[Youtuber "the Unrepentant Atheist" writes in:]
You need to work. We all need to work.
The Soviet's had one thing right - everyone works. Many people sat around in sham jobs - true - but everyone had to get out of their flats and go into work.
I would feel a horrible sense of moral degradation not doing actual real work and being necessary.
What you are doing on youtube is not work. You are using it as a vehicle to project yourself. You do not get anything like what can be described as a proper salary
People need me - they need the stuff I sell. I know that. They come to me for help and in return I get paid for that. I get satisfaction from this and it gives structure to my day. I have work time - I have leisure time. When I start to feel exhausted from work. Then I excercise - or read - make you tube videos.
If all I had was my youtube channel - I would be depressed.
You have skills - find an actual real job. Melissa too. I am sure your lives will improve.
Alex also does not work even though he makes good money. Him, Matt - you can see how youtubers are degrading. All of them leading useless lives. Nobody needs their you tube bullshit - and nobody needs mine - or yours.
I won't degrade because I do actual real work. I pay VAT and tax to the government out of my sales. I am making a contribution.
This idea of living on inherited money. The soviets put an end to it but it's a disease here in the modern world now. It protects people from the essential human need to work. Don't be a parasite on money earned by others. Make your own bread.
You said it yourself - being a youtuber for 10 years has made you an old man.
You know I am right - no more excuses - get out and find a job.
[And my reply:]
Stuart,
> You need to work. We all need to work.
Oh no, Stuart, that's where you're mistaken.
> I would feel a horrible sense of moral degradation not doing actual real work and being necessary.
You should have that looked into: sounds like a diagnosable condition.
Now tell me, honestly, if you can set this passive-aggressive, defensive-offensive posturing aside: do you not think there is something EVER SO SLIGHTLY PATHETIC in finding your only source of "being necessary" in the earning of money?
You mean to tell me that you, for example, in re-distributing goods on Ebay, find in that the "necessity" that justifies your existence?
Now here is a scenario even less hypothetical: a gentleman of precisely my qualifications, education and experience volunteers for a job at a hospital at the peak of the Coronavirus crisis. Two jobs, in fact, neither one of which even requires a high school diploma: one is collecting laundry from the beds of the ill (i.e., exposing yourself to disease) and the other is similar to being a roustabout in the hospital's main lobby. Allegedly they're desperate to hire.
Why do you suppose it is impossible for me to get these jobs? I will tell you why, Stuart: it's because I'm over educated, and Canadians (1) are deeply nepotistic, and (2) are terrified of intellectuals, for all the same reasons that vampires fear the sun (although they've never seen it).
Now let's take a step further with this barely hypothetical scenario, as I lived through this myself up to a point: do you suppose the world would have been a better place if that hospital had hired me, in either of those positions I volunteered for? Obviously, the money is immaterial: I did this for humanitarian reasons (as I formerly did humanitarian work in Cambodia and Laos, etc., not motivated by the money) and we may summarize my mix of motives as "doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do".
If I had done that job at the hospital for one year instead of doing all the other things I actually did (such as writing No More Manifestos and Future of an Illusion —both books that get rave reviews on Goodreads, I'll have you know) please ask yourself, really: would the world be a better place?
Would the world be a better place if I'd never done humanitarian work (or, more accurately: if I'd never TRIED to do humanitarian work) in Cambodia and Laos?
Would the world be a better place if I'd never studied the Cree and Ojibwe languages (or, more accurately: if I'd never TRIED…) and —here's the plot twist— ask yourself, also, if I would be a better person, if I had never done any of these things (that were NOT motivated by money) and if I had instead spent my time and attention earning money?
Now, it would be a little too easy to ask, "Would the world be a better place if I hadn't uploaded any of these youtube videos (and had instead been earning money)?" —and it would be a little too easy to ask "Would I be a better person if I had never created and uploaded these youtube videos?"
A harder question is this: what if I had ONLY uploaded the videos that earned money. Some did: generally, they're the worst and least meaningful of my videos, whereas many of the most meaningful have earned no money whatsoever.
So I've asked if the world would be a better place, and I've asked if I would be a better person, etc., but now let's scale it up: what if EVERYONE on youtube were ONLY making videos that earn money, and NOBODY were motivated (as I am) to do the right thing just because it's right. That's pretty easy to imagine, isn't it? If 100% of uploads to youtube were narrowly profit-motivated. Conversely, what if everyone on earth shared my mix of artistic and charitable instincts, even in something as simple as uploading youtube videos: does that sound like a better or worse world to you?
> What you are doing on youtube is not work.
Politics is not work.
Art is not work.
Dissent is not work.
Education is not work.
I wasn't working when I was studying Cree and Ojibwe, was I? I wasn't working when I was studying Chinese, also.
You've constructed a sort of pseudo-philosophy to justify your existence as someone who isn't an artist, isn't an intellectual, isn't a dissident, isn't actively engaged in research, in working for his own education —and, also, as someone who hasn't really lifted a finger to change the world politically (and as someone who takes no responsibility for the political problems in the world, let alone the ethical ones). So it is hardly surprising that you find some great source of redeeming values in this thing you call earning money.
Do you suppose Voltaire would have more in common with you, or I?
> You are using it as a vehicle to project yourself.
And you find this shameful because you're ashamed of who you are, and you imagine that you'd be ashamed to do the same. I wouldn't be, because I actually have something positive to share.
> You do not get anything like what can be described as a proper salary
Unlike Voltaire, right? That guy was writing books as a wage slave, right?
> People need me - they need the stuff I sell.
No, they don't need you: what you do can be done by someone else.
What I do cannot be done by anyone else alive.
You can be replaced, Stuart: at your job, you're replaceable. And if you retired, I doubt that very many of your customers would mourn you, as they proceeded to buy the same stuff from another anonymous seller on eBay.
Do you suppose there's anyone else who could have written No More Manifestos? Do you suppose there's anyone else who could have made my last video about Aristotle, or the next one?
And the irony is this: I would be absolutely delighted to find that there was someone else on this earth who could replace me. It would be wonderful to discover that there's a dissident intellectual who renders me redundant in at least one of the "sports" in which I'm "the greatest to have ever played the game".
> I get satisfaction from this and it gives structure to my day.
I notice that you haven't asked me about what it is that I get satisfaction from, by contrast, hm?
> You have skills - find an actual real job.
You know, I volunteered to join the army back when the war with Isis was just starting, and when it seemed like it would be a long term, large scale war (in fact, it fizzled out relatively soon thereafter).
There are several videos related to my application process to join the army (I took the formal intelligence test, for example: quite a lark).
Now tell me, honestly: do you think the last five years of my life (to use a round number) would have been better spent in the Canadian military? And, if so, is the mere fact that this would have earned money enough for you to make this judgement?
Do you think nothing would have been lost —in the last five years— if none of these youtube videos had been made, and these various books hadn't been written, and I hadn't studied these languages, and these various periods of history, politics, etc.?
Perhaps you do think that, but a great many people, looking back at the last five years (and, in truth, it's more like seven years by now) would say that it would have been a great shame if my peculiar portion of talent had been lost to military bureaucracy.
> All of them leading useless lives. Nobody needs their you tube bullshit - and nobody needs mine - or yours.
And that, old boy, is where you're wrong.
People need another Voltaire. They need ten, they need a hundred more.
And right about now, my apartment is motherfucking discount Voltaire mass manufacturing clearinghouse.
Stuart, very simply: I've got something you ain't got. You can never be another Voltaire. I'm like three or four Voltaires stuffed into one tracksuit.
