10/30/19: Disinformation '16, Weaponized Truth, Hillary The Halloween Zombie

This episode focusses mostly on disinformation and interference in the 2016 election and includes selected clips from the Your Undivided Attention podcast episode "From Russia With Likes" (#1) featuring disinformation expert Renée DiResta. Her expertise connects incredibly well to my Propaganda series. Topics include: the seemingly innocent methods used by the Russians exploiting personal identity to create online communities that can be manipulated via agitative identity politics later on, The Call to Action: The Manchurian Propagandist, more on the propaganda dopamine connection: validation, attacking trust in political institutions and the media, anger and apathy, exploiting freedom of speech, and the silliness of the "Global Public Square.

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



ALSO:

• Hillary: probably right about Tulsi Gabbard
• Hillary: definitely right about Jill Stein
• Hillary: absolutely a Trump asset
• Hillary: continue your role as a public servant. Retire. Quietly. 
• Americans subsidize European entitlements
• Trump's "foreign policy" could lead to universal education 
• Media and Information Education: stat!
• Be sure you're subscribed to "Escaping The Cave"

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*Also check out www.christophermedia.net  www.escapingthecave.com

9/24/19: Wokeflake Comedy: Sociological Propaganda

A rare ETC podcast: one topic. The stage that was once the playground of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, and even Andrew Dice Clay has been stormed by a mob of Social Vengeance Warriors hell bent on using comedy as a delivery mechanism for textbooksociological and agitation propaganda, complete with its own version of the Ten Commandments (now in print!) and a handy scapegoat Satan. When does the "Thank You, Comrade!" showcase start?



ALSO: 

• Controlling speech is controlling thought; Speechcrime is Thoughtcrime
• Unless Nickelback is your standard, nothing great has ever come from timid conformity.
• "Unanimity requires compliance" and defiant creative independence
• Educating and maintaining The Sufficiently Woke Comic

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9/10/19: Iceberg Ahoy! Validation Junkies & The Chosen Ones

Social validation, dopamine, and social media's Walter White; the predictably ridiculous reaction to Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix special and how comedy has evolved from truth telling to Wokeflake proselytizing; more on how people are more willing and eager than deceived when it comes to swallowing fiction and disinformation; choking on data leading to confused gullibility; honesty in a crisis; Sausage Party Hope: children demanding their happy ending. Where's the spring of genuine hope?



ALSO:  

• The Battle of the 21st Century
• The iceberg bobbing off our bow
• Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube: Walter White cutting his meth supply? 
• Pinker's Utopian and Tragic Visions
• Evolution and self-awareness
• The apocalypse and its "chosen ones"
• Progress's Myth and becoming organic

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8/29/19: Propaganda: Agitating The Inner Ape

Agitation and Integration: two often closely related but very different types of propagandas: one used to provoke internal conflict the other to shape members of a population into a mold. Agitation: The propaganda of insurgency and revolution. Includes how internal enemies are used as scapegoats to manufacture then exploit hatreds as means to an insurgent's end, Mao's view on "the enemy residing in every man" and fitting him into the "Socialist Mold", Hitler's internal agitation, spontaneous volunteer propagandists, and how facts and "truth" are irrelevant to the person burning with primal hatred.

ALSO: 

• Agitation propaganda during the American Revolution 
• Triggering revolution by provoking hate? It's easy!
• Exploiting hatred and the path to genocide
• Hatred: small investment, high return
• Agitation and Integration can be used simultaneously
• Utopia is totalitarian
• Intellectuals: More susceptible to integration propaganda than dolts
• Intellectuals and self-bigotry
• "Can I hate you?"
• Justification, rationalization and stampeding enraged elephants
• Agitation to Integration: extremely difficult
• Successful Agitation + Failed Integration = Mob Rule
• Winter Is Here
• Yep. It's a doozy. 

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

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8/22/19: Propaganda: Contradictions, Agitation Media, Typhoid Zuck

Propaganda's ambiguity and contradictions including: creating tensions while relieving others, an introduction to the companion propagandas: agitation and integration and how they overlap; self-justification and imposed guilt; attachment and ostracizing oneself to join the "enemy; politicization and privatization; "Why die for Danzig?' and how political orphans benefit extremists and authoritarians.



ALSO:

• Andrew Sullivan on the boomerang
• Post-Truth hatred and division: a bigger threat than climate change
• Don't blame the bartender for getting you drunk
• Twitter, Facebook, and Typhoid Mary
• Atomic Ping Pong
• Our personal broadcast stations
• The Russia investigation saved the Democrats
• Setting up your triage tent
• Forget the mob; save yourself
• Information or Propaganda? Can you tell? Does it even matter?
• The Matrix & Propaganda

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

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8/17/19: Propaganda: Dependent Drunks In Denial

On Ellul's "The Need For Propaganda." We've both developed a tolerance for and a psychological dependency on propaganda's certainty-stoking, justifying, and and self-worth generating narratives, social media is a propagandist's dream, desensitization and an increasing desire for the excitement felt from being immersed in the constant, and necessary stream of propaganda, how our addiction has allowed both traditional media and social media "influencers" to monetize the Outrage Industrial Complex, our role as retained ideological attorneys, and wishful thinking (and possibly disastrous effects) of suddenly eliminating 320-million people's propaganda narratives. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Grab a sammich for this one. And maybe a stiff drink. Hey! I never said this would be easy!



