantine doesn't fit all. He also asks where the Lansing protest's ideological diversity was (not what you think) and rages against Trump supporters and the intellectual treason of joining his limp and lame post hoc orgy. Children's parties: booked thru May! Book June's bat mitzvah or graduation party now! Promo code: "Brawndo" gets you 50% off! Clip: Jim Gaffigan.

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4/24/20 - Seekers, Preachers, & The Covid Reality Wars

Toddzilla delivers his overdue Message of Hope™ featuring topics like strutting stupidity, social media's performance addiction, Hobbes' inevitable civil war, the need for propaganda, and releasing our infected cattle back into the bewildered herd.  Book your children's party now! Use promo code "Leviathan Rising" to get 50% off!



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3/28/20 - Detroit, Intellectual Distancing, The Glowing Antichrist

Can Detroit and rural Michigan bear what they say is coming? Social distancing as an apt metaphor and how it can be useful. A crisis instinctively prods a frightened herd into a closed-tribe psychology, which is nationalism. How data overload contributes to it and helps obliterate the utopian Brotherhood of Man mythology. Why many quietly want Trump to fail, whether they admit it or not.



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3/24/20 - Incompetent Negligence and Economic Eugenics

Sacrifice yourselves at Mammon's Altar, proles! As coronavirus cases spike, your president holds a FOX News rally, decides the public health experts are wrong, and that the social distancing guidelines are "too extreme." Re-election trumps public health. Criminal negligence, the Dennis Doctrine, and our vulnerable healthcare workers. Where's Fauci? We're history's lab rats.

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--More: www.escapingthecave.com

3/20/20 - Informational Anarchy In A Pandemic

A potentially catastrophic stress test as the healthcare system drowns inside a divided country who chose informational tribalism over preparation. Detachment is essential! And, this isn't just about the elderly, dummy!



ALSO: 

- Media exhaustion & anxiety
- Governmental malpractice
- Trillions in revenues sacrificed to a "hoax?" Really?
- Coronavirus & 9/11
- You can't be in a play and watch it at the same time

--Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

3/11/20 - The Primaries: Noise Makers vs. The Majority

The Sober Majority and why Biden's resurrection and surge should surprise no one. Bernie's "revolution" was always fueled by Clinton disgust and a foolish dependency on a Youthquake fantasy. Mike Pence is a Biden asset, Jill the Vulture is back, and embrace Biden: he's far from certain but all you've got; the only thing that "can" work. Also, a 2024 wokeflake warning.



--Don't settle for imitations! Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

3/11/20 - COVID Media: Crying Blitzer, Aftertruth & The Religious Mind

COVID-19: the media sounds like the Weather Channel sensationalizing a hurricane. They'd better get it right or the Aftertruth Age fully arrives. "There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies." Why doesn't matter.



Also:

• Competing incompatible "realities"
• Personalized Informational Warfare
• Informational becoming literal anarchy
• The Crackdown

--Don't settle for imitations! Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

3/6/20 - "Insurgent Drag Queen" Or "Go Be a Snake"

The Michigan primary is here. Which will it be? The invasive ideology or the country? An extremist biopsy and how they're using our own poorly guarded institutions and exploiting hatred to hijack the political parties. "The fascists seize power to forestall the communists; the communists seize power to forestall the fascists": choosing between the authoritarian and totalitarian means we all lose. Also, "Lizzie was sunk by sexism!" Was she? Was she really?



--Don't settle for imitations! Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

3/5/20 - Insurrection, Resurrection, and The Rubicon

Super Tuesday Political Dump. How did Biden revive himself? It's simple, really. Fighting extremism with extremism is suicide. Also, fanatical ideological religions, the UK canary in the colony's coal mine, our own wokeflake tumor, the Youthquake fantasy, and your righteous revolution: who's actually buying?




--Don't settle for imitations! Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

--Fuck Twitter!

3/2/20 - Propaganda, Trust, Coronavirus, and You

How will the for-profit boutique/reality show/agitation news media model affect how we respond to the virus? Have a drink. Make sure it's not bleach. Includes a quick introduction to Matt Taibbi's book Hate Inc. and material from Your Undivided Attention on the reality apathy and the abandonment of trust in public institutions and each other. 

