Mark and Michael sit down for a an old school rant that begins with Michael asking the very serious question, "Did government, Illuminati, secret society light up Burning Man with ebola so that they could off all of the people who might be able to make psychedelics legal?"

Clearly, this is a very serious conversation, wherein we discuss camping, capitalism, bartering and freedom (as it relates to the presence and function of the tent city that pops up in front of the NonProphet Event Center with some regularity), accepting or abdicating responsibility, and the influence of drugs on self-appreciation and value. Michael describes the remarkable difference between 'associative' vs. disassociative behavior and that perhaps, in order to steer oneself towards better life experiences, towards a 'higher plane' so to speak, one must actively associate with reality instead of evading it, and open oneself to feeling and sensing and being aware, and that may begin with a basic premise of making different decisions regarding the food one consumes. Change on the most fundamental, dare I ay mundane, level can influence an entire cascade of different outcomes.

In the moment of fulfillment, after a good and healthy meal that doesn't make you feel like shit, shared with a loved one, people feel satisfied, but society — as it is set up here — can't handle folks who are satisfied because they aren't seeking and they're not consuming and they're not indulging ... they are appreciating where they are, in the moment. That's a good thing for the species but not necessarily for the frenzied socio-economic system we find ourselves within ... because whosoever is satisfied won't fall for the advertising.

And then we turned the focus to business and marketing and Michael helped me realize that continual growth of cells in the body is cancer but continual growth in business is expected and if it doesn't happen the business is considered a failure. Or at minimum unsuccessful.

So how do businesses keep growing, keep increasing market share and brand awareness? Which leads to us addressing social engineering as a mechanism to turn profit on the back of predictable human behavior ... ugh, the manipulation is at an all time high while the resources, the open-to-buy of the potential customers, is rapidly declining. That said, money changes everything, and those who have it don't have to spend time or energy getting what they believe they want; they can change the outcome without actually changing their behavior. And that is very seductive ... but also a dead end.

Finally, when it comes to marketing for NonProphet, we agree that we should be careful about putting the business name and logo on such cheap shit as might quickly end up in a landfill ... is that how we want to be remembered in the present and in the future? Yeah, picking through useless NonProphet tchotchkes at the dump ... that sounds good. So go ahead, acquire stuff, let it weigh you down, because carrying weight is good training, and this podcast is about fitness.