The context here, implicitly, is my "Kristen Leo trilogy":
(i) The Tradcon Housewife Trope / Trap. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Pyk11Zutdw4
(ii) The Vegan Autodidact Trope / Trap. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xcj7mL8Utv0
(iii) The Monetized Monogamy Trope / Trap. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fw3jACZ16bs
^ These are about two and a half minutes apiece.
There is a sort of fork in my philosophy, at first visible (or, perhaps, at first impossible to ignore) in the single sentence of Blood in the Snow that introduces the image of the bird's nest, then seen again in the two hour lecture on Iran that explains this allegory of the bird's nest as the bridge between generations at greater length —and in dramatic fashion.
Although in some ways this is just a return to the concerns stated in the old manifesto video in Season One (i.e., long before No More Manifestos) I've made a subtle shift from a two-category to a three-category system of thinking about the lives and immediate futures of myself, my colleagues and contemporaries. The first two categories, perhaps excessively familiar to the few who will read this note, contrast (i) the life of the mind to (ii) the pursuit of short-term self-indulgence, a false model of happiness. We now have a third category of (iii) building the bird's nest, the bridge between generations. Although I was many years younger when the old manifesto video was recorded, you might recall the greater emphasis on retirement homes (and medical care for the elderly, etc.) at that time.
Empirically, I think the third category is fictional, or at least much more fictional than the first two: some people passionately, directly desire to live the life of the mind, and directly experience some kind of joy from living it. I doubt anyone would be able to muster up much skepticism if I were to say something parallel about the pseudo-hedonism of the second category. These two categories exist: that people desire them, perceive them, and experience suffering and sorrow as a result, sometimes misperceiving misery as happiness, sometimes experiencing true elation, joy and happiness. What I doubt is that the bird's nest (and the bridge to the next generation) is real for anyone in this same way: all I ever hear is women who were brainwashed into maternity by one oppressive religion or another regretting that they'd ever agreed to raise kids at all, looking back at their prior lives as a succession of submissive mistakes. Atheism neither liberates us from the chains of sexual desire nor sexual morality; it does, apparently, liberate us from having any interest whatsoever in sexual reproduction.
You will think that I am joking because I am joking, but my point is sincere: the human species seems to truly lack instincts or interests related to building this nest. I've had a few encounters lately with women who suddenly decide that they want to become mothers, but their passion for this is not even enough to compel them to quit smoking, quit drinking, or quit uploading hardcore pornography videos of themselves to Onlyfans. When the simplest of questions are asked about the most immediately obvious prerequisites (i.e., nest building activities) they stare blankly into a future they have no practice imagining. I do not think these women are exceptional, and I do not think the men are better than them (i.e., I would tend to assume most men are even worse).
All three categories involve vanity. All three categories involve egoism and self-serving delusion. However, the first two categories have some power to tempt people, whereas the third does not: there is a temptation to live, broadly, then a temptation to live a meaningful life, much more narrowly, in part arising from the experience of the meaninglessness of the pursuit of many different kinds of happiness. In this sense, nobody really needs to advocate for the life of the mind: it is seductive in its own way, whereas cocaine and prostitution are rebarbative in their own way as well. The lack of human interest in that third category is remarkable, however: we have no instinct to build this bridge between the generations, and so —it seems— all our bridges to the future may soon be burned.
The enjoyment of life and the meaning of life are two different things. However, if you are at a high enough level of intellectual sophistication, raising children is both enjoyable and meaningful —whereas going to Coachella is neither one nor the other —whereas watching televised ice hockey is neither one nor the other, and so on. I suspect we are members of a species that has just enough "low cunning" to become entirely consumed with short-term self-indulgence (video game addiction and drug addiction included) without reaching that level of intellectual sophistication that would make the miseries of raising children enjoyable to endure.
Elitism is not the problem: elitism is the solution. #trump #billgates #epstein #mandelson
Link: https://youtube.com/shorts/BYx0SnhqTgw
This is one of many, many three minute monologues on moral matters I've uploaded in the last few days.
Little fragments of the philosophy of No More Manifestos show up here and there, seeming to hint at the greater whole.
[This was written and published Jul 2, 2025, but for some unknowable reason Google has had tremendous difficulty finding it… so it's being reposted now.]
Dear Mr. Rowe,
I have just listened to your episode on Seneca (recorded four or five years ago) for a second time, after hearing many of your episodes on Shakespeare, Kyd, Ben Jonson, etc., within the last twelve months.
