C-Realm Podcast

This week's episode features a conversation about True Believers with Tom Naughton, the author of Fat Head, a film which takes a critical look at Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me and the dietary orthodoxy it represents. At the beginning of the episode KMO reads from Tom's essay, The Vegan True Believers. Bob Hartwig described it as "a really insightful and challenging episode of the C-Realm podcast. KMO and guest touch on misinformation, postmodernism, libertarianism, and all manner of True Believers. They even discuss those among my fellow vegans who are not above propagating misinformation in the interest of advancing their agenda." Music by Fernando Tarango.

http://crealm.libsyn.com/253-grasp-the-nettle KMO welcomes C-Realm regular, Neil Kramer, back to the program in an attempt to inject a bit of reasonable optimism to the C-Realm cavalcade of doom and gloom. Can changing consciousness change the external world? Many say that this is impossible, but according to Neil, no significant improvement in our external condition will take unless we lay the groundwork with a prior internal change. KMO reads an email exchange with Eric Boyd which makes reference to a recent Dark Mountain essay by Paul Kingsnorth and the book The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't Be Jammed. Music by Kyrstyn Pixton.

Mocha sets out to catch a mouse and instead acquires the ability to think and speak.

KMO talks with Lierre Keith and Tara Holste about agriculture and the civilizations to which it gives rise. Lierre argues that vegetarianism, no matter the motivation, destroys the Earth as readily as does a diet heavy with meat so long as it depends on annual mono-cropping. Her expression of this opinion has drawn scorn and physical assaults from vegan ideologues. Lierre wants humans to return to a pre-agricultural existence, and she does not admit of any possibility of moving beyond civilization into something sustainable yet distinct from the paleolithic mode of human existence. Music by Fernando Tarango A listener sent this link to the work of Thomas Linzey, the anti corporation lawyer Lierre mentioned in the episode. He has written Be the Change and has apparently appeared at the Bioneers Conference. E F. Schumaker Lecture: http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/linzey_06.html Before the interview I read a short excerpt from this blog post by Kevin Kelly: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/03/radical_optimis.php Be sure to check out the comments.

http://crealm.libsyn.com/251-inherent-risks KMO presents the conclusion of Larry Lowe's interview with Nikki Olsen. They discuss the overlaps between the views of the Singularitarians and advocates of the UFOlogists; overlaps which will probably irritate members of both communities. Nikki explains that some risks are inherent when it comes to self-replicating and/or self-aware, super-intelligent technologies, but that relinquishment is not a workable solution.   Music by Glöd Interview with Jaron Lanier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8FYj1wKyaY

http://crealm.libsyn.com/250-singularitarians-and-uf-ologists Larry Lowe talks with Nikki Olson, a Singularitarian blogger who attended the 20th Anniversary International UFO Congress. She noted a lack of tech-savvy young people at the event, and she took the audience to be overly credulous. Even so, both Nikki and Larry think that the usually insular UFO and Singularity communities each have something useful to offer one another. Larry does double duty as he admirably represents both the community of rational UFOlogists and the usual contingent of C-Realm concerns. The episode also features clips from Terence McKenna (taken from Psychedelic Salon episode 258) and James Burkeas well as commentary from Eric Boyd. Music by Kyrstyn Pixton Why the future doesn't need us: Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species. By Bill Joy   Larry's Show Notes: Singularity Weblog http://tinyurl.com/6zlv2fn The Singularity and UFOs: Can ET Teach Us Anything about the Singularity? by Nikki Olson on March 4, 2011 The connections between extraterrestrial life and future technology are numerous, and have been widely discussed in science fiction literature and by physicists such as Michio Kaku. There is basic logic to the connection: if life in other galaxies is able to travel to our galaxy, it is thought, then we should assume their technology is more advanced than our own and that they have already reached their ‘Singularity.’ Travis Walton http://www.travis-walton.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Walton On Monday, November 10, all of Rogers' remaining crew took polygraph examinations administered by Cy Gilson, an Arizona Department of Public Safety employee. His questions asked if any of the men caused harm to Travis (or knew who had caused Travis harm), if they knew where Travis's body was buried, and if they told the truth about seeing a UFO. The men all denied harming Travis (or knowing who had harmed him), denied knowing where his body was, and insisted they had indeed seen a UFO. Excepting Dallis (who had not completed his exam, thus rendering it invalid), Gilson concluded that all the men were truthful, and the exam results were conclusive. Clark quotes from Gilson's official report: "These polygraph examinations prove that these five men did see some object they believed to be a UFO, and that Travis Walton was not injured or murdered by any of these men on that Wednesday". If the UFO was fake, Gilson thought, "five of these men had no prior knowledge of it". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRAZm40_KAc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIrxegLNGd0 Fire in the Sky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LhshgLJuuM In 1993, Walton's book was adapted into a film, Fire in the Sky, directed by Robert Lieberman and starring D. B. Sweeney as Travis Walton, Robert Patrick as Mike Rogers and Scott MacDonald as Travis's Brother Dan Walton. Clark writes that the film found "Moderate success, mixed reviews, and ufologists' complaints about its inaccuracies and exaggerations." (Clark, 650) Especially inaccurate was the portion of the film detailing his time on the UFO; it bears almost no resemblance to the original narrative. In the renewed publicity generated by the motion picture, Walton, Mike Rogers and Allen Dallis agreed to take polygraph examinations at the behest of "a skeptical ufologist, Jerry Black". (Clark, 650) Again, the tests were conducted by Cy Gilson, and the men all asserted that the events as they related them were true. Gilson concluded that all three men were truthful in regard to their responses about the events of November 5, 1975. Lloyd Pye http://www.starchildproject.com/dna2010.htm In Brief: A modified "shotgun" DNA recovery technique has been successfully used to recover coherent segments of the Starchild Skull's nuclear DNA.

