Antisemitism in Stand Up Comedy: Emptying Out the Left.

LINK: https://youtu.be/Yz8Bhqj5rYA

Available both on Youtube and as a podcast, not just on Spotify but… wherever podcasts are "sold".

Falling Birth Rates and the Fallacy of Composition. #feminism

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0D-b7ilgT8

ChatGPT Ruined Stand Up Comedy: A.I. Kills the Creative Writing Process.

LINK: https://youtu.be/ASSKl0fHHnk

How would you live your life if men and women were equal? #feminism

"Men and women can be equal if they want to be equal…"  

LINK: https://youtu.be/chK0oZlQFJE

Alcoholism and environmentalism are one.

Torn from the comment section of my own youtube channel.

—————

[SolarSolWaves writes:]

Yeah basically 95% of my observing of people referencing the Dunning Kruger effect is just like any other thought terminating cliche. 

Examples include in discussions like, "I wonder why X person did Y action?" response: "Dunning Kruger effect" ( = discouraging curiosity / cognitive emapthy / true understanding). 

Or often times people act like they mic‑dropping an reductio ad absurdum with the, "this argument is stupid dude you got the Dunning Kruger effect".

Regarding the stuff about people being competent enough to read, etc…

I think it starts with the fact that we intellectually trust way too much. When I was a kid, I genuinely thought medicine was basically “solved.” That’s how it was presented to us. The whole cultural vibe was: we know everything. 

And then you actually get hit with a real medical issue that isn’t run‑of‑the‑mill, and suddenly you see what’s really up. Doctors aren’t curious, doctors don’t like saying “I don’t know,” so they default to “it’s psychological” or whatever. Boom, the illusions start breaking.

Anyway, seems like we instill that same blind trust into all of science (really, pop-scientific journalists). So when people read a headline, they assume it’s true. That’s where it begins. Instilled intellectual trust.

Then we grow older, values emerge, stiffen, etc... then it becomes about biases and what we want to be true. A headline is assumed correct if we like what it says. If we don’t like it, then suddenly we’re “critical thinkers” again... we read the article, try to debunk it, or just throw some generic phrases in the comments to dismiss it.

Then some people become anti-science and have a blind trust in the anti-science people.

Yesterday there was this awful study posted on Reddit about how “eating eggs actually improves your good cholesterol,” and it had tons of upvotes. So I’m like… okay, interesting, let me read this. I’m vegan, but not for health reasons. Fact: veganism is healthy. Is it the healthiest diet ever? I don’t know, I don’t care. Point is, I don’t feel attacked when evidence comes out that some animal product might be healthy. I’m open-minded. People smoke cigarettes. Veganism being the healthiest diet in the world isn't going to move it forward. 

So I read the article... not the actual study, just one of those shitty website summaries (because that's what was linked / posted), and it took me maybe 30 seconds to see the massive flaw in the study design. […] [Details omitted.]

Simple shit. Yet the post had tons of upvotes, and the comments were like, “Yeah I eat 3 eggs a day, my LDL is fine.”

I dunno, it’s like, the average person is incompetent at reading scientific studies, but at the very least, why can’t journalists be competent? Why do we have journalists pumping out garbage like this? I know the answer, it’s rhetorical, but still, I feel like the solution has something to do with journalists and holding them accountable... fuck like uhh, in Mexico they have this new law where children's cereal cannot have colorful characters and avatars like Tony the Tiger and Captain Crunch on the boxes if it passes a sugar threshold. Boxes gotta be empty, ugly (like cigarette carton laws in Canada, except without the deathly images), or they can have the saturated graphic designs but only if its a low-sugar version of the cereal. Let's get some anti-click-bait anti-sensationalism laws going!!! Not sure if thats an idea worth taking too seriosuly, just thought of it now...   

I have friends who can’t read scientific papers or evaluate methodology or statistics. I can’t expect them to. I don't think this is a run-of-the-mill skill, and I don’t think it ever could be. Most people don't have the time  / cognitive energy left to. I'm lucky enough that I enjoy reading. Maybe I’m not giving people enough credit, but something about scientific journalism needs to change. I’ve made like seven Reddit comments in the past year debunking crap articles that people in the comments were eating up. One was pro-vegan but still a terrible study. One was about language sonority and humidity. One was about pole dancing being a mental-health miracle. A few more I can’t even remember.

—————

[And I reply:]

I'm surprised that you and I agree about so many things (we are in a minority within the vegan movement, you and I… and the vegan movement itself is a tiny minority to begin with) but it all comes down to a question of, "What now, what next?"  I chose _NOT_ to spend my life debunking antidepressants, I chose _NOT_ to spend my life denouncing the excuses made for smoking marijuana, two examples that rely on similar pseudoscience, two examples that show the extent to which people who are ruining their lives with self-inflicted brain damage will self-righteously insist that you are morally evil for making them aware of this inconvenient truth.  There is very little scientific complexity to carbon PPM measurements, and very little political complexity to the question of what must be done to redress them.  The species, on the whole, is stuck in a cycle of living a lie, eventually dying for the sake of that lie.  Alcoholism and environmentalism are one.

One rain falls. Each vine grows in its own direction.

Torn from the pages of the /abasleciel/ reddit.

—————

[Tempeh-Reborn writes:]

Hey Tempeh here (again) I see Eisel is back.

Egh I been on a new years resolution to not be a troll anymore, better for the soul. So not going to do that anymore. I talked enough shit to last me the next 5 years.

We haven't got a life update since you got banned from youtube..? Something I recall was you were working to become a fitness instructor?

Then you like moved to the Artic circle.. Nova Scotia or something like that.... going to go study Latin I think?

Yeah wtf... you were posting that you were like on death doorstep too and super vague about it. Whats up with Melissa is it over or what?

Give us some man behind the screen stuff.. Whats the plan... Who do you want to be 5 years from now?

It's cool if you hate me i probably would too.

Also any particular reason you came back and start posting bunch of stuff defending yourself all of a sudden? I don't blame you... more like it seems some of the stuff you posted online (and our commentary) might have had some negative life impacts. i.e banned from comedy clubs etc etc.

Not trolling I find you fascinating some good ways alot of bad ways. Want to know whats up last year or 2 you don't seem to have any objection of putting all the personal details public so give us an update.

Also my attempt to be an intellectual..... I don't really remember but obv big part of your work is criticizing the vegan movement. There was some lesson or something (I don't even remember what they were) you were trying to get across to vegans ideas from I think it was mothers against drunk driving.... Banning cigarettes public places etc.

So.. hot topic now is Israel with recent events... It seems the public perception of Israel especially on the right in the US is drastically changing to negative... Not the Nazi Wing but the "main stream youtube right" sort of people.

I know the anti Israel people say a lot of nonsense and probably have the same issues the vegan movement has... but... it seems there is a massive shift on this issue even with all the issues they have. Maybe the vegans can learn something? Or I am totally wrong and need to do some active research.

—————

Re: "Egh I been on a new years resolution to not be a troll anymore…"

My new year's resolution is to stop quoting Bob Dylan.

Re: "We haven't got a life update since you got banned from youtube..?"

I think life updates appear in pretty much each and every single thing I upload, en passant.

