C-Realm Podcast

KMO talks to engineer and permaculturalist, Robert Brown, about the strengths and weaknesses of the Peak Oil narrative. KMO recalls the different psychological factions that congregated under the Peak Oil banner. Some were focused on finding investment opportunities, others were disgusted with contemporary society and thrilled at the prospect of it falling to pieces. The conversation also touches on the harms and benefits of digital technology.

KMO has turned Peak Oil apostate. Information technology and machine learning in particular, seem to have played a much more influential and interesting role in determining the course of industrial civilization over the past decade than have shortfalls in petroleum production. In short, the predictions of a Peak Oil fast collapse have failed to materialize. Over that same period, most everyone in the industrialized world has taken to carrying powerful computers around with them that fit in the palms of their hands. Governments and corporations use the data we generate with our online activity for surveillance and social control. What will the coming decade hold? Will the collapse of industrial civilization finally make its entrance, or will information technology extend it's lead over the predicted collapse? KMO puts these questions to long-time C-Realm guest, James Howard Kunstler, who predicts that the collapse is still coming, and that the next couple of years will be marked by greatly increased levels of disorder on the international stage.

KMO welcomes author and game designer, Michael O. Varhola, to the C-Realm to discuss the story-telling alchemy that comes from getting a group of people together around a table with dice, character sheets and possibly some miniatures to engage in collaborative adventure-spinning. Michael is the founder of a gaming company called Skirmisher, and you can find all of their offerings on DriveThruRPG.com.

The H1B Visa program was originally intended to make sure that American tech companies had access to enough computer programmers to fix the Y2K bug before the stroke of midnight. Mission accomplished. But then the H1B program found a new mission. Kevin Lynn of U.S. Tech Workers explains how the program expanded and the effect that it continues to have on the culture of Silicone Valley and on the fate of Americans who have the aptitude and the skills to do the work that US firms would rather give to foreign workers.

Check out the GEBB webcomic and KMO's YouTube channel.

KMO speaks with Mark Gober, author of An End to Upside Down Thinking: Dispelling the Myth That the Brain Produces Consciousness, and the Implications for Everyday Life. The idea that consciousness arises from sufficiently complex arrangements of matter isn't so much  a finding arrived at by scientific investigation as it is an axiom of the materialist worldview. Modern science doesn't lead to the conclusion brains produce consciousness so much as the scientific community demands that you accede to this starting assumption or keep quiet about your reservations if you want to be taken seriously. Mark Gober argues that experimental findings demonstrate that ideas concerning telepathy, precognition, remote viewing and life after death need to be given more thorough-going consideration than they currently receive in the scientific community.

KMO's 2019 resolution: Upload SOMETHING to YouTube every single day in 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2N0_6TmngztwzkX3ktImiQ

Season 2 of both Star Trek: Discovery and The Orville are just weeks away. KMO talks to JP of Egotastic Funtime about both shows and why it is that The  Orville feels so much more like Star Trek than the official offering from CBS, the legal owners of the Star Trek IP. They also discuss YouTube as a means for independent content creators to distribute their content and as a way for corporations to create a simulacrum of grassroots supports for their products.

KMO welcomes Keith Preston of Attack the System back to C-Realm Radio to talk about the current political and social division in the United States. Keith first offers a technological explanation for the intensity of the social animosity on display in public discourse. He then delves into the history of left and right political movements in the US to describe in more detail how we came to our particular historical moment.

KMO, a "recovering libertarian," talks with Joshua D. Glawson, a full-on libertarian and writer for 71 Republic. Topics of conversation include the way NPR has covered the most recent mass shooting event, the way governments appeal to the less noble aspects of human psychology in order to gain and maintain political power, and, eventually, technological unemployment. KMO mentions, but then fails to detail the ways in which libertarian ideology no longer fits his psyche as comfortably as it once did. That can be the topic for the follow-up conversation. KMO swiped the cover art image from this site.

It is election day, 2018. Political and partisan tensions are high, and voter turnout looks to be high as well. In this episode, KMO shares conversations with Vermont's Lt. Governor, David Zuckerman, libertarian writer Joshua D. Glawson, and political commentator Steve Lamb. KMO also riffs on ideas lifted from the writing of Caitlan Johnstone and Yuval Noah Harari to consider the idea that Democracy's limitations are not necessarily flaws.