Monday, March 1, 2021
3/1/21 - Social Media Avatars: Crazy, Stupid, or Full of Sh*t?
Monday, February 22, 2021
2/22/21 - Political Cults & Mobs 101
Thursday, February 18, 2021
2/18/21 - Exploration, Evolution, Death of a Propagandist
People are storytellers not truth seekers. And we're explorers to the core. If you're looking for something positive, exploration brings out the best in us. Good luck today, JPL! How do we become more sophisticated informational consumers? Loved him? Hated him? Either way, Rush Limbaugh was probably the best and most influential for-profit propagandist ever. Also, finding the line between honesty and aggression, how the pandemic complicates a digital detox, and the relationship between money and exploration.
More: https://toddzillax.substack.com
Monday, February 8, 2021
2/8/21 - From Moralist to Tyrant or The Fanatic's Imperative
Monday, February 1, 2021
2/1/21 - The Other Insurgency & Where's Our Hashtag?
In this sprawling and questionably improvised episode, your slightly medicated and possibly menstruating host discusses everything from subject-matter-futility to contemporary colonizers attacking native temples. How is life in the jungle different from the zoo? What happens when propaganda is simply met with boring ol' truth? Social media is propaganda's plutonium. What's the relationship between moral imperatives and political violence? Enjoy the silence, Trump: The Second Season starts soon. And what about that search for lost or missing significance and meaning? Is there something more to it that we shouldn't ignore?
Monday, January 25, 2021
1/25/21 - Post-Trump Stress Disorder & Tech's Theocracy
Joffrey's banished from Twitter and exiled to Florida while a traumatized and twitchy nation begins adjusting to something "normal." How has The Mad King's term eroded government legitimacy within our own borders? No inauguration day riots? What are those brave revolutionaries up to? A: trying to get each other banned from Twitter! President Biden's a reality. How long will Trump continue to set the standard and serve as the excuse? Also, last week's Woke State Media display was the fusion of big tech, pop culture, corporate media, and Green Tea Politics. It introduced us to our freshly exposed left flank and the future of Ideological Theocracy: technological totalitarianism. Where's the centrist supposed to pitch his tent?
https://toddzillax.substack.com
Monday, January 18, 2021
1/18/21 - American Zapatistas, Saboteur in Chief, The Lone Boogaloo
With troops flooding DC, Trump's term ends in two days time. Why doesn't it feel certain that it will? Was a nation of "patriots" suddenly afflicted with insurrectile dysfunction on Sunday? Is Donald Trump a foreign agent? Who cares? He performed like one. What lies at the confluence of technology & idiocracy? Also, letting escaped cultists find their way home, When Stories Attack: factional storytelling is propaganda, and Toddzilla stalks Telegram! How did this thing make it to 100?
https://toddzillax.substack.com
Friday, January 15, 2021
1/15/21 - Trump's Rebellion & The Need to Believe
Monday, January 11, 2021
1/11/21 - Trump's Rebellion & The New Gatekeepers
Trump's insurrection and the religious mind: why are so many Americans committed to faith before facts? Were they rioters? Protesters? Activists? Terrorists? That's decided by propaganda's very peculiar perspective effect. Is this the end of Trumpism or the beginning of something even worse? When it comes to free speech, where's the line between "liberty and license? If people ignore free speech's responsibilities, should social media accounts be licensed? Should Silicon Valley be in the gatekeeping business? Also, what's the relationship between likability and demonization?
For Future Reference: https://toddzillax.substack.com
Monday, January 4, 2021
1/4/21 - All You Need Is Doubt
Fresh off his first motivational speaking tour, Todd returns to discuss uplifting topics such as why it's not necessary to conquer a democracy when a just little doubt'll do ya. Also, it's been relatively quiet on the streets lately. Is The Trump Militia all hat and no cattle or is something else at play? How can a nation avoid inevitable conflict when each half of the country functions according to different rules of factual physics? Is there a relationship between likability, deplorability, & disinformation? What's with the December Dead Zone? And, your host's persistent sense of existential hopelessness an argument for ending all digital political "discourse." Book those children's parties now!
For Future Reference: https://toddzillax.substack.com
Sunday, November 22, 2020
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!
Sunday, November 15, 2020
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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Monday, November 9, 2020
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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Monday, November 2, 2020
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/B08H6KH9QVLike it? Share it!
Monday, October 12, 2020
10/12/20 - The Whitmer Plot, Michigan's Militias, Socialism's Facade
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MUSIC: The Limbos & Paul Vernon
Thursday, October 1, 2020
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
Monday, September 28, 2020
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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Monday, September 21, 2020
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
Monday, September 14, 2020
9/14/20 - The Social Dilemma: War of the Virtual Worlds
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- Reserve your seat on Toddzilla's 2021 Motivational Speaking Tour now!
- Children's parties: 50% off for a limited time!
Friday, September 11, 2020
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