Ep.235 Reclaiming Your Humaneness and Attention in a Big Tech World

What if the most radical act of sovereignty left isn't political at all, but simply reclaiming your own attention?

Mark Groves joins me for a conversation about what happens when we hand our nervous systems over to devices built by the world's best psychological experts to keep us hooked. We talk about why he walked away from social media entirely for six months, what he learned about the biology of addiction and attention, and why boredom might be the most powerful antidote to a fractured mind. We also get into the growing cultural gap between Canada and America, the mental gymnastics of mainstream media on the affordability crisis, and why grassroots action beats doomscrolling every time.

This is a conversation about what it actually means to be sovereign in a world engineered to keep us reactive, distracted, and disconnected from ourselves and each other.

00:00 – Idaho's freedom-focused community

01:09 – Why Idaho has become a hub for freedom-minded Americans

03:56 – Canada vs. America: individualism vs. collectivism

07:53 – CBC's spin on Canada's affordability crisis

10:09 – How COVID exposed the media's alliance with Big Pharma

13:06 – Why you can never fully detach once you know the truth

15:18 – Apathy is the opposite of love 19:18 – How normal grievances got rebranded as right wing 20:00 – The death of nuance and long form conversation

21:47 – Aaron Pete's Nuanced and real good faith dialogue

27:21 – Social contagion: TikTok Tourette's and the dancing plague