Youtube comments of Andrew Bowen (@andrewbowen2837).

  1. That last sentence hits close to home. I've been talking to a friend about how I suffer from loneliness and they have been trying to give me tips on how to be more approachable and relatable, but I just feel out of place doing it. So I asked them if one should really sacrifice their individuality just to be more relatable? Perhaps not. But it's a hard battle to fight
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  2. There's a lot that this video doesn't touch on from the book. For starters, you spend a lot of time dissecting Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, but that's not the real criticism Nietzsche has in Beyond Good and Evil. His real critique is of dogma, and especially dogma to Platonism, which he asserts Christianity is the foremost example of. So his real challenge is pointed at Plato, who has dominated the realm of philosophy for millennia. He sees that Plato went beyond the ideas of Socrates and crafted a philosophy and system of values in a way that matches what you call "perspectivism." Nietzsche thinks Plato shifted philosophy away from the pre-Socratics on purpose to create his own values, and as such, Nietzsche seeks a return to the pre-Socratic philosophy which will lead to the actual truth of things. Another important thing is that Nietzsche points out that culture, and values in particular, are temporal. He uses the analogy of a Greek play to showcase this: the audience sees the costumes that the actors wear and laugh at it, ridiculing the culture and values of past cultures. However, they fail to realize that they also wear "costumes" themselves. Only when this is realized can a new set of values be created, and the philosopher of the future can join Nietzsche in his nakedness, free of values and embodying truth. This new creation of values has become possible due to cosmopolitanism, which allows the study of cultures and values more freely. All people need to do is realize their own costumes. Speaking of values, Nietzsche points out that it was Judaism, not Christianity, that inverted values. Judaism is what established slave morality over master morality; Christianity took those values and spread them across the world. However, Nietzsche admires Judaism because is created its own values, something that he seeks to achieve himself (or at least get someone else to do). Thus, Nietzsche seeks to reinstate master morality, and values greatness and nobility over piety and chastity. The last thing I will mention is that Nietzsche ridiculed nationalism. He broke off his relationship with Wagner because of German nationalism. Nietzsche saw that history had trended towards a united world, and nationalism was undermining it. To elaborate, Nietzsche saw that living conditions were continuously growing throughout history, from villages, to cities, to countries. The next step in the progression in his mind is a united Europe. So he essentially foresaw the EU and UN and other leagues. It doesn't take genius to foresee that the next step is a united world.
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  3. I wrote a paper and gave a short presentation on the quipu as a senior in college back in 2021, and I haven't stayed up to date on new findings since then. One of the more profound pieces I read about them is how they were the embodiment of the Inca, being made of cloth (which was highly valued), being portable for high amounts of travel, and being highly organized.
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  4. An interesting perspective that I have been pondering is thay violence can have different targets. This video focuses on human-human violence, but it can occur between anything that a person can have relations with, with devastating effects. For instance, iconoclasm and urbicide are things that inflict great but indirect harm, and are forms of violence against things and materials. Abstracting this beyond these two examples, violence can happen in many ways that we do not usually consider
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  5. I've heard this idea several times before. Yet, I'm not sure of its validity, at least for me. I've done "No Nut November" many years now, but I never come away feeling productive; I just end up feeling agitated and depressed more than anything. My normal life doesn't reward me with dopamine or anything, and it seemed like masturbation was the only source I had for it. At the same time, it is harder to relax at times without doing it. Some nights I become restless and cannot sleep until I do the deed, as it tends to relax everything more, expend some extra energy. What I gather from this video is not necessarily to stop masturbation per se, but to redirect the libido away from it towards something else. Yet, I'm not sure how to do that. During NNN, I just become busy and focus on other stuff so that my mind doesn't even have time to consider sex, but that too is unrewarding. So, how would someone turn their libido towards something else? It sounds strange, but is it possible to become attracted to bigger goals in a sexual manner?
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  6. Ah, this isn't one I can really relate to as much. I've only had one sexual partner. I understand women today are likely to have had more, but my concerns with it are that I don't know how I stack up compared to others, and it makes me concerned about her morals. The one I'm interested in now mentioned that she has met up with a guy in the past for the first time just for sex, justifying it as "pretty girl shit." She also has a "number 69" who is a basketball player... It rubs me the wrong way for sure, because I'm someone who wants to share intimacy as something special whereas she just hands it out like it's nothing, a business transaction of sorts.
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  7. Have you heard about how in Japan, a country without firearms, mass murders still happen? But how is that possible, since they don't have ARs?
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  8.  @captainprivate3768  how do you fix people? For all time, people that have wanted to kill people, have indeed killed people. Cane killed Abel with a stone. Tarquin the Proud was killed with a knife, as was Julius Caesar. Countless people were killed with swords, spears, polearms, bows, crossbows, torture devices, flintlock weapons, lever action weapons, bolt action weapons, semi-automatic weapons, fully automatic weapons, tanks, bombs, poison gas, automobiles, and even bare hands. I'm sure you heard several years back about the terrorist attack using a truck in Europe; there was a person who also murdered several children in a school with a hammer in Japan. You take away one tool, they find another. If people want to kill, they will kill. So, how do you fix people? Do you have a solution for that?
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  9. I thought this would be a new channel and I could watch like 5 videos and get everything done, but my goodness, you have been mighty productive over the past year
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  10. As a critique, this seems like a shallow and naive coverage of the topic. It is taken from a very biased Western viewpoint, one of angst and Christianity. Plus, it seems like your source material, or at least the books you showed in the video, are all popular science books (or equivalent), stuff made for mass consumption and overly simplified, like something one would find on a Walmart book shelf. If you want a totalizing viewpoint of death, it requires branching out, digging deeper into other ideas and cultures, casting aside our own ontological and phenomenological assumptions. It needs to be an anthropological examination. Anthropology is the only discipline that can shed light on the total human experience; it provides the material, ideological, performative, biological, and linguistic conceptions of everything. It is a very time consuming venture, but well worth it for anyone who truly seeks to know about the human experience
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  11. Could you eventually do some on Constantine, Charlemagne, and Cyrus the Great?
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  12. So the easy way to do this is to settle, to go for someone a couple of rungs below us, so to speak?
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  13. Nietzsche seems to argue that all philosophy is sophistry, so he wouldn't disagree
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  14. The commenters take their angst out against women, blaming a single mother for everything. Yet, I was raised by a "single" father (I used quotes because he is very promiscuous and had several suitors) and yet here I am watching this video, the same as all you. If it wasn't him, it was grandparents and great grandparents, people who do not fall into this value system that you target. So what's the culprit then?
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  15. I wonder how you can tell if someone acts "different" around you. You can only tell how they act by being around them... Also, people act different around people they dislike as well
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  16.  @Alex-hu5eg  is your goal now to attack my credentials instead of my argument? Where I'm from has no bearing on anything. And I never claimed to support totalitarianism. My sole purpose is to challenge what is said in this video, and particularly the echo chamber it causes in the comment section, so-called free thinkers who all think alike.
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  17. Why couldn't you do both?
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  18.  @Jedimack7  when you're wearing rose colored glasses, red flags just look like flags
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  19. Modernity.
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  20. Have you seen videos or read any on Dostoevsky? Perhaps your dogmatism to reason, rationality, and science blinds you to why such a movement exists in the first place
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  21. Idk how to change anything. There was already a gun-free sign at the door
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  22. Read "Emile" by Rousseau
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  23. For the past 2 or so years, you've been stanning Jung a ton. It gets tiresome after a while
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  24. You act as if science, technology, and innovation are themselves not dominating masters over the human race
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  25. If that were the case, you would see that social animals are indeed not as hippie-like as you make them sound. Take other apes, for instance: tribalism is something that exists in all animals, but in primates, it can lead to actual wars, such as with chimps. Additionally, apes are capable of inflicting extreme pain and suffering on each other with their hierarchies; Franz de Waal notes it with chimps (in his book Our Inner Ape, he reports a case of one male crushing the testes of an older one and leaving him to bleed out and die, within a zoo, where they are notably more tame), and Robert Sapolsky notes it with baboons (with his studies on stress levels in apes). Gorillas, as polygamous species, follow suit, with the silverback monopolizing mating resources and harming other males to prevent competition. But then there is the counter example of social grooming (even though the apes with higher status are groomed more often) as a bonding event within groups, exogamy, and of course, bonobos who are much less violent and use sex as a means of solving issues, fitting the bill of a hippie status, hence their nickname as such. Humans are capable of following through each of these behaviors. We are complex and have hormones and social needs and cues that guide behaviors. As such, it would seem that we need to take into account the capability of both types of behaviors instead of focusing on one or the other for political reasons. It is my opinion that much of it could be subject to the social milieu in which we are born, yet there will always be that biological factor that underlies behaviors that needs to find a responsible outlet, something our society has failed to account for.
