How to be smart: a guide for stupid people (or anyone trying to improve their intelligence)

This… this is why everyone hates Eisel Mazard.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3IFpHLDJlH9krIM6HCBtXy

Revolutionary Nihilism: the opposite of populist is elitist, the opposite of a public protest is a private conspiracy.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4cnRz28rv6AF2qHn71exsg

Electoral Nihilism: Trump vs Yemen, Democracy vs Tyranny.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1O2yrn2zIn1VnQi9AGq1y4

Elections, alone, do not define democracy.  This is episode 17 of Nihilism Now, but the sixteenth (all new, all different) podcast in the sequence of Active Research and Informed Opinion. (AR+IO-016)

Jordan Peterson is not a genius: brain damage, bible bashing and scientific racism.

The old "equal opportunity" vs. "equality of outcomes" conundrum.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/67NydSkxVaGW09sD5l6Qc4

To outdo Ovid in exile.

Seneca, Cicero and Ovid complain about exile, but I have a better claim to being on a desert island than any of them: Seneca attempted to describe Corsica as a frozen wasteland, BUT Y'KNOW, REALLY...

Prostitution in Principle, Pornography in Practice: the Philosophy and Politics of OnlyFans.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3csbkt25CquZpkqdvhynXd

Of Men and Marsupials.

The satirical rap song being alluded to, below, appears at 1:16 

in the compilation video, above.

Hi, I want to ask you about your current position on Israel. Some people on Reddit accuse you of all kinds of things, racism etc. You made videos about it in the past, but what is your current position on Israel?

—————

You certainly must be a very wise and intelligent person to believe what you're told on Reddit!

How could I possibly provide you with better information than the complete fiction that is invented about me (out of sheer malice and fervid imagination) by a circle of imbeciles who are incapable of understanding the most clearly written, or clearly spoken text?

In fact... YOU should be the one TELLING ME what I think... on the basis of this research you've been doing on Reddit!  I'd be delighted to know!

—————

No, obviously I'm not believing what some of the assholes on Reddit say. It's just that you've ignored the topic for so long, that they can spread accusations of racism, Islamophobia and so on about you.

It's also possible that your positions on Israel changed over the war. My positions certainly did a lot.

—————

What do you mean, "for so long"?

Have you counted the number of days since I uploaded a statement about Israel?

I was talking about it right up until my YouTube channel was deleted 

and I've continued talking about it "now".

I have a question for you, my non-mentally-disabled friend: have you read the (U.K.) parliamentary report on the October 7th massacre?

Quite a page turner.  And it is a PDF, so you can search for key terms as you please, etc.

—————

What's up with the vitriol? It's not me who is accusing you of anything.

It's been almost 6 months since your channel deletion and I haven't heard you say anything recently about it.

The report sounds interesting. I will take a look.

—————

Look, you marsupial pretending to be a man: I talk to people who are my equals because they've done the work to be my equals —and they've paid the price to be treated as my equals.

Have you written an article on the topic?  With your real name and face on it?  Have you made a YouTube video or a podcast on the topic?  How about a satirical rap song?

I have done all this and more: if you were writing to me as someone who has done real research (under one heading or another) then I could respect you as an equal to some extent (under one heading or another) and if you had undertaken the work of a creative artist (with the risk that comes along with it) I could respect you in a very different way.

Have you heard my satirical rap song about the current conflict in Israel?  (Set to the tune of "My Name Is" by Eminem.)  Have you attempted to make something better yourself?  And, again, not anonymously: with your real name attached to it, etc.

You write to me anonymously as someone stupid enough to enjoy the company of your fellow quadrupeds in that Reddit forum, and I despise you (in your anonymity) accordingly.

—————

Wow. Maybe you are a pitbull pretending to be man.

Just how much anger have you bottled up that it immediately erupts from the smallest interactions you have with anyone?

—————

It's not anger: I've got minimum standards you'd need to live up to for me to make the time to talk to you.  I've paid the price to be this nice.  Either you have or you haven't.

Get on my level or get the fuck out of here.

If you're stupid enough to need help in interpreting my position on (1) Israel or (2) racism (even given my uploads within the last few days) then you're too close to a coelacanth on the evolutionary spectrum for me to help you.

The video with Kanye West in the thumbnail from the last few days: does that leave a whole lot of unanswered questions in your mind as to why exactly allegations of racism exist against me, and how stupid you'd have to be to take the ruminant animals of Reddit seriously on this subject?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5W0pO9Rs1AZPoIWwQ3JSye

I'm not anonymous: why are you?

I know what it's like to live the consequences of having your real name attached to your political positions, publicly: either you do, too, or you don't.

—————

I'm not taking the opinions of these Redditors seriously.