This includes updates about the series of crippling health conditions I've been through in the last two years or so.

Re: "Something I recall was you were working to become a fitness instructor?"

Yes, I took a course to become accredited as a gym employee of some kind (personal training and group classes… although each group class requires its own certification, supplemental to the course I took). It's a difficult question of, "How can I do something positive that contributes to this culture that I happen to be a part of?"

Ancient Latin, for example, is not the answer: that is something that would benefit nobody other than myself, as discussed recently on the channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ICn1h77mU

Re: "Not trolling I find you fascinating some good ways alot of bad ways."

One rain falls. Each vine grows in its own direction.

You can quote me on that. In fact, you have my permission to put it on a t-shirt. ;-)

Re: "It seems the public perception of Israel especially on the right in the US is drastically changing to negative..."

Or, in other words, Conservatives are "catching up" with the Left: anti-Israel sentiment now unites the mainstream left and the mainstream right, whereas it differentiated the two before —even if the motivations for the left and right (in opposing Israel) are different.

My very short book, Blood in the Snow, that you can read for free, on the internet, if you don't want to buy it on paper, contains several blunt statements about the politics of Israel, even in "the blurb" visible on Amazon.

"We are taught that under totalitarianism everyone lives in fear, whereas in a democracy we should all be quite relaxed, but this is the opposite of the truth: under a totalitarian government you may relax in knowing that everything is someone else's problem --you have no sense of political responsibility. The Israelis must live with the agony of knowing that the massacres committed for them are also committed by them: they are responsible, democratically. And the result is constant fear: it is a kind of fear you cannot imagine because you've never lived in a democracy. This is the moral reality of democracy, and just like the Roman Empire, the massacres never end: the process of conquest, internally and externally, is infinite. We endure tyranny like the changes in the weather, but we endure democracy knowing that we ourselves are the weather: there is a unique kind of moral dread in drowning, knowing that we are the flood."

https://www.amazon.com/nihilismo-como-filosof%C3%ADa-moral-philosophie/dp/B0GRGP2TDZ

I'm assuming you don't want to read it in Russian translation. ;-) That is available, separately. ;-)

I devoted a great deal of time to the consequences of the George Floyd protests: why? Because that controversy demonstrates the ways in which people (most people, in this culture, in this era) are incapable of understanding democracy —and are intellectually incapable of participating in it. Something similar can be said about the democratic opposition to Israel —although, of course, we're talking about war and peace, religion and atheism, instead of police and education reform.

Polyamory in the Library, Nihilism in the Bedroom.

Now on Youtube, as never before.

LINK: https://youtu.be/82QBmFfxnuo

Intellectual honesty and sexual infidelity.

The earth envies the sky.

Women are not equal because they do not want to be equal. #feminism

Fifth wave feminism.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WazWrNHQR14

And some people say I'm a narcissist.

The title of this page on Reddit is, incongruously, "à-bas-le-ciel is NOT a Narcissist", posted by someone called Genoskill, i.e., someone unknown to me (if they've ever communicated with me directly, it's under another name, and I don't know the connection between the two, etc.).

—————

[O_SAPIENTIA writes:]

I think we all, at some point, desperately wanted to believe that Eisel's "eccentric" antics were a sort of method-behind-the-madness. I really wanted to believe that he actually was this brilliant genius that was extremely competent at everything he put his mind to, pushing for people to better themselves through intellectualism and ethics.

But after a few years, after one too many videos of his belligerent critiques against anyone and everyone, his constant self-aggrandizing, his complete incapability to tolerate anyone who he's not fucking, the mask falls off. That is who he actually is. A man with grandiose ideas and a spiteful tongue who is in love with himself in the most deluded way possible.

We all gave him the benefit of the doubt once.

—————

(1) What if you're allowed to have your own opinion AND THAT'S OKAY.

Like, dude, what if you dislike the style or substance of my youtube videos (or both) and that's not really the basis for any kind of diagnosis of a mental disability on my part.

(2) What if there's a difference between a youtube video as performance art and the actual person you're judging and diagnosing here:

"But after a few years, after one too many videos of his belligerent critiques against anyone and everyone…"

Yeah, well, over-the-top critiques = a genre of youtube video.

It's not necessarily a personality type: it's not necessarily "who I really am".

Way back in season one, I used to say all the time: "this is a very spare art form, there is no plot, there are no special effects" —yeah, one of the ways youtubers make discussions of these issues exciting (ever since The Amazing Atheist) is with over-the-top behavior of this kind. Yes, I've recorded many semi-satirical "belligerent critiques", and if you misinterpret them as deadpan serious "confessional" statements, you'd get a distorted sense of my character.

And, again, THAT'S OKAY.

Off camera, I'd assume The Amazing Atheist is quite a boring person, and you're basically looking at his struggle to not be boring all the time. My book, Future of an Illusion, is NOT BORING, but it is indeed a "belligerent critique" of the vegan movement: the video that was made of one chapter opens with a puppet speaking in Spanish. That's giving life and entertainment value to what could be quite a dull discussion of inherently dull issues —however, I do not speak Spanish and I am not that puppet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjjiQDDQFZA

—————

[ahaaya writes:]

Getting here late, but I have a simple test for narcissistic 'intellectuals'. Do they recognize and respect the expertise of others?

How often has he ever mentioned a scholar (professional or otherwise) with respect? How often has he admitted that Person X knows more about Y than he does?

His usual shtick is to mention an Expert (by name or not) and dismiss them, using the word 'idiot' a lot.

Can anyone think of counter-examples of him being positively impressed by.... anyone?

—————

Try watching any of the videos that discuss books I've read (solo or in the company of others).

It is just ridiculous to say (that in my now enormous corpus of work) I never evaluate other authors' writing positively, or that I never appreciate the positive accomplishments of other intellectuals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_KEXfDpeDs

^ This is an hour-long discussion of a book we both positively appreciated and learned a lot from. Yes, there are a few points of criticism of the book in there, or points of disagreement with the author(s) are pointed out —but there's nothing here that anyone would "clock" as a symptom of NPD (which is, again, a very serious disability with VERY OBVIOUS symptoms… if you've ever met anyone who actually has it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZ5RwzvthY

^ An hour long discussion of several different authors, all of whom I utterly disagree with, but you'll hear a totally reasonable mix of praise and blame (and positive appreciation for the intellectual contributions of several of the authors to the field, even when I disagree with them personally, etc.).

https://www.youtube.com/live/HjY2RB3T2Fc

^ Fiction instead of non-fiction, this time.

I made a series of videos while I was in Yunnan discussing books and authors that had positively (or at least significantly) influenced my life… if you'd watched any of those videos, they offer a significant counter-balance to your claim that I've never been "positively impressed by anyone".

Re: "His usual shtick is to mention an Expert (by name or not) and dismiss them, using the word 'idiot' a lot."

