The Toddzilla X-Pod

Chris & Rich sit in on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. We discuss the achievement, the courage of those undertaking it, and how subsequent generations were cheated of their signature crowning moment in history.    ALSO:  -Data overload, informational suffocation, and how the compulsive "current events man" is actually less informed. -Are we "really" evolving? -Patriotic appreciation vs. copycat...

"He who defines is your master." More on twisting definitions as a malicious propaganda tool, how institutional propaganda systems affect a population, and where a species oblivious of its own shortcomings ultimately ends up. Also:  -Communing with the organic dead -There's no such thing as collective critical thought -Intelligence as a handicap -Foreshadowing a Walter Lippmann re-think   *Like it...

Definitions, journalism as a euphemism for propaganda, Amash goes rogue, Antifa gets played by Patreon's punching bag, I have a creative reparations solution, FOX gets savvy and begins filling a void. Part two coming soon.  Also,  -What happened to our Nuremberg rally? -More on these ridiculous Democratic debates -Justice isn't real   -Is the extremist worm turning?      *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k...

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 -Algor...

Are we representing ourselves accurately via these one dimensional social media avatars? I update the digital detox progress and talk about my over-amplified virtual projection, Toddzilla, destroying meaningful relationships, how the tweet is in the eye of the beholder, missing a funeral for a friend, and maybe a faint glimmer of not-so-Sausage Party Hope.     *Like it? SHARE IT!  F**k The Zuck &...

How does someone whose life is based online digitally detox? Good question. Let's find out; here's how it's going to start.  Should be a hoot!   *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. Missing one? Tell me! *Check out www.escapingthecave.com  &  www.christophermedia.net    

Hi New Zealand! Find yourself logging onto to the LaBrea Twitter Pit or Facebook and suddenly you've lost far more time to it than you intended?  Me too. More on Digitally Enhanced Avatars, Digital Detox as a treatment for a distorted virtual perception/socialization as well as depression, anxiety, cynicism, and generalized anger.   Also, -The universal nature of both our inner and shared stories...

Wrapping things up with Chris & Rich, we discuss how public relations is, literally, a euphemism for propaganda, manufacturing opinion, euphemisms and twisting words to fit the propagandist's purpose, informational overload creating political non-entities, and partisanship rotting political, cultural and social institutions.  Also:  -Abandoning basic American principles; Patriotism's vicious backl...

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: the outright refusal to see our own team's propaganda, the "wisdom" of youth, and more on thoughtless opinions and how "branding" affects Social Media Political Influencers.   Like it? Share it. F**k Twit...

Cyber Space Monkeys continued. In part 1-of-3, I'm joined by Chris & Rich to discuss the effects of social media on individuals and society as a whole. Propaganda kerosene and the disinformation detonator, the connection between road rage and net rage, much of the IDW: for-profit social media brands and "right adjacent" influencers producing "content" for handouts, Nicholas Carr and how the Intern...

No Politics! Lots of drilling to the "get the f**k away from me!" meltdown core.  -Bulls**t Jousting -The truth probably won't set you free -Sausage Party Hope and the fueling Audacity of Belief -How & why disinformation works: a first person play-by-play.   More: www.escapingthecave.com Visit: www.christophermedia.com Also: www.christophermedia.net You found it. Now, subscribe, ya jerk. What's th...

“There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.”  “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” -Lippmann. At 35:25: The difference between clever & smart and more on the DIKW pyramid and what happens when citizens ignore corrupt data.  The first 35-minutes:  - Justin Amash and the criticism from the left. - Mueller's fumble and the Democrat's ensuing de...

Technology enables, and social media perpetuates, informational anarchy and prioritizes the cheap appearance of knowledge over fostering knowledge itself.  Also, how the Internet changes cognition and the abandonment of expertise to the holy opinion: "my ignorance is equal to  your knowledge." Also:  -The DIKW pyramid and drowning in data. -The Id on Parade, the natural state of man, and Leviathan...

Unsophisticated media consumers and the failure to take personal responsibility for our own intellectual maintenance. The surrender of the individual's intellectual autonomy to the conformist mob. How mobs-cells no longer need to leave the couch and are now free to anonymously molest & terrorize the "other" via Twitter, Facebook, and their phones. Also: Social Media Influencers and how the Media 1...

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    

Parties, their power-first representatives and constituents, fundamentalist ideologues, extremists, etc. are failing everyone. Government institutions are melting down and the faith of the governed along with it. Hey! What could possibly go wrong?!?     Need more Toddzilla? 1) Seek help. 2) Click the links. You can listen on your way to therapy. More episodes/subscribe: www.escapingthecave.com My...

Confused as to why your righteous demands aren't being met? Behold!  Narratives, mythology, religion, and how they bind us together The Grand Design & Ideological Religions Making Enemies of Allies Haidt's Elephant Intellectual refinement and allowing yourself (and others) to make mistakes and change your mind External Truth and Reason Authoritarian creep No Hitler references! www.escapingthecave....

Are you wondering why every source of "news" and information sucks? It's because everyone from MSNBC to NPR to FOX to Alex Jones to Social Media "Influencers" operate according to the same for-profit model: drawing eyeballs to their product to sell someone else's. The re-resurrection begins by re-laying the foundation. More on the way.   Need more Toddzilla? 1) Seek help. 2) Click the links. You c...

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: c...

Recorded shortly after Robin Williams committed suicide in 2014, this was one of the most popular episodes from the old podcast. It covers many topics Friar Chris and I discussed in the previous podcasts, including the fraud of "normal", misguided identity, the emptiness of success, depression, and the performers need for praise and validation. Some of the early ideas surrounding the Social Media...

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)...

In this politics-free second of three, I continue chatting with Chris Dyson 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 exist...

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...

In this sprawling episode, Todd attacks Quixoteism & "personal truth": the human tendency toward egocentric self-delusion and how the Sausage Party Hope resides in the commitment to observing objective reality. He also discusses artist "activism", content control and the new feed, third party futility, and the need for one political religion or the other to inter the opposing half of the country i...

Laying the foundation for future podcasts, Todd talks about identity politics being mutually exclusive with “equality”, ideological drift, political doctrine as competing and hostile secular religions, cyber mobs, and the zombifying effects of dogma. NEW FEED! Subscribe: iTunes  or Google Play