The first ten minutes of this consists of genuinely new content, with some genuine reflections on my personal life that will interest longstanding viewers of my channel even if they're not interested in learning Chinese. The final 12 minutes are a remix of an old video (that you may or may not be able to remember, even if you've seen it) for reasons explained within the first ten.
Sunday, 19 April 2026
Saturday, 18 April 2026
Are you reading for the sake of the book, or for the better person you'd want to be... ?
A "read along" video, with an accompanying article on the blog, etc.
Are you reading for the sake of the book? Are you reading for the sake of the better person you'd want to be?
I think there are three categories to consider —and they may overlap —and they may need to be disentangled.
1. Are you reading the book just for the sake of the book itself? Do you think of this as worth studying "in itself, for itself, as an end in itself"?
I'm not absolutely opposed to this way of thinking, but it is dangerous, and most people stumble along with it, unaware of what they're doing and why: if you simply feel "this is Shakespeare" (or "this is Plato") therefore it is so important that you must study it (quite possibly for several years) there are probably complex assumptions behind that seemingly simple feeling that you need to understand precisely. People who make this commitment to ancient Buddhists texts always (ALWAYS) have specific expectations about what they will find in those texts, and what it will mean for them, personally, to "master" (or at least read) the text. Non-violence and ecology, for example: I have met people who really expected Buddhist texts to teach them something important about these things that they'd apply in their own lives —and then they're devastated to some extent (and live in denial to some extent) when it turns out that the ancient authors don't share their thematic interests at all (and can't tell them anything useful about the subject whatsoever). Even if you're reading these texts as a debunker, there are assumptions about what is there to be debunked, and what the significance and meaning of the debunking will be. I'm choosing non-supernatural examples, as opposed to common delusions about meditation and reincarnation, but the same patterns can be seen in Marxism: people read the Communist equivalent to Shakespeare expecting (reasonably enough?) that this will provide them with (i) a better model for society and (ii) a practical guide as to how to create that better society. Even such reasonable expectations will end with disappointment, disillusionment and devastation —unless the reader becomes committed to living a lie.
It is my duty to argue against my own position here for a moment: the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel is absolute garbage, but you're not in a position to know that and say that if you haven't done a certain amount of reading for yourself. It is actually more sacrilegious to say this about Shakespeare than Buddhist philosophy: there really is a sense in which "the book is worth reading for the sake of the book itself" simply to overcome the idiocy of the cultural context we all live within, simply to pierce the fog that blinds everyone else (as they stumble through their lives assuming a certain kind of brilliance in Hegel, in Shakespeare and in Buddhist philosophy that isn't there).
2. Are you reading the book for the sake of other people? Are there co-operative (or appreciative) relationships with other people that you'd expect to result from studying these books, with or without the struggle to learn a new language being a part of the process?
This one you've already heard me say enough about in youtube videos and podcasts, because I warn against it again and again: in any century prior to this one it probably was reasonable to assume that reading a stack of books would lead to meaningful relationships with other people who share some of your research interests —but we are not discussing the advantages and disadvantages of inventing a time machine. There is no literature that brings people together anymore: neither the study of Buddhist philosophy in its primary sources nor the Kalevala will make you any friends in this world. There were quite a few "coronavirus era conferences" for Ancient Latin that record the disappointment of middle aged and elderly people who have sacrificed their whole lives (laboring in isolation without reward) just to participate in a conference with credentialed academics who can supposedly co-operate with them (or at least appreciate their work) only to discover, to their horror, that they are even more alone at the end of the process than they were at the beginning. Someone could really add "a director's commentary" to these implicitly pathetic recordings: they show this kind of disillusionment I've warned about again and again. You put twenty years of labor into re-translating a Latin text for nobody, for nothing, and you're not even appreciated by your competitors (in the same field) who have made the same sacrifices to be able to attend this same conference themselves.
I'm not lonely, but I am alone: these are two different things. I would not reproach or insult someone for getting involved in stand up comedy for the company they find among other comedians (again, this is a mix of co-operation and appreciation, etc.). That is something real that some people desire. You must realize: I do not want a single one of these comedians to attend my next birthday party, nor do I want to attend any of their next birthday parties myself —I regard them as mentally disabled, delusional, drug addicts. Some of them enjoy my company when I'm around and some pretend to hate me (i.e., I do not say, "some of them love me and some of them hate me", as these are very shallow relationships) but none of them regard me as mentally disabled, delusional or drug addicted. The mutual alienation exists for a good reason: there is a sense in which I am wise to keep my distance from them. So, again, I am not lonely, I am merely alone, and it is neither good nor bad to be alone —unless you have specific goals that require the co-operation of many people.