Yeah, well, if you work in (1) Buddhist philosophy and then (2) vegan activism, you're going to meet a lot of idiots. Even so, one of my most popular videos was discussing the positive aspects of my experience as a scholar of Pali (i.e., Buddhist philosophy, etc.) and expresses appreciation for people I met and knew (and authors whose work I read) in that field. Just yesterday, I made a short video (three minutes long) talking about my positive appreciation for people I met living in Asia, in contrast to the people I met in the U.K. and Canada, talking about the positive qualities they had, even if they weren't brillian or bookish intellectuals.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/p4i9DGu3nAs

So, as always with the amateur diagnosis club, (1) your diagnosis doesn't demonstrate much interest in NPD, and (2) your diagnosis doesn't demonstrate much interest in me.

—————

[LuxeRevival writes:]

LMAO. He is the literal clinical definition of a narc. 🤭

It's why no university wants him in their programs. We've all seen those recorded interviews. They tell him, "He's just too smart." ZED has no self awareness to know that when people tell you that, it means they are politely trying to end the conversation and never deal with you again.

Vegans couldn't stand him and refused to crown him King.

Melissa's parents/ brothers couldn't stand him.

Zed's in in laws couldn't stand him. The interview with his father in law is still up on YouTube. Nonvegans channel from 7 years ago

He can't even make it thru culinary classes without having a problem.

The hospital staff in France, when his daughter was born, were portrayed as "malign," but yet again, insufferable Zed was such a pain in the ass that the staff felt "unsafe"

The neighbors in his old apartment building couldn't stand him, and they let him know on their Facebook group when he came in starting a fight about the community garden

I'm not going on. He encounters issues with people EVERYWHERE HE GOES! We all know EXACTLY what he is.

🖕TRACKSUIT

—————

Re: "It's why no university wants him in their programs. We've all seen those recorded interviews. They tell him, "He's just too smart." ZED has no self awareness to know that when people tell you that, it means they are politely trying to end the conversation and never deal with you again."

All of this just relies on fabricating evidence: there are many, MANY videos talking about my university experience…

(the good and the bad of it)

…each and every one of which is wildly incompatible with this description, and each and every one of which is incompatible with a diagnosis of NPD (i.e., narcissism per se).

Re: "The hospital staff in France, when his daughter was born, were portrayed as "malign," but yet again, insufferable Zed was such a pain in the ass that the staff felt "unsafe""

These are just lies made up by a random, anonymous person on Reddit… whereas you can read my own writing about what happened at the hospital (i.e., what was saddening and heartbreaking about dealing with the hospital staff, and their attitudes toward my wife at the time)…

but these are also mean-spirited lies, that reflect some condition like narcissism (or worse) on the part of the liar.

I really don't know who could read what I had to say about my experience in that hospital and then turn around to vilify me for in this way. But hey, this is the internet: people have freedom of speech and this is the (frankly evil) use they make of it.

Several doctors and nurses really treated my wife and I like garbage: I do not regret talking about that experience openly, and it may be have been helpful (or meaningful) for a few people to hear about it. However, here on Reddit, you can see how easily a lie can twist that into "evidence" of a mental disability on my part.

It is not true that "…the staff felt "unsafe"…" —I suppose the author has many years of experience with mixing in this sort of "minor lie" to add to the overall defamatory effect of a comment of this kind.

At a time when my wife and I were really vulnerable, doctors and nurses were incredibly cruel and insulting to us, and that is what I provided some commentary on, in retrospect: the day my daughter was born could have been the happiest day of my life —but it wasn't because of the barbarity of these doctors and nurses.

BTW, the exception proves the rule: two nurses were good to us, one male one female, and we really expressed appreciation for them as much as we could. One of them we tried to send a gift to (in the mail) afterward, to express thanks again, but I think the postal service returned it to us, undelivered. So, yes, we did meet some kind and decent people in that hospital system, but the hostility we dealt with was overwhelming.

Re: "The neighbors in his old apartment building couldn't stand him, and they let him know on their Facebook group when he came in starting a fight about the community garden"

Again, this is just a lie about a tempest in a teapot situation that I joked about (in one youtube video and a blog post). Some kids ripped up the grass in the park outside my window, and the other tenants used this as an opportunity to demonstrate their own mental health problems: there was plenty of evidence of real insanity (and cruelty) from the other residents in my apartment building in response to this trivial event… but there's nothing for me to regret in my own contribution to that conversation (that, again, I posted publicly, having a laugh at the absurdity of it all).

Nobody here seems to have the concept that a diagnosis exists to help the patient. This is just a game being played of, "I know you said this in a facebook group, therefore I'm going to assign you to a scientistic-sounding medical category that serves as a substitute for the concept of evil". I dunno… it seems sort of cowardly. Why not openly and directly argue that I'm evil?

"He dared to complain that doctors and nurses in the hospital were cruel to him… THEREFORE he is evil!" Fair enough. If you think morality entails telling the lie that doctors and nurses were kind to you (WHEN THEY WEREN'T) then I'll openly identify with the other side. I'm willing to be honest about things that other people aren't honest about: I'm sure the vast majority of people who have a heartbreaking experience at the hospital (on the day their daughter is born or otherwise) would indeed be afraid to talk about it openly…

…perhaps because of the kind of cruelty you see here, in this very Reddit group.

Selflessness: Alex O'Connor vs Ask Yourself on Veganism and the Meaning of Life.

It's not a drop in the ocean: the ocean is you. #vegan #vegans #veganism

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ICn1h77mU

Vivisection Lately: Wayne Hsiung is Back in Jail.

You may or may not recognize Wayne in the two minute video, above (he's on camera momentarily).

Here he is giving an interview about the event after getting out of jail:

https://wtmj.com/shows/wisconsins-midday-news/2026/03/18/leader-of-break-in-at-ridglan-farms-out-of-jail-shares-story/

AFAIK, Wayne is now married with kids… so you might think his days of making a martyr out of himself were over… but, at any rate, he's married to one of the morons from Animal Rising (formerly known as Animal Rebellion, originally a faction that split off from Extinction Rebellion) Rose Patterson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRR5kZtNUBk

[Other voices:] The cycle of Durianrider-style defamation continues.

(1) Some guy got tens of thousands of views for his short video clips calling her a Neo-Nazi.
(2) Perhaps for this reason (i.e., motivated by view-counts) he then doubled down and tried to further back up these accusations over a period of about a year.
(3) Following the same pattern whereby Durianrider encouraged members of his audience to take action against me, members of this guy's audience managed to get this married couple's (allegedly Neo-Nazi) "retreat" canceled, managed to get them kicked off of some neo-pagan website they'd been participating in, and she vaguely claims she and her husband are now considering moving into a new house "for safety reasons" —i.e., because of this obloquy.
(4) She admits that she is personal friends with Evelina Hahne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelina_Hahne) who is a member (or leader) of a tiny political party called Alternative for Sweden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Sweden) but insists that she is not involved with politics in any way herself. This waffling reveals that the extent to which she actually is a Neo-Nazi is irrelevant: the overweening question is merely of the consequences of someone calling her a Neo-Nazi on social media.

It's an imperfect parallel, but absolutely nobody was interested in what my sex life actually was when Durianrider made accusations against me (nobody even asked me about that in interviews at the time)… the controversy exclusively concerned the consequences of the allegations about my sex life being made (for an audience of hundreds of thousands of idiots looking for an excuse to punish someone for their perceived moral inferiority).

