The internet is a blank sheet of paper: you can learn A LOT from a blank sheet of paper.

The moral of the story here is that youtube is really just a blank sheet of paper: you can learn a lot from working with it, or you can squander the opportunity, learning nothing at all.

Originally uploaded as a livestream (on à-bas-le-ciel) under the title, "Theo Slade: it's always unreasonable to expect reasonable criticism."

LINK: https://youtube.com/live/pxbF2bDTFdI

This was uploaded elsewhere as a video under the title, "The internet is a blank sheet of paper: you can learn A LOT from a blank sheet of paper."

LINK: https://youtu.be/NQxkFC_B_iw

Only 22 minutes long, BTW… short by my standards!

The Monolingual Polyglot: Let's Be Honest About the Far Horizon of Fluency in a Foreign Language.

 

Re: "The conversation is about your behaviour, not my evidence free boasts."

Right, so what behavior?

What is it that you're so offended by (or so motivated by)?

Look, you've said repeatedly that I "manipulated" my own mother into giving me money: that is a story that you invented. Everything you've said about my relationship with my mother is purely fictional: I'm not angry at you, and I genuinely don't care —but you seem to be astonished when it's pointed out to you that you're not criticizing things I've actually said and done but you are, instead, criticizing fictions of your own invention.

Re: "Is it ironic when you, the fantasist, accuse me of fantasising about what you are.?"

No, I'm directly quoting things you've actually said (not done) and I'm pointing out (correctly) that they are fictional or are the result of your own fantasies. This is not what you do in criticizing me, e.g.,

Re: "You've boasted hundreds of times about your Khmer/khmai skills…"

No: I have not boasted even once, this is a lie (or a fiction or a fantasy) you've invented off of the top of your head. You don't have a single source: you're not quoting anything I've said ever (about my experience with the Cambodian language). It's possible you've never seen or read anything I've said on the topic, and it's possible that you heard something I said many years ago, and now you only half-remember it, and you're sincerely unaware of the extent to which you're inventing your own story about me (rather than recalling something I've actually said in the past).

Please, challenge yourself: look up what I've actually said (or written) about the study of the Khmer language and the level of ability I achieved. You will not find boasting: you'll find a lot of grim realism and practical warnings (and very frank admissions of how limited my ability to communicate in the language was, despite hard work, etc.).

[I will add an example, not included in the original conversation on Reddit:]

https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2012/05/pali-revival-and-survival-in-cambodia.html

BTW, so far as I know, demanding to hear me speak Lao or Khmer seems to be a new tactic on your part, if you were doing this a year ago (or many years ago) I apologize for my ignorance, but within the last few days you have said things along these lines repeatedly:

"Speak Thai with a strong Laos accent. Speak Khmer. Simple as. You're the polyglot professor. Let's hear ya."

I am currently learning Finnish: I did learn to speak, read and write Lao at some kind of intermediate level, but that was many languages ago (i.e., you could make a list of how many languages I've studied in-between Lao and Finnish, and it would be a considerable list). Have you ever asked yourself in what year I learned to speak the Lao language?

That was in 2006 and 2007: twenty years ago, in round numbers.

There is ample evidence of what I accomplished in those languages on the internet, and none of it is boasting: you can read (and hear) some very somber reflections on what it was like learning Lao in that context —and my sadness at suddenly being forced to stop learning the language —reflecting on the extent to which all that hard work was "for nothing" now that I was cut off from the pursuit of my former ambitions.

Here's an article from 2012 reflecting on my experience studying Lao, and you may well comb it for signs of narcissism, as you seem to be obsessed with proving that I have NPD:

https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-learning-lao-fascicle-1.html

I realize that you have no sincere interest in NPD as "a real condition", but someone with NPD could never write that article. Durianrider and I are not friends, but I've seen him having a laugh at his own expense in front of an audience that was laughing at him (not with him) and I can recognize that this would be impossible for someone with NPD —it would be their worst nightmare. People with NPD really freak out under conditions that Durianrider and I both handle causally and with a chuckle. If you think I'm a terrible person, by all means find a more productive way to criticize my behavior (something you consistently insinuate is evil without really specifying what it is that's evil about my current lifestyle, "reading Seneca and Cicero", as you say).

