Reflexive Memebots

In this episode, KMO talks with novelist Brian Trent about
ideologically reflexive behavior that the echo chamber corporate media
has instilled in us. Later, KMO revisits the clashing belief systems
of 2012 prophets Whitley Strieber and Daniel Pinchbeck.

Brian Trent is an acclaimed columnist, journalist, and the author of
the historical novels Remembering Hypatia: A Novel of Ancient Egypt and the recently released
Never Grow Old: The Novel of Gilgamesh. His articles have appeared on
Populist America, American Chronicle, The Humanist, and numerous other
venues including being featured in last year's National Debate on
civil liberties. Trent writes from a nonpartisan, freethinking
perspective and tackles a variety of subjects on culture, religion,
technology, and politics.

Website: http://www.briantrent.com/

Here's the email I sent to Brian Trent to invite him to the C-Realm Podcast:

Hi Brian,

My name is K@#$% M. O'*@*##*$ (podcasting as KMO), and I'm the host and
creator of a weekly interview-based podcast called the C-Realm
Podcast. C stands for "consciousness." I heard you recently on Mike
Hagan's RadiOrbit show and enjoyed the conversation quite a bit. While
the interview left me wanting to read your books, I have not yet done
so. I have, however, been reading your on-line articles and essays,
and I'm now listening to your appearance on the Infidel Guy podcast.

I'd very much like to get you on the phone (or Skype) to record a
conversation for the C-Realm Podcast. What I'm most interested in
talking about is the topic of political cults and the shallow,
combative, reflexive ideological postures that the echo-chamber media
has trained people to adopt in our culture.

I scrupulously keep the C-Realm podcast free of anything that smacks
of partisan political talking points, and while it would be fair to
describe me as an atheist libertarian, I find that atheists and
libertarians can come across as some of the most ideologically
hide-bound, strident, push-button meme-bots out there, every bit as
knee-jerk in their "catagorize-and-dismiss" reactions to anything that
smacks of mysticism or sentimentality as your coffee shop Political
Correctness enforcer was in her reaction to your talk of native
Americans and their failure to produce a technologically advanced
empire along the lines of the Egyptians or Chinese. I'd be interested
in getting your take on that topic.

On the topic of apocalyptic thinking, the two varieties that I
encounter most (not including the Christian fundamentalist variety
which, living in Arkansas, I simply filter out for the sake of my own
sanity) are the psychedelic community's scheduled 21 December 2012
eschaton (a la Terence McKenna) and the notion of a technological
singularity (a la Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge). When the topic of
conversation on Mike Hagan's show turned to the emerging technologies
of longevity, I got the impression that you had something to say along
Singularitarian lines but chose not to voice it. I would invite you to
explore that topic on the C-Realm Podcast.

Finally, I've had a number of guests on the show talking about peak
oil, resource depletion, and the possibility of a massive human
die-back (what I've been calling a "malthusian correction"). There
seems to be an apocalyptic mania at work there as well, and I must
admit, it's siren song pulls at the vulnerable places of my own
psychology.

I started the previous paragraph with "finally," but there's one other
topic I wanted to discuss with you: Zombies! Douglas Rushkoff wrote an
essay recently about the sociological significance of the zombie genre
which sparked a few ideas that I'd like to bounce off a thoughtful
interlocutor. There was also a zombie piece in Reason magazine earlier
this year.

I feel a strong revulsion for contemporary horror films and avoid them
all except for the zombie flicks. I generally see fewer than five
movies in the theater over the course of a year, but I did go see the
most recent George Romero zombie flick, and I went to the theater to
see 28 Weeks later only to discover that I'd missed it by less than a
week. I have thus far resisted the urge, but I might yet break down
and go see the most recent Resident Evil film. I'd like to get your
thoughts on the special appeal of this genre.

Well, this is easily the longest podcast invitation email I've ever
written. If you'd be willing to contribute an interview, just reply to
this email and give me a rough idea of your schedule, and we'll work
out the specifics.

Thank you, and stay well.

-KMO

Normally, the entry for each new C-Realm Podcast that you find here in my LiveJournal links to that episode at Podomatic.com. Having outgrown the space allotted for my podcast archive on Podomatic, I move the older episodes to Archive.org and then update the LiveJournal entry for that episode with the new link. This time around, Podomatic was down when I needed to post my weekly podcast, so I uploaded directly to Archive.org and linked to that entry from here. Podomatic is back in business, but this entry still links to the Archive.org entry.