The glorification of the Vikings (their history, their religion, their politics) overlaps with Neo-Nazi ideology to an even greater extent than the study of Ancient Rome. In my own idiom, it is all a little too Golden Axe for its own good.

I remarked to a friend recently that one of my reasons for not learning one of those languages is that it would inevitably draw me into the debunking of myths that now glorify the Vikings in retrospect. I admit, it is not too late for me to change my mind and start learning Finnish, but the average Finn would be truly horrified to hear what I have to say about the Vikings, generally, and about Viking religion, specifically.

I'm reminded of Schopenhauer's commentary on the culture of fighting duels in Europe: "the point of honor" had nothing to do with whether or not the accusation was true, but merely whether or not the other man would dare to say it. The medieval logic was, "If you dare to say this about me publicly, these are the consequences" —true or false. The fact that one man had slept with another man's wife, for example, was of no significance: the point of honor to be addressed was that one man insulted the other by saying that he had done so.

We also have an unresolved question of "taking responsibility for our own political views" —past, present and future. What does it mean for a Communist to take responsibility for being a Communist, today? What does it mean for us to say that we have freedom of speech, and freedom to support any political party we may choose, if the consequences for choosing an unpopular party entail denunciation, obloquy, unemployability or even death?

Communism, although dangerous, has become the ideology of foppish and effete elites —so much so that it's hard to take it seriously. Neo-Nazism, by contrast, has become the ideology of the ignorant, especially in prisons. I don't think anyone knows, now, what "taking it seriously" would really mean. Many mainstream religions are equally dangerous, or even more so, and yet nobody takes atheism seriously. We cannot really articulate the danger and difficulty of these political ideologies without taking nihilism seriously. These are illnesses that cannot be properly perceived without the contrast provided by their antidotes.

It's not about sex: how HBO will ruin Season 3 of HOTD.

You may not believe me, but there are a few people in the audience who have been waiting since 2022 for this. Trust me, I've had messages from them. ;-)

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usmhWltm1hc

Envy is Information You Can Work With.

Google tells me I'm the first person to use the phrase, "Envy is Information You Can Work With". Hard to believe someone hasn't said it before, frankly.

• If you want to do 200 push-ups today, you can do it.
• If you want to start studying a new language today, you can do it.
• If you want to do humanitarian work, you can do it.
• Reading Aristotle or Thucydides? What's stopping you?

You can take this as positive encouragement OR NOT. If you respond so negatively to the suggestion that there's a better person you could be five years from now, if you figure out what kind of person you want to be and do the work, your response tells me something about you: reacting so negatively to these suggestions doesn't tell the world anything about me —it's neither a critique of the advice, nor of the person giving it.

Debunking the Dunning Kruger Effect: Nihilism and Religious Attitudes Disguised as Science.

The Science of Stupidity.

Link to the Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRK-njQIiWw

Link to the podcast version: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7zivATFIzj1fJ2q5GxQA6I

^ This is Spotify, but if you search around you can find the same podcast episode on every other major platform… wherever podcasts are "sold".

It'll make a writer out of me. This spinal injury. ;-)

If this is your political philosophy, live your life accordingly.

Possibly foreshadowing my (long awaited?) return to podcasting about "the philosophy of" ASOIAF and its adaptations. Quite possibly.

LINK: https://youtu.be/BKSygw-xqR4

A Lottery: Elite Education in the Western World.

This one has interesting connections to what I've published in all three books, so far: (1) No More Manifestos, obviously, (2) Future of an Illusion, cryptically, and (3) Blood in the Snow, positively esoterically. Nobody will recognize what I'm doing (in these decades) as the proposal of a new kind of "philosophy of education"… BUT IT IS. ;-)

And this is now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc., as never before.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4sM3mWvKQp7lCPs90hVrBI

Ocean acidification update: yes, this is the end of the world.

Quote,

"Earth’s oceans have become approximately 30% more acidic since the industrial revolution began more than 200 years ago… Analyses of coral skeletons from the past century revealed that CO2 has been accumulating in North American waters faster than in the atmosphere, driving rapid acidification."

Digression: you may not be aware that the ocean both absorbs and also emits carbon dioxide, with the ("net") balance between the two changing due to a variety of bizarre factors… such as how much wind is stirring up "deep" (relatively high-carbon) water in the so-called "cold tongue" of the South Pacific. Yes, in case you hadn't noticed that 21st century rappers have run out of endearing stage names, the English language has become so depleted that we have had to resort to "cold tongue" as jargon.

"The ocean becomes more acidified when carbon dioxide dissolves to form an acid that releases hydrogen and bicarbonate ions, lowering the water’s pH level… Organic matter — dead plants and animals — sinks to the bottom of the ocean, where it decomposes and releases carbon dioxide back into the water. Upwelling surfaces this CO2 rich water, increasing the acidity of subsurface and surface zones."

Could we propose a total ban on the idiom "carbon rich"? This use of the adjective rich for anything other than vegan chocolate pudding substitutes… ?

"Between 1888 and 2020, coral skeletons indicate that CO2 in seawater increased at a rate that outpaced the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. [Emphasis added —EM] The magnitude of acidification was also higher 100 to 200 meters below the surface, even though ocean acidification is typically characterized as a surface process."

Here's the point at which I disagree with the article being quoted:

"'This is no time for nihilism. The ocean is not destroyed,' …"

On the contrary, the time for nihilism is now. Right now. Before it's too late.

You are your addictions: you are the excuses you've made for yourself.

[And now, a few new words added in 2026:]

"Addiction" has become a socially acceptable way to explain evil, cruel and malicious behavior —it is more socially acceptable to explain behavior as "an addiction" rather than even inquiring into the possibility of true evil, cruelty and malice.

Of course, there are other categories to consider: rather than dealing with laziness and self-indulgence, for example, it would be more socially acceptable to explain the given behavior as "an addiction".

Why is it socially acceptable? (1) The concept of addiction is separate from the identity of the addict, whereas other personal characteristics are not. (2) This separation between addiction and identity implies the possibility of a treatment or cure: we are willing to assume that the addiction can be removed while the addict remains. (3) The very idea of addiction reduces personal responsibility and dilutes the concept of the motive cause.

If someone becomes a prostitute "for an addiction" or "because of an addiction" we are expected (culturally) to avoid questioning any other motivations or (incurable) personal characteristics that created this situation; even with murder, the crime is thought of in a totally different way as soon as the concept of addiction is involved.

Accomplishing nothing in particular over several years: if this is explained as the result of "an addiction" (to video games, to pornography, or both, for example) we avoid thinking through the real motivations and questions of character that created the situation —even if it is a situation unlikely to be investigated as thoroughly as the scene of a murder or the sudden choice to change careers and become a prostitute.

Addiction is a category that prevents clear thinking about the addict and the decisions they make. The possibility that the video game addict may be an evil person, with truly dark and terrible motivations for the decisions they make, and the notion that they should be held responsible, barely emerges from the smokescreen created as soon as the behavior is placed in this category.

