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People are evil, violent, greedy, hopeless bastards.  Even as a prepubescent flesh ball that would experience withdrawal symptoms if you took away his Super Nintendo controller for more than five seconds, I knew that.  How could I not?  Fear of the “bad guys” was embedded into roughly 99.9% of the mega-tons of media I consumed on a daily basis.  As a tyke I'd often lie in bed at night fearing a who’s who of boogie men with all manner of otherworldly weaponry that I could never hope to defeat.  But, thankfully, I somehow managed to survive the onslaught of demonic hordes that plagued my mind, the news, movies and the games I so eagerly devoured. I'd even argue that some of it made me a better person.   

More recently, from firsthand evidence, I've learned that as scary as the world can be, it’s actually a pretty awesome, dare I say, cooperative place.  I buy shit on Craigslist. I get rides from Uber drivers. And you know what?  I’ve never once been shanked, scammed or raped by a devil worshipper masquerading as a guy with speakers for sale. In fact, it seems like the best things humans can do are usually accomplished collectively.  Thankfully, we live in an era where we actually have the ability to supercharge our collective efforts through open-source, or consensus based platforms.  Just look the wild power and success of media like Twitter, Reddit, Bitcoin and crowd-funding.  Yet, even these vessels would be truly toothless and impossible without mass participation and trust.  

Our guest on this episode, Jeffery Tucker has been labeled a lot of things- Economist, Libertarian, Anarchist, Entrepreneur, Publisher, Bitcoin expert, the list truly goes on.  However, I’ve found that rather than putting him in a ideological box, it's more accurate to call him a human that trusts other humans, despite all the fear-mongering and propaganda that reverberates throughout the mainstream discourse.  Though he and I may not agree on every philosophical point, we agree on the most important thing.  We’re all in this together and if we’re going to make this exponentially more interconnected world harmonious, we’re sure as hell going to need to trust one another. 

Cumbauya. 

For more on Jeffrey, you can follow him on Twitter, or visit his latest venture, liberty.me 

You can also say hi, to my well-read, Bitcoin-mongering co-host Will Pangman on Twitter!

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I remember it well- the first time I heard the phrase “Freemason”.  Sure, it came from an uneducated mouth at a college party, but it was enough to make me rush to Google for enlightenment.  My 20-year-old brain couldn’t believe what it had read.  Masons seemed to be a real-life shadowy cabal of powerful men linked to basically every major event that lead to the establishment of the United States.  It's well known that George Washington, Ben Franklin and and a slew of other founding fathers we worship were members of this secretive fraternal order shrouded in creepy symbols, weird phrases and secret handshakes.  How could I NOT have known this?  Then I came across the claims that masons were devil worshipers, prayed to idols and practiced black magic.                               

              (OMG THEY'RE TOTES WATCHING US RIGHT NOW)

After a couple of months of being sufficiently freaked out, I gained enough reliably sourced knowledge to see that the truth (as usual) lay somewhere in the middle.  No, “they” don’t orchestrate world events, worship the devil, or practice black magic (I don’t think).  So what do they do?  Well, a lot of it has to do with networking.  

Imagine yourself in the year 17-hundred-and-something.  You’re an English well-to-do sort and you’re about 310 years short of Linkedin being a thing.  Wouldn’t you want to belong to an exclusive, secretive club of like-minded men?

Of course, there’s more to it than just the fraternal aspect.  There’s real ancient knowledge linked to a wide variety of cultures from Europe to Asia and everything in between.  Today’s masons are some of the few that continue to communicate these transcendent truths through the powerful vessels of myth, drama, allegory and initiation.  Even Linkedin can't do that (yet).

Robert Sullivan IV comes from a long line of masons, so the craft is in his blood.  He himself has received the 32nd degree (the highest you can earn).  The sum of his nearly 20 years of toil is his book, the Royal Arch of Enoch.  Within which, he thoroughly dissects how ancient mysteries, ceremonies, sages and even astral bodies have influenced the very foundation America was built upon.

In this cast, Robert sums up much of the knowledge from his book, his masonic studies and beyond.  He evokes dozens of historical figures, locales and philosophies and modern day depictions that will have you writing furiously as you struggle to keep your brain from melting.  

Strap in. 

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All comedy is not created equal.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m always ready for (and often partaking in) some cheap chuckles facilitated by potty humor, but I have a deeper appreciation for the type of biting satire and commentary that actually opens your mind, forcing you to think whilst giggling.  

I’m no expert on the history of comedy, but there seems to be something more poignant stirring in the hearts of (some of) today’s comedians.  Maybe it was all made possible by trail-blazers like George Carlin and Bill Hicks.  Or, perhaps it’s a natural byproduct of the unbelievably troubled, yet amazing moment in history we dwell within.  Whatever the case, thank god for today’s satirists.  Their craft provides a truly valuable, yet digestible context for the crazy, revolution-ridden times we’re living in today. 

Lee Camp is a part of this silver-tongued coterie of counterculture comedians.  In his early days behind the mic, he was doing just fine for himself with more traditional material, but as he woke up to the injustice and hypocrisy running through society, he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.  Lee now puts out a razor-sharp weekly rant dubbed “Moment of Clarity,” via his YouTube channel, which boasts tens of thousands of subscribers.  

Keep up with Lee through his website, Twitter, Facebook and over at disinfo.com.  

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This bag of meat we drive around sure is complicated.  We’ve had millions of years to figure it out, yet we still don’t know all the ins and outs of caring for this body we’ve got.  To make matters worse, it seems like every week there’s some new piece of medical or nutritional research that contradicts a long-held truth about what it is means to be healthy- Fat has gone from bad to good.  Many grains have gone from the cornerstone of a healthy diet, to something you should probably NEVER eat.  It almost seems like we have no idea what we're doing. 

Of course, there’s a whole host of hugely important factors beyond nutrition like sleep, lifestyle, relationships, genetics, environment and roughly a million more things.  But, who has time to worry about all of that?  If there’s not a pill that fixes it, it’s probably too much trouble for the majority of us an our equally jiggly neighbors.

Dave Asprey himself was among the pilled-up, overweight, misguided masses for many years.  But, all that changed when he began hacking his body, treating it as if it were a computer.  He spent over 300 thousand dollars trying everything he could get his hands on and some of it really worked.  Dave began reporting his findings and recommendations in his now wildly successful blog.  He's since branched out further with his own line of human optimization products. 

The ever-dashing Former MMA fighter, fitness expert and all around scary (but nice) dude, Adam Von Rothfelder also joined me in hosting this show.  If you’re in the Milwaukee area, go check out his amazing gym, Drench Fitness. 

Dave really covers all the major bases in this talk- nutrition, sleep hacking, smart drugs, recent controversies and even his own personal experiences with smart drugs and learning disabilities.

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 Life can be a bastard.  It has a way of sucker-punching you in the nethers just when you least expect it, leaving you confused and scrambling for answers.  Life gets nasty, period.  Death, disease and trauma don’t wait until you’ve fortified yourself with a daily meditation routine, or had some sort of life-affirming existential breakthrough.  Most of us learn this truth the hard way- in lieu of a personal, transcendent experience that no one can take away, philosophies and religious creeds often amount to squat when life gets dark. 

Enter Gabriel D. Roberts.  Raised a fundamentalist Christian, Gabriel’s religious identity was well-defined and static for decades.  But, intelligence and dogma have a way of repelling one another, and by his late twenties he rejected spirituality completely.  What followed, was an ugly period for Gabriel.  He devoted himself to more materialistic endeavors, all while self-medicating with harmful substances. Eventually, after finding his own transcendent experience, he was able to right his ship.  He has now devoted his life to spreading his story of awakening to others in hopes that they might make contact with their own, personal spiritual truth. 

Gabriel’s third book, The Quest for Gnosis will be released wherever digital books are sold on March 20.  For more information, check out his website and give him plenty of digital smooches via his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Bitcoin is immortal, so you might as well embrace it.

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New technologies almost always follow a predictable pattern.  They start off exclusive, expensive and as something that grants power to a privileged few, all while some lucky nerd sits atop an ever-growing pile of money at the top of the pyramid.  But eventually, those very same pieces of innovation become cheap, ubiquitous and totally standard until they’re replaced by the next big thing.  It’s happened so many times in the last couple of decades that it almost seems like a requirement.  But every now and then, something so disruptive and novel comes along that it transcends all convention- The PC, the Internet, email, cellular phones Napster- the list goes on.  Will the next addition to that list be Bitcoin?