So, yes, 20 years ago I had some significant experience with the Lao language, and I can still tell some interesting anecdotes from that time in my life, but it would be a lot of work to revive my moment-to-moment speaking (and listening) ability in the language, and I do not now have any reason to do so (whereas, e.g., I actually did "hit the books" before each of my trips to Thailand, including the trips for the lawsuit against Durianrider, and so I was able to speak to Taxi drivers and food vendors in Lao while I was there —or in my attempt to speak Thai with a heavy Lao accent). Many people actually witnessed this and mentioned it on youtube at the time, i.e., other vegans in Chiang Mai who saw me speaking with locals in Lao/Thai. I didn't make a big deal of it because I didn't think it was remarkable: anyone who has experience living and working in the region should have some ability along those lines.

My accomplishments in those languages are only extraordinary because of the dismally low expectations created by the laziness of ordinary people: I didn't spend my time watching sports, whereas most men my age (in Laos or otherwise) did exactly that. I also didn't spend my time going to the beach or climbing mountains: generally, I was studying (the language, but also history and politics) when others were not. That does not mean there's anything superhuman or extraordinary about my accomplishments: different people make different choices with different consequences. I was invited to join the rugby team in Vientiane and I demurred. If I had joined that team, my life would have changed in many ways (I would have been socializing with Australian ex-pats very different from the friends I made hanging out at the library/archives).

I now return to the second part of your statement: "Speak Thai with a strong Laos accent. Speak Khmer. Simple as. You're the polyglot professor. Let's hear ya."

Do you have any source in which I present myself as "the polyglot professor"? It's quite possible you've only seen the titles of my videos on these subjects and you've never listened to them: I do not misrepresent my expertise in any specific language, nor in the teaching and study of languages, generally. The name of the channel, "monolingual polyglot", is a joke about my own lack of expertise: after studying so many languages, I've ended up as a monolingual. Again, you will find that people with NPD do not make such jokes at their own expense (not even in rap music and —for better or worse— I have been willing to record rap songs ridiculing myself, due to a lack of narcissism, I suppose).

The advice offered by some other polyglots is outrageously bad, and anyone with experience studying languages can (and should) criticize it: no, for example, 15 minutes per day isn't enough, and one hour per day isn't enough, either. In recent videos I've pointed out the impact on your marriage that studying just one foreign language could have, given that it's more than one hour per day: that is a "blindingly obvious" observation that any reasonable person could offer —it doesn't entail that I misrepresent myself as "a polyglot professor".

Now, by contrast, Steve Kaufmann really does present himself as an expert and "a polyglot professor", while trying to sell you a product, and I've criticized him (both recently and several years ago) with the claims he's made about his expertise (and fluency) in mind. So, yes, I understand what you're trying to do here, as a critic, but as always, you need to work from the historical record of what I've actually said and done.

If you "stay tuned" you will indeed hear me speaking Finnish (presumably quite badly, as I struggle with the most basic elements of the language) but it doesn't seem plausible that I would now (suddenly) return to the study of Lao or Khmer. It's not entirely impossible, but there would need to be some compelling reason (personal or political) that is difficult to imagine or foresee.

The Uroboros of Internet Criticism: the Generalizable Case Study of BunnedGump.

 —————

[Eisel Mazard:]

No, Gump, that's the problem: nothing you say is interesting.

None of your criticism quotes my work: it isn't based on things I've actually said or written or done whereas my criticism of others is precisely that: I quote my sources and show that I've done the work (that I've done the reading, etc.). That is the sense in which you're just in a war against a fantasy of your own creation: you're never going to produce a critique of Eisel Mazard equivalent to Eisel Mazard's critique of Unnatural Vegan, or James Aspey, or Cosmic Skeptic.

You're not holding up a mirror: you're holding up a crayon drawing of your own creation and indicating how furious you are at this imaginary character, again and again.

—————

[BunnedGump:]

Games of the narcissistic mind. 

