Category: Podcast

Episode 47 – I Dream of Vocho

by Kurt Robinson on July 17, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

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The Story:

The Volkswagen Beetle was and is a fine example of German engineering. It has just the bare minimum amount of moveable parts, was built to last, and still lives up to its name as “The People’s Car”. Adolf Hitler first commissioned the Beetle in 1934, and the design was completed by Ferdinand Porsche in 1938. Many models, 30 years old and even older, are still running in many countries, especially in third world countries, and Mexico is no exception. The Mexicans, saving the hassle of trying to pronounce a German word, know the vehicle as the “vocho”, and you can see them used as taxis in certain cities, most notably Acapulco.

In this episode, Aaron tells us about a dream he had where he was driving a group of friends in his black vocho, when everything goes wrong. The breaks don’t work, the road drops out, and the laws of physics abandon him. Find out what happens next in this exciting chapter of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Enter The Void

Labyrinth

Serpent of Light: Beyond 2012 – The Movement of the Earth’s Kundalini and the Rise of the Female Light, 1949 to 2013

Original cover image by Robert Couse-Baker. Modified and used under Creative Commons.

Episode 46 – The Dox News Box July 2015

by Kurt Robinson on July 12, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

On the fifth of July, the people of Greece voted in a referendum on whether to accept new austerity measures, or to reject them. When the people voted no, there was footage of people celebrating in the streets, and it was hailed as a democratic success. Have the Greek people really succeeded in anything by this referendum? Or did they just get the democratic choice of the colour of rope which will be used to hang them?

Vaccines are an increasingly controversial subject. Some people are afraid to take them, and some are afraid not to. People can get passionate or even angry about it if you do nothing more than ask their opinion. Some pro-vaxxers claim that any potential risks are miniscule. Some anti-vaxxers claim the risks are known and potentially fatal. And some say it’s a matter of questions needing to be asked. With the complex legal issues sometimes barring legal action against vaccine manufacturers, and the media spin against any public figure who asks questions, is it even possible to know the truth?

Ever since the year 2000, people have been asking the eloquent question “So where are the fooking flying cars, mate?” There are many companies working on this problem, and with the availability of technology, materials and engineering information these days, it’s very possible that one of these companies might crack it very soon. What are the technologies that these companies are looking at, and how viable are they?

We ask these questions and more in this media circus of an episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi

Goodfellas

Tspiras asks for 30% debt haircut and 20 year grace period

Andreas M. Antonopoulos educates Senate of Canada about Bitcoin (Oct 8, 2014)

Red flag traffic laws in England and USA

Google self-driving cars “Free Ride”

Government OK’d support for flying car development

Drone that carries people

The Volocopter

People still insist this flying car will arrive by 2017 despite crash

Lexus says it has a real hoverboard

“You did it Jim Carrey” – vaccine article on Jezebel

“First they came for the anti-vaxxers” on LewRockwell.com

“16 years ago a doctor published a study and it made us all sicker” on Upworthy

Parents can’t sue vaccine manufacturers

Vaccine injury compensation programs

Episode 45 – Right In Your Facebook

by Kurt Robinson on July 7, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

The year is 2005. Brad Greenspan, Tom Anderson and their team of dedicated programmers have built an empire using a relatively new method of communication and social interaction – a social media website, a medium allowing people to connect and interact with people all over the world sharing common interests, to make new friends, and to advertise their companies and bands. In July, he sells the company to News Corporation for $580 million. For three years, MySpace was the largest social networking site in the world. After that, in a few short years, the userbase would decline and it would be worth only a fraction. News Corporation would watch their investment dwindle, watching their customer base slowly trickle to the new guy on the block – Facebook.

This is the process of creative destruction that happens so frequently in a free (or relatively free) market. One company creates an idea, another company improves on it, and if the original company can’t innovate quick enough, it gets washed away on the shores of history. The second company goes on to enjoy all the spoils of pandering to an ever-fickle and frequently disloyal consuming public. Then, the cycle begins again.

The question is, how long is Facebook’s cycle going to last? Many contenders have risen and fallen, and many more have risen and stagnated: TSU, Diaspora, Google+. Customers are aware to some extent that Facebook likes to use its users for social experiments, but that does not deter them, with the appeal of convenience and a network effect maintaining their presence. Princeton University predicts that Facebook doesn’t have long left, and by 2017 we may see an exodus.

