TrueLife - Back to the ’80s: 1984, Pop Culture & the Birth of Surveillance Society

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/George Orwell, David Serata, & Edward Bernard. How Saturday morning cartoons assimilated a generation One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Aloha, good morning. I hope everyone's having a good Sunday morning, preparing for your day or relaxing, or doing whatever it is you do to keep yourself sane. saying. George here.

Got a couple book reviews to do for you. This particular morning show is going to be how a couple ways that I have found

propaganda has penetrated my life and kind of weaved its tentacles around the way people think, kind of shaped the way we act and how it really is the root of our culture,

this group think. And what better place to start than right here? Mr. George Orwell, 1984, right? This is a classic. I'm sure if you're watching this video, you've read this book. If you haven't, if you haven't read this book three or four times,

then there's probably something wrong with you. You should definitely do it. I think it takes about three or four times just to really understand what's in there. For this particular conversation, I'm going to be talking about the telescreen. Remember in some of the beginning scenes, you got Winston Smith in there, and he's just being told to do what his TV tells him to do. And he finds a little spot in the corner where he can kind of hide out, a little blind spot.

And it's amazing how relevant that is today. With today's technology, the smart TVs, those TVs are watching you. They got their mics on, the cameras on, recording everything that happens in your house, especially if you have Alexa. It's like a double whammy. So that's one way the whole telescreen has been brought

into today's world. I mean, this book was written in 1948. It's almost like things are, there was a plan. You know, if you were of the conspirator type, then you would say, man, that was a blueprint. So let me tie it together with this book that I read right here. Back to the, back to the future, David Serrata.

Can you see that there? This book is, it ties in well with that Because it talks, if you're like me and you were born in the 70s and as a kid watched TV in the 80s, things were a lot different in that cartoons only came on in the morning. And mainly on Saturdays and Sundays. You know, we had the Flintstones and He-Man and the Jetsons and Felix the Cat and, you know, and as I got a little bit older, it moved into like G.I. Joe and Transformers and Voltron and. but with this book and if you're as old as me you'll be able to follow this real well if you're if you're a little younger or

you'll be able to follow it too if you just take a deep look at what's going on so in the beginning there was all these rules for tv that said you know you can't just be a blatant commercial and try and get people to buy stuff it was looked down upon and you know the the only paid advertisements were for you know like a set of knives that would chop through anything, you know, and everybody knew that it was, it was pure marketing and just pure, dude, I want your money. That's what those infomercials were, which they are today, but they've gotten a

lot better at them. And that's what this book right here, back to the future, is kind of all about. It talks about those laws. You know, there wasn't a whole lot of content. And the cartoons became, it used to be the cartoons had a little bit of a moral in them and you know if you look at the old school pop eyes or you know there was always a maybe even woody woodpecker there was always a little bit of morality or even bugs bunny they had like the they had the classical music behind them and there was a bit of morality in in some of those cartoons it would teach the kids like hey maybe you shouldn't do this or maybe you shouldn't do that but as as as is As the culture evolved, as Madison Avenue began to understand how powerful,

as everyone began to understand what Marshall McLuhan already knew about hot and cold mediums. You know, a hot medium being something that just goes, boom, directly into your brain, and it gives you someone else's idea without any critical thinking. You know, a cold medium being something like print or even radio, where you take the information in and then you come up, you have to do some critical thinking to come up with your idea with with you know the maturation of television and and even movies it just it turns people into zombies where all of a sudden you get whatever those people want you to think it's a it's an incredible medium and it you can do

a lot of learning but it's imperative that you do your own critical thinking when you're when you're doing it you know tv is kind of a drug you know and think about a drug that you know, people do for eight hours a day or seven hours a day. It's mind bending and not in a good way. So back to the book, it talks about how the laws changed and how Madison Avenue slowly turned, you know, the programming for children into shows with a little bit of morality and classical music into a 30 or 40 minute commercial

with more commercials in between. You know, they really began to understand consumerism at that point in time and people my age were kind of the guinea pigs for that that's where the the whole consumer-led economy i think kind of started at it's you know you always wanted the new vultron and then the new gi jo or the new strawberry shortcake or you know whatever it was that you were watching as a kid it slowly became like a marketing tool and like for me this book was insane because i grew up in that time and i did watch a lot of lot of TV and I did looking back out after reading this book the evolution of it is just it's mind-bending

um it's something to think about you know the it seems to me not not everything but there's a lot of stuff that was written in here that is is coming true a lot of it you know some people say that the answer to 1984 is 1776 which is kind of a fun thing to think about. But more importantly, I think that if you can read some of these books, you can kind of anoculate yourself or your kids, for that matter, or people you love. You know, from, from group think or wrong speak or double speak, you know, all these things that there's lack of engagement, this lack of critical thinking that is going on in our world today is a huge problem. If you don't do your own thinking, you know, there's a lot of people that are

paying lots of money to do the thinking for you. And if you don't take some time to stop and look around, stop and think a little bit, then you're just going to be a victim. A modern day, I got into a conversation with a guy, a couple people a few weeks ago, and they were talking about the documentary game changers which is it's a it's a documentary about a plant-based diet and like as you got like I love plants I love the earth and there's a lot of truth to eating a plant-based diet that is good for you however when I watched the documentary it was so it was so one-sided it was so you know there was absolutely zero rebuttal from the opposite side of of the field.

There was no one talking about how, yeah, you know what? Maybe you should have a little bit of meat for your iron in your blood. And they went on to talk about different athletes and, you know, doctors. And I did a little research after watching that and having this conversation. And it turns out it was the same guy that made the video that made the movie Avatar, which is a great movie. And the producer is phenomenal. Don't get me wrong.

A lot of money was spent on the movie. But this guy, he owns a plant-based food supplier. And then you look at the people that he interviewed, some of the doctors, they have products. Other people have written books about plant-based diet. So, you know, that movie Game Changers is basically just like this. You know, it's a, what do you call that? Like an hour and a half infomercial that people are paying for. So you're going to pay to watch that movie?

movie, number one, and then you're going to do what that movie tells you without any critical thinking? The guy that I spoke to that I kind of debated about that movie, he was a pretty intelligent guy, but he was just quoting the talking points of the movie. And he was telling me, oh, I'm going to do this. And I go, yeah, you should do it if you want to. But how are you going to measure the performance? How are you going to measure your performance? How do you know if it works? And the guy tells me, oh, well, I'll just know. I go, yeah, but how will you know? And he says, well, I'll feel better. I said, well, don't you think there's a better way to do that?

Maybe you should keep a journal. Maybe you could go run your two miles right now, see what the time is, switch to your plant-based diet, and then run that two miles again and see if you're faster. You can max out in your weights and see if the muscle mass is gaining faster. Maybe you could take some measurements. You know what the guy tells me? I'm not going to do any of that because it's good enough for me if I know. So I just kind of laughed it off and was like, oh, I see.

You just want to watch this documentary. And then go around and quote facts to people that are not really based in fact. So anyways, here's what we got for today. 1984, George Orwell, pick it up, read it, we've got to do it. And then follow it up with this. Back to the Future, David Serrata. And if you want some bonus points, look into Edward Bernays, the godfather of propaganda. He's got a book called On Propaganda.

I'll be doing another review later. If you get a chance, check him out. Anyways, thanks for your guys' time. Have a good rest of your weekend, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks.