Christopher Media

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.

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 Disease such as personal “branding” and virtual facades are here as well as kernels of things that will become familiar to the regular listener, such as The Marrow of Humanity.

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My travel archives: www.toddzillaX.com
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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!

Cheat Sheet:

36:40 – Institutional incompetence, the loss of confidence leading to the rage that we found everywhere in 2008-9 which, ultimately, gave birth to Tea Party Extremism.

50:28 – The philosophy/theology of a guiding hand synchronicity operating system, audacity, and the (unr […]

In this politically-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
Chris’s NGO: https://www.kawaymonti.org

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