At this moment, I have a very serious spinal injury: either it can be cured or it cannot, either I can recover or I cannot. I am my spinal injury. I am my disability. There is no real separation between the two of us. The whole moral character of the problem changes if I claim that the spinal injury is a result of an addiction. Perhaps an addiction to exercise at the gym, for example. Now we have a very different question: either I can overcome the addiction or I cannot. And now we all imagine that the addiction is something very different from the person who suffers from it, as a parasite is different from the host that carries it, and so on.

"The excuses are harder to quit than the thing itself" has been my catchphrase for many years: the very concept of addiction is a kind of excuse-making mechanism. I do not think there is a falsifiable, scientific reality to "pornography addiction" in the same sense that there is a falsifiable, scientific reality to my spinal injury —nor in the same sense that there's a falsifiable, scientific reality to diabetes. If it doesn't show up on an x-ray or a blood test, it doesn't exist.

Yeah. That's nihilism, baby. I don't care if your therapist told you that you're still some wonderful person "underneath" your addiction, as if it were a mask you could remove: in this case, I do not believe in the distinction between the mask and the face. I am my spinal injury, and you are your addictions: you are the excuses you've made for yourself.

Jaclyn Glenn's legal team demands the deletion of an old blog post that barely mentions her existence.

Yes, the title was long enough already, but I could add the adjective Estonian in there: it's not every day that I get threatening emails from law firms in Estonia… or, if it is, I really haven't been paying attention to… uh… "fan mail" lately.

Here is the original text of the blog post (that presumably nobody will remember) still visible via "the wayback machine" on archive dot org. Thereafter, you'll see the… law firm's attempt to intimidate me.

——————————

[Sunday, January 2nd, 2022]

Q&A;: What About Pornography? (Will There Be "Quit Porn" Videos on ABLC?)

Hey Eisel,

Thanks for your awesome videos on video games. I was considering buying a Nintendo Switch but will now never buy one after your many videos on video games and Nintendo products. Can you make similar related videos on people having ruining their lives with porn and such? I think that's the last hurdle I have for sobriety really, I don't drink, don't smoke, no video games, no meat or animal products, but there is still porn that is prevalent in my life.

Your videos that show people who really effed themselves by falling into their addictions and then your commentary on those, really drives home the message for these other things.

Also I did want fame and wealth too, but that's not the end goal anymore. You're right that I should make the effort in trying out things just for the sake of doing them, even if I end up as a failure in them and nothing comes about it, the fact that I tried is meaningful enough, more meaningful than the success ever would be. I don't want to end up like those "successful" people who do nothing but waste their lives all day.

Thanks

———[My reply ensues.]———

Hi _________,

I'm really "a moderate" on both of these issues, but I'm perceived as an extremist, because we live in such an immoderate culture.

From my biased perspective, is it possible to play SOME video games? My honest belief (applied to myself and my daughter) is, "yes", but I keep having encounters with particular examples of people who are so susceptible to addictive behavior that it seems the answer may be "no" --i.e., I may be rather too moderate (although I'm perceived as extreme in my critique of video games).

To give an example, I often point to "Pacman C.E." as a positive example of a game that can be played for a maximum of five minutes (this exists as an 8-bit Famicom cartridge, but is primarily played on emulators).

However, I've received emails from people who were SERIOUSLY ADDICTED to games that were even more simplistic than that --games that lasted two or three minutes that they would play, repetitiously, for many hours.

Now, as you know, I'm living in a country and culture where the vast majority of people think it's totally acceptable for adult men to spend 20 hours per week playing video games --so I'm perceived as an extremist in any case.

So, by the same token, at what point is pornography a problem for people?

If we're talking about 5 minutes here and there (say, 35 minutes per week, even if not distributed evenly as 5 minutes per day), then I really don't see the problem.

And it's very difficult for me to imagine anyone being stupid enough to spend hours watching porn (it's just fundamentally boring, IMHO).  It's very difficult for me to imagine porn as an addictive behavior.

Human sexuality is innate, curiosity is innate, and being curious about what other people look like naked (etc.) seems to me anodyne enough --so I do not put pornography in the same category as video games (nor in the same category as gambling).

Do people ruin their lives watching pornography?

Do people fail courses in university because they're spending too much time watching pornography?

The equivalent, for video games, is at epidemic levels: a large percentage of high school and university students are either failing in school, or learning nothing in school while passing, precisely because of video games.  However, is there a significant percentage of people ruining their lives (in this same way) by spending a similar number of hours watching pornography?

How many people per year get fired from their jobs because they stayed awake all night watching pornography?  (The equivalent does indeed happen with video games, stereotypically with MMORPGS.)

So, in short, I'm skeptical that pornography really presents the same kind of cultural problem (as video game playing).

The counter-examples I have seen are either (1) people who were addicted to drugs (e.g., a meth addict who would watch pornography for many hours, but it was clearly meth --not porn-- that was the fundamental problem), and (2) people who were seriously mentally disabled (and/or insane) who would have had many of the same problems without pornography in their lives.

So, honestly, my perception is that the inclusion of pornography in the same category as video games may be "a false equivalency".

——————————

Details of the original claim are included below to help you better understand and respond to the claim against you.

Name of claimant: Ahmet Teke

Rightsholder represented: Rulta OU

Description of claim: To Whom It May Concern, We are writing to you as Rulta OÜ, a copyright protection company resident at Harju maakond, Tallinn, Kesklinna linnaosa, Tartu mnt 67/1-13b, 10115 Estonia, with the registration code 14640476 in Tartu County Court Registration Department, the duly authorized representatives of Jaclyn Glenn ("The Client"), the sole owner and the user of the alias/pseudonym/stage name/username/sobriquet/alternative name "Jaclyn Glenn". It has come to our attention that the below-stated URLs of your website contains copyrighted content originally belongs

QUESTIONS VEGANS CAN'T ANSWER

LINK: https://youtu.be/TC2EOC-fE8A

All new. All different. Not a curated copy of something from the past. Not a remix of earlier materials. And yes, I keep wonder if this is the last time I'm going to make a video of this kind: there was a first time, there has to be a last time.

Iran is Greenland, Greenland is Iran: Doomed Republic. (March 7th, 2026)

天下大勢分久必合，合久必分。

LINK: https://youtu.be/swASb2Y2h0o

(This will eventually be re-posted as a podcast on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, etc., but not today.)

El nihilismo como filosofía moral: Sangre en la nieve. Le nihilisme comme philosophie morale : du sang sur la neige.

New, posted publicly within the last twelve hours or so: the Spanish edition of Blood in the Snow, also including the English and the French.

[Link 1:] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GRGP2TDZ
[Link 2:] https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0GRGP2TDZ —each country's Amazon page follows the same pattern, e.g., you can replace "ES" with "DE", to order the book from another country.

Trilingual Edition: English, Spanish and French. Edición trilingüe: inglés, español y francés. Édition trilingue : anglais, espagnol et français.