ALSO: 

• This is a triage situation; not a search for the "cure"
• Disinformation bit me again!
• Why we won't quit the informational drug
• A possible path to empathy
• The culture war is a War of National Narratives
• Chosen perspective becomes "personal truth"
• Provoking shame as a "debate" tool: a boomerang
• Social media "influencers": personal brands hocking a product while posing as "journalists"
• The IDW: agitation propaganda

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

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*Also check out www.christophermedia.net & www.escapingthecave.com

8/15/19: Propaganda: Righteousness And Simplicity

The Propaganda opus resumes with Ellul's take on psychic "dissociation". Includes more on wordknapping, how righteous and simplistic propaganda narratives silence the self and numb natural cognitive dissonance, replacing reality with the electronic eyes of the "verbal universe", the effects of disconnecting a person's personal opinion in favor of an acceptable "public" opinion, and how opposing propagandas affect the target.



ALSO:

• Democratic Socialists: as ridiculous during Occupy as at their "convention"
• Aligned, Premeditated, and Secret Consciences: Individuality and Haidt's Elephant
• Disconnecting thought & action  
• Opposing propagandas: political abstention or fanaticism?
• The IDW: Agitation Propaganda
• Data Overload and the Defective Human Mind
• Your congenial host and the Ideological Riptide
• No one's immune. Not even you.

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

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8/10/19: Wanted: Wokeflake Demagogue, Dignity And The Useful Idiot, Tyrannizing The Vanquished

Todd, Chris and Rich discuss the Dayton shooter's leftist leanings being swept aside, poking the Crackerbear and how a real conflict between Woke Island and Trumptown might resemble an episode of "Lambs to the Wolves", Los Tíos Tom Blancos and their own dignity, informational chum agitating swarming ideological sharks, how suppressing a defeated ideological Holy War enemy might look in the 21st century, and we revisit "reparations" just to, you know, lighten things up. (Send the bill to Boris!) The Propaganda opus continues next time.



ALSO:

• Chris & Rich educate Todd on "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo"
• The PMRC and the new Left
• Corey Booker's "community"
• The Dragon, Kraken, and your own self-interest
• The absurdity of expecting a Matriarchal Utopia

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8/8/19: The Internet's Ethic: Informational Anarchy & Deadly Insignificance

After more shooting's, Chris & Rich rejoin the show to discuss our "news" (propaganda) consumption, and the predictably tribal response. We're malleable psychological adolescents and clearly unprepared for this informational responsibility. Also, the same recycled arguments with a few new propaganda twists, did you know the Dayton killer was a self-proclaimed Leftist? Is it coincidence that most "news" coverage is in El Paso? Remote rhetorical assaults and the historical usefulness of "physical accountability": smacking bullies in the snout.



ALSO: 

• "Can I believe this" vs "Must I believe this"
• Snorting pacifists: lambs to the wolves
• Arya Stark: she was fiction. 
• "Educated Intellectuals" aren't immune to propaganda; maybe more vulnerable  

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8/6/19: Propaganda: Autonomy Lost, Fake Tensions, Exiling Sectarians

How propaganda acts as an informational virus to destroy critical thought and alienate the person from himself. More on data overload, the uninformed Current Events Man knowing a little about everything and a lot about nothing, mistaking feelings for thought, having to accept or reject an entire doctrine in total, losing intellectual autonomy, and how artificial tensions are often accompanied by dubious solutions.



ALSO:

• Artificial solutions to real needs
• Real solutions to artificial needs
• "Influencers", their product, and their Patreon
• The Tribal Dance of Rhetorical Fuckery
• We're a species of sleazy lawyers and pathological liars
• Self-stereotyping caricatures
• It's fine to generalize then exile sectarian fabricants

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747


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8/2/19: Propaganda: Slogans, Rationalizations, The Religious Mind

The conclusion of Ellul's psychological crystallization segment featuring the makeup of its slogans & how they're used to replace thought, collective belief and obsessions, self-justification/rationalizations and how they spawn the self-righteous Puritan, the closing of the crystallized mind, propaganda's religious personality, and a bizarre 21st century media phenomenon: monetizing mind rape.




ALSO:

- Marianne Williamson: The New Trump?
- Introducing the father of American propaganda: Edward Bernays
- They know you better than you know yourself
- Propaganda's side-effects and how they mirror the '60's definition of "neurosis"

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747


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8/1/19: Propaganda: Inseminating Zealots & Vicarious Atonement

Begins with a takedown of "white privilege", self-flagellation vs. self-interest, and the asinine/futile demands of our Social Vengeance Warriors; beware the boomerang, Moonbeam. From there, I move on to Ellul's dissection of how propaganda hijacks the political cultist's mind. The first of two parts, this episode focusses on the distinction between doctrine and critical thought, unnaturally homogenous thought, codifying social, political, and moral standards, exploiting latent pre-existing prejudices, and the power of implanted stereotypes & symbols used as triggering mechanisms. The elephant is strong in this one!



Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747


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7/30/19: Propaganda: Manufacturing Proselytes & Militants

Propaganda isn't what you may think. Ellul's ideas on pre-propaganda, propaganda's conditioned reflexes, myths, and "orthopraxy". Including the triggering of active and passive action (activists, influencers, collaborators), widespread participation by "committed" zealots, the separation between thought and action, exploiting the abyss between what we say and what we do, mobilizing men for action counter to their own values, and being unable to reverse ourselves once "action" has begun.



ALSO:

• Exiling naked sectarians
• Agitation and organization
• How the Internet rejuvenates and revives conditioned reflexes
• Technology indoctrinates us much faster than before
• Presuppositions, stereotypes, and political education disguised as universities
• Mind-hacking thru a broken firewall
• Seizing your intellectual autonomy
• Excommunication is painful. But Necessary.

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747


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7/28/19: Propaganda's Mindcrime, Partitioning, The Verbal Universe

More on agitation propaganda and the psychological effects of propaganda including: loss of individuality, the suppression of critical thought, creation of the mob and how critical thought is literally impossible as part of a group, the creation of a fanatically self-righteous social conscious leading to the demonization of the out-group, and more on the sphere of the sacred. Then, how propaganda partitions society (identity politics) via verbal fiction creating sects of victims who only speak "to themselves."


Also: 

• Propaganda's only heard by its choir creating alternate factual universes
• Manchurian activists primed for provoked outrage and action
• The creation of an abstract verbal universe: fake news
• Sacrificing self-dignity to "the cause"
• The danger of surrendering to "something bigger than yourself"
• Stereophonic propaganda
• Reclaiming individuality by removing your dog from the fight

Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda":
https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

READ IT!


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7/25/19: Spinning Mueller & The Sacred Cows

Congressional grandstanding for the cameras, Mueller's testimony: viewed and spun in parallel universes, deciding whether to read the report, voting your own self-interest (Yes! Do it!), the Current Events Man, asking the right questions, when boutique news becomes fatal, and the sacred Golden Calves.



Also: 

• Leaving the mob
• Evolution lurks
• Mythology and the Devil within

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7/22/19: Humanist Puritans, Wokeflake Jesus, Manchurian Crusaders

The extreme left's totalitarian purity test and its search for Utopia's messiah; self-righteous moral certainty and the narcissistic narratives of the secular humanist religion. Then, agitation propaganda creates armies of proselytes and militants while unleashing an uncontrollable and destabilizing primal hatred for "the evil other." No one's immune; would you even know if you're devouring propaganda?



ALSO: 

• Silent Collaborators
• The Sunday School of political insemination
• Political missionaries always rapping at the smart phone's door
• Being right vs. "looking" right
• Ignoring history
• You're solely responsible for protecting and maintaining your own mind 

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7/3/19: Broken Beasts of Intellectual Burden

A digital detox update and re-connecting with the organic world, Trump's 4th of July spectacle and the predictable "outrage", why I'm rooting against the US women's soccer team, the ridiculous debates, and half as many young people consider themselves "gay allies." Why? Beware the boomerang!



Also: 

-Social media is the new talk radio
-Visceral emotive manipulation and monetized propaganda
-Algorithms as propaganda delivery systems

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2/6/18: Media 101: It's (We) The People

In this episode: thoughts on the popular escapist conspiracy theory about the mainstream media “dumbing us down to keep us docile and ignorant." I also dissect the reasons why our media is now composed nearly exclusively of boutique news outlets producing chum for echo chamber sharks, media desensitization and the cure, as well as the need for sugar-coated truth, and our insulated and self-cleansing propaganda ecosystems (news, standup, and Hollywood). 

Also: thoughtless “opinion”, white inheritance, Sausage Party Hope, Fleecing The Fucktards, and more. Not for everyone. Ask your doctor if Toddzilla is right for you. Use only as directed.

(This is the edited-for-time 2019 version. Original file linked below)

ORIGINAL FILE: Download(right click/save)/Play In a New Window

More/subscribe: www.escapingthecave.com

1/30/18: Ideological Religions and The Talking Dead

Identity politics being mutually exclusive with “equality”, ideological drift, political doctrine as competing and hostile secular religions, online mobs, and the zombifying effects of dogma. Not for the easily triggered or those requiring intellectual safe spaces. 

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1/29/18: He Is Risen!

Please update your iTunes and Google Play subscriptions to download future episodes.  

Stitcher: Coming soon

The rebranded X-Pod returns! Toddstradamus discusses his return to podcasting, social media, misguided consistency, fires his opening salvo at political religions and bilateral extremism, synapse pruning and The Useless Shit Epiphany, and establishing a solid signal to noise ratio. He also lays the foundation for exposing The Talking Dead and creating a more sophisticated media consumer while weeding his garden of that pesky Green Tea.