Now here's the thing: vegan activists are largely mentally disabled, delusional drug addicts. Salaried academics in both Ancient Latin and Ancient Buddhism are largely mentally disabled, delusional drug addicts. I'm not joking. So the question becomes whether or not you'd learn any of these languages (Latin, Pali, etc.) for the sake of some other intellectual community —and then we must wonder to what extent this other intellectual community actually exists.
Suppose I had studied Modern Burmese after studying Pali (this is an option for you, also, both immediately and eventually). An intellectual community of Europeans who have learned Burmese genuinely exists, with some small degree of participation from Burmese people who have become fluent in English. This community does not depend on academic credentials, it isn't really linked to any university system anywhere. Yes, I could be spending my days drinking mineral water and pretending it's champagne at fundraising events for Burmese Human Rights —and occasionally having clandestine meetings over coffee with grim old men who have unclear historical connections to MI6 and the CIA. I am not quite stupid enough to wish I had lived my life this way, and I am not stupid enough to want to "switch tracks" to studying Modern Burmese now. But there are many positive things about this option that cannot be said about any of the other (hypothetical or actual) examples I've mentioned: it would really be better than studying Pali just to "pwn" (verb) the idiots and scam artists of the ayahuasca set.
Re: "It's very easy to 'interpret' the word slave as servant, worker or even helper…"
Right: and that is what you'll be dealing with again and again AND AGAIN. You're just dealing with the "wishful thinking" of believers who read these texts "with the eyes of faith" —and I would remind you again that the Marxists are just as bad even though their textual corpus does not promise them paradise after they're dead. Conversely, note the refusal of Latinists to deal with Ovid's preaching of veganism: Metamorphoses, as a whole, really is "a vegan tract", and it has no other conclusion —no other moral purpose. The tragedy is that there is no correct interpretation of the text that will compel slave owners to re-consider the morality of slavery, there is no correct interpretation of the text that will compel meat eaters to reconsider the ethics of veganism, and so on. We're just dealing with the voluntary illiteracy of self-indulgent people (who read books only for the purpose of self-justification) without any possible, positive outcome. For an example that involves neither religion nor politics: I have seen people read the same scientific study I've read and "interpret" it differently, so that they can continue believing that marijuana does not cause brain damage —and I could say something similar with antidepressants. I once had a voice call with a fully qualified doctor who could not "see" in the text the same thing that I "saw" as if this were some subjective matter of interpretation, when we're talking about peer reviewed scientific studies published in English. Most people never overcome their animal instincts, and they never shall: they are totally overwhelmed by these instincts at all times —and, in this sense, they read a scientific study in the same way that they read pornography.
3. To what extent are you reading the book (or learning the language, etc.) for the sake of the better person you could become, five years from now?
I don't know if you're rich or poor, but either way it would be quite possible for you to devote the next five years to organizing performances of Shakespeare. If I invested a few thousand of my own dollars in such a venture, I'm sure the local government would stuff money into my pockets under one pretext or another. Perhaps Shakespeare "for children", with added educational value, that sort of thing. This isn't as obviously, odiously corrupting as hanging around with cocaine-addicted comedians (or the revenants of Burmese black ops) but there is some better or worse person you're going to become as a result of the endeavor. You'll become someone who has several plays by Shakespeare memorized, for example: you'll hear the text being performed at rehearsals again and again. You'll presumably become friends with some of the actors, enemies of others, and so on.
In my opinion, this is a useful contrast to studying Ancient Latin or Pali: five years from now, what really is the sort of man you'll become? It does seem worthwhile to engage with (and debunk) the delusions that now define the Buddhist faith, East and West, but in the process of debunking you become the enemy of everyone, despised as the debunker. A significant number of people have actually quit smoking marijuana because of my influence, but I don't have meaningful relationships with any of them, and I'm hated by thousands more —indeed, it may be difficult for you to imagine just how intense the hatred is directed against me (e.g.) by women who smoked marijuana and took antidepressants during pregnancy. We have this saying, "don't shoot the messenger", but the perspective of these imbeciles is that you are not delivering the message: you created it. The reality of reincarnation (and meditation, etc.) in Ancient Buddhism would not exist (for them) without you delivering it, therefore you created it. This woman's sense of guilt that she inflicted brain damage on her own child (through the use of marijuana and antidepressants during pregnancy) would not exist if I hadn't delivered it, therefore I created it. Therefore, I become a monster. The monstrosity of nihilism exists only in the eyes of the believers —and yet, for them, it is real.