Listen to Your Undivided Attention here: https://humanetech.com/podcast/

--Don't settle for imitations! Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

2/29/20 - Authentic Courage vs. Crying With The Pack

"God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." Genuine courage is required to stand apart against the deafening conformity of the cowardly mob. Ask Andrew Sullivan! People are inherently tyrannical. Shared secular delusions: our 21st century religions. God needs the devil; Sapiens need an enemy. Lippmann, the fragility of free speech, and democracy's Achilles Heel: an ignorant "public."



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2/27/20 - Conform Or Be Cast Out

Social validation & conformity: the evolutionary default setting. Why choosing intellectual autonomy over the herd is nearly impossible. Also, standing apart in self-reliance, the drifter, and mending holes in the firewall.



--Don't settle for imitations! Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

2/26/20 - Social Media Disease: The Dopamine Drip

"Whoever owns social validation..." Performance addiction and how the masses have become junkies gorging on validation's dopamine stream. How various influencers, including podcasters, have monetized validation mainlining in the name of "brand building". Propaganda, validation, dopamine, and Ellul's "conditioned response." How social momentum works: Tony McAleer on Your Undivided Attention. Also, how ideological boldness is a surefire sign of a propagandee.

Listen to "Your Undivided Attention" here: https://humanetech.com/podcast/




--Don't settle for imitations! Be sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!

2/23/20 - "Vladdy Loves Bernie?" Or "It's The Destabilization, Dummy!"

Of course Putin's playing both sides and assisting Bernie in the Democratic primary. It's about agitation, discord, and eroding the public's already fractured belief it itself, not ideology. This is the perfect insurgent agitation storm: who in this country are more divisive than Bernie, AOC, and Trump? The Russians aren't to blame. We are. Also, why Informational Education programs aren't coming, the simple and cynical reason our for-profit media outlets and political "leadership" won't help us immunize ourselves from foreign propaganda, and Walter Lippmann on free speech and why Facebook must eventually take the fall for our unwillingness to tell truth from falsehood. Includes a quick refresher on 2016's multi-pronged disinformation/partitioning campaign as well as a recap on Jacques Ellul's agitation propaganda material regarding the unleashing of hatred. Introducing: The Rant Alert!

Listen to "Your Undivided Attention" here: https://humanetech.com/podcast/




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2/21/20 - Authenticity, The Mask, and The Beast Unleashed

On independent thought, authenticity, social momentum, and permitting redemption. Also, You're not the Elephant Whisperer, let Dumbo feed! Detecting doctrinaires, the Warm Glow of the Herd's Fellowship, manipulative monkeys dancing for their lunch, and a mask, the core, and the id walk into a bar.



A format change is underway. Make sure you're subscribed to an Escaping The Cave feed!

2/11/20 - Unimpressed Sobriety & Sanity's Touchstone

Toddzilla's latest Message of Hope formally introduces the loyal listener to Mr. Lippmann: a Man of the People! Touched on are Lippmann's "The Phantom Public", his iconoclastic thoughts on technologically pre-historic data overload, emotional detachment, objective reality, the presumed wisdom of We the People™, and democracy's fate. Have a drink first. Also, institutions and trust are dead, a defense of the "elites", and generalists vs. specialists.



* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

2/6/20: The Wokeflake Follies

The Iowa Boner, The Rips Heard 'Round the World, and impeachment fails. All by Wednesday. This is the alternative?



ALSO:

• Scripture, agitation, and The Herd Mind
• Democracy implodes without the public's consensual trust
• The means, ends, and Salem Witches
• Romney, Amash, Manchin, and the Principled Pit of Hell
• Howard Dean says Democrats will challenge November's election  

* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

2/1/20 - Criminal Conformity & The Beautiful Mutant

"Imitation is suicide." How independent thought gets smothered in infancy, the need to belong: why standing apart from the impaired herd is not only hard, it runs against our social and evolutionary grain. Also, collective and self-delusions protecting us from unpleasant discoveries that might destroy our notions of being special, divine, or even "good."

Listen to "Your Undivided Attention" here: https://humanetech.com/podcast/



ALSO:

• Tending to personal and commercial attachments
• How political and marketing swine manipulate attachments via identity
• Meditation and Buddhist philosophy as tools to disconnect
• Blank Slatists: Beware
• Emerson's Self-Reliance: read it. 

* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

1/28/20 - The Boldness of the Herd, Political Atheism, Our Glowing Christ

The next great war: intellectual autonomy. The bold certainty of the herd, the challenges of independent thought and why seeing someone who is genuinely their own Man is so rare, the media has supplanted the church, disengaging from the ideological Holy War in favor of political atheism, and Toddzilla's Paradox: the conflict between intellectual independence and the desperate human need to belong. Still available for children's parties! Now doing bat mitzvahs!



ALSO:

• A quick impeachment fart
• You want an authoritarian
• Political Vampires
• Algorithms, Lippmann, Bernays, and You
• Silver Spoons: A Hate Crime
• The filthy Centrus Americanus
• Friendship: Loyalty & Support vs. Honesty
• Nothing can be done about climate change
• Data Overload revisited 

* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

1/23/20 - Hilerpes; Bernie & The Suckerfish

Hilary's flared up again, this time on Bernie's groin while Tulsi sues to find out if Valtrex is right for her. Also, It's time for the Democratic Socialist's Red Tea Party to get off the DNC's guest couch, pack their stuff, and find their own place. Go be a dragon, Daenerys.  



Remember: Toddzilla didn't kill himself. 

* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

1/21/20 - Richmond: The 2A and MLK

Wokeflake Twitter was apoplectic when the Richmond pro-gun rally turned out to be peaceful while the rest of world asked, "What? No Antifa? Do they not believe in their holy crusade against Fascismo de Naranja?" Not really. No one asked that. I discuss Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, how it affected Gandhi and MLK, and how that's an unexpected and possible path for gun advocates to reclaiming the narrative.

Also:

• The Invasive Species has a name
• The Democrat's fracture has gangrene
• Daenerys and the Utopian Teet
• Don't call a backdraft a boomerang
• F**K Twitter

* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

1/21/20 - Mobsters (2013)

This isn't being presented as an elegantly polished piece of Pulitzer-worthy prose. (Gaudy alliteration intended for sarcastic effect!) Instead, this theme--intellectual conformity and our tendency toward tribalism and the groupmind--is part of a near-future podcast and an example of some old writing that has not only stood the test of time (2013), but enhanced itself over 7-years. What's changed: gaining a better understanding of the evolutionary and social psychology leading to it. And its exploitation.

Still wondering why my comments are off? This might help. The pickup LeBon!

1/15/20 - Snakes, Survival, & Sabotage: The Need to Feel Alive

Todd discusses collective human boredom in relation to the need for a sense of purpose, struggle, and the addictive rush of just feeling alive. How a dormant survival instinct comes alive during a crisis and how, absent that, we'll manufacture one just to have something to endure, battle, and survive. Also, some some predictions for the 20's. Book those children's parties now!

Also:

• An evening with Pablo Escobar's "chemist"
• A naked man kills a fer-de-lance
• Men, middle age, and the power plant
• Healthy anxiety vs. fear
• This election won't matter
• The tyrant is in the eye of the beholder
• The Titan Tragedy
• Podcasters: they're spammy and slimy.
• ^They call that foreshadowing

* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net
* Fuck Twitter

1/13/20: Apocalypto and The Red Star of Moscow

Happy 2020! Are we ready? After a 2-month hiatus spent illegally hunting rhinoceros and snipe in the primitive wilds of the West Michigan wilderness, Todd welcomes the 20's with a quick episode discussing apocalyptic thinking, the coming electoral season, where to find balanced news coverage, and the rarely-used technique of actually listening to "opposition" media simply to understand where they're coming from. Eureka!

* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.christophermedia.net
* F**k Twitter and Facebook

1/12/20: The Great Hack & The Great War of The 21st Century

After rotting in my queue for a couple of months, and one too many recommendations, I finally watched The Great Hack on Netflix. This feature-length documentary is worthwhile as a means to understand how our stolen data is not only being sold, but used to exploit the hole in our psychological firewall to manipulate and "trigger" what they call "persuadables" into a desired response or action. Or, non-action. It's essential if you're more than slightly interested in the subject. But...