Spoiler: yes.

In just a few years, Bitcoin went from a thought-provoking paper, to some clever coding worth a fraction of a penny, to “nerd money,” to disruptive technology worth billions, to the number one consumer of raw computing power in the entire world; 256 times more than the world’s top 500 super computers combined.  Even more than porn.  Yes, seriously.  This has given rise to a guerrilla economy that circumvents the need for any traditional fiat currency. Sure, you can buy with it, invest in it, sell it, trade it and speculate about its future until your eyes bleed, but that’s far less exciting than the community that has sprung up around it.

Bitcoin is not just a defiant, decentralized currency.  It has spawned a tangible, global movement of the most potent sort- smart, tech savvy, passionate, highly engaged and young. Every day, people gather by the thousands to discuss, teach, create and philosophize around it and in just a couple of years, this community has accomplished a considerable amount.  They’ve given birth to new businesses, technologies and dozens of crypto-currencies.  But, that’s just the tip of the ice burg.

Join Chris Ellis, Will Pangman and myself as we dig oh so much deeper in this episode.

Chris Ellis is one of the driving forces behind the crypto-currency, Feathercoin.  He’s also a Bitcoin enthusiast and expert who has spoken extensively on the subject.

Will Pangman has gone from an entrepreneur with a Bitcoin hobby, to a local authority on the subject here in Milwaukee. He appears regularly on the Let's Talk Bitcoin podcast.

Join the thousands who already support Midwest Real. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and don’t forget to subscribe and review on Itunes!

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There’s a stupid old expression that says “time is the coin of life, be careful how you spend it.” I’m not sure if there’s a soul on Earth that reads that and thinks “yes, I’m definitely spending my time in the wisest way possible.”  After all, how can we?  Life requires us to have many obligations we don’t really want to deal with- school, debt, jobs, families- they just seem to keep piling up, burying us in a stinky heap of duty (pun fully intended).   But, every now and then someone manages to dig their way out of the rubble.  Mr. Greg Carlwood would be one of them.

A couple of years ago, with nothing more than an idea, an anxious middle finger and a desire to better his life, Greg started his own show called The Higherside Chats.  The show now boasts thousands of listeners from all over the world and it’s quickly becoming one of the most popular destinations on the net for alternative media and conspiracy chatter.  Oh, and it also enabled him to quit his fulfilling, soul-sucking day job in retail. 

 If you’d like to take the plunge into Greg’s deep and murky waters (you do), check out the following-

Higherside chats

Conspiratees

Twitter

Facebook

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Compared to the rest of the world, the west has reached a very cushy state, but things haven't always been all corn, beef and football.  Getting to this warm, chubby place required revolution, civil war and plenty of good old fashioned dissidence.  Indeed, many heads were bashed in the name of liberties we now take for granted. 

Thankfully, most of us don’t have to take to the streets to fight for basic rights anymore, but there's still plenty of controversial, if not totally backwards, philosophies being preached on all sides of the political spectrum. The government can still chill dissent, ban firearms, give unfair tax breaks to giant conglomerates, spy on us, tell us who we can and can’t marry, what women can and can’t do with their bodies, even mandate what substances we can and can’t use to explore our own consciousnesses. 

We all have our own opinions with respect to the ethical, ideological and political debates surrounding such subjects, yet there’s only one that regularly lands thousands of people in handcuffs each year.  Here's a hint- it's a little green plant.  Inexplicably, with very minimal digging, it becomes obvious that cannabis has cultivated a persona and a legal treatment based almost completely on falsehoods disinformation and nonsense.  Though more than half of our population (55-58% according to the latest polls) has woken up to this fact, the caricaturization, misunderstanding and demonizing never seems to end.  

Our guest, Adam Scorgie has probably done more to shed light on the truth behind cannabis than 99% of humanity.  (Which, I guess makes him a one-per-center of a different kind).  He’s is one of the main driving forces behind the critically acclaimed cult-classic documentary film, The Union, the Business Behind Getting High and its upcoming sequel, The Culture High.  Of course, there's so much more to this man, but you'll have to listen to learn more about that.

For more on Adam, check out the following-

The Culture High

The Union

Adam's Twitter

The Culture High Twitter

The Culture High Facebook

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