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  26. I don't really believe them because they shit talked Fallout New Vegas and Kingdom Come Deliverance, both of which are some of my favorite games. KCD has a 6.9 on metacritic, that's ridiculous
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  27. Clastres, Graeber, and any study of Latin American history showcase anarchic tendencies
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  28.  @Alex-hu5eg  if this channel is not telling you the truth, and you do not think in the same manner as this channel, why else would you call it a "bastion for truth?"
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  29.  @Alex-hu5eg  it's telling you what you want to hear instead of getting you to ask questions. You obviously do not question the truth of this channel, ergo, you are not thinking. Thus, you are in agreement with this channel that "totalitarian bad, capitalism good" and support its message, as evident from your original comment. As such, the channel is telling you what to think, and you are gobbling it up
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  30.  @callmelegendawight8298  hedonism existed long before capitalism. Fulfilling biological and psychological needs/desires existed long before capitalism. But you act as if I cannot place anything above myself, which is simply not the case. People often put their children, community, and spirituality above themselves. Totalitarianism (particularly fascism) is just another form of this, where the nation is seen as a large community to be placed above the self. If what you say is entirely true, then these regimes would never get off the ground in the first place. They obviously have some appeal
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  31. It's interesting that the women I have most recently talked to about this have said that they value men who are emotionally available and open, and that they expect men to say "I love you" first in the relationship. That doesn't seem likely if the man is to be the adored. Or maybe they just aren't sure what they want? Would you say there's a difference in age group and education between expectations like this?
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  32.  @M64936  he doesn't have to stop with Jung, but at least diversify it a little. Suggestions for improvement never hurt anyone
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  33. The individual is made by the community and environment they are born into. You can't control yourself until you somehow can control those
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  34. In a video interview from John Vervaeke a few months ago, he and his guest made the point that "Only God can have free will." What they meant by this is that only God would have the ability to do literally anything he could set his mind towards. If he wanted to create a chair, a snap of the finger and it's done. Humans are not capable of that. Human will is contingent upon a myriad of factors, those being knowledge from previous experiences, material availability, physical capability, their given culture and its history, unconscious/subconscious drives, and biological functions. Each of these place limitations or remove some boundaries that some others may not possess. Either way, humans do not have absolute free will. However, I think a better way to think of it would be that humans have agency within their material and ideological conditions.
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  35. I learned about Nietzsche in two classes in college in the past year... Maybe you're so victimized that you paint every institution as a boogeyman
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  36. Intolerance is stronger in any form of governance built on the will of the people, than in all other forms.
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  37.  @stillawake76  you said "it was so obviously untrue. Returning would require me to live a lie." You made the claim that religion is untrue and a lie. Where is your evidence? In life, you can't accuse someone of lying without evidence to support you. Why is this all the sudden different? If you want to admit you live by a double standard and have no proof, just admit it and I'll leave you be
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  38. Why does life have to be judged by utilitarian standards?
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  39. Half truths maybe
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  40.  @Alex-hu5eg  shallow in terms of thinking you say? Is shallow thinking to study opposing views and seeing why they came to be and what appeal they had, what philosophical basis they had? Shallow thinking is saying "my way or the highway," which is what appears to be the case here. But I'm sure from your ethnocentric view from the outside that these other places do look bad, and in some instances they are bad. But what place isn't bad in some regard? Democracy features perhaps the strongest tyranny known to man: that of the majority. Does it mean I should defect somewhere else if I think it's being done wrong?
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  41.  @callmelegendawight8298  I'm interested in where you got all those ideas from in my statement, because absolutely none of it applies. If you can quote where I said anything about politicians being better and more sin-free than the average man, or where I endorsed totalitarianism, we can discuss further. I merely stated why fascism was appealing to people, people who were disillusioned with liberalism. Mussolini's own writings explain these things
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  42. Depending on what you play on, stealth is very viable. Sneaking up and knocking out people is very very valuable when eliminating bandit camps and all that. In combat, I always back peddle and use the Pierce attack with a sword, and a shield helps a ton
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  43.  @SJ-kc6et  From my understanding, Nietzsche only provided two types of morality: master and slave. Perhaps the philosopher of the future could create a new form, maybe something of the middling sort somehow, but taken in the context of the rest of his works, that seems unlikely. He praises strength and greatness throughout Beyond Good and Evil and criticizes Judaism for making those things taboo. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra he poses the idea of the Ubermensche and the last man, who embody master and slave morality, respectively, and he pushes for the Ubermensche. With this in mind, I think the transvaluation of values means to flip them back towards the master side
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  44. There are so many roots and plants that all the decaying matter and water never goes past the surface
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  45. Well, coincidentally that's what I have been reading. He has said many things that are not found on the surface of the text
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  46.  @joseph6243  I don't see why these two things can't be one in the same. It was a fear I had a while ago, and one of my good friends who works in the field confirmed it to me recently, that he's concerned he'll never meet anyone either; he told me this without me bringing it up. So, I've resorted to dating apps, but with no success. It's either scam attempts, or people who aren't mature enough to suite my interests either way. I appreciate your time hearing me out though, it's a great kindness from a stranger on the internet
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  47. Led Zeppelin though
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  48. I've seen dogs who were well aware of their fate as they approached it. As dogs reach their finality, they will go hide somewhere and perish alone. It's very sad to think about
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  49. If I may contribute a little more, Cahokia's emergence is now thought to be a result of migrations to the area and a great hodgepodge of ideas. Caddo and people from the Lower Mississippi Valley, alongside traditional Woodland peoples, coalesced and it led to a big bang. They originally likely took religious pilgrimages to the nearby Emerald Mound. What led to the big bang was likely Mound 72 and the great bead burial, which is thought to be a great performative tableau representing heroic mythological figures, so in essence, it was a reenactment of a cosmological myth that created a polity for people to stay around. The new order has a lot of original creations, as mentioned in the video, but also takes and borrows from other cultures. Either way, the hinterlands had plenty of mound and village sites, and several of these were nodes for Cahokia to reinforce authority with their architecture of power (L and T shaped buildings and circular storage/sweat lodges), holding ceremonies and rituals to bring together communities under one ideology. Pauketat makes the case that the environment changed and the steam based religion stopped functioning, leading to Cahokia changing form around 1200, building a palisade and ceasing trade to the north. Here is when Mississippian iconography really took off at the site, because before this it was uniquely Cahokian. After no longer being able to uphold their religious order and due to warfare, as well as differences in seasonality and rain that rendered the esoteric knowledge associated with them moot, people started migrating away. The brief experiment in people valuing individualized elites (a product unknowingly consented to through major mound construction most likely) gave way to the more communal values and systems of the past.
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  50. This is hilarious. Did you pull this directly from r/Atheism?
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  51.  @mashumichelle  "demonstrably" huh? First off, what do you mean by religion? Second, do you mean all religions, including Taoism, Buddhism, Stoicism, etc.? Third, how is it demonstrable? Is it the sense of community that it fosters, the philanthropic accomplishments, civic activism, the moral compass that guides behavior, or the hope and peace of mind it provides? Furthermore, I can tell you've only selectively cherry picked that which fits your own agenda, and have ignored the things you are dogmatic to. I don't have to know you personally to know how you think and what you revere; you're no different than thousands of others in the world, many of whom I've had this exact conversation. So I'll repeat the same lines I give them: all forms of epistemology and ontology have been abuses for terrible ends throughout history. Have you ever heard of Juan Gines de Sepulveda? He used philosophy from Aristotle to argue that indigenous people in the Americas should be destroyed and/or enslaved. How about someone like Herbert Spencer, Earnest Hooton, Samuel Morton, Francis Galton, Josef Mengele, and researchers all throughout the twentieth century who committed or justified all sorts of atrocities in the name of science and its advancement? How about people like Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and so many others who slaughtered millions or forced thousands to migrate out of the same anti-theist dogma that you profess? And don't even get me started on the many unprovable assumptions that are required for a belief in science in the first place... You and your likeminded echo chamber are not exempt from atrocities throughout history, and you are not exempt from the same pitfalls that all worldviews share. The fundamental problem with all of them is an assumption of superiority to the followers, and inferiority to the others. You're no different. How about that for "free thinking"?
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  52.  @mashumichelle  "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
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  53. So the Ubermensche is someone who must be an active nihilist? I see why it is something so rare
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  54. Your first problem is confounding empiricism with truth
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  55. I appreciate these types of videos on Mississippi period sites and the Mississippian culture. I've recently been fortunate enough to visit a lot of mound sites from three different time periods: Poverty Point, Mazique, Emerald, The Grand Village, and Moundville. I did some excavations for a field school at Mazique recently, staying in an antique house in Natchez. My research focuses on the greater Mississippian phenomenon, so I have read much about the major mound centers. As such, if you ever need some suggestions on literature for one of these videos, I would gladly offer some to you. I have plenty of PDFs too. I'm curious, how do you select which sites you do videos for? What makes some of these special enough, and how will you cover them (if at all) once you get the big 4 (Cahokia, Spiro, Moundville, Etowah) out of the way? Are you only doing the well-known and well-studied ones? There are so many mound centers, you could realistically spend the rest of your life covering them. Maybe that's your goal
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  56.  @ickster23  there is much that goes into it, such as what you said, bias of the observer and audience, relativism, etc. But what I was getting at was the idea that people are not "piano keys" or "organ stops," whichever wording you prefer. We are not machines, and thus can never be truly 100% rational unless we become physical machines. I hate to emphasize Hume, but it ultimately falls back on the idea that the passions guide our reason
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  57.  @bungus87  the main thing is from Notes from Underground, just the first section/part (about half of the work). It's a monologue from an intelligent man who cannot act because he always contemplates, and has become bitter about it. He describes how mathematically and rationally oriented lifestyles tend to turn towards irrationality out of spite, where they choose 2 times 2 is 5 just because they can, out of boredom, spite, and the desire for free will. He claims men aren't piano keys. Another instance, albeit less explicit, is with The Brothers Karamazov and the contradistinction between the Grand Inquisitor, the embodiment of reason, and Jesus Christ, the embodiment of freedom and love. I won't spoil that for you though, but it's something to keep in mind when you read it. The movement I was in reference to is "Post-Truth," as defined by the original poster. I think people have become disillusioned with the project of Modernity to establish the hegemony of science and reason, and thus have turned to emotions more. It is reactionary at the current state, but I think we will eventually balance out in a way similar to ancient Greece and find Sophrosyne
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  58.  @seansmith3058  I think things will balance out because people will find the two extremes to be infeasible. We have experienced the one extreme for the past few centuries in the form of pure rationality, and in reaction to that, we will likely have a little while of pure emotion (I can't estimate how long though). However, I think people will find that neither by themselves can properly explain everything about humanity and phenomenology, leading to a reconciliation where both rationality and irrationality are used simultaneously. At least, I hope this is the case, because I think both extremes can be disastrous for us. I find evidence for this stance in examining the history of political movements. Where there is an era of progressivism, it is followed by an era of traditionalism, and vice versa. I am unsure, though, if there is a balance between those two extremes, so we may just be in an endless cycle of that. If there is a golden mean, it will require a revolutionary country to set the standard for everyone else to follow on a global scale. But I digress; to summarize, I think there has been some dialectical aspect to history. Things have been like a metronome or seesaw, back and forth at different extremes. You are probably asking how this leads me to thinking a balance can be made, since this evidence tends to show the opposite. With the ancients, Reason/philosophy reigned, then with the medievals, irrationality/theology reigned (I hesitate to say "irrational" here because they did use philosophy to argue for their religions - Aquinas, Averroes, Erasmus, Calvin, were all philosophic - but they all stopped their questioning at a certain point). Now we have seen rationality/science reign, to be replaced by irrationality/post-truth. Doesn't this seem to imply that there will be no balance, and everything continues to follow the reactionary, dialectical model? Yes, it does, up to our moment and the near future. However, I cannot comprehend where the next stage will be, after Post-Truth, if it continues on this model. Perhaps this is an issue on my end then; and I would be unable to deny that possibility. What I think, though, is that we will have seen the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, that reason is too powerful a tool not to use and that irrational intuitions serve their purposes as well, and decide that we cannot return to any of the ways of the past in their entirety, as a whole extreme by itself. We will not be able to embrace philosophy alone once again, nor religion alone. That leaves two options then: forge a new way of understanding beyond rationality and irrationality, or to combine the two. I cannot think of what the former might be, so the latter seems the only real solution. There are a whole lot of thoughts I have on the "hows" of this approach. One is the structuring of the psyche, like in Plato's Republic, except a Venn diagram perhaps, and a reintroduction of telos and teleology. One is using Nietzsche's approach and making each man master of himself (which could be post-truth to an extent too. I also have a very big hang up with this approach, but that's another topic). But I think the most fitting would be something from Dostoevsky: to be able to combine impulse or instinct with prudence, solving the existential, intellectual, and free-choice anxiety that the Underground Man suffers. In other words, to make each person both a man of thought and a man of action.
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  59. I think the most important thing to know about this book is that even though Nietzsche asks, "Why not untruth?" he does not claim there is no truth, because the very purpose of the book is to show the truth. Plus, isn't the will to power a claim to a universal objective truth?
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  60.  @joeltunnah  "it's not real capitalism"
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  61.  @mashumichelle  tips fedora
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  62. This doesn't even touch all the scientific dogmas. There are some even more fundamental than this. For instance, the belief in linear time, progress, cause and effect, empiricism, and the ordered cosmos (delving into technique and mechanical stuff which the speaker touches on)
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  63. These people were trying to come up with reasons why they were uncomfortable and had bad examples, as Sandel showed. The real reason why AI makes us uncomfortable is simple: it isn't human.
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  64. "How's it feeeel Socrates? To be a bitch..."
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  65. If evil can be reduced to what causes suffering, then there are natural, abiotic forces that are evil, e.g., hurricanes, volcanoes, etc. And if we apply it to people, the field of medicine causes suffering as well in the hopes of a higher end goal. Growth is built off of overcoming suffering, such as when completing goals, lifting weights, etc.
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  66.  @TS111WASD  that's hella ironic considering that Augustus would flaunt his power to the Senate and the people
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  67. He did cover Cahokia
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  68. Based lol
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  69. Acting as if violence and warfare isn't something just as common, both in the archaeological record and in other animals. Like Andrewism says at the beginning, humans both create and destroy. They're capable of the most charitable acts, while at the same time being capable of genocide. Both are just as natural
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  70. Paraphrasing Dostoevsky: "people don't want freedom, they only want to be fed." A key component of having freedom is taking action into one's own hands. Nobody here does that. Nobody here is ready for freedom. We are all weak men. Perhaps in a generation or so, strong men will come about and flip the hourglass back over... Or perhaps, like in ancient Rome, the Republic will gave way to an empire. We think things are totalitarian now...
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  71. Perhaps humility and self criticism are the cause of looking outward for approval
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  72. and the damn dogs in Demons Souls. I would prefer to fight nearly anything on this list over them
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  73. There are so many factors that influence aging, there's no way we'll figure it out in our lifetimes
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  74. That's the project of modernism, to make heaven on earth
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  75.  @Dungeon-uh4ph  are you suggesting that Christianity is why we don't glorify violence, and its absence is why the Greeks did?
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  76.  @Dungeon-uh4ph  I don't even remember to be honest with you. I know it's built off of someting Nietzsche wrote though
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  77. This video is somniferous to say the least...I think the info is interesting, but my gosh its so boring and monotone
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  78. We don't lack virtue, it's that we have changed what the word virtue means, and now it is something altogether lower and different from ages past. It's just one of the consequences of democracy
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  79. For one, you can't prove that it's a lie. But also, is truth better than a noble lie?