What will the next wave of social media bring – social media 3.0? How will new platforms such as Synereo and Minds.com entice their potential user base – monetarily, or otherwise? What will it take for you to give up on the Book of Faces? We ask these questions and more in the next exciting chapter of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Synereo
Minds.com
TSU
MySpace
The Paradise Paradox on Facebook
Facebook sorry – almost – for secret psychological experiment on users
Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017, say Princeton researchers
Why Facebook Will Probably Not Die Out By 2017

Episode 44 – Down at the Ashram: Link McElvenny

by Kurt Robinson on July 2, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

The year is 400 ACE. A scholar dutifully reads Sanskrit from a decaying fern leaf, contemplating the words, arranging them within the forefront of the mind, and again writing them in fine caligraphy onto another leaf. The scholar couldn’t have known that even more than a thousand years later, people would be referring to those words and the wisdom contained within. That scholar’s name was Patañjali, and the words are known as the Yoga Sutras.

Not even Patañjali could trace the exact moment, or even the exact millenium, in which the first person decided to sit down and contemplate, to calm their mind, to say some sweet words to themself, representative of some idea greater than their own personal existence, to explore inner space, and attempt to find some kind of transcendent truth. Nobody knows exactly where this practice started, individually, or in parallel. Nevertheless, the threads of this first meditation, this first yogi, extend all over the world today, permeating every major religious tradition in the world, in what’s known as “mysticism”.

One such tradition continues today. Thousands of people all over the world chant the mantra “Om Namah Shivaya“, patiently waiting to experience divine gratitude, happiness, and grace. In this episode, Kurt interviews his close friend Link McElvenny to find out about his three month trip to an ashram in India. Join us on a spiritual journey as we are transformed, in this exciting chapter of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Om Namah Shivaya on Wikipedia
The Yoga Sutras
Hatha Yoga Pradipika
Inkstain Pro on Bandcamp
Inkalot.net
Inverter Alter on Soundcloud
Link interviews Kurt on The Space Between

Cover image used and modified under Creative Commons. Original image.

Episode 43.5 – Naturalised

by Kurt Robinson on June 29, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

Here’s a quick episode to tell you a few little stories about our continuing adventures in Mexico. Kurt went looking for a new room to rent, and had a few surprises. He also had an intimate encounter with a huge moth. Aaron became a Mexican citizen, and had some problems with his mother-in-law’s prejudices.

Episode 43 – Extraordinary Abilities

by Kurt Robinson on June 28, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

It’s the 1920s in Russia. The reporter Solomon Shereshevsky goes to a meeting with his colleagues and his boss. On this day, Shereshevsky has forgotten his notebook, and he makes no notes during the meeting. His boss is dictating a complicated assignment and notices that Shereshevsky is not taking notes. The boss starts berating him, up to the point when he realises that Solomon can remember everything he has said, word for word. This is a shock to the boss, but also to Solomon, who has always assumed that this type of ability is available to everyone.

Shereshevsky (commonly known by his last initial, Ш., or S. in English) had an unusual ability, what’s known as an eidetic memory. To all appearances, he was incapable of forgetting, even to the extent of reproducing lists dictated to him decades before. He augmented his abilities using memory techniques such as creating a location in his mind, such as a street, with many houses and objects in it, each representing some idea. He could even remember poems in foreign languages, reproducing them perfectly, without any conception of what they meant.

S. is just one of many humans who possess extraordinary abilities which are far beyond the reach of many people. Ben Underwood is blind, but can sense his surroundings using echolocation. Wim Hof is so resistant to cold that he was able to climb Mt. Kilamanjaro wearing nothing but shorts. What other abilities exist, as yet undiscovered? Are these abilities really useful or nothing more than a parlour trick? Will we see the birth of the X-Men within a generation? We confront these questions and more, in this exciting chapter of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance
Existenz
N’kisi – African gray parrot telepathy experiment
Stephen Wiltshire – The Human Camera
Kim Peek – The real “Rain Man”
Scott Flansburg – Human Calculator
Wim Hof – Iceman
Tummo Meditation: An In-Depth Guide
Consciously Control Your Immune System With The Wim Hof Method
Going Within And Sixth Sense Abilities
Ben Underwood – Echolocation
Slavisa “Biba” Pajkic – Electric man
Dave Mullins – freediver
Natasha Demkina – The Girl With X-Ray Eyes
Natasha Demkina – The Girl With Normal Eyes (CSICOP article)
Daniel Browning Smith – The Rubber Boy
Mark Rutzen – Dives with sharks
Kevin Richardson – Lion whisperer
Is your brain really necessary?
David Lucas Burge – developing perfect pitch
Four people who gained superhuman abilities from brain injuries or missing senses

Cover image used and modified under Creative Commons. View the original image.