There are people who make a career out of traveling around giving lectures about the evils of Scientology, Mormonism and other cults. Not Buddhism. Not now, not yet. And, of course, the majority of people who show up in the audience to condemn Scientology and Mormonism are themselves members of some equally irrational religion, but feel morally superior nonetheless. Is that the role you'd want to play in relation to Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist literature? Is that the role you'd want to play in relation to Ancient Latin philosophy, Ancient Latin literature?
My own feelings about this have changed. Dying and coming back from the dead —for the second time— may have had some catalytic role in this. Today, I would not open a vegan bakery for the sake of the people brought together (co-operatively) by the bakery itself, nor would I get a job as an instructor at the gym (nor own and operate my own gym, etc.) for the sake of some similar togetherness. There was a time when that was a very powerful impulse in me, but it seems laughable now. I can honestly say that, from my perspective, getting involved with local politics at city hall seems like a worse use of my time than getting a job as a bouncer at one of these live music venues (bars or nightclubs). In the land of the blind, the one eyed man does not want to be king: he wants to see and be seen by others, as his equals. The study of these books and languages only makes you "more unequal": you become more remote from the idiocy of others —and then you must wonder if you should try to help them, try to criticize or satirize their idiocy.
And at least satire is an option: if you were writing to me from Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc., what could I possibly say? In that context, comedy is not available as an alternative to living in a state of armed rebellion. What really will result from five years of studying Ancient Latin or Pali? The best possible outcome is some kind of comedy: some kind of satirical response to the society we now live in, or a subculture within it, based on all that you've learned. I would have been better off switching to comedy back in 2016, and devoting myself to satirizing the vegan movement, rather than actually trying to help it, but I had the delusion that I would meet other people who, reciprocally, would be trying to help me.
E.M.
Friday, 17 April 2026
Thursday, 16 April 2026
Looking forward to learning Finnish, looking back at Pali, with Ancient Latin in-between.
[A viewer of the channel writes in:]
Hello Eisel. First of all I'd like to thank you for your work. As someone who has been watching (and reading) your stuff for over 5 years now you've been a tremendously positive influence on my life.
For some background […] [Personal details omitted.]
I've watched all of your videos and read your articles on the Pali language so I'm familiar with your general advice but thought it might be worth asking if you're perspective has changed or if you'd have more specific advice that you'd give one on one.
I have a copy of A K Warder's Introduction to Pali. My plans are to work through each and every lesson at least five times or until I have perfected all of the grammar and vocabulary on each lesson, periodically reviewing all of the older lessons I've finished, even the ones I'm certain that I've perfected. I'd be mainly working through this book while feeding vocabulary and grammar from each lesson into ChatGPT to create supplementary exercises (telling the chatbot to exclusively use vocabulary and grammar that I've personally fed it).
Minus AI this is the method I developed with Latin, which was largely based on your language learning advice.
[Footnote from EM. It certainly is remarkable that I've ended up providing guidance to others learning Latin, without ever learning Latin myself. For my next trick, I will ask a rabbit to pull me out of its hat, being unable to pull a rabbit out of a hat myself.]
A K Warder's book works from the Digha Nikaya. Once I've mastered his book I'm planning to feed the Digha Nikaya through ChatGPT section by section, asking it to give me a frequency list of the most common lemmas that I haven't already learned. Once I've mastered the Digha Nikaya I can move on to more complex non-prose texts.
I should state that I'm only on Lesson 2. What criticisms would you have for my plan, what would you change or add? Also I'd be curious to know why you originally decided to learn Pali as a language.
Personally I've read a decent amount of Greek and Ancient Roman philosophy, as well as other European philosophical and political texts. I've been studying Buddhism for the past few months and partially off the back of your videos and articles on the subject want to read the actual text for myself in it's own words.
Thank you for your time.
—————
[And I reply:]
The extant corpus of Pali texts is finite and repetitive: there is no point in asking ChatGPT to generate new exercises for you...