The podcast seems to be a re-upload of your older videos, and I just wanted to know if something changed in the meantime, that's all.

—————

In your mind, do you think you've answered any of my questions?

—————

Of course not, not every question is really worth answering.

But if you insist, the reason I don't want to be public on the internet is because of people like you, who would gladly abuse this for doxxing and personal insults.

—————

You're wrong: the reason why you're not a public intellectual is because YOU'RE NOT AN INTELLECTUAL.

The reason why you're not offering anything of substance to the public (or to me, as a member of your audience) is that YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER.

And that is why I'd never have a conversation with you about Israel.  You are nothing and nobody, going nowhere.  And I'm sure you have a delightful hobby spending time with the people on Reddit who are of such high moral caliber (compared to myself) that they'd never engage in doxxing or personal insults.

[Note that (in his reply, below) he fails to understand the very clear meaning of this very short paragraph, above, although English seems to be his first language: no matter how low my expectations are, I continue to be astonished at this kind of "thematic misapprehension".]

Whatever you've done with the last five years of your life: really ask yourself why I would respect it.  It's easier for me to respect someone like Nina and/or Randa, who have at least undertaken the work to create SOMETHING, no matter how rebarbative and risible.  It's easier for me to respect someone like Totally Forkable who has at least attempted to comment on news and politics, with her name and face attached to it, even if she is at the pitiable level of playing checkers and pretending it's chess.

Really ask yourself why you'd be someone I choose to spend the time (and effort) discussing the politics of Israel with.  That is a question worth asking.

If you were an intellectual, you'd be a public intellectual.  And you'd endure the uncomprehending stares of marsupials from amidst the trees, as I do.

—————

This is so funny. You don't even want to deny that you would engage in doxing and personal insults with public info of mine. This is really not high moral caliber, as you pretend, it's the bare minimum.

Sure, I'm a nobody, why would I deny that. And yet, somehow you got into your head the idea that you are not a nobody. It doesn't really matter if you respect me.

It also doesn't really matter if you don't want to talk about Israel with me, just say so and be done with it. The reason why you could choose to talk to me is because I'm available and you don't really have anything better to do, despite your pretensions.

—————

There has never been an example of my having doxxed anyone.

[I do not pause to explain to him the paragraph he could neither understand the denotation nor the connotation of: fewer and fewer people take pride in their ability to write well, but (sadly) even fewer seem to care about being able to read well, as this is a private rather than public virtue —the ensuing combination of self-importance and semi-literacy creates the illusion of autism being far more widespread than it is.  People seem autistic when they utterly misunderstand a paragraph like that, and then insist on punishing you for their misunderstanding (a problem that was endemic to the vegan movement, I might add!).]

Re: "Sure, I'm a nobody, why would I deny that."

You should be a somebody: you should have ambitions.

Re: "And yet, somehow you got into your head the idea that you are not a nobody."

I am precisely the person who made that satirical rap song: that is "somebody" enough for me.  I am precisely the person who wrote Future of an Illusion, etc. —and if you had accomplished something similar in the last five years, you'd be a somebody, too —and I'd be sincerely interested in talking to you.

Do you suppose you would be sending me these messages if I were a nobody, just like you?

Re: "It also doesn't really matter if you don't want to talk about Israel with me..."

It matters.  It matters a great deal.  I'm sure that such a conversation and the friendship it could lead to would be very meaningful and important to the both of us.

Perhaps in the next five years you could become the kind of person who would be worth talking to —and worthwhile for me to be friends with.

Or perhaps not.

"The reason why you could choose to talk to me is because I'm available and you don't really have anything better to do, despite your pretensions."

Alas, that is where you're mistaken: it is you (not I) who has nothing better to do.

[End.]

The Triumph of the Will, the Tragedy of the Will, the Philosophy of the Will: Social Darwinism, Schopenhauer, George Bernard Shaw, etc.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ISXY2GotIy97dRhUS3pb4

How could you possibly require a synopsis after such a long title? ;-)

This is episode 14 of Nihilism Now, but also the 15th episode of the separately numbered sequence (across many podcasts) of Active Research and Informed Opinion. (AR+IO-015)

The Critique of Sam Harris, Hallucinogenic Drugs, Hinduism, Meditation and Pseudo-Skepticism.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2bnXU9A6lqYBGMqSMnnsE9

This is Episode 13 of Nihilism Now, a podcast about the politics of atheism (and the importance of atheism in politics) from a nihilist perspective. You may also want to take a glance at my other podcast, Brand New Ancient Buddhism.

Nihilism: the only religion you can believe in, the only philosophy you can live by.

Episode 12 of Nihilism Now: Politics After Atheism.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7LsU7pYlvEqO58tKYU6hb7