Episodes
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
#95 - Demagogues & Prairie Dogs
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
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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More: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Monday Nov 09, 2020
Monday Nov 09, 2020
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. 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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More: https://www.escapingthecave.com
Monday Nov 02, 2020
#93 - 2020 Election: The Nero Referendum & Defending The Electoral College
Monday Nov 02, 2020
Monday Nov 02, 2020
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.
The "Safeguard" documentary: https://www.amazon.com/Safeguard-Electoral-College-Trent-England/dp/B08H6KH9QV
More: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
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Monday Oct 26, 2020
#92 - Addictive Outrage, Empathy's Path, A Nation in Heat
Monday Oct 26, 2020
Monday Oct 26, 2020
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/
MORE ETC: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Monday Oct 12, 2020
#91 - The Whitmer Plot, Michigan's Militias, Socialism's Facade
Monday Oct 12, 2020
Monday Oct 12, 2020
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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MORE: https://www.escapingthecave.com
MUSIC: The Limbos & Paul Vernon
RE20
Monday Oct 05, 2020
#90 -The Trumptober Surprise; Leo Ryan & The Dennis Doctrine
Monday Oct 05, 2020
Monday Oct 05, 2020
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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More: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
(SM7B)
Thursday Oct 01, 2020
On Morality & Fanaticism; Conformist Suicide
Thursday Oct 01, 2020
Thursday Oct 01, 2020
"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. Like it? Share it!
Watch The Social Dilemma!
Music: Yellow Candy & Paul Vernon
More: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Monday Sep 28, 2020
#89 - An Invasive Species Gazes Into The Abyss
Monday Sep 28, 2020
Monday Sep 28, 2020
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 social dilemma listening to help you escape the world's troubles! Like it? Share it!
Music: Paul Vernon and Yellow Candy
More: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Monday Sep 21, 2020
#88 - Steinbeck, Murrow, and The Social Media Disease
Monday Sep 21, 2020
Monday Sep 21, 2020
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.
Murrow's Text: https://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_lights_in_a_box_speech
More Zilla: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Music: Paul Vernon
Monday Sep 14, 2020
#87 - The Social Dilemma: War of the Virtual Worlds
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
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! Book your seat on Toddzilla's 2021 Motivational Speaking Tour now! My world famous children's parties are 50% off for a limited time!
More: https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Friday Sep 11, 2020
#86 - The Illusion of Knowledge & Democratized Opinion 2.0
Friday Sep 11, 2020
Friday Sep 11, 2020
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
For the masochist: www.escapingthecave.com
Thursday Sep 10, 2020
#85 - Cyberspace Monkeys & The Boiling Caldera
Thursday Sep 10, 2020
Thursday Sep 10, 2020
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. ;)
More: www.escapingthecave.com
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
#84 - Intellectual Populism, Enemy of the People, The Humanovirus S**tshow
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
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
More Me: www.escapingthecave.com
Friday Jun 19, 2020
#83 - Discourse? Or Just Waiting To Talk?
Friday Jun 19, 2020
Friday Jun 19, 2020
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. Like it? Share it!
More: www.escapingthecave.com and www.facebook.com/escapingthecave
Tuesday May 19, 2020
#80 - The Stalker Militia, A Hydroxy Hardon, Woke Youth
Tuesday May 19, 2020
Tuesday May 19, 2020
So, about that silly "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.
More: www.escapingthecave.com
Saturday May 09, 2020
#79 - Stories, Hope, and The Propaganda Paradox
Saturday May 09, 2020
Saturday May 09, 2020
Adventures in leaving the house after 5-weeks, a quick review of the crappy Vaporesso Target PM-80, populism and 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.
--More: www.escapingthecave.com and www.toddzillax.com
--Be sure you're subscribed to an genuine and authentic Escaping The Cave feed!
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
#78 - Social Media Disease: A Cacophony of Nothing
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
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; data overload is 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
--Be sure you're subscribed to an genuine and authentic Escaping The Cave feed!