...because none of those new exercises will resemble anything that exists in the language.
You might as well work from examples in the small corpus of extant texts, or the even smaller corpus of texts worth reading. You're not really idle enough to research the Abhidhammapitaka, are you? "A valley of dry bones", as Mrs Rhys-Davids complained.
The Dhammapada is extremely simple and easy to read: just generate a random number (roll a few dice) and translate the given sentence from that poem instead of using ChatGPT to generate exercises.
I can't remember a single sentence of the Dhammapada being hard to understand.
Warder's book is stupid and boring, written by a stupid and boring guy for his stupid and boring students, but given that you've already learned to read Latin, I'd hypothetically have to assume you can learn to read Pali from Warder... if you're not so bored that you're discouraged and give up.
I may sound like I'm joking around, but boredom is a problem that needs to be taken seriously. I'd rather learn Finnish than French because French is boring to me —and if this is "shallow" it is nevertheless important.
You need to be honest with yourself about what you find interesting about Pali anyway: probably a small number of texts (including the Dhammapada) that deal with a small number of philosophical and aesthetic ideas. But hey, if you're a folklorist who wants to study the Jataka... then you're dealing with a larger vocabulary and a different sort of task.
Counter argument: empirically, have I ever met anyone who gained reading comprehension of Pali from A.K. Warder?
No. Not even once.
The vast majority of people I met who claimed they could read Pali were frauds. That textbook and the university classes associated with it have (AFAIK) produced zero people with reading comprehension of Pali. It is genuinely possible that A.K. Warder's methodology has a zero percent success rate.
Why? I have no idea.
Everyone says Pali isn't difficult to read, but this is equivalent to saying that veganism and sobriety are easily sustained: empirically, we know they're not easy because (1) so few people live by the code and (2) the code proves to be difficult to abide by for such a large percentage of people who try.
I studied Pali before the invention of Google Translate. Fraud will be even more widespread with computer assistance (including ChatGPT).
I now live in a palace surrounded by piles of Latin texts and Latin language textbooks, being a prison and a paradise of my own design, but, you will notice, I seem to be more inclined to learn Finnish.
You can tell me (i.e., I'm genuinely inviting your opinion here) how rewarding it is to read the original Latin of Appian or Sallust: the original Pali "is rewarding" because everyone else lies about what it says and doesn't say.
Perhaps that world has ceased to exist and my remarks are now out of date, but I assure you, just a few decades ago, it really seemed as if I were the first man alive who could read Pali because of the habitual dishonesty of everyone else in the field: one academic claimed that meditation was never even mentioned once in Pali canon, and "therefore" you should trust him with the system of meditation he'd invented personally (and this was a system that relied on his own supernatural/transcendental experiences to guide him, because of the supposed lack of guidance he found in the Pali canon). Other experts routinely claimed there was no mention of heaven or hell anywhere in the Pali canon, etc., as you've probably heard me complain before. So, yes, reading Pali for myself meant that I could break through this culture of misinterpretation —partly the result of the incompetence and insanity of my contemporaries.
Reading Ancient Latin does not offer this kind of breakthrough: in my ignorant opinion, the difference between reading Appian and Sallust in Latin (vs English) is relatively slight —relatively pointless, frankly.
Aesthetically, there is nothing beautiful about Latin for me: I have spoken to one (n = 1) maniac who is absolutely convinced that reciting Latin poetry with the correct cadence is the most beautiful thing in the world (it is "a religious experience" for him, in his own idiom) but I cannot regard Seneca's tragedy of Agamemnon in that way at all. I would really just be glancing at the Latin occasionally to question creative decisions the English translator had made —again, this is relatively pointless, reveals nothing of significance, and doesn't justify the effort to learn Latin in the first place.
My interest in Finnish involves the present and the future, whereas there's always something backward-looking about research into Pali or Ancient Latin. Although sinking slowly, in our century, they are too heavy to be dragged out of the morass of the past.
E.M.
Revealing more about the intention of the reader and less about the intention of the author of the text.
[lukey_boii asks:]
When reading Aristotle should I learn to read the original ancient greek? I feel like I won't understand the nuances without understanding the original context of the language first.
—————
[And I reply:]
Wouldn't you need to read Aristotle in English, first, to form an opinion as to whether or not his books would justify many years of hard labor to re-translate and investigate?