Seneca was such an enormous influence on Shakespeare and his contemporaries that I think —now— you must look back on Seneca's tragedies with a somewhat different angle than you had at that time.
I recently "performed" Seneca's Agamemnon (in English) aloud —a very dramatic reading of a very dramatic text— while recovering from surgery and confined to bed rest. This was after I was released from the hospital, so I did not have an involuntary audience of other patients, but I joked that the neighbors would be complaining —as there is so much agony written into the text that must be performed "at the top of your voice" if it is going to be performed at all.
Seneca's tragedies are hard to read.
They're hard to perform.
They're hard to appreciate.
However, they have to be appreciated as a condemnation of the morality and superstition of the earlier Greek authors —including Homer— and can't merely be seen as a failure to reproduce the "refinement" of Euripides and Sophocles.
Clytemnestra demands to know why she should face the death penalty for sleeping with another man (during a ten year separation from her husband) while her husband has had several lovers, several utterly immoral affairs, and he is neither faulted nor punished for the same sin in any way.
The morality and magic of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are condemned: not satirized, but condemned.
This is a tradition already well attested in Plato: that some people (or at least some extant authors and philosophers) really did reject the morality that young people were being taught in memorizing and reciting Homer by the lyre.
For Seneca, the moral significance of Agamemnon engaging in human sacrifice is utterly different from what it was for Homer —or for anyone alive within several generations of Homer's authorship. Seneca does not believe in the moral system of supernatural contamination and purification that the original stories are written to convey.
For Seneca, when Ajax the Lesser defies the gods, he is right —he is heroic in shouting out, "you haven't killed me yet". For Homer, the whole fleet of boats is destroyed because Ajax the Lesser failed to ritually atone for violating a purely superstitious set of rules.
Seneca is condemning the cycles of revenge (Clytemnestra, Electra, etc.) in a way that the ancient Greeks do not: Seneca regards as a voluntary evil what the Greeks regarded as inexorable, necessary and even heroic (thus, tragic). And Seneca does make direct, bold statements that would have gotten you killed in Athens, saying to the audience that there are no gods in the sky, and there is no fate that will avenge these atrocities (such as a mother killing her own children).
He has a point. To whom is this shocking today? Only to the type of people who choose to learn Latin: Seneca has certainly aged better than Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, etc.
From a modern perspective, Seneca seems to be a nihilistic atheist, but it might be more true that he's merely condemning this particular form of religion while believing in another: Protestant condemnations of Catholicism may seem misleadingly atheistic, because (from a 21st century perspective) the critique of one religion applies so closely to the other. It is difficult to take a Protestant seriously who condemns the Pope as an Antichrist, but such people take themselves very seriously indeed —and Seneca, in his milieu, may fall into this camp.
At this moment, I cannot really say to what extent Seneca is endorsing atheism, or to what extent he's using atheist statements (in the mouths of his characters) to merely dramatize the moral point he's making.
I think your first podcast (on Seneca) was influenced by secondary sources that are shocked (and offended) by Seneca's tragedies because the (19th or 20th century) authors still want to believe that Seneca was "a Christian before Christ".
He wasn't. He was the man who stood on trial before the Senate for an illicit love affair with a woman 22 years younger than himself —and he received the death penalty for it, despite his own high level of rhetorical ability to plead his own case (not to mention his wealth, power, etc.). This death penalty was commuted to exile, but nevertheless: that one incident shows that "the real Seneca" was more aware of the destructive potential of human desire than the pious Latin scholars would like to admit to themselves.
These people who say that the plays couldn't possibly be intended for performance in front of a live audience: they're not people with experience in the theatre as actors, nor as directors, nor as impressarios, nor as anything else. They're "Golden Axe People", as I like to say: they're the type of people who end up with PhDs in classics.
And they're the same people who say that the author of the tragedies and the author of the philosophical letters cannot possibly be one and the same —simply because they're horrified by the tragedies, and they prefer the pious, ostentatiously humble, tone of the letters. Ovid, also, seems humble in his letters, but we probably get a better sense of the real man from his poetry.
These moderns, these Golden Axe People, are so horrified that they cannot even imagine that Seneca's tragedies are trying to make a moral point —with Nero himself being one of the people in the audience this point is driven home to.
Only the most unsophisticated reading of the text could suppose that this is something like a horror movie: that it is intended to entertain through sheer dint of violence and gore. Instead, Seneca's tragedies offer a kind of morality lecture for an audience that won't listen to morality lectures anymore: the adult Nero.