Episode 42 – School Sucks

by Kurt Robinson on June 24, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

Do you remember your school days? If you’re like most people, you don’t reflect on the past too much. You could go through your life not winding your mind back to your time in a very strange place, a very different place. Depending on which country you grew up in, perhaps you had to go to school – maybe you were coerced into going to school. Maybe it was made clear to you that there just wasn’t any other choice. You might have gone through 10 or 13 years of your life, going to school every day without even questioning why you were doing it.

This was a place where you were going every weekday, where other people were forced to go too. If you had the choice, you might not have been in the proximity of these people at all. Caged wolves will attempt to dominate one another, using violence. If we put children in a cage, the results are not surprising.
When a teacher stands in front of a class and talks, the message isn’t so hard to determine. They might teach science, history, maths, or they might tell a child directly “You are worthless. You will amount to nothing.” Think back. Do you remember some variation of this from your “education”?

However, even if a teacher doesn’t directly insult the students, there is a meta-communication which runs right through the system. Many modern schools, especially public school, are still based on a military model. I tell you what to do, and you do it. If you don’t do what I tell you, you are disobedient, you are a bad kid, you shall be punished. If you survive this system with a capability for independent thought, you are the exception, not the rule.

How does schooling affect the way we think, for better or worse? Is it possible that you had some traumatic experiences there, that caused some mental scar tissue which may never completely heal? Have you forgotten so absolutely, that you would be willing to put your own children through the same thing? Let’s dive into these muddy waters of questions in the next exciting chapter of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Radical Unschooling – A Revolution Has Begun-Revised Edition by Dayna Martin
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, 10th Anniversary Edition by John Taylor Gatto
In the Absence of Fathers – A Story of Elephants and Men
Unschooling and Freedom Parenting with Dayna Martin
Who The HELL Are These People? with John Taylor Gatto
Pedro Kumamoto makes history with shoestring campaign and win in Mexico
Jeff Berwick on Emancipated Human

Episode 41 – Deep Web Confessions

by Kurt Robinson on June 19, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

The Internet. Our own international communication system. A portal of personal access to a platform of freedom, at least it used to be, perhaps the collective still believe that.

Users are becoming further immersed, depended and frustrated with the Internet. It provides our communication, information and entertainment. Internet addicts are now more subject to this habit, like babies that find it hard to break away from their mother’s teats. Constant interactions and active feeds – the perpetual quest for the never-ending future of personalised knowledge. The Internet knows you better then you do. All visits, every click, cleartext private messages become our footprints, leaving a trail of emoticons… We are being watched.

You might describe the Internet as an iceberg, more or less. Above the water you can see only 0.03% of its form. Below the water lurks a strange an unknown world. The Internet casts a warped Jungian shadow in the collective unconscious. They call the unindexed web ‘Deep Web’, and the parts of the Internet you can only access with special software are called the ‘Dark Net’. The black markets, the other side, the unrestricted, uncensored and largely unknown Internet.

Lost in these foreign realms of cyberspace, with images of counterfeit cash, counterfeit passports and gold-plated AK-47s, I had to take a break. I stood up and took a walk to the park. A guy can get lost in there.

So load up your Tor browser, become a little more anonymous, and come along with us. What happens when you become invisible, then choose to look into a mirror? You’ve heard rumours about black markets, dark services and the dark side of humanity. Arms, drugs, identity services, money laundering. We found all this and more. Join us on the next exciting episode of The Paradise Paradox, and find out if the Dark Net holds what you’re looking for.

The Links:

The Crypto-Anarchist Manifesto
One hidden wiki “Tor Hidden Wiki”
Superdollars on Wikipedia
OpenBazaar could be America’s most dangerous tech startup

Names of Interesting Deep Websites (URLs change frequently):

Onion Passport Services
Bitcoin mixers – Bitcoin Fog, Bitcoin Blender, Easy Bitcoin Tumbler
Hacked BTC wallets for sale
Hidden Wiki
Middle Earth – Social media for hobbits
Bitcoin Ponzi
100x your Bitcoin
Anonymous file hosting
Deep Fruit
CSTORE
Football Money
Hacking Services
Anonymous Cat Facts
Silk Road 3.0
Imperial Library – 83,000 books

Episode 40 – Tulum Time Machine

by Aaron Battle on June 17, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

Most children dream of a trip to Disneyland, or visiting Santa at the North Pole, or maybe being locked in a super toy store over night. We are all big kids and we should all be active dreamers. It took me too long to complete my dream of taking the journey to Tulum, Mexico. I had plans to go in 2008 and 2012, but cheap thrills and weak distractions would always somehow get the better of me. Not this time – 2015 is and was the year.

