Category: Podcast

Sterlin Lujan: Compassionate Anarchy – Episode 156

The Story: Sterlin Lujan’s approach of relational anarchy

Every day millions of freedom lovers take to social media in an attempt to argue their way to a freer world, trying to convince people that they should be able to enjoy liberty, that they have rights that should be respected, that they are sovereign individuals who should command their own autonomy. Most of the time, the response is “No, I shouldn’t, no I don’t, and no I’m not.” The freedom lovers fail because they try to isolate people’s beliefs with logic, quickly making them defensive. Few people really want to hear how wrong they are, how foolish they’ve been for believing in government indoctrination, and how many contradictions their outlook contains.

Sterlin Lujan has a different approach. By using the insights that he has gained from studying psychology, he has devised a method called “compassionate anarchy” or “relational anarchy”. He says that instead of trying to be combative, we should learn to relate to people. By building positive connections with people, we can allow the essence of freedom to enter right now. By practising respect, we create respect.

In this episode, Kurt interviews Sterlin about his ideas on how to embrace and spread liberty, how certain substances such as ecstacy (MDMA) may give us insight into how to be more empathetic, how the desire to rule or be ruled is a type of stress response to an authoritarian society, and how stress responses can be healed using different types of talk therapy.

Join us on another psychologically anarchic episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Thomas Szasz on Wikipedia

Thomas Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility

Prodromal phase of psychosis

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Why Amanda B. Johnson loves Dash – Episode 155

The Story: Amanda B. Johnson of Dash Detailed

Amanda B. Johnson is a familiar face to many who are interested in financial technology, and particularly to those interested in cryptocurrency. For months she was the host of The Daily Decrypt, bringing news about new developments in the technology, informing us about the latest altcoins released and the progress of Bitcoin adoption. Eventually she got frustrated when she saw how tedious and stilted the movement was in Bitcoin, and about how awful most of the new coins were. She finished The Daily Decrypt and decided to start Dash Detailed, giving us a weekly report of the progress in Dash – the currency which she figures is the most likely to reach mainstream adoption.

In this episode, Amanda tell us why she’s so excited about Dash, explaining the concept of money as a service, the importance of user experience, how she might market Dash to people who know nothing about cryptocurrency in the future, and why it’s not easy to crack Dash’s privacy features – even when someone controls a masternode. We also talk about the incentives involved in Dash, and how its anonymity features compare to Monero’s.

Join us in the next blockchaining episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Eps:

Amanda B. Johnson & Pete Eyre: The Daily Decrypt – Episode 79

The Links:

Will Dash ever get its killer app? Amanda at Anarchapulco 2017

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Dash digital cash vs Bitcoin: Which will achieve mass adoption first? – Episode 154

The Story: Bitcoin & Dash – User experience and governance in cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is an amazing technology that captured the imaginations of many people. Various individuals were stunned at the idea that mathematical algorithms could form the basis of our money, rather than central bankers and corrupt politicians, as is normally the way today. People were seduced by the idea of sending value around the world in a matter of minutes, a currency uncontrolled and uncontrollable by authority, and sending micropayments to websites to read their articles – instead of having to tolerate clickbait content beholden to advertisers. Bitcoin has delivered on some of those promises, however, it’s 8 years on and it still seems to be far from mainstream adoption.

If we take a step back from the hype and the dream of Bitcoin – still alive in the minds of many of us – we can see that Bitcoin has a few key problems. The main problem is, it’s too hard to use. People have to use long addresses which look like computer errors, to know the right transaction fee to send their cash or risk their transaction being at the back of a queue of 80,000, they have to generate new addresses for security, make paper wallets or buy a Trezor if they really want to be secure – and if they lose their wallet, or get hacked, they might just lose their life’s savings. Does that sound like a currency which is ready for mass adoption?

Now, I don’t know any digital currency which is ready for mass adoption – but I do know one which might be close. Dash “Digital Cash” is a currency which started in 2014, and the team is actively working on the problem of user experience, devising a system where people can log-in from any computer with a username and password, send currency using something like looks like a name, have their money secured while still retaining control, and not worry about losing their retirement fund just because they misplaced their private keys. Even now, Dash has the functionality of instant payments, and of private payments.

In this short episode, Kurt presents the case of why Dash might reach mass adoption before Bitcoin. Join me in another paradigm-shattering, central-banker-unseating, digital revolution episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Bitcoin vs Dash – which is the currency of the future?

Why aren’t we seeing greater adoption of cryptocurrency?

Bitcoin’s bubble vs Dash’s killer app

Dash.org

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Sudden Shamanic Dancing & Immortal Alien Dreams – Episode 153

The Story: Dreams of an humanoid alien with a fountain of youth

If we pay attention to most dreams we have, we’ll notice that they’re normally based around things we were thinking or experiencing during the previous days. Similar to the memory technique where you picture the things you want to remember in a bizarre context, dreams rearrange the images of our lives in a weird way to enhance our recall. However, many of us have dreams which seem to be very different to our waking lives – seemingly coming out of nowhere – leaving us to wonder what they could possibly mean, and where the flying heck they came from. Could it be that our dreams provide messages from other worlds, that we open some strange doorways whenever we sleep? Could you even contact spirits or alien beings through your dreams?

In this episode, Kurt discusses a strange dream involving a humanoid alien who claims to have a “fountain of youth” device, and the epileptic fit and energy bursts that resulted when he tried it. We also discuss how it relates to a previous ayahuasca experience, about downloading dance moves from the universe, and about yogic nadis, or channels of energy, that exist within our bodies. We talk about the flat earth vs the round earth, and Kurt’s idea of a simulation earth or super earth. Aaron then shares with us his experience of being a father of an unborn child, communicating with his daughter through kicks, and Aaron tells us about the art of living.