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  80.  @stillawake76  if the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, you made the claim that it's untrue. So prove it
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  81.  @stillawake76  a key aspect of scientific positivism is falsifiability. But I'm just going with what you yourself said, that the burden of proof lies on the person making a claim. So prove your claim that religion isn't true. Unless you are now starting to go against the very principle you mentioned earlier out of inconvenience?
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  82.  @stillawake76  you made the claim. Defend it. If you walk up to someone and claim they're lying, and when they ask you for proof and you can't provide it, all it does is make you look like a fool. Any claim requires evidence. Or is it a double standard where it only applies to religion?
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  83.  @TheMrfrodough  noble lies do indeed exist. Plato's Republic examines them in detail. We live with tons of them. For example, that we have unalienable human rights. While truth is valuable, it can also be harmful. If one were to live happily, I would argue that less knowledge would be better.
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  84. It's interesting that this interpretation seems to respond to Buddhist philosophy. Desire is suffering, never being satisfied is suffering and an unfulfilling life, according to that lifestyle. However, Nietzsche seems to propose that these never ending and ever growing desires are the root of greatness. Which wins out in the end, or which does experience tell you is more correct?
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  85. "Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god" -Aristotle. Humans are social creatures. We are born into a community, we exist first as a name among other names, and are dependent on others not only for sustenance, but for psychological needs as well. You cannot tone out the opinions of others; it is not natural for your species. Ostracism and exile have been means of punishment for a reason. Look no further than our ape relatives to see we are meant to live in communities, and have evolved behaviors to suit the group. These cherrypicked philosophical quotes will lead you into the deepest nihilism and solipsism, the great destroyers of the western worldview
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  86. You had me until the very end. This video proliferates the mind-body dualism, when in reality, they are not separate. Memories, and even consciousness itself, are not solely stored within the brain. Memories are forged through interactions, through bodily habits, in materials. These things shape us in our process of becoming, but as the brain deteriorates, it ruins the ability to make and recall such connections and relations. There is no need to reduce it to a solipsist nightmare; it is plenty terrifying on its own. Of course, there are many types of forgetting and remembering, but the large-scale erasure that comes from dementia is the one most problematic. What I hope is that life does not fulfill a potential irony and give me dementia, when I have built my career on studying remembering and forgetting.
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  87. So where does all the matter go once it expands, and how does the matter accumulate to form another big bang?
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  88. No, it's awesome
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  89. This whole idea of people as individuals is a modern development, used to justify classical liberalism. There is no way humans were individuals by nature; look at our relatives, the monkeys and apes, who live in groups. What evolutionary advantage would there have been to leave these groups and become individuals? People were parts of groups and communities for most of human history, being Spartans, Israelites, Romans, Persians, Christians, etc. Not until Locke and the enlightenment did the narrative start changing, when thinkers began using the "individual by nature" as a means of arguing for individual rights and freedoms. Perhaps only now are we starting to see the facade of liberalism and individualism collapse because they contradict our nature
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  90. Science is a religion
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  91. ​ @thstroyur those numbers are only contrivances of the human mind anyways. And there are times where, out of sheer spite or will, resistance is given to these essentialized, naturalized narratives like this
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  92. There is an entire manual on mental illnesses. The only differences in them are how they are expressed within different cultural contexts
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  93.  @Alex-hu5eg  is this channel not telling you what to think?
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  94. @Uncle Flotsam I'm not even going to address anything you said because no thought was put into any of it, it's completely wrong, and unrelated
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  95.  @davidhall9273  your conception of totalitarianism is heavily favoring only one ideology and not its full breadth. You're attacking "Bernie Bros" and what you've been told of Marxism from the Cold War era propaganda. I've been talking about fascism, which is completely different in every regard. But I can address this topic as well if you would like.
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  96.  @davidhall9273  communes and totalitarianism are antithetical. The constitution originally had constraints to limit the threat of totalitarianism from the only source it could come from in America, but then the 17th amendment was passed. The fact of the matter is that American society has been tyrannical since it has been united as one nation. What is the tyranny I'm in reference to? That of the majority. It's the topic that James Madison spent the most time addressing in the Federalist Papers, and it's something the average person (you) does not think about. You have never been free. Alexis de Tocqueville provides an excellent explanation on how majority tyranny destroys the soul of any free thinking person, making it worse than any dictatorship that merely harms the physical body. Your thinking is too narrow. You've zoomed in to focus on Red vs. Blue and not the bigger picture. It's laughable that you try to claim that I "can't see what others can," but I would gladly take my position outside of the herd, outside of the cave, if it means I have a better perspective on how things really are
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  97. @Uncle Flotsam I'm not wasting my time on the wilfully ignorant
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  98. You should do one for Chester Stone
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  99. In the UFC, it's admirable to finish fast, but when I do it, women don't stay around long smh my hips
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  100. Why should I conquer these natural things? Is it not human to experience them just as well?
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  101.  @Tehz1359  in sections 240 and 241, he discusses Wagner's nationalism and how he disagrees with it, instead advocating for a united Europe. Edit: section 242 is when he predicts the democratization of Europe and uniformity. This whole section is called "Peoples and Fatherlands"
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  102.  @Tehz1359  I'm not sure how much he advocates for it as much as he predicts it to happen. It seems that he thinks this total democratization will occur and then the great philosopher will spring from it and create a more aristocratic order
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  103. It was interesting to hear the discussion about disgust and society. Haidt mentions that he became aware of the idea through anthropology, and that's where I've become acquainted with it as well. The concept of liminality and purity is a strong theme found in a lot of different ethnological works, which means they're a core part of all these civilizations and cultures being studied. The discussion about it in our society was really great too because we don't think about these things often. Perhaps there is much to be explored on the topic, particularly how these ideas were formed and how early in the civilization process that they became institutionalized.
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  104. Don't forget Albania! 🇦🇱
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  105. The great thing about comment sections of videos of this type are the accumulation of faux free thinkers. The googling of relevant quotes and the echo chamber of ideas would lead one to think that perhaps if so many people are so inclined towards thinking there is a problem in the world, that at least one would go about seeking a change. However, that has not been the case. Why is that? Why do the people preaching "dangerous freedom over peaceful safety" in the comments live by the latter in all circumstances except the anonymous comment section on YouTube? Because they know it a lie; these weakest of men, these Last Men, embody nothing more than what the Grand Inquisitor preaches in the Brothers Karamazov - bread and circus for their peace. These so-called free thinkers preach from their pulpit, but when they are challenged to come forth and practice what they preach, none dare step forward. They are sheep in their own accord, where joining a herd and following is easy, but creating their own or becoming a shepherd is outside of their capabilities. They will speak in unison with their group, as seen in these comments, but will not do so when the cards are on the table. Am I to derive hope from these comments, seeing people profess their concerns? Or despair, knowing they will neither take action nor formulate ideas outside of the anonymity of YouTube? To the topic at hand then: the conflict of utilitarian morality and the western liberal metanarrative. How strange it is, first, that both of our contemporary conceptions of these ideas originated in England. To take a page from both Aristotle and Marx, it appears that democracy and liberal thought forged the weapons that would be their undoing. To clarify the two positions, for those very few who will read this: utilitarian morals seeks the most good for the most people, knowing that not everyone can be satisfied. So if 51% of people derive benefit from an action but 49% do not, then the utilitarian view would follow through with said action for the "common good." Liberalism, on the contrary, values each and every individual as equals, personified by the motto "a good soldier never leaves a man behind." When practical politics come into play, the liberal perspective runs into pitfalls. How is it that you can satisfy every individual equally? The only way is by unanimity. However, we all know this is not feasible. The amount of time taken to continuously compromise to satisfy everyone would be the death knell of the government itself. In other words, is the soldier really good if he goes to save one comrade and ends up jeopardizing and killing the entire platoon? If one who is dogmatic to liberalism were to ponder on this issue for longer, they would also come to the horrifying realization that we have been living under utilitarianism the whole time. Democracy in itself is utilitarianism incarnate; for aren't the majority the only ones who see the benefits of such a system? To allude to Rousseau, the general will decides what is good for it, and everyone else is "forced to be free." Furthermore, such provisions are the established goals of the US government, as established in the preamble of the constitution: "promote the general welfare." The one rebuke that will undoubtedly be bleated to no end is: "Look at how collectivism caused such destruction in the 20th century; it will never work!" There are several rebuttals to this claim. One is, if the liberal system were perfect, why did we see (and continue to see) people attempt to be rid of it? You may retort "because people are ambitious and power-hungry." Nay, they have seen through a flawed system, or were part of the minority group that did not reap the benefits of the liberal system, and instead seek something more just, or more effective. Another rebuttal is the issue of overcoming dogma. The West has dogmatically accepted liberalism, rights, and individuality for centuries. Where can one find any rights in nature? There was license perhaps. Where have we ever seen humans, or even primates or hominids, ever live as individuals? They have always been a part of a community. So why is there such reverence for the falsehoods of liberalism? Because it has been ingrained, and it makes the individual feel important. So when there were attempts to shed the yoke, of course there was resistance. The last rebuttal I will mention is the flaw of using the words "can't" or "won't." Just because something has not worked, does not mean it cannot or will not work. When you were learning to ride a bike and fell off, scraping your knees and elbows, did you forever give up on learning? Even then, one only has to take a quick glance at history to see that there have been collectivist, utilitarian regimes with success, some we call the greatest civilizations in history: Sparta and Rome. One can not help but to look in awe at the Horatii and be envious of their civic nationalism, or their devotion to a higher cause that gives them purpose. These things are not found in liberal societies, lest those in these comments would have already taken the role of Brutus. Just so this little sheep is not left out of its herd, here is my pertinent, researched (but sadly not via Google) quote on the topic: "... a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 1
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  106. There is always an unfounded assumption at the core of thought. What would make one any better than another?
