## hpr2460 :: The Alien Brothers Podcast - S01E03 - Decline of American Empire

 Summary:

Casper and Rutiger opt for a time of ease and relaxation by discussing happy light topics: the decline of American Empire and recent reversal of Net Neutrality protections [or the rollout of Net Neuterality -c] (December 2017).

Links and Notes:

Re: Empire - moral decline and massive wealth inequality, role in imperial decline [1] -r
Re: Empire - Noam Chomsky and Decline of American Empire [2] -r
Re: Empire - moral decline - death as sport (Onion spoof) [3] -r
Re: Net Neutrality - Rutiger apologies - to Casper, for completely derailing the conversation on Net Neutrality by believing that pay-for-bandwidth/capacity and limiting access to content are both legitimate elements of the Net Neutrality debate, but over-focusing on the infrastructure/de-emphasizing the content argument. See Prevent Over-Use of Bandwidth and Pricing Models vs. Data Discrimination [4] -r
Re: Empire - consumption of human suffering as entertainment - modern Roman colosseum [5] -r 
Re: Empire - the thought leaders over at Reddit on elements of declining empire [6] -r 
Re: Thoughts - Volume One Chapter Two of Diek Minusky’s The Nature of Systems will be coming with… episode 4! Sorry folks. Hold… hold! -r
Re: Getting Things Done - by David Allen [7]


[1] 2 overlooked characteristics of an empire in decline - Business Insider

[2] Noam Chomsky - on the Decline of the American Empire - YouTube - Al Jazeera
[3] Supreme Court: Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass' - YouTube - The Onion News Network
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality - Wikipedia
[5] Lindsay Lohan: A Timeline of All Her Arrests (and Boy, There Are a Lot … - E! Online
[6] What Are the Characteristic Signs of a Declining Empire/State? - Reddit thread
[7] Getting Things Done - Wikipedia 

Timeline / Additional Links:

00:00:00 - 00:13:00 Settling in - Casper and Rutiger get acquainted after being off the air for a while. Skip this part if you don’t care about the characters Casper and Rutiger and their degeneration…
Begin Topic 1: Net Neuterality / Net Neutrality Rollback
00:14:00 - 00:30:00 The Deployment of Net Neuterality / Rollback of Net Neutrality - Casper attempts to boil this topic down nice and easy for Rutiger, yet Rutiger conflates this (see above), but that is OK as this is normal for pleebs. Members of HPR will understand.
00:30:00 - 00:36:00 Fox & Disney Merger - Coincidence or Conspiracy on timing w/ Net Neutrality rollback?
00:36:00 - 00:40:30 How Should HPR Community Respond or Mitigate This?  Credit goes to Rob Placone and Jimmy Dore for mentioning Municipality developed internet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvJ93kjSXiQ
00:40:30 - 00:48:00 Discussion on Availability of Access
00:48:00 - 00:52:00 Casper takes a sharp pivot off track - A satellite is mentioned and Casper brings up DMB unfortunately for the listener
00:52:00 - 00:56:00 FREESTYLE JAM!@&#%^
00:58:00 - Ron Swanson has words for Ajit Pai
01:00:00 - Rutiger Does Not Speak in Tribe Called Quest Protocol call and response
01:05:00 - 01:20:00 Casper and Rutiger give their distinct definition of Empire  and expand upon this
01:20:00 - 01:23:00 MUDs, OG Tech & Being Alone Together
01:23:00 - Casper mentions 150 people own EVERYTHING  as mentioned here by Chamath Palihapitiya 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk
“During his View From The Top talk, Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital, discussed how money is an instrument of change which should be used to make the world a better place”
01:27:00 - 01:30:00 - Being Alone Together
01:30:00 - 01:33:00 - Bullying and how Technology can Exponentiate this
01:33:00 - How to DEBUG… seriously https://conncounseling.weebly.com/stop--debug.html
01:39:00 - Consumerism and the Decline of Empire
01:40:00 - DW Documentaries Casper said he would find
Greed -  https://www.dw.com/en/tv/greed/s-32898
The Divide Part 1 -  https://www.dw.com/en/the-divide-part-1/av-41378206
The Divide Part 2 -  https://www.dw.com/en/the-divide-2/av-41467377
01:42:00 - Immortality Through Consumerism?
01:43:00 - Where are we if Not Here?
01:45:00 - Self Destruction
01:46:00 - Celebrity Chefs and the Tie to the Roman Empire  - Casper remembered post-cast that this was from The Four Horsemen Documentary as explained here:
https://barnabyisright.com/2013/03/30/why-celebrity-chefs-herald-the-end-of-empire/
01:47:00 - Casper (Mis)Quotes Frank Zappa -  by saying “Politics is the entertainment branch of the Military Industrial Complex” https://www.reddit.com/r/Zappa/comments/2qxpnu/politics_is_the_entertainment_branch_of_industry/
01:48:00 - (S)Elections are becoming irrelevant
01:50:00 - Casper recommends International News Alternatives like BBC, RT, AlJazeera  if you would like to know what is going on in the world
Addendum - Not mentioned in Podcast, but worth a link regarding the state of our MSM in reporting false information on Russia and WikiLeaks from Glenn Greenwald:
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/09/the-u-s-media-yesterday-suffered-its-most-humiliating-debacle-in-ages-now-refuses-all-transparency-over-what-happened/
01:51:00 - Wrapping Up The Show & ShoutOuts to Klaatu!
01:53:00 - Casper argues with Gerald to cut the recording