Se nos enseña que bajo el totalitarismo todos viven con miedo, mientras que en una democracia todos deberíamos estar bastante relajados, pero esto es lo contrario de la verdad: bajo un gobierno totalitario puedes relajarte sabiendo que todo es problema de otra persona—no tienes sentido de responsabilidad política. Los israelíes deben vivir con la agonía de saber que las masacres cometidas por ellos también son cometidas por ellos: son responsables, democráticamente. Y el resultado es un miedo constante: es un tipo de miedo que no puedes imaginar porque nunca has vivido en una democracia. Esta es la realidad moral de la democracia, y al igual que el Imperio Romano, las masacres nunca terminan: el proceso de conquista, interna y externamente, es infinito. Soportamos la tiranía como los cambios en el clima, pero soportamos la democracia sabiendo que nosotros mismos somos el clima: hay un tipo único de pavor moral al ahogarse, sabiendo que somos la inundación.

On nous enseigne que sous un régime totalitaire tout le monde vit dans la peur, alors que dans une démocratie nous devrions être parfaitement détendus ; or c’est l’inverse qui est vrai. Sous un gouvernement totalitaire, vous pouvez vous détendre en sachant que tout est le problème de quelqu’un d’autre — vous n’avez aucun sentiment de responsabilité politique. Les Israéliens doivent vivre avec l’agonie de savoir que les massacres commis pour eux sont aussi commis par eux : ils en sont responsables, démocratiquement. Et le résultat est une peur constante — une peur que vous ne pouvez pas imaginer, parce que vous n’avez jamais vécu dans une démocratie. Telle est la réalité morale de la démocratie, et tout comme dans l’Empire romain, les massacres ne s’arrêtent jamais : le processus de conquête, interne et externe, est infini. Nous endurons la tyrannie comme on endure les changements de temps ; mais nous endurons la démocratie en sachant que nous sommes nous-mêmes le temps qu’il fait : il y a une forme unique d’effroi moral à se noyer en sachant que nous sommes le déluge.

We are taught that under totalitarianism everyone lives in fear, whereas in a democracy we should all be quite relaxed, but this is the opposite of the truth: under a totalitarian government you may relax in knowing that everything is someone else's problem --you have no sense of political responsibility.  The Israelis must live with the agony of knowing that the massacres committed for them are also committed by them: they are responsible, democratically.  And the result is constant fear: it is a kind of fear you cannot imagine because you've never lived in a democracy.  This is the moral reality of democracy, and just like the Roman Empire, the massacres never end: the process of conquest, internally and externally, is infinite.  We endure tyranny like the changes in the weather, but we endure democracy knowing that we ourselves are the weather: there is a unique kind of moral dread in drowning, knowing that we are the flood.

Western Civilization is Asiatic Despotism in the Absence of Daoist Influence.

Good and Evil Turn on One Hinge, Open and Close as One Door: egoism and its alternatives in nihilistic philosophy.

Altruism is not an alternative to egoism: altruism can be egoistic, and egoism can be altruistic.  Often enough, I stand accused of smuggling ethics into nihilism: there is a perceived problem with my philosophy in that it is neither egoistic in Stirner's sense nor in any other.  I have been told that I fail to apply my own standards of skepticism to ethical concepts.  Is Historical Nihilism a Trojan horse for conventional morality?  Will you be ruined by believing in good and evil if you at first open the door to allow in my wooden promise that there is nothing to be believed in at all?

Have you ever felt angry at a lamp for failing to light up at the touch of a button and then realized, after a few moments' investigation, that you had unplugged it for some particular purpose a few days ago and then forgot to plug it back in?  Have you ever reflected, "Oh, I shouldn't have been angry, because it wasn't the lamp's fault after all"?  What if the lamp had been plugged in, should you have felt some other way about it?  Are we going to seriously propose a philosophy of forgiveness for the failings of inanimate objects?  Whether it is the lamp's fault for not working or our own fault for not plugging it in, why should we feel angry toward the lamp at all?  Emotions are signals; signals must serve a purpose, no matter how ludicrous, arbitrary or self-indulgent; nothing is accomplished by letting the lamp know how you feel.

Adults make errors about the relationships between feelings and things because they enjoy confusing their feelings with the objective reality of the things themselves.  This is not an error made merely due to carelessness, but because most of us enjoy it.  In the absence of compulsion, people are doing what they want to do: there is some sense in which most people (i.e., some unknown percentage of people with a certain kind of character) genuinely enjoy feeling angry at a lamp —otherwise they wouldn't do it at all, as the feeling is accomplishing nothing.  There is a kind of self-assertion involved in the hatred felt (however briefly) toward the nonfunctional lamp: you are demonstrating to yourself that you are not the one at fault here —although, perhaps, a few moments later you'll realize that (in fact) you are.

Egoism is self-serving: what we are discussing here is self-defeating.  I once read a book-length analysis of the humor of the Navaho (Navajo): in their culture, in their language, it was normal to mock and ridicule white people for lashing out at inanimate objects, for punching the hood of a car, or for verbally reproaching a radio that "refuses" to tune in properly.  The Navaho perceived this as utterly absurd, and their humor on the subject expressed consistent confidence that this is a mistake they'd never make themselves: they would never try to punish or motivate an inanimate object.  But if we do not blame the car, do we blame ourselves?

"I look fat in this mirror."  Presumably the mirror should be destroyed.

Whoever may be reading this article has probably heard me say many times (with many variations) that doing things for the sake of happiness entails a kind of evil and is predicated upon a kind of error: happiness, properly understood, is something that enters into our lives unexpectedly and that remains unknowable and unknown.  Suppose I have a distant memory of a comic book that I read as a child and I now decide I should read it again, having thought nothing of it for more than 30 years: is this going to make me happy?  Will it make me miserable?  Will I respond in an entirely calm, cerebral fashion?  Will I analyze how my distant memory of it differs from the newfound immediacy of the thing itself, or will I simply analyze the quality of the writing?  What is utterly insane is the presumption that you can know the answer in advance and then commit to a course of action on the basis of that knowledge: if you think you know what will make you happy, you will be dragged into a life of real evil —destroying something real for the sake of something unreal, again and again.  It would not be insane, by contrast, to buy a copy of this same comic book for the sake of mere curiosity: yes it is possible that reading it again will make you happy, but it's possible it will horrify you, it's possible it will make you reflect on tremendously sad memories from your own childhood tangentially linked to the object, and so on.

You can climb a mountain for the sake of the view, not knowing what that view will mean to you: it is quite another thing to presume that this mountain has the power to make you feel happy.  The stakes are high: people don't just buy comic books for the sake of happiness, but raise children and then force their children to read the same comic books that they once read themselves.

Egoism cannot exist in the aftermath of this critique of happiness: architecture cannot exist in a world without solid land.  What the egoists think they are standing on, from my perspective, instead, they are drowning in.  They are drowning in misery misperceived as happiness.  The darkness comes not from the lamp but our expectation of it —and yet we blame the lamp for the darkness.

The common conceit of pseudo-nihilistic philosophers (who have lived before) is that egoistic self-interest is this tremendously powerful wind, forever blowing in one direction: we must steer our little sailboat assiduously to accomplish anything altruistic despite this gale force.  I say, instead, that good and evil turn on one hinge, as one and the same door.  An open door is neither good nor evil.  If you wanted the door to be locked shut, but in fact you've left it open, then you call that an evil; and, conversely, if you wanted the door to be open (or unlocked) to let someone else in while you were away, but you forgot to do so, then you'd complain that was an evil as well.  It swings open when you want it to be open: that's good.  However, it is a false inference to say that when it's locked shut it is therefore evil.