Re: "I feel like I won't understand the nuances without understanding the original context of the language first." What if you're wrong? What if years of language study only reveals that you're an idiot and you won't understand it either way? What if the study of foreign languages leads to more self-deception, revealing more about the intention of the reader and less about the intention of the author of the text? The vast majority of people who learn a foreign language to read Buddhist scripture only become more blind to what those texts say thereby: they're able to understand LESS in their second language than their first, they're LESS able to cross-examine the evidence in an exotic, ancient language than a familiar, modern one. Likewise, Communists continue to be deceived by the same (simple, dishonest and stupid) texts as they move from one language to the next: the translator is not "undeceived" by the powers of translation.
It's one thing to make a judgement about Aristotle being worth reading, and it's another thing to make a judgement about yourself, as a reader. It may be that nothing good results from your learning of Ancient Greek at all.
Wednesday, 15 April 2026
Redefining the Life of the Mind: Nihilism and/or/as Education
This was first uploaded to Eisel Mazard: Monolingual Polyglot.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HhTV8jxCR4
Some number of minutes later it materialized on à-bas-le-ciel.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7b10USDVhI
Eventually, it appeared as an episode of Everyone Hates Eisel Mazard…
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0047QKcHkxDZWTJeXeBwM6
…HOWEVER, the latter half of this video (i.e., neither including the transitional song nor the monologue intro recorded today) originates as an audio-only podcast on Nihilism Now, under a slightly different title.
Tuesday, 14 April 2026
University: Practical Nihilism about Higher Education. #polyglot
LINK: https://youtu.be/UZnKrJ5hsW8
Also available as a podcast via Nihilism Now…
LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/74ObAyXYKlwNMR2SDXRwmb
…and Everyone Hates Eisel Mazard.
LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6tep6MYHQyT6FDEnV104Y4
As always, the podcasts are not exclusive to Spotify, but can be found on Apple Podcasts and other competitors.
Monday, 13 April 2026
I'm not operating a lemonade stand at the bottom of the mountain.
[dogwater6263 writes in:]
I think determinists would say that everything is determined in the same way that the last domino in a line of dominos must fall once the first one is pushed. That is to say, the initial conditions at the start of the universe began a causal chain that made it so that the atoms in my brain could not possibly be anywhere other than where they are now.
—————
[And I reply:]
Please just leave and never watch a video on my channel again —not any of my channels, not any of my podcasts. I am not trying to recruit an army of morons.
I know you don't realize how stupid you sound: you think you're demonstrating your erudition, rather than your idiocy. I'm not going to explain it to you. I'm not going to provide links to earlier videos and livestreams I made on the topic. I'm just going to ask you to leave.
Determinism and/or/as/vs Depression: the New Religion of Bio-Psychiatry
[atomic.determinist writes:]
I've seen your content on determinism.
Was expecting a video on Robert Sapolsky to be there ?
Are you familiar of his work/lectures/books/arguments ?
—————
[And I reply:]
Yeah, the problem is that I'M NOT A MORON. I'd really encourage you to unsubscribe and enjoy one of youtube's many channels that are BY MORONS, FOR MORONS, instead. Such as the Joe Rogan podcast, where you'll find Robert Sapolsky was a guest.
"Robert Sapolsky views depression as a severe biological disorder, analogous to diabetes, rather than a failure of willpower, and generally advocates for the use of medication to address its neurobiological underpinnings. He highlights that antidepressants, such as SSRIs, function by altering neurotransmitter levels (blocking serotonin re-uptake), which helps manage the brain chemistry underlying depression. Sapolsky frequently asserts that depression is a disease that "screams biology," comparable to diabetes in its biological necessity for treatment. Robert Sapolsky views major depression as a severe, biological disease—not a personal failing—that often requires pharmacological intervention, such as SSRIs, to manage."
[The relationship between these two "philosophies" is neither incidental nor coincidental: there was a time when I would have said "I do not make enough money from youtube to justify putting the time and effort into criticizing these things" —but now, admittedly, money is no object, and I'm no long struggling to pay my rent, as I was before. It is just impossible to justify the critique of something so self-evidently stupid, created with such bad intentions, especially in a cultural context of so much habitual dishonesty: people like Cosmic Skeptic will never admit or discuss publicly the extent to which beliefs of this kind have really damaged their lives. This is just another god with another altar, and the lives that the believers sacrifice are most often their own.]
