Most of our media are owned by a handful of tech billionaires, but there's one place that still operates like the internet was never invented.

On the new season of the divided dial from On the Media, we're exploring shortwave radio, where prayer and propaganda coexist with news and conspiracy theories, and where an existential battle

for the public airwaves is playing out right now.

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Happy Friday, welcome back to practical stoicism. I've got to tell you, I am a little bit burned out after all of the longer form episodes this week. I'm feeling like I need to retreat to a holiday home or something, which I, of course, don't have. I'm a podcaster. We can't afford things like that. Or maybe even a beach,

but the nearest beach is probably more than a thousand miles, no matter which direction I start

driving in, so I don't think I'll be doing that. And I guess today I'm just feeling that one

meditation, probably back in book two or three, when Marcus told us that we could escape into

our minds

any time we wanted and that the desire to get away. I think he said it was stupid. So I guess I'm

feeling a little stupid today. But as has been said before, if it can be endured, then endure it.

And I suppose this can be endured. By the way, if you'd like to get rid of ads,

you can do so for just $6 a month by going to stoicism.com.com. Link in the description for that.

I'd like to also remind you that the fireside chat format that we experimented with yesterday

is not yet definitely a staple of this podcast. If you want it to be, I need your votes on the survey that is attached to that episode. If I get 75% greater on the yes side of that survey, it's just a one question survey, totally anonymous. We'll do fireside chats on a weekly basis. And what that means is one of the seven episodes I release every week

will be, in addition to our long-form Wednesday episodes, a long-form fireside chat episode that

will start out with regular conversations between myself and Eric, and will eventually grow into

something more like something that features guests and potentially even the occasional

panel discussion. So please go back and check yesterday's episode's show notes for a link to that

survey. Today we're covering meditation number 23 from book four, which is a favorite of Chris

Fischer's, who if you missed it, was part of our three-person discussion on

Wednesday. The third was Kai Whiting, and you have got some catching up to do if you've missed it,

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