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  107.  @foreverbooked2964  you really believe that? That's blind faith if I've ever seen it. You profess a scientific ideal, but that is rarely how it is actually practiced. Hypotheses themselves are conclusions. Scientific work starts with a conclusion, then showcases evidence for that conclusion. However, they never showcase failures, cherry picking what they publish and portray to the public. Additionally, the very topics scientists research and what methods they use are the result of cherry picking. The only difference for them is that it isn't subconscious, but actually conscious. And by the way, the only thing that distinguishes a hypothesis and a theory are how many people accept it. If the majority of scientists agree on a hypothesis, it arbitrarily becomes a theory. If we apply the same concept to all people as a whole, belief in God has been extremely popular throughout history, which would have made it an accepted hypothesis, and thus, a theory.
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  108.  @foreverbooked2964  and everything you have typed tells me you are disconnected from the scientific reality. The entire postmodern movement established these very critiques. And today, every scientific field is having a crisis of replication. You either are, or choose to be, ignorant of these problems because you esteem science as an infallible thing, the same way a religious person considers their faith and God infallible
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  109.  @foreverbooked2964  replication is the core to the scientific method. If studies cannot be replicated, the validity of your esteemed method is questionable, and its results no longer valuable. Call it whatever name you like, but it is deeply flawed, and differs starkly from the ideal you were taught in high school
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  110.  @foreverbooked2964  the scientific method is not necessarily the issue, you are right. But the idea of starting with a question is an incorrect one. The scientific method is a cycle, not a linear progression, as much as it is conveyed that way as a heuristic. You can start anywhere within the process and then complete the circle. This leaves open the possibility of both inductive and deductive reasoning. For this reason, a question is never the starting point. It is almost always an observation that occurs first, after which a hypothesis is formed to explain that phenomena. This is why null hypotheses are rarely accepted in academic writings. All it becomes is inference, and it is in no way objective. Every aspect of it is subject to the bias of the scientist, and cherry picked to fit their explanations
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  111. The painting was just called "The Lisa" until I got ahold of it 🔥🔥
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  112. Instead of guns, it's knives and hammers. You aren't fixing anything
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  113.  @MrDrProfessorSir962  I didn't think that "critical thinking" meant repeating the popular opinion, but I suppose you know more about it than I do. It's easy for an adult to kill a room full of kids if they really want to, no matter what tool, especially when the police doesn't do their job. I'll point again to the case in Japan where a hammer was used for the same purpose. People in this comment section and on social media are looking to fix the proximate cause, not the ultimate cause. Banning ARs is just a bandaid over the real problem, and not to mention that it's a slippery slope. What next, do we ban hammers too? Knives? Trucks? Rocks? Bare hands? Plus, are you so easily convinced to hand over your only defense against the police state? You offer no solution, just a level of comfort, until the next event occurs, then you'll cry to ban whatever tool is used then too. It's a pity that the masses can't fathom that violence is in human nature...
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  114.  @turtlesauce482  I try to tell myself that. Those are issues, but I wonder if the good parts outweigh the bad. I doubt I'll ever find someone with absolutely no red flags
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  115.  @netsherrera7193  could you elaborate on the impacts you think this would have?
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  116.  @turtlesauce482  it's easy to tell myself that for sure. In reality, I'm not certain. I'm about to get into a male dominated field, and I'm not the type to go to bars or parties to meet people. I considered this my last hope
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  117.  @StevenSanchez_95  say I do travel to one of these places. Then what?
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  118.  @joseph6243  as an update on everything, things have actually taken a very unexpected turn for the better. She and I have begun hitting it off; we actually slept together Saturday night. So, maybe my perseverance has paid off
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  119. This is an intriguing perspective, but I can't help but to think that you portray ethnocentrism
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  120. The only issue I have is with pride being the end goal. Pride is something that is dependent on others; it requires someone else to realize it. To be proud of something, even oneself, means that a) this object reached a standard established by an other, and/or b) that someone else actualizes that pride (i.e. it is shown off/celebrated by someone else). Imagine a hypothetical person who lived without any other human contact for their entire lives; would they take pride in anything they do? This is an issue that Rousseau tackles in his works, especially the two discourses, if anyone is interested. I agree with the premise, that creativity is a tool to reach human purpose, but I think the end goal would be self actualization, autonomy, and productivity (i.e. producing something with your own hands that yields results that you can enjoy, such as planting a garden and enjoying the food from it), rather than pride, which would be a byproduct.
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  121. Perhaps their reality itself is a lie
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  122.  @mashumichelle  that's why you repeat the same old tired lines, like part of a hive mind?
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  123.  @mashumichelle  you're no exception. Humans are mimetic. You've read one Karl Marx quote and seen all the edgy BS on the internet, and followed that same mindset. Nothing you have said is original or indicates free though
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  124. This might be the first evaluation of nationalism I've seen to not use Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. That may be a good thing. I've also been taught that nations formed with the Peace of Westphalia in the 16th century. We can also see Machiavelli preaching nationalism in his works during the same century, wanting to unite Italy. Some form of tribalism is natural, but nationalism is its biggest form
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  125. Jesus Christ I want to see comments related to the video, not "I don't like sports" or " muh ShAnE!!1!1!"
