C-Realm Podcast

KMO will be introducing Frederich Nietzsche as a character in the GEBB.io webcomic, and so he talked with Daniel Coffeen to get a better idea of what this dyspeptic critic of herd mentality was all about. Gagging on the foul air of off-gassing normies? This conversation may be just the struck wooden match needed to clear out the stench. Thanks to Doug Lain of Zero Books for hookup.

KMO traveled to Los Angeles for Politicon 2018 where he promoted GEBB.io and recorded interviews for the Center for Progressive Urban Politics. This episode of the C-Realm Podcast features three of these interviews. First up, Dr. Brian Weeden provides some context on the proposed creation of the Space Force, a new branch of the US military devoted to space assets. Earth orbit is an increasingly busy place with a mix government, military, and commercial ventures. Some form of governance and control will be necessary. Next up is Sheril Kirshenbaum, the executive director of Science Debate, an organization devoted to persuading elected officials and the media to thinking and speaking more clearly about scientific topics. Finally, KMO meets GoatVsFish in the space where performance art meets politics. Is he goat? Is he fish? Does he sit upon the fence? And if so, is there a corresponding mudra? There is!

KMO talks with independent scholar, musician and all-around content creator, Matt Presti, about social media, pre-fab worldviews, cognitive control, and creative independence. Matt takes inspiration and guidance from the late Walter Russell and helps people to access the path of self-cultivation that Russell provided in the curriculum of the University of Science and Philosophy. This episode references KMO's 2008 conversation with Michael Tsarion which is still available on YouTube.

It's been a while since KMO put out a free podcast. At long last, here's a conversation with Dermot O'Connor, the Angry Animator, fresh back from an extended stay in Ireland. Now that Dermot is back in the USA, what did his time away prime him to notice with newfound clarity? Later, KMO and Dermot talk about how AI is eating jobs in animation. Dermot says it will put him out of a job. KMO suggests that it will push him more in the direction of authoring animated projects rather than animating them.

KMO welcomes author Elayne Clift to the C-Realm to talk about finding one's voice as a writer and using it to change the world for the better. Elayne has worked in many countries around the world in international public health education and communication with a focus on maternal and child health, which led her to Virginia Woolf’s conclusion:  “As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” She now lives in rural Vermont where she writes full time and mentors developing writers.

Will the advent of artificial superintelligence (ASI) spell the end of capitalism? Doug Lain explores that question in his new novel, Bash Bash Revolution in which an AI named Bucky creates proliferating copies of itself to work questions of personal identity and free will. Eventually, the Buckys ensnare almost all of humanity in the GameCube Economy which makes people think they are having exciting adventures when in fact they're doing boring, repetitive labor. One of the challenges that Bucky faces is getting non-gamers to put on VR headsets. Nuclear Armageddon is on the line, but fortunately, the AI understands the appeal of 90s nostalgia.

Will the advent of artificial superintelligence (ASI) spell the end of capitalism? Doug Lain explores that question in his new novel, Bash Bash Revolution in which an AI named Bucky creates proliferating copies of itself to work questions of personal identity and free will. Eventually, the Buckys ensnare almost all of humanity in the GameCube Economy which makes people think they are having exciting adventures when in fact they're doing boring, repetitive labor. One of the challenges that Bucky faces is getting non-gamers to put on VR headsets. Nuclear Armageddon is on the line, but fortunately, the AI understands the appeal of 90s nostalgia.

KMO talks with Dr. Dan Freilich, a Navy veteran and VA doctor who hopes to defeat Vermont's incumbent Representative, Peter Welch, in the upcoming primary election. For Dr. Dan, every problem and every issue that progressives care about comes back to campaign finance reform. He has vowed not to accept campaign contributions from corporations or from special interests of any kind. He says he'll drop out of the race if Representative Welch will make the same pledge. The conversation ranges over many topics, including the F-35 fighter, the opiate addiction crisis, the role of lobbyists and the unworkability of throwing up one's hands and declaring the entire system to be hopelessly corrupt.

KMO talks with B. J. Mendelson, the author of Social Media is Bullshit and Privacy: And How to Get It Back. Is privacy a lost cause? Is there any way to swim against the current of big tech companies collecting, collating and profiting off of the enormous amount of personal data that we generate with the use of our handy electronic gizmos? Is there any point in even trying? If corporations do things that are creepy-yet-legal, do we have a leg to stand on? What role does artificial intelligence play in the future of privacy? Should Facebook pay us for the use of our data? If so, how much could we reasonably expect to get for it? Could this serve as an alternative to UBI? All this plus jokes in this week's C-Realm Podcast.

The profession of writing books has changed in recent decades, and now James Howard Kunstler, the author of many books both fiction and non-fiction, published by mainstream publishers, is relying increasingly on blogging and reader support through Patreon to pay the bills. Jim talks about his days at Rolling Stone and the lofty expectations he had for his first novel and what it was like to have 8 published novels under his belt and still be waiting tables. Later, Jim and KMO compare notes on their disillusionment with the behavior of the Blue Tribe in the Trump years. Jim is a registered Democrat, and KMO is a recovering libertarian, and neither of them was in a position to be disappointed by the Red Tribe's failure to ride the reality bus. Not so with the Blue Tribe.

 

The new weekly comic strip that KMO mentioned at the end of the episode can be found here:

https://www.cfpup.org/comic/probing-questions/