Escaping The Cave: The Toddzilla X-pod

In this episode, Todd continues dismantling the transformation of modern political movements into ideological religions—complete with dogma, heresy, excommunication, and a mob-ready priesthood of online enforcers. Drawing on figures like H.L. Mencken, Joan Didion, Noam Chomsky, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, he explores how belief systems—left and right—have become substitute faiths, powered by dopamine, hashtags, and performative outrage. Todd weaves in cognitive science (via Nicholas Carr and neuroplasticity), propaganda theory (via Jacques Ellul and Edward Bernays), and personal experience to reveal how the digital age has eroded attention spans, critical thought, and individual conscience. Social media becomes the new pulpit. Echo chambers replace dialogue. Heresy now means thinking for yourself. At the core is a warning: intellectual autonomy now requires personal and moral courage. The courage to be disliked. To reject tribalism. To say, “That’s bullshit”—especially when it comes from your own side. From Menc