Egoism does not exist: good and evil are equally effortless —as painting with one color is neither more nor less work than another, although it may be quite a lot of work if you're not an experienced painter and haven't yet developed the skill, meaning only that you'll struggle with each color equally or not at all.  The tree neither serves the forest nor rebels against it.  The tree cannot subtract itself from the forest nor add anything more to the collective sum than it has already given simply "in being itself".  The egoism of the tree cannot be contrasted to an altruism that is subordinated to the egoism of the forest: neither tree nor forest have any ego at all.

The nihilists (now alive) who complain that I am not nihilistic enough still imagine their own lives as if they were divided between egoism and altruism: they assume that altruism is motivated by belief whereas the extirpation of belief will return them to their natural state of self-indulgence and inertia.  This division does not exist: the real division is between the life of an adult and the life of a child.  Overcoming belief will not return you to the simple (selfish) pleasures of childhood, nor will it liberate you from the temptation of exclusively adult forms of ambition and self-sacrifice.  Can you remember how amusing it once was just to play with a light switch?  Can you remember how amusing it once was to hide beneath a blanket?  To crawl through a tunnel?  To be tickled?  The happiness you remember from your childhood is something to which you can never return: nihilism is a kind of purification, yes, but the purified adult cannot enjoy childish self-indulgence any more than the contaminated true believer —on the contrary, less.

What if a man believes in nothing but becomes incredibly passionate about (i) stand up comedy, (ii) foreign language education or (iii) architecture?  If he starts serving this passion, will he be sacrificing his self-interest for the sake of a greater whole?  What if, instead of even trying to be happy, he sacrifices everything for the advancement of foreign language education: will you claim that he still secretly prays to unseen gods because of his lack of egoism?  As miserable as it may be to pour your time and money into a foreign language institute, trust me, operating a stand up comedy club is worse: you must spend many hours listening to examples of what other people think is funny, but you do not.  And you must hear the same jokes performed again and again.  Either you're passionate about comedy or you're not: either you're willing to hear a hundred bad jokes for the sake of a few moments of brilliance, or else you're doing this for nothing at all.  Either you're willing to endure the company of a hundred bad students (who are learning the language for the wrong reasons, etc.) for the sake of a few brilliant ones, or else you're doing this for nothing at all.  Do you therefore "believe in" a language because you're enduring such misery?  Do you "believe in" comedy?  There is no viable distinction between egoism and altruism: the tree is not something totally separable from the forest and the architect is not totally separable from architecture —not even if he perceives himself as living in a state of rebellion against the intransigence of architecture (as I see myself in a kind of rebellion against the intransigence of stand up comedy, and the intransigence of language education, etc.).

I have shifted the question (and its answer) from the struggle of altruism against egoism to the struggle of this man for his passion —which is neither egoistic nor altruistic nor both.  If he suffers for the sake of education it is because he is an educator; if he suffers for the sake of architecture it is because he's an architect; if he suffers for the sake of comedy it is because he is a comedian.  And even then, it is only "his own" notion of education, architecture and comedy, hm?  And this is not a relationship to an abstraction: the farmer does not relate to farming as an abstraction, but as a series of manual and mental tasks that are entirely real (so too for the educator, architect and comedian).

So why would anyone rage against the lamp and the mirror?  Making excuses for the evils of Communism: this is a declaration of who you are, it is a declaration of what kind of person you aspire to be, and it is a kind of advertisement for the friends and lovers you wish to have.  The social and psychological mechanism I'm describing here works in much the same way with Satanism: you start making excuses for one kind of evil or another, publicly, and soon enough you discover you've created a crossroads for everyone who has a certain set of unspecified desires in common with you.  Look at the utilitarians who make excuses for paying prostitutes: this serves a real function in their lives and isn't merely a matter of crafting an ideological identity for the satisfaction of judging oneself when standing in front of the mirror.  When we indulge in feeling angry at the lamp we are asserting (on a childishly simple level) that our feelings are more real than the things that inspire them: what matters is not the reality of the bourgeois class, for example, but the feelings the Communist assigns to them and then "finds" in them as if they were actually existing.  He blames them for how he feels about them, and this functions as a declaration of his own moral identity.  In the condemnation of witches, the Christian becomes confident that his own barbaric beliefs are something better than witchcraft; when he prays and conducts his own magical rituals he is becoming something quite different from a witch himself.  The fault in the lamp, dear reader, is a fault we must find within ourselves: as shallow and obvious as that may be, it is a riddle the majority of humanity never will solve.

Personal desire for personal identity perpetually creates and recreates a false system of morality: the majority of people caught in this cycle of asserting feelings to be innate in the real things that surround them can never break out of the cycle.  The bourgeois class is a lamp that you, yourself, failed to plug in: it is not broken and cannot be fixed.  It is a door that you yourself left unlocked.  It is a mirror showing you how fat and ugly you are.  And yet for the vast majority of people, the feelings they have arising from these hated and reviled objects (social classes, lamps and mirrors alike) are so seemingly real that they inspire one moral system after another, crowding out doubt, filling the world with false certainties.

I have said it is a personal desire for personal identity: what is it that the Communist wants?  To be a good person while regarding others as bad, perhaps?  To feel that they, personally, know the esoteric truth, while so many others labor in ignorance?  Moral superiority, intellectual superiority, physical superiority, sexual superiority: common, animal desires.  People make use of abstractions to serve these carnal interests, as if they could use a pencil and an eraser to edit human nature.  Wanting to be loved isn't evil: wanting to believe, and wanting others to believe as you do, so that you can be loved, is the greatest evil of all.

If the Christians say, "These Communists are climbing the wrong mountain, trying to get to happiness", we all can understand what they mean well enough.  The Communists from their side could say the same: they see the Christians doing all sorts of Communist things, such as caring for the poor and living in voluntary poverty themselves, to then remark on how unfortunate it is that this hiking instinct is being applied to the wrong mountain.  What if you genuinely do not believe there is any mountain, anywhere, that could make you happy?  What if the whole sport of mountain climbing relies on a cycle of self-deception no less pathetic than gambling and drug addiction?  What if the view from the top and the view from the bottom are one and the same?  That is where nihilism escapes from the ancient, narrow path: where the bottom and top of the mountain meet and become equal, where the cycle of climbing (our cycle of meaningless suffering) begins and ends, forever.

Nihilism 101: "The point is not for the word to give flesh and blood reality to the abstraction on the chalkboard: the word functions only for me to express something to you about myself."

On December 18th of 2020, I made a video quizzically titled, Nihilism: Advice for my Daughter, Advice for the Next Generation. As already indicated by the "new" title above (quoting a turn of phrase from the middle of the video) this was (and is) a sort of introductory course: "Nihilism 101".

This is not a video I would make today. It's an interesting stylistic contrast to the occult mystique of Blood in the Snow.

Here's the long, long comment that led to my searching for, finding and watching the video again today, posted from a viewer using the Sanskrit name Dasyuhan. A block quotation ensuses.