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  126. Interesting that JP brings up that attention/intention is a value judgment, using science as an example. This is a very postmodern critique, which I thought he was repulsively against
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  127. This deals only with discursive, intentional lies to the self that then become believed as truth. It does not factor in the unconscious lies, the ones we are not aware of, the ones that actually structure our existence and allow for the other types of lies. Our memories and conceptions about ourselves and the world, all misrememberings, incorrect assumptions that we know no better about. No matter what one does, there is no escaping from them
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  128. Plato, Aristophanes, and Xenophon all wrote about Socrates. There are plenty of sources to pull from to get an image of the man, if he existed. Otherwise, he symbolized something that all three people viewed differently, and it somehow caused Plato to form the academy outside of Athens
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  129. Clarence Webb and David DeJarnette checked out that region prior to the TVA building dams, finding some paleo sites
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  130. Not necessarily, it just depends on the time period and the soil preservation. Archaic peoples used bone and stone often. It would make sense that earlier peoples did too
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  131. Humans are not rational
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  132.  @romanr1592  no, you say humans are rational actors, when they aren't. Humans aren't machines. Also, regulatory mechanisms don't exist as a form of government, but as cultural norms and values. It's impossible to not have these things. But it is not a result from a state, which means it does fit with anarchism at its most bare bones
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  133.  @romanr1592  you've got this idea that anarchism somehow means licentiousness, or acting without any sort of regulation period. That's not at all what it means; it only seeks to place human life back into a context without a state, no more, no less. If you were to look up each form of anarchism, they each have some way to make decisions and to guide life. However, power is always back into the hands of the people directly in one form or another. I already acknowledged in my previous reply that it's impossible for humans to live in such a way as to not have values, customs, mores, etc. that guide their living. Plus, there will always be the laws of physics and logic that govern all things. This idea you've got in your head is not accurate to anarchism. And yes, customs and majorities can be just as tyrannical as any state potentially, but they also leave room for a more beneficent approach as well. I fail to see how my stating that humans are not rational does not prove my case, or how it applies to my case whatsoever. The major ideologies of our time, Marxism, Capitalism, and Science, view humans as acting in rational self interest, or homo economicus. Game theory assumes the same thing, otherwise you would have no basis to infer human behavior on. The thing is, people are apt to do things that are harmful, or picking things that would be less beneficial than the alternatives. For instance, why am I here, typing this out to you, when I could be reading for my thesis? The cost-benefit analysis approach would make everyone act as a machine. But as Dostoyevsky says, men are not keys to a piano. These theories do not factor in fun, play, emotions, ADHD, procrastination, religious fervor, or whatever else may guide people away from their material benefit. In truth, humans are not so predictable, and any theory that seeks to oversimplify human behavior fails to acknowledge the irrationality inherent within, simply because it's not always possible to predict it. So when you want to predict that anarchism will always fail because someone will act in rational self interest and seize power, you first must assume that it would be in their interest at all to attain power, much less that it would even be beneficial, especially since societies without states had levelling mechanisms to prevent such things from occurring, and the values to back it up.
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  134.  @romanr1592  human rights are a product of the liberal worldview, provided by governments and used as a means of colonialism and globalism. I shed no tears for losing any of those things you mentioned. Self sufficiency is the way human existence was meant to be. Living in the lap of luxury has only allowed us to gaze into the abyss, and flirt with armageddon. It has led to the proliferation of horrific events throughout history. Our species evolved to live a semi-sedentary, communal lifestyle. We are still suffering through not being adapted to a technical and automated environment, and it causes a plethora of health issues. Yet, technology and societies advance, but the human remains the same, faced with a world in which they cannot achieve a higher purpose or happiness, alienated from such concepts. Perhaps my form of anarchism is more conservative than someone like Andrewism because I hold human rights to be utter fabrications and nonsense, just another form of bourgeois ideology. Instead, I let the facts of existence speak for themselves, bleak as it may be for our civilization. We must either evolve into something beyond humans through scientific and technological means, return to our evolved and natural state of being through a great sacrifice of luxuries, or face a slow and crippling doom. Only the latter seems plausible. You didn't ask for such a tirade, but it's 3am and I'm in the New York state of mind
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  135.  @romanr1592  there's nothing more brutal than the atrocities we saw in the 20th century. Nor have we evolved to be discontent - you attribute modern qualities to humans of the past. Western civilization has existed for a mere 5000 years or so; that is just a blink of an eye on the evolutionary scale. The human of today looks almost identical to the humans back then, yet the cultures do not. The idea of property has not always existed, and is just a fabrication of our culture. The idea of progress is something we have only seen in the past 500 years, and look at the damage it has caused. None of this is fantasy; there are psychological and biological articles aplenty about the evolutionary mismatch with the current environment. Should it not be a person's imperative to acknowledge this and postulate attempts at reconciliation? Is it worse to be dragged back into the woods, or to be dragged into oblivion?
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  136.  @romanr1592  communes are what anarchists propose. You act as if there wouldn't be any means of propping up those with ill health or whatever. And people wouldn't kill themselves in such a lifestyle as much as they do working 12 hour days for 6 days per week now, just to scrape by.
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  137.  @romanr1592  showing how much you don't know about such communities then. It's not asking people to stop using technology, and even without such tools, people did not work as much 200 years ago as they do now; and that's not even looking at hunter-gatherer societies that worked even less
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  138. Do you think this aspect of individual mimetic desire can be translated and abstracted into a general theory of practice that can explain culture? That is really what my interest in it is.
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  139. To elaborate, mimicking practices are how memes, as cultural units, are spread, and how certain things become habitualized and normalized. However, mimicry is never identical, so there would be gradual changes over time to practices, due to errors in memory and reproduction. This accounts for the gradual changes in cultures. It still doesn't quite explain the punctuated changes though, the acts of revolt and anti-mimetic stuff that is novel and an example of ingenuity. Maybe that can simply be seen as a revolt, or maybe even something dialectical
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  140. Spoken like someone who has never gone to college
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  141.  @oldgysgt  do tell, how many philosophy and political science courses did you take for your drafting degree? And how many did your friend take for computer science?
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  142. Ah, but that "safety" point can be manipulated very easily. It can turn into an oppressive force quickly, and is often the excuse used for enforcing measures
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  143.  @FoxyFemBoi  unless, of course, that person wanted to get hit. Then by tackling them, you have removed their autonomy. Either way, by preventing such an action, you impede on freedom. If the child wants to stick their finger on a hot stove, let them; they won't do it again. Alexis de Tocqueville spends many a page discussing a democratic and free approach to society, versus a more authoritarian but quickly built society, i.e. telling or ordering people instead of letting them find out through experience. Though it may prove more dangerous and take a longer time to develop for the former, it always is ultimately the better approach. That being said, this doesn't mean I want to let a child unknowingly kill themselves. Rousseau provides a good example of how to do this in Emile
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  144.  @FoxyFemBoi  so how does being depressed remove autonomy? Who determines that? Are you saying that people with mental health issues should not have agency? Isn't treating people with mental health issues differently reinforcing the hierarchy of "normal" people? Furthermore, you want to tie autonomy into rationality; in other words, you think someone only is allowed autonomy when they are capable of rationally making decisions. Who determines when that is? I further challenge you and ask: how often are we actually rational? Or are we more inclined to act on gut impulse and then rationalize our decisions afterwards? And is hyperrationality good in the first place? To add on one more thing as an edit here: the "competency" thing of an expert is an appeal to authority fallacy, is it not? Plus, that line of thinking only applies if the expert has our best interest in mind, but how can we prove that? Is it fair to just assume they always do? Lastly, if a community imposes their will to inhibit individual autonomy, that is no better than living under a dictator. Tyranny is tyranny, no matter if it's from one person or from many. Majoritarian democracy is just as bad, if not worse, than a dictatorship. Going against the social mores is damaging to the soul and suffocates any individual thinking or behavior, whereas going against a dictator harms the flesh but allows individual thinking. Alexis de Tocqueville discusses this plenty in Democracy in America. So is it really an anarchist society if 51% of the community does something the other 49% doesn't agree to? If my community all agree to go lynch someone and I am the only one who disagrees, am I somehow obligated to follow the crowd?
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  145.  @FoxyFemBoi  dogmatic to democracy, are we? If you refuse to see how letting a majority run rampant is a detriment, there's no point in arguing. Do you want autonomy or not? The only way you get autonomy in a majoritarian democracy is if you just so happen to follow the herd. Otherwise, you get ostracized and silenced, which in a democratic society, are worse than death. I have yet to do any slippery slopes. I've asked questions to test your premises. When you reply "anarchists wouldn't allow that specific example," you don't address the question of your premise. I could change the example repeatedly. The core of the issue is, should you blindly follow the majority, even if they go against your wishes? How often do mobs act rationally, since that is your standard? When it comes to trusting the experts, how far would you follow that logic? If there is someone who has studied political science and law, would you consider them an expert in said field? And if so, should we then allow them to lead because they would know how to do it better than anyone else? Again, how can we trust that experts at anything have our best interests at heart? Lastly, I fail to see the purpose of making accusations of political ideology, as if they negate arguments. Are we partaking in ad hominem? So what the founding fathers were ambivalent to democracy? Everyone prior to the red scare felt the same way. Do you think perhaps they had a reason for thinking such? The only way to prevent the majority from imposing on the majority would be to have small communities and consensus. Is it possible? Who knows anymore
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  146.  @FoxyFemBoi  I'll just tell you, I'm not consistent or coherent at all for a reason. All I've done is provide challenges
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  147. Robert Paul Wolff talks about this in his pamphlet "In Defense of Anarchism." He says that if we are to give up hope on trying to reconcile the moral autonomy of the individual and the legitimate authority of the state, it would be better to retain autonomy. Otherwise, we are no better than children, who lack dignity and can't weigh the merits of actions
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  148. How is middle school going?