With thanks for your time and consideration,
Eisel Mazard
I do think, implicitly, this defense of the sari is posed in contrast to the veil (hijab, etc.). The idea that Hindu traditionalism is compatible with sexual liberation —although risible— seems to be taken seriously when juxtaposed to even more ridiculous claims made by defenders of Islam.
There is no unity in belief: there is unity in its opposite. We are divided by religion and united by nihilism. We are not united by the clothes we wear, but by the clothes we refuse to wear. We are not made one by symbols, nor by abstract (symbolic) reasoning, but by the breaking of symbols: mental nudity.
[A viewer writes in, responding to the short video above:]
It has actually been reported that the number is now closer to 6,000 [peaceful protestors killed in the streets]. My people have had enough. We cannot stop now. If we do, the revenge this regime will unleash would be far more devastating. What would be the point anyway? To stop only to die of starvation?
Iran will never be Syria. The majority of Iranians are done with Islam. They see anything associated with Islam as a symbol of their colonizers, which explains the mosque burnings. We also have a clear alternative: Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who over the past 45 years has consistently preached the same message through his advocacy, that power should come from the people. His actions have perfectly reflected the ideology he has promoted all these years. As he gained more popularity, he began taking more decisive actions. This has led to what we see today: people chanting his name, calling for his return, and now hearing him give direct guidance on reclaiming our beloved Iran.
I used to watch your content frequently a long time ago, and since I am somewhat familiar with your political views, I thought I would let you know about one of the most popular chants on the streets right now. It symbolizes that people have learned their lesson from everything that went wrong in 1979.
“Death to the three corrupt: the Mullah, the Leftist, and the Mojahed.”
These are the three forces that ruined Iran through the fusion of Islamism and Communism, the Red and Black alliance. It mirrors what is happening today in the West.
Lastly, I want to end with a story from the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, the greatest work of Persian literature ever written. Simorgh, also known as the Phoenix in Persian mythology, must die and turn into ashes so that she can rise again stronger than before. Sometimes, that is the only way.
For years, I heard many Iranians, myself included at times, criticize Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. We said he should have been a dictator, as people wrongly labeled him, and that instead of leaving the country and refusing to rule through fear or turn against his own people, he should have crushed the protests. But with everything that has unfolded, I cannot help but wonder if it was necessary to suffer for 47 years so that Iranians could finally move on from a religion that colonized them 1,400 years ago. It is a tragic idea to accept, but perhaps this was the Phoenix story of the Iranian people.
May you come and visit a free Iran sooner rather than later.
—Javid Shah
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Quote, "The majority of Iranians are done with Islam." You're telling me that more than 50% of the population of Iran is atheist (not Buddhist, presumably) and willing to fight a war against Islam? You're telling me that more than 45 million Iranians (out of 90 million or more) are anti-Islamic? When you go out in the countryside and talk to the poor: the majority of those people are willing to work with Israel and with America against their own government… for this reason? Really? Does that sound falsifiable to you?
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@a-bas-le-ciel I mean, the best poll we have comes from the GAMAAN Institute and was conducted in 2020 under the title “Iranians’ Attitudes Toward Religion.” It showed that 60 percent of Iranians no longer identify as Muslim. They are not atheists, even though I wish they were. Most still believe in a God, just not a religious one. This poll was conducted before the Mahsa Amini uprising and the current revolution, so I would wager that the number is even higher today. I want to reiterate that I am not claiming the poll is perfect, but it is the best evidence we currently have, aside from the Islamic Republic’s own fabricated statistics, where people are automatically labeled Shia in their passports at birth. I would post the link, but YouTube would likely block my comment, so just search the title along with the word GAMAAN and it will come up.
Other polls also show a significant rise in parents choosing Iranian names over Arabic names for their children, as well as a growing abandonment of Islamic traditions in favor of Iranian ones such as Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, over the past 47 years. All of these trends point in the same direction.
Aside from that, I was born and lived in Iran for 18 years before moving to Canada. I can speak from personal experience, and in my opinion, once the regime falls, Iran is about to become the true capital of what many would call Islamophobia. We are all anxiously waiting to see how this plays out, especially within the diaspora.
To answer your question directly, Iranians do not need to fight a war against Islam. My point is that I genuinely believe the fight is already over and that most people have already moved on. I emphasize the word most because there will still be a portion of the population that remains Muslim, but they will be a minority.