Hey brother, I hope you're doing well. You recently made a post about nihilism in relation to the events unfolding in the Middle East [i.e., the war in Iran], I assume. Since the comments were turned off, I'm leaving my response here instead.

As you know, I'm not a native English speaker and am still learning, but from what I can gather from that post, when you said "Nihilism: the least esoteric of the major faiths," you meant that nihilism isn't some obscure or complex philosophy, and that reality itself constantly provides obvious, brutal evidence for it. Then there is the picture of that Iranian man discussing all of this, paired with the quote about the just world fallacy, which I looked up and found to be the cognitive bias whereby people assume the world is fundamentally fair, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It is essentially a psychological comfort mechanism. If you believe in a just world, witnessing everything that is happening creates an irresolvable contradiction, hence the anguished question: "why did they deserve to..."

A nihilist, by contrast, has no such confusion. Bad things happen to good people because the universe operates without any moral logic. So nihilism is "the least esoteric faith" because you don't need scripture or theology to arrive at it. Reality teaches it constantly and plainly.

The just world fallacy sets people up for perpetual moral bewilderment, while nihilism, however bleak, is at least consistent with observable reality.

That is my understanding of what you posted. I'd love to know if I got it right. The reason I'm writing this is that what you described is something very close to what I have always observed about the world and believed in from a very young age, so it resonates deeply with me. Would you consider making a video about this, exploring it in depth? Something that lays out the evidence for how reality itself gives rise to this worldview, where we don't have to pretend otherwise. I know I'm not articulating this very well, but you have a way of expressing these things far more coherently than I do, and I think you'd do it justice. I would really appreciate it.

And here is my reply, including the link to the video aforementioned as "nihilism for beginners".

Yes, my own "school of thought" is called Historical Nihilism, and it is discussed both in many of my own youtube videos, and in several books and articles (that are generally available for free on the internet, and also for the lowest possible purchase price, on paper, on Amazon). Search for my name (Eisel Mazard) plus "Blood in the Snow": the whole book available on my blog for free, and you can then work with Google Translate, paragraph by paragraph. As English is your second language, this may be better for you than trying to follow my videos on the matter. There is quite a stark contrast between that book and this "nihilism for beginners" video: https://youtu.be/_cN1S6yk0H0 Quite a stark contrast again with this more advanced video, here: https://youtu.be/HxNB1YCzLjQ Again, with this second link, I imagine it would be easier for you to work with the text, copying and pasting into Google translate, and then comparing the two languages as you read, rather than hearing it as a video.

(1) I am aware that I may not have answered his question (i.e., I do not seem to be interested in "the evidence for how reality itself gives rise to this worldview"). (2) It is interesting that none of the texts or videos I've alluded to in my reply take the "easy" route of expanding the meaning of atheism to establish a broader and deeper meaning for nihilism. I believe I did take that easy route, once, when I was being interviewed by an unsophisticated imbecile about the meaning of nihilism (i.e., in a video that still remains on my channel). Many people find nihilism easy enough to visualize if you just draw their attention to the beliefs that atheism fails to challenge; however, that very ease may end up trivializing the concept.

Finland: the most atheist society in the world… that is neither Communist nor Post-Communist, I suppose.

Yes, admittedly, the Vietnamese claim that they're the most atheistic country in the world, and I'm sure North Korea could muster up some statistics to challenge the claim, BUT NEVERTHELESS…

According to GE2015, 24% of Finns identify positively as nonreligious (see Table 1). There has been some increase since 2011 (19%), when this option was introduced to the identification question. The percentage of religious identification was 36%. It is much smaller than Christian identification (67%), which most likely demonstrates that Finns consider themselves to be culturally Christian even when not regarding themselves as religious. Altogether 16% said that they were atheists.

[…]

Among those with only basic level education, 28% identify as nonreligious, whereas among those with tertiary-level education the figure is 23%.

[…]

For them, contrary to the older generations, being nonreligious or atheist has very little to do with the Soviet Union or Communism. At the same time, however, the historical filter that has connected Lutheranism and national identity explains (partly) why nonreligious identification is not more popular. In other words, the drift away from organic nationalism that combines ethnicity and religion towards the situation where national identity (or the idea of what it is to be an ordinary Finn) is divorced from religion advances the normalisation of nonreligious identities. At the same time, being religious is increasingly becoming a reflective choice rather than a taken-for-granted identification, as it should be in a scenario of weakening cultural Christianity.

So, we are led to suppose, the new Russophobia is not anti-atheist whereas the old Russophobia was precisely that: a sort of defensive Christianity erected as a barrier against Communism. This would be counterproductive, of course: Christianity leads to Communism in much the same way that Judaism leads to Christianity —Karl Marx is merely the author of another "new testament" —he offers neither an antithesis nor an antidote to the beliefs that came before.

Source:

"Normalisation of nonreligious identity in Finland"

Teemu Taira,Kimmo Ketola, Jussi Sohlberg.

Journal of Contemporary Religion.

Volume 38, 2023 - Issue 1. Pages 1-19 | Published online: 14 Nov 2022

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2022.2138020#abstract

The Slipped Disc: My Current (AND ONGOING) Spinal Injury.

AFAIK, what I've been suffering with is a herniated disc down at the bottom of the lumbar region. Yes, that "AFAIK" disclaimer could be significant.

This website presents a perspective on the illness and the process of recovery different from what I've seen before:

https://buffalorehab.com/blog/the-recovery-time-for-a-lumbar-disc-herniation/

This makes sense to me...

however, sadly, I have been making the injury worse, not better, by returning to the gym as quickly as possible, again and again…

whereas, in reality I shouldn't have even been sitting in a chair at all, but should have limited myself to bed rest (FOR SEVERAL MONTHS).

Within the last few days, I was evidently making the condition worse when I was working on the German translation (sitting at a desk) whereas I previously thought of that type of mild strain as a positive exercise, helping rather than hindering recovery (i.e., I could feel that sitting and working at desk caused strain / pain).

I am now really limited: all I can do is lie down flat. And I do not know for how long that will last.

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Activities that will cause more fluid to leak are bending, lifting, twisting, sitting, and any impact (running or jumping). The more we stick to the “good” positions and limit the “bad,” the sooner our discs start to heal.

Typically, it takes three to four weeks for the fluid to stop leaking from the outer layer. Keep in mind, this only applies if you start limiting the bad positions and promoting those good positions.

At this time, the point of leakage will scar over and trap the fluid within the outer layer. This is the point in treatment when you can start to tolerate sitting for a little longer.

Over the next four weeks, the fluid will continue to work its way back toward the center of the disc, and eventually, the inner layer will scar over

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This is significantly different from how I'd visualized the problem before.

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When following the ideal plan, after about twelve weeks your disc is healed enough to tolerate impact, such as running or jumping

...

Suffering a back injury may seem catastrophic, however, it does not mean you will have back issues for the rest of your life. With proper guidance, patience, and a little bit of hard work, you can heal your disc injury within twelve weeks!

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Well... I could still cancel my gym membership. :-/

It does not seem reasonable to imagine I'll be back at the gym FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS… whereas, instead, I've been injuring myself anew pretty much every time I returned to the gym (for many, many months now) trying to increase the strength of the muscles surrounding the injury in the back.