The ‘Ruins of Tulum’ is one of the most visited archaeological sites of Mexico. This Mayan city, is situated on the Yucatan Peninsula overlooking the Caribbean sea, now ticked off my bucket list, and should find a place on yours. Please join me as I invite you to explore new ideas and an alternative view of Tulum. I have no doubt you will share new thoughts on this amazing ancient city. Even with my high expectations, I was still taken by surprise and completely blown away.

One cannot prepare themselves for the intimate experience with this ancient world. The site is beautiful, the climate is unbearably wonderful – very hot, the beaches are magnificent and I didn’t look at my watch – not even once.

In this episode I touch on the spirituality and mention a few cultural practices of the Mayan people. I speak about their beliefs in the earth’s energy, and explore the parallels of morphic resonance, consciousness grids, and the earth grid. The Mayan people built their cities with this intention and purpose of energy communication. They held strong beliefs in keeping a connection to their planet in balance, they also believed that the Yucatan Peninsula was the centre of an energy vortex. Tulum was constructed to represent to the 5th energy chakra, the Vishuddha. The primary connection with the material realm, the speaking of truth and manifestation.

Scientists have later discovered that this area of Mexico has strong electromagnetic fields which is believed to be caused by a meteorite hitting the Yucatan Peninsula roughly 65 million years ago. Furthermore, studies found that specific Mayan cities and structures actually magnify and focus these electromagnetic fields, in particular ‘El Castillo’ (the Castle), which is the principle pyramid of Tulum. There is no doubt in my mind that electromagnetic technology was discovered, developed and utilised by the Mayan people. Where as, today in these apparent modern times we are only just discovering the healing properties for magnet therapies.

Maybe the Mayan people were not so primitive as believed.

The Links:

Tulum Archaeological Site, Mexico

Spirit Science – Chakras

Poetic Mind – Chakras

The 8 Mayan Temples and corresponding Chakra according to ‘The Serpent of Light’ By Drunvalo Melchizedek

Throat Chakra Mediation

The Fall of the Maya: ‘They Did it to Themselves’

Mayan Technology

Ancient Code – Teotihuacan

Christ Consciousness – Merkabah Activation

Earth Grid & the Matrix

The Electromagnetic fields and healing powers of the Bosnian Pyramids

Serpent of the Light

YOGA – Nadis, Chakras, Prana & Kundalini

Rupert Sheldrake – Morphic Fields and Cosmic Consciousness

Morphogenetic Fields – A New Science of Life – Remix

Episode 39 – Government is Force

by Aaron Battle on June 10, 2015 in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Episode:

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The Story:

Sun is shining, birds chirping, the distant hum of neighbours mowing their lawns and the ringing of a little bell. “Lemonade, come and get your lemonade!” shouted by two young girls. We can see the image – harmless entrepreneurship at work. “Fresh delicious lemonade, only one dollar!” shouted by your 10 year old daughter accompanied by her best friend, Sarah.

Your favourite morning coffee is brewing and its the weekend so, licence to be cheeky, one sugar please. Lost in the aroma, you notice that the bell hasn’t been rung in a while. Then the reactive mental note – maybe I should check on the girls. Then in an instant, you hear screams and the slamming of the front door.

No spilt coffee, but all hairs on end. “We are being robbed!” Sarah screamed from behind her sobbing. Now both girls crying. “What? Who?” you respond, hastily walking to the front door. Through the window, you can see two guys picking up the knocked-over disposable cups and the lemonade stand being loaded in their pickup.

You shout, “What the hell is going on here?” as you walk towards the two goons, your fist clenched with the uncomfortable rage of confusion. “Excuse me sir, there was no permit reserved to distribute lemonade on this street,” said by the Lightweight. Tapping his clipboard he explains, “Without a permit, no one has the permission to sell anything.” Even a sunday garage sale must be registered, with at least two weeks notice. You ask, “What about my daughter’s lemonade?”

“Your property will need to be collected from the collections office within the fortnight, or it will be deemed trash.” But of course, that’s after you pay the fine.

Thoughts and feelings from this story may be similar or even shared. Does government have more of the right to our property than we do? Where should the boundaries of local authority lie? Is the use of force justified? Why should we need to ask permission to be free? In this episode I tell of a similar experience, an encounter with local government authorities, where we ask these questions and more.

The Links:

Footage of cops attacking young girl and getting shouted down
Barack Obama – Government is a monopoly on violence
George Ought To Help
Government explained by an alien
The Story of Your Enslavement
You Can Always Leave
How Government Works

Cover image used under Creative Commons Original image by StockMonkeys