Friday Apr 24, 2020
#75 - Seekers, Preachers, The Covid Reality Wars
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Friday Apr 24, 2020
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!
--Make sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!
--More: www.escapingthecave.com
Saturday Mar 28, 2020
#74 - Detroit, Intellectual Distancing, The Glowing Antichrist
Saturday Mar 28, 2020
Saturday Mar 28, 2020
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.
--Make sure you're subscribed to an authentic Escaping The Cave feed!
--More: www.escapingtheccave.com
Friday Mar 20, 2020
#72 - Informational Anarchy In A Pandemic
Friday Mar 20, 2020
Friday Mar 20, 2020
A potentially catastrophic stress test as the healthcare system drowns inside a divided country who chose informational tribalism over preparation. Detachment is essential.
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
"ToddzillaX" on most social media. LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE!
Saturday Feb 29, 2020
#66 - Authentic Courage vs. Crying With The Pack
Saturday Feb 29, 2020
Saturday Feb 29, 2020
"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."
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdLR140l--HufeRSAnj91A
https://toddzillax.substack.com
https://www.twitch.tv/toddzillax
https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Music by Yellow Pills! https://open.spotify.com/artist/7rDvBzvGcNPV3BYZ1n5VdZ
Thursday Feb 27, 2020
#65 - Conform Or Be Cast Out
Thursday Feb 27, 2020
Thursday Feb 27, 2020
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.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdLR140l--HufeRSAnj91A
https://toddzillax.substack.com
https://www.twitch.tv/toddzillax
https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Music by Yellow Pills! https://open.spotify.com/artist/7rDvBzvGcNPV3BYZ1n5VdZ
Wednesday Feb 26, 2020
#64 - Social Media Disease: The Dopamine Drip
Wednesday Feb 26, 2020
Wednesday Feb 26, 2020
"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 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/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdLR140l--HufeRSAnj91A
https://toddzillax.substack.com
https://www.twitch.tv/toddzillax
https://www.escapingthecave.com/
Music by Yellow Pills! https://open.spotify.com/artist/7rDvBzvGcNPV3BYZ1n5VdZ
Friday Feb 21, 2020
#62 - Authenticity, The Mask, and The Beast Unleashed
Friday Feb 21, 2020
Friday Feb 21, 2020
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!* More at www.escapingthecave.com.
Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
#61 - Unimpressed Sobriety & Sanity’s Touchstone
Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
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, less-not-more is the answer, a defense of the "elites", a need for collective humility, and generalists vs. specialists.
* Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
* Also check out www.escapingthecave.com
Saturday Feb 01, 2020
#59 - Conformist Suicide
Saturday Feb 01, 2020
Saturday Feb 01, 2020
"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."
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.
Tuesday Jan 28, 2020
#58 - Independent Thought vs. The Need to Belong
Tuesday Jan 28, 2020
Tuesday Jan 28, 2020
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
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020
#55 - Snakes, Survival, & Sabotage: The Need to Feel Alive
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020
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:
- San Agustin, The Special Tour, and 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
* F**k Twitter
Wednesday Oct 30, 2019
#53 - Disinformation '16, Weaponized Truth, Hillary The Halloween Zombie
Wednesday Oct 30, 2019
Wednesday Oct 30, 2019
This episode focusses mostly on disinformation and interference in the 2016 election and includes selected audio 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
- 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"
*Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net www.escapingthecave.com
Thursday Oct 24, 2019
#52 - Presidential Anarchy, Goebbels & Advertising, A Prayer
Thursday Oct 24, 2019
Thursday Oct 24, 2019
Trump's not actually retarded, is he? Pray with me, won't you?
Also:
- Quitting smoking: it sucks
- Nicholas Carr and the "influencer"
- Goebbels ❤️'s Bernays
- My poor defenseless podcast is attacked by a zombie
- Happy Halloween?
- Fu*k Twitter
*Subscribe on any podcatcher that doesn't suck.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net www.escapingthecave.com