We've been posting a lot of our podcast/vidcast content over the past month, with some good results, but I (Kurt/@churdtzu) realised that we haven't formally introduced ourselves. I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain a little of our history, what we do and what our goals are with our humble little project, and showcasing some of our best work, including interviews with @dollarvigiliante Jeff Berwick and Bitcoin rockstar Andreas Antonopoulos.

First, allow us to introduce each one of us, each member of our powerful two-man team.

The team

Aaron Battle (@battleayzee)

I am Battle Ayzee.

Battle Ayzee the life journalist, house husband and a guy that always shoots from the hip. His actual name is Aaron Battle - as the experience changes the name will as well. He considers himself a natural freedom fighter, born with the instinct to live and let live as life wishes. These radical ideas and deep feelings for justice, were recently identified as libertarian and voluntaryist principles.

Aaron’s has experienced many 'life episodes' which forced him to question the foundations of society and the workings of reality in general. These include being framed by the Australian Police and witnessing injustice first hand in the court of law as well as cultural shifts forced by extensive world travels. And more recently several drug induced explorations into the alternative realms.

He is a cosmic man which enjoys navigating the oceans of the mind. He would tell you that he is a student of the world and naturally a hacker of life. Aaron's world hides many secrets and he enjoys nothing better than to fill the gaps with creativity and cheat days.

You can read Aaron's personal introduction post here.

Kurt Robinson (@churdtzu)

I am Kurt, a writer, rapper, occasional musician, poet, adventurer, voluntaryist. I'm 32 years old and live in the beautiful city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

Many people know me best for writing the song "To Acapulco" - that inspired and united many anarchists and ex-patriates living in Acapulco, trying to find a freer life. You can see some footage of me performing at Anarchapulco in 2016 here:

But people on Steemit probably know me best for writing this article - Steemit's new economic paradigm: Why Steemit might just work.

You can read Kurt's personal introduction post here.

The beginning

We met around 2007, in the town of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, when we were both knocking on doors for a sales company of questionable ethics. We were probably ripped off many times by that certain company, however, the company culture did instill in us some important ideas - goal-setting, motivation, and especially the idea of dreaming big.

Through a series of interesting coincidences, we ended up both living in Guadalajara, Jalisco. One day in December 2014, we were having an intense conversation, and decided that we should be recording our pearls of wisdom to share with the world.

At time of writing, we've published over 100 episodes and interviewed many interesting characters.

The name

I wanted to call the podcast "Straight from the Hellhole" or "Direct from the Inferno" - a reference to the fact that so many people seemed to think that Mexico was such an impossibly violent place. I'm not sure which of us was the first to suggest it, but we came up with the idea of "The Paradise Paradox". Mexico is the paradise, and the 'paradox' is that so many people think it is hell. Beauty is found in the most unexpected places - The Paradise Paradox.

The principles

Open-mindedness

We're willing to consider any idea, research any proposition. Nothing is off the table when it comes to consideration, and so we have done episodes about UFOs, the flat Earth theory, and even meeting the occasional alien.

Ideas for the sake of ideas

When you take an idea, you can look at it and consider whether it might be true - or you can take it and imagine its implications. In our thoughts, we are not bound by any perceived boundaries of reality. Let's make the most of the freedom that we have there, and see which ideas lead where.

Humour

Humour can make even the strangest of ideas a little more palatable, so even though a lot of our audience thinks our ideas are fucking nuts, they keep tuning in.

Favourite episodes

Here are some episodes which demonstrate the breadth of the material that we've covered, and some familiar faces that we've interviewed:

An interview with @dollarvigilante Jeff Berwick at LaBitConf 2015

An interview with Bitcoin rockstar Andreas Antonopoulos at LaBitConf 2015

Deep Web Confessions - Episode 41

We do some investigative journalism, digging into the dark net to find what's buried there.

The face of death - Episode 22

Aaron faces his own mortality on an intense bad trip.

Peyote desert crop circle

We woke up in the desert, coming down off a peyote trip, to discover an unusual rock formation that we hadn't noticed the day before.

Thank you

Thanks for giving the gift of your valuable attention, remember to follow @paradise-paradox, @churdtzu, @battleayzee, and have an amazing day.