In the first half, psychotherapist, interfaith minister, and author Nancy Colier discussed how our reliance on technology is rapidly changing the way each of us experiences life, and exacerbates problems like the bullying of children, escalating it to vicious online attacks. In some ways, she noted, technology is ahead of humans, and children are losing the connection between what's happening on their screen and what's real. The reptile or primitive part of the brain is drawn to pleasure, entertainment, and distraction that the online world provides, and unfortunately we're not using technology in a more evolved or aware manner, she remarked. Cyber bullying, she continued, is enabled by its anonymity or remoteness, and the bullies seem to get a psychological or dopamine rush from it.
Many people have become obsessed with their phones or being online, and in one extreme case, a couple in South Korea was arrested for homicide because they were so busy playing an online game involving a virtual family that they forgot to feed their own child. Concerning "selfie" culture, people can become so fixated on photographing themselves in different places that they lose the experience they're actually in, she cited. And, she added, posting their images on social networks can turn into a way to seek external validation by the number of "likes," rather than deriving self-worth from themselves. Colier suggests people take back control, and use technology as an empowered or mindful tool that brings good things, rather than letting it override your life.
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In the latter half, electrical engineer with a doctorate in Physics, Brooks Agnew, shared updates on his work including North Pole Inner-Earth expeditions, and his hypothesis that Earth is made of two planets. Citing a 2007 study that showed a possible huge "ocean" existing underneath Earth's crust, he noted that a huge piece of ice broke off in the Arctic in 2008, and new or extinct species started emerging from the area, indicating that they may have come from the inner ocean.
While his previous expeditions to travel in an icebreaker to the North Pole to explore a possible entrance to an Inner Earth did not get off the ground, a new effort has been revived. A 15-day expedition is tentatively slated for the summer of 2018, he reported, with the possible involvement of various cable TV science channels that would shoot footage for a reality or documentary series. Agnew spoke about his concept explored in his three "Bearth" novels, that our planet and its population is splitting off into two separate worlds, one of high frequency, the other a low frequency. He also shared some of his notions of what the future holds, including a celestial event in 2022, when a pair of neutron stars coalesce, forming a bright new star in the firmament that leads to religious upheaval.
News segment guests: Catherine Austin Fitts, Lauren Weinstein
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