Join us in another spirit-exploding, bedroom-dancing, baby-kicking episode of… The Paradise Paradox!

The Eps:

Shamanic Aliens with Luis Fernando Mises

Shamans with Guns with Luis Fernando Mises

Thailand mystical space adventure

The Links:

History of triangulation (flat vs round earth) – Jesse Kozlowski

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Tendencies of a chaotic universe: Andrarchy – Episode 152

The Story: Is the universe becoming more complex or chaotic?

In our short lifetimes, it’s difficult to see what the long-term trends of the universe are. Physicists guess that the universe is slowly dying, as energy gets used up or is transmuted into more and more stable forms. If that’s the case, where do we fit into the mix? Are our lives just a part of this move towards an equilibrium state, or is the growing complexity of the human race and its machines just a freak occurrence, an anomaly?

Kurt’s conversation with Andrew Levine (a.k.a. Andrarchy) continues as we discuss the concepts of his crowdsourced book, the general trends of the universe, artificial intelligence and whether the Big Bang theory is a reality, a fairy story cooked up by bored scientists, or just an awful TV show.

Join us on the next complexity-driven episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Eps:

Everything is information: Andrarchy – Episode 145

Mental illness outsiders – The Andrarchy Show Episode 5

Talking to horses, ghosts and demons – The Andrarchy Show Episode 4

A psychotic break or shamanic awakening – The Andrarchy Show Episode 2

Mental Illness and shamanic experiences – The Andrarchy Show Episode 1

The Links:

The morality of artificial intelligence by Luke Stokes

Why information grows – Cesar Hidalgo

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Future-proofing your career – Episode 151

The Story: How to prepare for an uncertain work future

Futurism is a field which is fascinating to those who study it – presenting a puzzle in the form of the question: how are all the current trends going to interact in ways which are going to affect the entire world? However, most people don’t care so much to think about the future, and that’s a problem, because we are quickly entering an age in which the people who can’t see a few years into the future, will quickly be left struggling to deal with the present.

Many people believe that being an employee, as opposed to operating a business, is a secure proposition, as having a fixed income with a dependable employer enables some certainty. That can be true in the short term, but it’s not necessarily true in the long term. Large economic crises typically happen every 7 years – just long enough for many to be over-comfortable, and subsequently desperate. True survivors and hustlers have multiple sources of income, doing short-term contracts, gig-based work like on Fiverr or Freelancer, and investments.

Automation is also something that people are worried about. If you work in the manufacturing sector or transport, machines will probably come for your job sooner rather than later. Burger-making and selling machines will soon be common, displacing a lot of fast-food workers. How soon will the robots come for your job? And how quickly can you prepare?

With robots watering plants, tilling fields, running factories, delivering goods, there will be a much lower cost for mass production, which means cheaper goods and a lot more wealth for many. Perhaps they will choose to spend some of that wealth on things which they really like, which machines can’t make, or can’t make yet – things which are unique – handmade items, art, music, and fine food. In the past, a writer had to have millions of fans to make a decent living. With modern technology, Patreon and Amazon self-publishing, a writer might make a good living with just a few thousand dedicated supporters.

Join Kurt as he gazes into the future in this mini-episode of… The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Humans need not apply

Coursera.org

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

A Crowdsourced Book: Andrarchy – Episode 150

The Story: Andrew Levine explains his collaborative book project

According to modern scientific understanding, the universe came into existence billions of years ago, with matter forming and slowly moving outwards from its centre. Matter stabilised, causing stars, then planets, giving birth to amino acids, simple life forms, and eventually, human consciousness. If we trace through this story, see where things came from and we’re they’re going, would we be able to predict what comes next – what comes after human consciousness?

In this episode, Kurt continues his conversation with Andrew Levine (a.k.a. Andrarchy) about his his plan to write a book collaboratively using social media, using the mental resources of the world to support or counter his arguments, about how the universe is a process of evolving information, and where that evolution might possibly be heading. We also talk about how many people have an anthropocentric view of artificial intelligence, and the value of ideas which seem to be crazy.

Join us on another big-banging, model-developing, consciousness-expanding episode of… The Paradise Paradox!

The Eps:

Everything is information: Andrarchy – Episode 145

Mental illness outsiders – The Andrarchy Show Episode 5

Talking to horses, ghosts and demons – The Andrarchy Show Episode 4

A psychotic break or shamanic awakening – The Andrarchy Show Episode 2

Mental Illness and shamanic experiences – The Andrarchy Show Episode 1

The Links:

Andrarchy on Steemit

The morality of artificial intelligence by Luke Stokes

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Thailand mystical space adventure: Aaron returns – Episode 149

The Story: Aaron goes to Thailand and doesn’t recognise himself

When you start a new job after a period of inactivity, maybe it will seem nothing more than a daily grind. If you’re lucky, you might get a few months of honeymoon period in which you’re still learning things and the job is exciting. If you’re really lucky, you might stay in a 5 star hotel in Thailand, and find yourself full of energy, amazed at the great work for which you’re preparing. That’s the position Mr. Battle found himself in.

In this episode, Aaron explains his journey to Thailand with a new company, telling us the vague details of their plan to create a new internet with security, privacy and community. Aaron also tells us about how he was so vitalised by the experience that, for the first week, he only needed three hours of sleep a night, and about an unusual dissociative episode, being unable to recognise himself in the mirror for a moment, thanking his body for being a vessel for his soul. Then Kurt recounts a recent occurrence in which he almost had an out-of-body experience, and recalls a story from Robert Monroe’s “Journeys Out of the Body”.

Join us in a new soul-travelling, identity-shattering, curry-eating episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Robert Monroe – Journeys Out of the Body

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.