*An anti-woke podcast focusing on the invasive collectivist species and the widespread confluence of money, boutique ”news” propaganda, psychology, and hyper-connective tech: The Social Media Disease. Toddzilla X @ YouTube.
Episodes
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
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
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
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
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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
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
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
Thursday Sep 26, 2019
Thursday Sep 26, 2019
"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. If democracy is demands an "enlightened citizenry", it's likely 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
*Like it? Share it. You are the "marketing" team.
*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and and podcatcher that doesn't suck.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net & www.escapingthecave.com
Tuesday Sep 10, 2019
Tuesday Sep 10, 2019
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; honestly 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 vs. Tragic Vision
- Evolution and self-awareness
- The apocalypse and its "chosen ones"
- Progress's Myth and becoming organic
*Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdLR140l--HufeRSAnj91A
*Like the pod? Share it ! You are the "marketing" team.
*More: www.escapingthecave.com
Saturday Aug 17, 2019
Saturday Aug 17, 2019
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 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
*Like the pod? SPREAD IT! You are the "marketing" team.
*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net & www.escapingthecave.com
Thursday Aug 01, 2019
Thursday Aug 01, 2019
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
*Like the pod? 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 & www.escapingthecave.com
Tuesday Jul 30, 2019
Tuesday Jul 30, 2019
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.
*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher.
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com
Wednesday Jul 03, 2019
Wednesday Jul 03, 2019
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
*Like it? SPREAD IT! F**k The Zuck & 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
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
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 & Twitter. You are the marketing team.
*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. Missing one? Tell me!
*Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net
Saturday Mar 24, 2018
Saturday Mar 24, 2018
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. You can listen on your way to therapy.
More episodes/subscribe: www.escapingthecave.com
My travel archives: www.toddzillaX.com