http://crealm.libsyn.com/249-episode-title-to-be-decided KMO talks with Farm School principal, Peter Kindfield about Tai Chi styles and lineages, education, intentional communities (the Farm in particular), Non-Violent Communication, politics, and the like. The two Farm websites that Peter and I referenced in our conversation are: http://www.thefarmcommunity.com/  (which seems to be broken right now) and http://www.thefarm.org/ Music by Fernando Tarango.

KMO welcomes Guy McPherson, author of the Nature Bats Last blog, to the C-Realm Podcast to discuss population overshoot, the impact of city living versus rural living, energy descent, the Echo Chamber, confirmation bias and transhumanism. KMO shares feedback from the author of the neufneuf blog.

http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2011-03-02T05_54_57-08_00 KMO welcomes Karl Kline to the C-Realm Podcast to discuss the business and dangers of hydro-fracking before moving into an episode by episode recap of C-Realm Podcast episodes 239 through 246 with extra attention paid to KMO and Eric Boyd's response to Zeitgeist: Moving Forward in episode 245. Bonus Material: Bonus content is now available to listeners with the C-Realm iPhone app or the Android app. Z-Realm Podcast #14:Not the Teeth, Tammy Music by Mistle Thrush.

http://crealm.libsyn.com/246-navigating-the-coming-chaos KMO welcomes Carolyn Baker back to the program to discuss her new book, Navigating the Coming Chaos: A Handbook for Inner Transition.  They weigh the merits of focusing on the machinations of the New World Order, and Carolyn explains why she thinks people are starting to see through the capitalist propaganda of the American Dream. Music by Mistle Thrush. KMO was the guest on the Shroom with a View Podcast and the Gut and Bone Show.

http://crealm.libsyn.com/245-moving-forward KMO welcomes Eric Boyd back to the podcast to discuss the new film by Peter Joseph, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward. KMO and Eric agree with a lot of the concerns that motivate the Zeitgeist project, but even Eric, who is confident that technological innovations will see us through the decline of petroleum without serious upheaval, thinks that Mr. Joseph and Venus Project mastermind, Jacques Fresco, hold unreasonable expectations for the power of computer and robotic technology to provide the organizational and muscle power for a high tech utopia.

http://crealm.libsyn.com/244-facebook-jesus KMO welcomes Dan Krotz back to the program. Dan and KMO conjure an image of the United States marked by widening disparity between the have-nots and the have-lots. College costs more than ever and no longer ensures the kind of professional job that will allow the graduate to escape the student debt that will keep them working for their creditors rather living the $80K a year lifestyle that the mainstream narrative tells them they are supposed to live. In spite of the Internet, Dan thinks we remain seriously disconnected from one another at a time when we ought to be collaborating and cooperating to create resilient communities.

KMO welcomes Gary Borjesson to the C-Realm Podcast to talk about dogs, human/dog interactions and the hierarchical aspect of dog social behavior -- something which probably gets way too much play in our thinking about how we relate to dogs. Author Jean Donaldson warns us not to anthropomorphize our dogs and attribute human motivations and concerns to them, but Gary advises us not  to mistake dogs for wolves or underestimate the importance of humans to the thinking of dogs. Not even the great apes are as sensitive to the nuances of human gesture as dogs are. Getting along with humans is central to the dog's survival strategy, so the disposition of nearby humans is always high on any dog's list of concerns.  Music by Mistle Thrush

This episode features a presentation that KMO gave on his book, Conversations on Collapse, at the home of Gary Borjesson in Annapolis, Maryland. KMO reads the preface of the book, talks about the origin and evolution of the C-Realm Podcast, and talks about the human capacity to deny the obvious. Music by The Margins.

Albert K. Bates returns to the C-Realm Podcast to share his experiences of the United Nations climate summit in Cancun, Mexico. Albert holds out hope that the U.N. can respond to climate change more adaptively than can nation states with their moribund politics. Music by Inspired Flight.