Lastly, yes, I truly believe there is no force Iranians despise more intensely than the Islamic Republic. I think the majority of the population is willing to work with Israel and the United States. I have followed Iranian politics for years, and believe me when I say that Trump and Netanyahu have an unsettling number of devoted fans in Iran, more than you would even find in Israel or America. The political views that emerge from Iran after the fall of this regime are going to shock the West. I understand how extreme this may sound to someone not closely following Iranian politics, but maybe in a few months or a year I will comment on one of your videos and say, “I told you so.”
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Re: "It showed that 60 percent of Iranians no longer identify as Muslim." I think you are profoundly misinterpreting the situation —and you may well be gamble with your own life on the basis of this misinterpretation. Re: "I have followed Iranian politics for years, and believe me when I say that Trump and Netanyahu have an unsettling number of devoted fans in Iran, more than you would even find in Israel or America." We will see precisely how many (or how few) are now willing to prove this in a civil war: it is one thing to passively say you support Caesar and another thing to fight and die for the future of an illusion.
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@a-bas-le-ciel I saw that you made a post about my comment. Thank you for taking the time to respond. I genuinely appreciated much of what you had to say about nihilism, as that was the kind of content I originally followed you for. It always bothered me that whenever someone says they are a nihilist, the immediate response is, “Oh, so you must be depressed.” Society as a whole seems unable to recognize the clear distinction between atheism and nihilism, even though, as you pointed out, nihilism rejects all beliefs, not just belief in a deity. I also appreciated your discussion of how nihilism can be used as a tool or framework to improve one’s life. In addition, I enjoyed your content on debunking and discussing determinism, especially the salt crystal analogy you used.
The reason I specifically referenced that particular chant is that, if I remember correctly, you grew up in a communist household and you have a profound dislike for that ideology. I used that chant because I thought you would be able to relate to the struggle of my people who are suffering under the very ideas you oppose on a personal level, ideas that have devastated my beloved Iran for the past 47 years.
I do not think I am misrepresenting the situation. Iranians are extremely patriotic, and many of us are willing to die for Iran. I do not know if you can fully grasp what I am feeling, but there is a burning jealousy inside me that I am not in Iran right now, fighting alongside my compatriots to reclaim the land of Cyrus the Great. I was 11 years old when I left my house without my parents knowing to participate in the Green Movement protests. Those protests also turned violent. If I could press a button and be there right now, I would do it without hesitation.
You also said that many people are willing to die for what you call an illusion. First of all, it is not an illusion, or if you believe it is, that claim needs to be demonstrated. Iran is not Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria. The culture, population, and collective will of the people are fundamentally different. Even if I grant that point for the sake of argument, I do not think you fully grasp how dire the situation in Iran truly is. People have been dying for years as a result of this government’s policies and incompetence. Fewer than ten percent of the population supports the regime, and there are polls that reflect this reality as well.
People are dying because they cannot access the medicine they need. They are dying due to poor road management and car accidents. They are dying from poverty, from pollution, and from countless other systemic failures. The number of casualties from these causes is far greater than what we are seeing right now. The difference is that until recently, it was all just numbers. Numbers do not spark emotion. But when people see actual bodies as the result of the regime’s cruelty, those numbers become human, and that reality deeply disturbs anyone who witnesses it.
Before this revolution, a video went viral in Iranian media showing a father crying because he could not afford to buy a bicycle for his daughter. He did not know how to explain that to her or how to cope with the pain and helplessness of it. It is the kind of moment that, when you see it, awakens something inside you as a human being.
The country is slowly dying. If this regime remains in power, we won’t have any water to drink soon. Our environment is being destroyed, and our ports and national assets are being sold off to the CCP.
So when you tell me that people are fighting and dying for the future of an illusion, you are not fully grasping the depth of suffering under this regime. People are willing to fight for the possibility of a better future because even the hope of something better, even if you choose to call it an illusion, is far preferable to the reality they are living through now.
By the way, if you ever wanted to discuss Iran on a Discord call or something, I’m up for it.
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I have been very sick, but when I'm healthy enough to get on camera, I'll record a further video about this: I am not opposed to civil war, I am opposed to pretending that peaceful protest can accomplish the same things as a civil war —and I am opposed to delusional optimism about the body count entailed by a civil war —and I am cautioning the audience (in parallel to Syria) as to just how undemocratic (and un-secular) the outcomes of the civil war may be. This video is less than three minutes long: it leaves many things unsaid. To have a government in Iran that forces the population to accept (i) the theory of evolution and (ii) the workplace equality of women and overt homosexuals… what would be the body count for that? What would be a realistic estimate of how much violence would be required to bring about that social transformation? The French Revolution was reversible: many of those people died fighting for the future of an illusion —although for a few short years it seemed to be real.