Sunday, 12 April 2026
Nihilism and the Philosophy of Language, Free Will and Determinism.
A New Definition of "Linguistic Nihilism."
LINK: https://youtu.be/ZN3-LU86BSA
This should eventually materialize as a podcast on both Nihilism Now and Everyone Hates Eisel Mazard.
LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1rdFU2EeaLXmmyoEq3hy68
LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5m3o0oCZXM4lU1W8lVRWDZ
As always, the podcast versions are not exclusive to Spotify, but should be "findable" on Apple Podcasts and every other major platform.
Saturday, 11 April 2026
The Endless Horizon: Language Learning as "A Second Childhood" and "Second Education".
[@JD79-t9r writes in:]
Eisel, it's amazing how these guys always want to dismiss the 'talking about politics or science in your target language'. They say things like 'You don't need to talk about those 'advanced' topics bla bla bla.
What a funny cope!
First off, they call these topics 'advanced' based on their own lack of true fluency in their target language.
These are just normal parts of life.
Notice you never see any of these polyglots or their super-heroes like Krashen mention SCHOOL EDUCATION when talking about how native speakers develop their ability in their own language.
Because this would put an end to the whole Language Learning (fluency) grift completely. Because for someone to truelly be native-level fluent in a language they learn as an adult, they will basically have to relive a whole life in that language. Do all the school work in that language, from Kindergaten all the way to High School (at the very least) and University for some.
They will have to learn the Mathematics, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, Literature etc that native speakers learn in their own language. From the first day of school till the end of high school.
They will have to sit for all the regular tests. Get all the correction/feedback from teachers. Do the revision while prepairing for tests like native speakers do.
Memorise thousands of passages, sentences, formulas etc because you HAVE TO.
They will have to watch enough media to equal that which a native speaker has consumed. And this includes all sectors, from movies to comedy to songs to News on TV and reading Newspapers to cartoons.
They will have to also consume enough of the dialects of that language from different regions etc similar to a native speaker. Learn and use all the slang as it develops through their lifetime. So this way they know which slang is outdated and which one is new, and use them at the appropriate time like a native-speaker would.
For those who are religi0us, they will have to relearn their book and texts in their new language.
When you say these words to a Christian whose first language is English: "For God so loved the world...." They will automatically just say the remainder of the words and most likely tell you the verse it came from and so many other things associated with that verse.
Which Polyglot (assuming christian) can do this in any of their learned languages?
Can Luca Lampariello correctly describe (In English, German, Chinese or any of the 12+ languages he claims to speak) the industrial production of ammonia including the correct equations at each stage?
This is something done by a first or second year high schooler in most English speaking 3rd countries.
Can he define photosynthesis? osmosis? These are things done by 12 year olds in these countries.
Can he read a poem and be able to point out that there is alliteration used or consonance or assonance or sibilance... and be able to define what each of these words mean?
What is Charles' Law? What about Ohm's Law?
Can he explain each and include the necessary equations for 10 marks each?
Can he give synonyms and antonyms of words without having to think much?
How about talking about the periodic table in Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese etc?
Again, these are things taught to teenagers.
These are not 'useless advanced topics' as they like to cope.
Can he comfortably understand a CANIBUS song or a WU TANG CLAN song including the cultural references? Busta Rhymes? Eminem? Nas?
If given the chance to show his speaking skills, can he commentate on a whole game of his favorite Sport similar to how a native-speaker fan of the Sport would? Say, a World Cup soccer game, or professional boxing match or whichever sport he enjoys.
The list is ENDLESS.