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  149.  @ickster23  I don't mean any sort of animosity by asking further questions, but to simply challenge your values. Why is being more emotional necessarily a bad thing? Can we look at the product of reasoning and rationality (at the expense of emotion) and claim that it has been unequivocally good?
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  150.  @seansmith3058  perhaps you're right that psychology could explain why people tend to have irrational behavior, but do you think there is a solution or "fix" to it? Or that there should even be an attempt to resolve irrationality?
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  151. Water is wet
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  152. Ah, "humane," one of the greatest misnomers ever created. We should of course make the standard be the creature that does the greatest evil
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  153. That's the basis of it, but people can act on their own based on learning and exposure
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  154.  @rambbler  this is just completely false. Anthropology disproves every single point you've made
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  155. This is such a large and deep topic, and I should've guessed you would narrow it down and thin it out to where it only applies to the "enemies" of democracy. Every civilization, every state, every nation is built upon lies. This is something known since Plato's Republic, shown both in the allegory of the cave and the concept of a noble lie. This is why philosophers can never be kings, and why they distance themselves from the rest of society. All politics, even democracy, is built upon lies. You and the people in the comments do not see the whole picture and think yourselves immune, to be living in the greatest era of the greatest freedom. It simply is not the case. You all do not turn the mirror to yourselves and your society to question what lies we live and accept: inalienable, universal human rights; that all men are created equal; that democracy is the best regime; that freedom and equality can coexist. If you take this approach, you will come to the conclusion that anarchism is the only form of politics that may not be built upon any lies.
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  156. In a similar manner, all systems of justice are built upon injustice. This is knowledge known at least since Machiavelli's The Prince. It takes injustice to have the desire for justice, and it takes injustice to establish and institute a form of justice. What, then, should be done about the legitimacy of such systems?
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  157. Nietzsche takes that skepticism to a new level, questioning truth and reason itself
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  158. Don't attribute that pseud to celestial alignment
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  159. And how is relying on the self any better?
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  160.  @AllAhabNoMoby  do you automatically know yourself? If so, why did people bother with placing an inscription at the temple of Apollo at Delphi with the phrase "Know Thyself"? Do you think that you can know your unconscious, your habitus? And is it possible to understand a person without first understanding their environment and upbringing, meaning that you have to know the outside to know the inside? Can you control the unconscious and intuitions? Are they not shaped by the outside world as well?
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  161.  @AllAhabNoMoby  how does knowing yourself translate to meaning and purpose?
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  162.  @AllAhabNoMoby  so do you think all people have the same purpose, since knowing thyself would lead to knowing others?
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  163. This was a pitiful discussion. JM didnt seem to address the question at all, and SP only focused on material things within western countries. So much was left on the table...
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  164. People on the internet really don't know how to listen, and make the average person who can into a saint. How touching
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  165.  @luqmaanissah1398  so then why does Nietzsche bother explaining the will to power, eternal recurrence, etc?
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  166. If democracy is intended to prevent brute force, it does a terrible job at it
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  167. So if you have to defend others' freedoms, is that a freedom you had in the first place? Your two choices are to defend others, or submit. Neither one sounds free to me
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  168.  @Shootskas  freedom is to have choice. If we don't have a choice in the matter, or if we have some half-choice like you proposed, is it really freedom?
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  169.  @Shootskas  when have I once said individual rights should be suppressed?
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  170. @Uncle Flotsam sorry that you can't understand basic English. It's not my fault though
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  171.  @Shootskas  let me paint you a scenario: Someone puts a gun to your head and states "you must either choose A or B." Would you call that freedom? The choice doesn't matter, but the fact that you are forced into choosing, and are only given two options when there is a whole alphabet, does not seem like any kind of "freedom" I would want
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  172.  @Shootskas  it's reflective of your original comment. You gave me only two options, so if that is a dumb approach to you, you can only blame yourself for supplying it
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  173.  @Shootskas  the "don't defend" option encompasses several different options. For example, removing oneself from any coercive ditution, or one could endorse the coercion even. But a third option entirely is that there is no coercion - it has either never threatened to exist, it was prevented from existing, or it was stopped after existing - in this hypothetical instance. My goal is to reiterate a point made by Jacques Ellul: if your "choices" are between living or perishing, it isn't really a choice, especially a free one, since you really only have one option. Nowhere have I endorsed anything else.
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  174.  @Shootskas  your intentions were binary yes and no, as you've made clear. You left options off the table that aren't clearly one way or the other. Since this video is concerning lies and truth, have you ever considered that your "liberties" are such lies? Are you willing to accept them because they offer some perceived benefit, while you perceive others as not?
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  175.  @Shootskas  freedom and liberty are not the same thing. Also, you straw man and put words in my mouth I never said or typed. And here I thought this comment section was full of intellectuals...
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  176. I've never picked a lock on Xbox. It's nearly impossible to rotate the stick all the way without breaking the pick. Combat is easy though
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  177. This is, in fact, how conversations work. Surprised so many people don't know that
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  178. That was indeed their purpose. It has been that way for all time, all the way back to the Iliad
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  179. But I don't understand that if every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and if there is a great chain of causation at play or the flow of atoms, what is the cause that makes the constant expansion of the universe then start to contract all the sudden, and once there is a big crunch, start to expand once more with the big bang?
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  180. So the eternal return postulated by Nietzsche. If time is truly infinite, then with an infinite amount of possibilities available, there would necessarily be an exact repeat of this life. It's like the monkey with a typewriter thought experiment, where by random chance and an infinite amount of time, a monkey randomly mashing keys would eventually type out War and Peace or some other novel.
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  181.  @MrMatthewhg  no, it was a result of the right more than anyone. People who were trying to reinstate Catholic values in the world, starting with celibacy. But it's funny to see you try and bring your nonsense into it
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  182.  @kalmmonke5037  something about the liberal agenda
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  183. All this means is that people practice the Christian morality without the Christian God. You've taken the spirit of it away, rendering it fundamentally inept and meaningless.
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  184. He's a sore loser though, and gets killed by death claws
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  185. Christianity allowed it to persist for longer, but it was due to collapse either way, just like all civilizations
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  186. The Led Zeppelin bass player?
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  187. ​@PutItAway101 no it does not. That is a massive lie, fed by propaganda if there ever was one
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  188.  @TheBoldImperator  the difference being that the Senate didn't have a good backup plan with Caesar
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  189. I'm sort of curious to see something like this happen. Maybe there would be something better developed from the ashes, like a phoenix, and if a return to nature would help bring happiness. Looking at the current situation, the US is doomed to fail at some point, maybe sooner rather than later, but perhaps it would not be such a bad thing. However, I think before that happens, there will be a period of authoritarianism, maybe even fascism, before everything else crumbles. Just like Rome
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  190. Reducing everything to utilitarian functionality is just as bad as reducing things to ritual
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  191. Ritual status is something that can be gained and removed based on how the materials are used. Sacred things may appear to be utilitarian goods from an etic perspective, think of the fine China your grandma would store away in cabinets, never to be used. Without knowing the value attached to specific materials, all we have is conjecture based on their elaborate-ness
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  192. Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Maimonides, Martin Buber, Averroes, Avicenna, and plenty others, were all unenlightened and unreasonable, you are completely right! None of them ever used logic or rationality one day in their whole lives. All they did was eat their curds and moo. You perpetuate the greatest propaganda campaign in history. Speaking of thinking for oneself....
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  193. Do we really know what was on the envelopes? Maybe they all had the draft order on them?
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  194. You'll only ger a part of the story by watching these videos. It needs to be read
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  195. @RandomUser123 because science is rooted in faith, you just choose to ignore it. For instance, it presupposes linear time, a necessary link between cause and effect, that nature is subordinate to man, that natural selection has been a guiding hand for all species, that all organisms act economically (for resources only), and that matter has always existed (much like religion notes that God has always existed). Are any of these things provable?