[Interestingly, one translator refused to accept the project "for religious reasons".]
Dear Buyer,
Thank you for reaching out.
I would be happy to translate your book and would not mind including my name.
Before we move forward, may I kindly ask for a bit of clarification regarding the average rating (3) given to the previous freelancers you worked with on the platform?
As I try to be cautious with new projects, this would help me better understand expectations and avoid any potential misunderstandings.
Looking forward to your reply.
Best regards,
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"As I try to be cautious with new projects, this would help me better understand expectations and avoid any potential misunderstandings." I am expecting a translation at a high enough quality to be published as a book: this is intellectually sophisticated material, for an intellectually sophisticated audience. I am not expecting Google Translate (or DeepL) with minor corrections: I am looking for someone who will engage in manual translation with some serious attention paid to substance, style and insinuation.
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Kindly note that as a Fiverr Pro Top-Rated seller with a PhD in Linguistics, my quality of translation is not questionable at all. My question was related to your previous experiences with 2 Fiverr sellers (although it was long ago), since your average buyer rating is 3.
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(1) I answered your question as you stated it: you told me that you wanted to "better understand expectations". That was the question I replied to.
(2) There are terrible, totally incompetent people on Fiverr: one British man who spoke English as his first language was paid for a voice recording, but he could not pronounce the common word "sphere". He pronounced it "sa-peer". This was a British man who advertised his services as a professional voice actor (etc.). In English, we learn the word "sphere" as young children. This was not the only bizarre example of his incompetence. Within the first five minutes of the recording:
The word sphere = mispronounced
The word credo = mispronounced
The word conceit = mispronounced
The word prerogative = mispronounced
So, yes, some people on Fiverr have zero competence, and they receive zero star reviews.
I have also met many people with PhDs who have zero competence in the languages they claim to be experts in (i.e., not on Fiverr).
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Ok. I don't think we'd be a good fit. Best, _____
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If I pay a voice actor to record a script in English (and his first language is English) I expect him to be able to pronounce words like "sphere". Apparently this means my expectations are too high for you?
I have studied many, many languages myself, including Chinese, Cambodian, Lao, Pali, and Cree (Algonquian).
Yes, there are people with PhDs who present themselves as competent in these languages who cannot, in fact, read them: Pali (related to Sanskrit) is an extreme example of one kind, whereas Cree is another.
You asked the question: I answered it.
No, I do not trust that someone is a competent translator just because they have a PhD: I am speaking from real experience.
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I totally understand. Was there any chance to ask him to revise it?
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Yes, I spent several hours listening to the recording and listing every example of an error in it. He clicked to give me a refund. I am not saying this as an insult: I genuinely think this person was mentally disabled. "Sphere" is a word we learn as children in English schools: the names of the geometric shames are required as part of our education. He did not know how to pronounce very simple words like this (that are not orthographically obvious) and he also did not know how to use a dictionary to check the pronunciation. As you have a PhD in linguistics, you can imagine this process very clearly. "Sphere" is not a difficult example (if English is your first language).
Again, I was not being insulting when I said that I have met people with PhDs (especially PhDs in linguistics) who have zero competence in the "target language" they built their career and reputation on. This is quite common. Many people just learn technical aspects of linguistics and could never translate a work of literature (or political philosophy) into another language.
I have experience with languages that are extremely hard to learn. Although some people with PhDs are frauds, some are sincere but are left heartbroken by an education system that prevented them from gaining competence in the language they were supposed to study.
I have met famous people with PhDs in Pali and Sanskrit who can read neither one. One very famous professor [DETAILS OMITTED] could not "see" the difference between Burmese, Cambodian and Sinhalese (as orthographic systems used for Pali). These are much more obviously different than Cyrillic and Latin.
I have also met one career translator for the U.S. military who could not (at retirement) even say simple sentences in Chinese such as "you are smart" and "you are beautiful", and these were examples I witnessed myself: he was still a level 1 student after retiring from the air force. His official job title in the U.S. military was "linguist" (translating Chinese in Okinawa, Japan).
So, yes... here on Fiverr... you try to work with people... you find out afterward who is really able to do the job.
I'm a real intellectual: I am looking for translators who can handle a manuscript about political philosophy. Translating advertisements for toothpaste and subtitles for soap operas is a very different thing.
[I ended up employing a translator who charged a significantly higher price and also wanted to take significantly more time to get the job done —the latter being (in my opinion) a positive sign that she takes the task seriously (whereas many translators promised to complete it all within five days).]