—————
[And I reply:]
Photosynthesis is a telling example: I raised this issue with Wolvengrey at FNU, asking him how languages like Cree and Ojibwe could survive if we didn't produce fundamental science textbooks, such as "intro to biology", in those languages. Cree can't exist just for repeating certain sentiments passed on from your grandmother: in reality, everyone in that institution had accepted that the language was already dead. They were curating a museum exhibit rather than teaching a living language. Similar questions can be asked about "small" modern languages like Lao and Cambodian, if they rely on students to speak English (or some other foreign language) to deal with "serious" issues. [Added in editing: I interviewed a professor in Thailand who admitted that her ecology program relied on all of the students being able to read articles in English, and that most of her classes consisted of extempore diglossia, coaching the students to better understand the English text in Thai. I assume the students were writing exams and essays in a garbled mix of English and Thai.] Among the Sinhalese, it was common to meet people who could neither discuss Buddhist philosophy nor modern politics in their native language, only in English (although Buddhist philosophy and modern politics are uniquely connected to the history of the place, Sri Lanka). You raise several other issues that are worth talking about, but you might be surprised at the extent to which I can (and do) sympathize with these other YouTubers: they're trapped in a cycle of successfully catering to the audience, and they feel that they have to keep coming up with new videos every few days, instead of dealing with the humbling (if not humiliating) and child-like labor of actually learning a language (or actually learning about history, politics or photosynthesis or anything else). You know, I could produce a new video on Plato today, putting together a fresh analysis of what I already know in an entertaining way, but I could also read Plato (JUST IN ENGLISH) for the next five years, before making another video on the topic. Which of these two kind of learning would be rewarded on YouTube?
Friday, 10 April 2026
The Importance of Being Monolingual: the Gigachad Polyglot Perspective.
Eisel Mazard. Monolingual Polyglot. Is the #1 vibes-based language education channel on the internet. You realize.
LINK: https://youtu.be/h2MhyKJw_Yo
On youtube and everywhere podcasts are "sold".
Thursday, 9 April 2026
The Other Ovid: Charles Martin discusses his translation of the Metamorphoses.
Stephanie McCarter's translation is worse than Charles Martin's by every conceivable measure aside from brevity. In my opinion, the difference in quality is drastic, and SM's work is drastically worse, unless for some reason you're interested in reading a translation that has the fewest words per line possible (but even this does not entail that her translation is better suited to parallel reading with the original Latin).
I have owned a very cheap, paperback copy of CM's Ovid since October of 2021, and bought SM's version second hand at the relatively high price of $28.86 Canadian.
There are shallow reasons for CM's translation, now, to be overlooked: Penguin, as a very powerful publishing house, is promoting SM, with a profusion of pink carefully calculated to appeal to Gen-Z, making the book look rather more like an off-brand beauty product than an on-brand examination of ancient ugliness, and while I encourage everyone to judge a book by its cover, in this case the one in a plain, white binding (with just a stripe of blue at the bottom, no illustration whatsoever) is the incongruous winner.
I have discussed the high cost of the Latin text in recent (short) videos: it may be worth mentioning that I paid $54.95 (Canadian) for the Oxford edition, commonly sold for a hundred dollars or more, but if you can find it for $80 (and you can) that would still be cheaper than owning the two volumes of the Loeb edition together. And although I identify as a nihilist, I cannot believe that nothing has improved in the editing of the text between 2004 and 1916. Admittedly, when I was reading Pali, I knew of many examples of ancient texts that had only gotten worse in the passage of the same century.
Wednesday, 8 April 2026
My life is just one sex scandal after another, apparently.
This one is on "Eisel Mazard" the youtube channel, and "Everyone Hates Eisel Mazard" the podcast, but not on à-bas-le-ciel.
LINK: https://youtu.be/bJk8AJde9uY
LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Yxrut6tXDOoCI3uaWKV1J
Youtube is dead: the lost avant garde of intellectual dissent on the internet.
Now on youtube as never before…
Saturday, 4 April 2026
The Monolingual Polyglot: Learning a New Language for All the Wrong Reasons.
An imperfect parallel to my "dramatic return" to ASOIAF youtubing, I'd point out that quite a few of you started following me for precisely content of this kind… EVEN IF YOU'D RATHER NOT ADMIT IT NOW, IN RETROSPECT. ;-)
Escapism, political engagement and the alternatives: to what extent am I learning a new language just to escape from a cycle of imitation within my own life… to what extent am I learning something new to overcome "the aesthetics of substitution"? Too often, something truly new is desired only as a replacement for something already familiar, instead of being engaged with as genuinely unknown, studied for the sake of pressing into the unknown.
LINK: https://youtu.be/fr3AHEGmmeQ
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere that podcasts are "sold": https://open.spotify.com/episode/5CsFwhDypV5oi9C4q37B86
On obeying a liar for the sake of a lie.
[Coryintheboof8730 writes:]
Would you at minimum say that the only value in reading bs or being lied to (if only extremely minimal) is learning the ins and outs of psychological deception/lies/twisting narratives? Yes you can learn that elsewhere, but if learning new nuances=value there’s that. But I feel like you’ll tell me I’m wrong here for that. But yes, we agree more value is found in 100 other places and situations.