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  196. Would you be willing to elaborate?
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  197. I hope you do not post more videos like this. All the surface-level "thinkers" crawl from the wood works when you have posted things that verify US ideals. This video and the one about freedom and the state have thousands of comments. Yet the real philosophical works, like the ones on Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, etc. barely have 300. Every member of the herd claims himself a philosopher and above the herd.
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  198.  @roderickmathison5245  then don't interpret it literally. You don't interpret other epic poems literally. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have meaning or value
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  199. A victim of lies of religion? How does that work? And what great truth have you figured out with undeniable proof that bypasses the wisdom of thousands of years of human experience?
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  200.  @roderickmathison5245  non-theists believe in one truth: that theism is a lie/untrue. So, I ask them to prove it
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  201.  @roderickmathison5245  according to who? The onus is always on someone making a claim, no matter its substance. If you claim something is false, why should I believe you if you don't offer proof?
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  202.  @roderickmathison5245  "that's just how things are." Dogma at its finest my friend. Nobody in this video, nor myself, has made a claim that God exists. All the comments are people claiming God doesn't exist. Just like in any paper or argument, simply stating something is untrue, a lie, or doesn't exist will get you nowhere. In academic papers, if someone were to argue that the current theory is false, they would provide evidence, and then provide an alternative. You've done neither. The only argument you could even make is that you can't see or measure a God. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You can't empirically prove that society, consciousness, the unconscious, emotions, and so many other things are real. Neither can you empirically prove many of the fundamental assumptions of science, such as linear time, "progress," natural selection, or an intrinsic link between cause and effect. So why do you still believe in them?
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  203.  @roderickmathison5245  dogma to logic, my friend. Who came up with those rules? Why does everyone follow them?
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  204.  @roderickmathison5245  for one, that's not at all what science does. It's more like "huh, there's this thing that happens. I'm gonna come up with an idea about how this thing happens." Then, in an attempt to look formal, they create a "null" hypothesis where it's basically just "the negation of my theory." Then after some good old fashioned confirmation bias and data manipulation to suit their hypothesis (because getting published is all that matters), they publish their papers and it gets put into the world, never to be repeated or tested again, thus the current replication crisis. Second, the amount of staw man takes for religion is completely laughable. Of course, there has never ever been a logical or reasoned conclusion for the existence of God throughout all of history, nope, not even once. Just forget Aquinas, Augustine, Maimonides, and the plethora of other Abrahamic philosophers of the scholastic period just because it doesn't suit your argument (very fitting for a scientific person). Don't even get me started on your false equivalency either. Whenever someone proclaims a "false" idea, you don't change their mind by just yelling at them that they're wrong. Take flat earth people; they have some semblance of evidence, based on empirical observations no less. By just telling them that they're wrong and that their evidence is lacking, you accomplish nothing. That's why there is always counter evidence. Evidence is needed to prove points wrong. If I said "Carl Jung liked men," you wouldn't win an argument against me by simply stating I was wrong. You would win if you were able to provide evidence he had a wife or something similar, to which I could not rebuke. Furthermore, you make a claim, and instead of defending your claim, you simply say "provide me evidence to the contrary." That's what the entire antitheist position is based upon. You can't defend your own position. You do the very thing that theists do, yet you aren't at fault for some reason. It's both a double standard and an act of hypocrisy. In an actual debate, if people performed this tactic, it would be nothing more than a waste of time. Finally, your entire stance is built on the idea that the only knowable things of the universe are those things that are observable with human senses or machines. This concept is terribly flawed, and has been known to be so dating all the way back to Plato and possibly before. Stick a pencil in a cup of water; your senses tell you it's split in two. Walk along a road in a desert and you'll see a mirage that looks similar to water. Your eyesight is limited and can lie to you; this doesn't even consider the wavelengths of light that aren't even perceptible to humans. This applies to every one of your senses. Additionally, many things we agree exist are not perceptible. The consciousness - show me an image of it. You can't? It must not exist then. Show me proof that time exists. You can't? It must not exist. This can apply to any amount of things, but I hope you get the point, since you proclaim to be a rational free thinker. The only answer to the topic at hand is that we don't know. There's no use in pretending that we do.
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  205.  @roderickmathison5245  how so? Counter evidence is how paradigms change in science. And I agree, the onus is on the person making a claim, which means that when someone claims there is no God, they must prove it 😉
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  206.  @roderickmathison5245  my only purpose is to show that we don't know. It's impossible to be certain either way. It seems like we agree there, and that would be a good point to conclude
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  207. Modern problems create modern solutions
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  208.  @darthdadt  yeah, I have become "one who knows" because one-sided YouTube channels provide me with the truth! Not that pesky, liberal education!
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  209.  @darthdadt  of course, one such as yourself can't be indoctrinated because you watch YouTube videos! It's not the same things you learn in college at all. Of course, you must know exactly what every college is like, since you've been right?
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  210. Most orthodox anarchists are dogmatic to individualism, but do you think there is any way to preserve the benefits of a communitarian lifestyle while retaining individual autonomy? Also, do you think that ontological categories and "boxes" (i.e. dichotomies and classificatory schemes) are oppressive and anti-anarchistic?
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  211. I fear death. All I have known is my experiences and my consciousness. I cannot fathom what it would be like to not have those things, to not wake up one day to the sunshine, and that is a terrifying thought. Before anyone rails against me, yes I have had near death experiences, and yes I have been suicidal, both at very young ages. But since then, I have not grown comfortable with the idea of nothingness, but I have grown to try to distance myself from it, recognizing that I was a fool for desiring it, that there is so much worth experiencing and overcoming. WW1 didn't turn people into brave chads; it made them hopeless, valueless. They're called the Lost Generation for a reason. Why on earth you would willingly desire to put yourself through that, making yourself unable to enjoy the little pleasures and good things about living and being itself, is beyond me. Greatness and heroism are achieved through strife, and for that, you must first live, and you must first have something worth sacrificing. Your concern in this video is about something to die for, when perhaps you should examine what is worth living for. If this is truly our one and only chance to experience, don't cast it away willy nilly in pursuit of vain ideas of heroism. Of all the people who have died in battle, how many do we actually remember? Do you think those 18 year olds went out there without any fear whatsoever, or were their fears hidden and forgotten about in favor of a good story? Make your mark by influencing others; leave a lasting legacy to them not in how you die, but in how you lived.
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  212. As a response to myself, the idea of legacy itself is a Western development. There are many ways in which people seek to achieve immortality, eternity, permanence. The easiest, and one most people do, is to simply have children, to pass on your genes in a further push for eternity. Additionally, there is the creation of art, where fame can leave one's name around for eternity. Science seeks to find a very literal form of it through immortality, not too different from alchemists and the philosopher's stone. Then there are other cultures who view everything as a wheel, repeating forever, where we are to be reborn again and again, or take part in an eternal recurrence. Perhaps there is even an afterlife that our souls can live in forever, be it heaven, a spirit realm, Hades, etc. However, these things did not always exist. In ancient Mesopotamian views (including early biblical peoples), death was the end; that was it, you would turn back into dust, or sleep in the dark house of clay and dust, forever. There was no concept of legacy, permanence. You would have to turn back to ancient Greece and Egypt to find the origins of these ideas of immortality. They have stuck with us ever since, as "survivals" (in the words of Edward Burnett Tylor). It has become essentialized into our very worldview, part of our doxa. But if you really want the total view of death, you have to be aware of these things, the history of how we conceived of it. Otherwise it just sounds like an angry conservative rant about reminiscing on the good old days
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  213. Is your desired state of freedom not itself a utopia? Does that mean that if everyone had this perfect freedom, it too would create hell on earth?
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  214. So small picture, even you who claim to be wise don't see the whole landscape
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  215. How are you guys' neckbeards coming in?
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  216. Baaa
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  217. "I'm a free thinker, I don't need religion to behave." uses Christian ethics and conceptions of good behavior
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  218. ​ @dadbodenvy4247 that in itself is an ideology reinforced by a state
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