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

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:

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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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.



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9/26/19: The Internal Narrative Trojan Horse

"The fiction is taken as truth because the fiction is badly needed." A quick introduction to Walter Lippmann and the commonality between him, Ellul, Bernays, Haidt, and Harari. People can't personally perceive the world beyond their own sliver of firsthand experience. Therefore, the Current Events Man is beholden, dependent upon, and therefore exploited by the propagandist and his digital distortions. Tech and data overload confusion has made this exponentially worse. If democracy is demands an "enlightened citizenry", it's maybe doomed from the start. Paradoxically, there's a stab at some hope in here too. Weird.



ALSO:

• Te Nosce, bitches 
• Competing Scandals; Competing Networks; Competing Narratives 
• Smoking, Facebook, and associative dopamine addiction.    
• The Matrix and the Internet
• The responsibility and danger of exposing "their" delusion
• All Cats Meow
• Why we believe the ridiculous
• Finding hope in human imperfection
• More on likability and art
• The Hobgoblin  
• Where the hell is Jill Stein? #NeverForget

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*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and and podcatcher that doesn't suck.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net & www.escapingthecave.com

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

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

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


*Like the pod? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. You are my marketing team.

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*Also check out www.christophermedia.net

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

*Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team.

*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

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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*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

6/13/19: The Social Media Disease - The Virtue Batsignal, Moral Authoritarianism, The Exhausted Majority

Todd, Rich, and Chris discuss the unwiring of social evolution, totalitarian tribes spawning skittish clones, and an exhausted "center" with nowhere to land that's not infested by puritans.




Also:
- Is your child "really" transgendered, or is their gender voice really yours?
-The outright refusal to see our own team's propaganda.
-The "wisdom" of youth.
-More on thoughtless opinions.
-More on Social Media Intellectual Influencers and their "brands".


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Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Google Play, Spotify, & Stitcher.
Also visit: www.christophermedia.net

5/9/19: The Elephantitis Pandemic; Winter Is Here

Haidt's elephant and how it relates to our constitutional crisis, rising authoritarianism, and our likely dystopian future. "Evolution didn't end with opposable thumbs."

• The thin veneer of civilization
• Self-dehumanization
• Extremists v. Moderate
• The Social Media Disease

Need more Toddzilla?

1) Seek help.
2) Click the links.
3) Listen on your way to therapy.

More episodes/subscribe:
My travel archives: www.toddzillaX.com
Also visit: www.christophermedia.net

Subscribe: iTunes and Google Play

5/4/19: The Boomerang Effect: "Hold My Beer"

Confused as to why your self-righteous demands aren't being met? Behold! 

• Narratives, mythology, religion, and how they bind us together
• Making Enemies of Allies
• Haidt's Elephant
• Surrendering to the Grand Design of Ideological Religions
• Intellectual refinement and allowing yourself (and others) to make mistakes and change your mind
• The abandonment of External Truth and Reason
• Totalitarian and authoritarian creep
• No Hitler references!

Need more Toddzilla?

1) Seek help.
2) Click below.
3) Listen on your way to therapy.

Subscribe: iTunes and Google Play

3/24/18: The Social Media Disease - Cyber Space Monkeys

First Social Media Disease antibiotic treatment. Starting with an X-Pod flashback to 2014, Todd discusses Cambridge Analytica before turning to more recent effects of our collective addiction to social media on society and how a bilateral abandonment of a commitment to basic common facts--in favor of tasty propaganda--is having a dehumanizing effect and rapidly eroding the social contract. Also: cyber space monkeys, avatars showing off for each other in the Matrix, and the digital-organic hybrid: meme belching cyborgs.

Need more Toddzilla? First, seek help. Second, click the links below. Third, listen on your way to therapy.

I was a guest on two Christopher Media shows this week:

Politics, society, social media: Unregimented - http://christophermedia.net/229-its-still-all-about-trump/

Baseball! And other unfortunate things: Sporgy- http://christophermedia.net/093-03-22-18/

More episodes/subscribe: www.escapingthecave.com
My travel archives: www.toddzillaX.com
Also visit: www.christophermedia.net

3/12/18: Hitchhiking and Philosophy

The final episode of the Friar Chris Series begins with a discussion about the differences between bicycle touring and backpacking then moves on to deeper topics, including (@ 15:45) my experience volunteering on the Gulf Coast in the immediate aftermath of Katrina and the corrosive and corrupting effects of tribalism and dogma in the Disaster Relief Industrial Complex. We then move on to (mostly) explore the fundamental ideas behind why he and I chose hitchhiking and what we learned and experienced while traveling the country as “disposable” vagabonds loitering out on the fringe. 

SPOILER ALERT: Sausage Party Hope lies within!

More episodes/subscribe: www.escapingthecave.com

My travel archives: www.toddzillaX.com

Also visit: www.christophermedia.net 

Cheat Sheet follows:

3/5/18: Friar Chris - Walking Savannah to Seattle

In this politics-free second of three, I sit down again with Chris Dyson for a chat about his walk from Savannah, Georgia to Seattle which included enduring a turbulent breakup on the side of US 287 in northern Colorado, getting lost in rural Wyoming, and anecdotes and observations about some of the fascinating people he met along the way. Deeper topics include self-generated baseless fear, choosing existential isolation in the name of personal security, internal narratives, religion & spirituality, restless escapism, travel and aging, and more.

More: www.escapingthecave.com

Archives: www.toddzillaX.com

Subscribe on iTunes and Google Play. Also on Christopher Media.net and Stitcher.

2/27/18: Friar Chris - A Gringo In The Andes

The first of three expansive (and nearly politics-free!) episodes with Chris Dyson, we discuss the mystical route leading to his founding of The Hof, his hostel in the Cordillera Blanca range of the Peruvian Andes and the difficulties he encountered in being a gringo outsider trying to integrate into the nearby Quechuan community, including the multiple robberies endured during his six and a half years living in Peru. We also discuss "The Personal Peace Corp" and the Dennis Doctrine, tribalism, non-caucasian based racism, apocalypse cultism, the epidemic of human disconnection, the related death of the sense of community, and more.

Download this episode (right click and save)

My photos of The Hof: www.upperworldphoto.com
More: www.escapingthecave.com
Subscribe: iTunes and Google Play

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.

Nazis, Hippies, and The Bloody Political Purge

No writer achieves success advising his readers to ignore him. I’ve come to define “success” differently. In this specific case it’s maybe a good idea, especially if you're ideologically pure or identified uncomfortably with my previous Talking Dead post, to click elsewhere. While I don’t mention it often in this post, it illustrates the tangible effects of our cyber mobs and political zombies. It’s also full frontal Toddzilla and amounts to taking the final shot on my aforementioned bender while at the same time serves to purge the one thing that’s been inexplicably safe: Zombie Politics.

If you click, you and you alone are responsible. Consider yourself warned, Snowflake.