—————
[And I reply:]
Most people I've known, face to face, are damaged for decades by very simple lies that were told to them: I seem to be an unusual person in noticing and dealing with lies rapidly —but most people I've known (99%?) can't cope with them and can't "get over" them.
I realize, BTW, that this reply has relied on extremely idiomatic, colloquial English, and many of my ESL viewers won't really know what I mean.
Even in workplace situations, even in university classroom situations, not getting into the emotional entanglements of family and romantic relationships, the vast majority of people can't cope with the lies they've been told: it's possible this is just stupidity, and it's possible there are psychological aspects that can be usefully pinned down.
Those who think it's a virtue to be trusting and faithful suffer when they realize they would have been more virtuous through suspicion and doubt. Those who think it's a virtue to be obedient suffer when they realize they've been obeying a liar for the sake of a lie.
Wednesday, 1 April 2026
Austin Vegan writes in to the channel.
[Austin Vegan writes:]
I’ve been vegan for over 9 years and into environmentalism/ecology for even longer. Being in those spaces, I’ve interacted with many people on the left and far left while considering myself more “moderate” or “apolitical.” That said, my political leanings are not only considered “right wing” by the majority of vegans, but often far right, or even treated as if they’re akin to being a “nazi.”
The reality is, my views have remained largely consistent over those years. I’m still vegan. Still an environmentalist. Still an atheist. What has changed is the ideological climate around these spaces. The nature of this certain brand of leftism that has taken hold is to continually move the goalpost as to what is deemed “moral,” and of course acceptable. Views that would have once been seen as normal, nuanced, or just outside the dominant current are now framed as evil, dangerous, or beyond discussion.
I’m at the point of really trying to distance veganism from leftism as far as possible, even refraining from alluding to discrimination and speciesism in educating people. Not because those concepts are totally without value, but because they immediately pull the conversation into a broader ideological framework that I don’t think is necessary, and often does more to alienate than persuade. The case against exploiting animals does not require buying into an entire left-wing worldview, yet veganism is constantly packaged that way, to its own detriment.
In the context of comedy, leftism is virtually incompatible at face value. Comedy provides relief from the suffering in life. It makes light of the absurdity of reality. It plays with tension, contradiction, and discomfort in a way that allows people to process what would otherwise just crush them. A worldview that moralizes everything, polices tone, and treats irreverence itself as suspect cannot coexist comfortably with real comedy. Comedy requires room to breathe. It requires a tolerance for imperfection, for offense, for things landing badly sometimes. Without that, you don’t get comedy, you get sterile ideological performance masquerading as humor.
And what makes it worse is that these same leftist comedians will often feel emboldened to join in the jew-hate only when it aligns with the group-think of the day, “Israel bad,” “free Palestine,” and the like. Not because they arrived there through careful thought, principle, or moral consistency, but because it is socially rewarded within their circles. Their morality is shaped far less by independent reasoning than by mimicry, social pressure, and a constant need to remain aligned with whatever emotional and political consensus is dominant at the moment. Criticizing Israel is one thing. Sliding into outright hostility toward Jews because it has become fashionable in certain circles is another.
—————
[My reply, FWIW:]
Re: "I’m at the point of really trying to distance veganism from leftism as far as possible…" —there's a significant precedent in the rise and fall of New Atheism as an internet phenomenon. It's difficult to remember this now, but the people who identified as atheists (during a brief period of time when money and fame could be had through talking about atheism) really could not deal with the separation of atheism from Communism, specifically, and leftism, generally. I don't think this example has predictive power for what happens next in veganism, it's just an instructive example from the past. https://youtu.be/PjjiQDDQFZA
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
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".
Sunday, 29 March 2026
Friday, 27 March 2026
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
Thursday, 26 March 2026
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.
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
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.
Polyamory in the Library, Nihilism in the Bedroom.
Now on Youtube, as never before.
LINK: https://youtu.be/82QBmFfxnuo
Intellectual honesty and sexual infidelity.
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Monday, 23 March 2026
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.
Saturday, 21 March 2026
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
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:
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:
Friday, 20 March 2026
[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.
Thursday, 19 March 2026
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. ;-)
Wednesday, 18 March 2026
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.
Monday, 16 March 2026
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".
Sunday, 15 March 2026
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.
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