Your overwhelming urge to silence me, the critic of you, your behaviour, your fantasies. Must be a thorn.   You can always become a 50 year old bouncer.

What you consistently do is try to out-intellectualize" your way out of a character critique.  You've convinced yourself that if you can prove you're the better researcher, you are automatically the better person. Non.

​Have you ever acknowledged a single point I've made? Noh!

 All you do is pivot back to your "credentials" and "work"?

I think you live in a fantasy world of coulda, shoulda, woulda.

You definitely need help.

—————

[Eisel Mazard:]

Dude, I'm not mad at you: I just find what you have to say stupid and pointless.

Re: "​Have you ever acknowledged a single point I've made? Noh!"

You've never made a single point: you don't quote my work, you don't actually criticize anything I've said or done. You don't criticize facts: your ranting is not addressed to specific passages of text or specific portions of videos (whereas my criticism of other authors and youtubers is precisely that: it's based on what they've said and done, and I provide quotations, etc.).

Re: "All you do is pivot back to your "credentials" and "work"?"

That's not true either: I'm simply enjoying my life. Sometimes I make a youtube video talking about a book I've read or reviewing a food product I've eaten, etc. — I don't have any of the preoccupations (or obsessions) you're fabricating out of thin air here.

[One additional example added here: I would say the same about my intermittent returns to making political satire videos, such as the comedic song about the conflict between Somalian immigrants and Donald Trump. This is simply an aspect of "enjoying my life".]

Re: "What you consistently do is try to out-intellectualize" your way out of a character critique."

Dude, your critique is simply too idiotic and too reliant upon fictions of your own invention to be worth addressing: you're amusing yourself but absolutely nobody else. You're not capable of criticizing me the same way I criticized James Aspey, Unnatural Vegan, Gary Yourofsky, etc. —and an important part of that work was indeed "a character critique", in your terms.

You're never going to write a book that anyone will want to read, you're never going to record an autobiographical monologue that anyone will want to listen to: you, Gump, could become a 50 year old bouncer, but it's quite obvious what it is that you resent and envy about me.

—————

[From a separate thread, below, this picks up from his reply to my final comment in the short conversation shared earlier under the title, Youtube is just a website on the internet: whether you use it to become wiser or more foolish is up to you.]

[Eisel Mazard:]

[…] I've never seen you offer a substantive criticism of my work under any heading.

It's not as if I can say, "The guy's insulting, but he really had an intelligent perspective on climate change" —nor any other topic (out of thousands) that I've covered in my videos, podcasts and books.

You get to choose if you're sharpening your mind or blunting it, here on the internet: you're making the wrong choice, again and again, and on some level, you know it.

You know you'd be better off reading the Tragedies of Seneca and uploading your thoughts and feelings about the text (as I've recently done) or even making comedy videos, etc.

You know you'd be better off imitating my hobbies rather than insulting me for having them.

And keep in mind: all of this stuff you're criticizing is just a hobby for me.

Youtube is just a website on the internet. Uploading my thoughts about Seneca or Cicero or Stendhal is really just a hobby for me. And you do nothing like this in your spare time —and you know you'd be better off if you did.

[BunnedGump:]

If I didn't work for a living, have a family and friends. Plus, if I lacked a moral compass and emotionally manipulated my mother into supporting me for my entire life.

 If I lacked drive, ambition, curiosity, empathy, I could try to be like you and find hobbies to waste my time and others income on.   Read Cicero, Seneca? I'm currently working my way through the Harry Potter series. Do you know how thick those books are, number of pages, how heavy a kindle is?

 I waste my time on Reddit, says the YouTuber with a roomful of mirrors.

As for imitation, you'd be better off imitating me. Take care of yourself, not expect or demand others provide for you. Be a man, not a pretentious little boy.

—————

[Eisel Mazard:]

This is all you ever have to say for yourself, Gump: that you're proud of earning money. Can you really imagine how pathetic that is from my perspective? You're never going to read Seneca or Cicero, but it's not because you're busy earning money, is it? It's not because you live in such extreme poverty that reading these books would be impossible for you to do, is it?

[I notice that he makes no effort to convince me that I am the one lacking "a moral compass" in this conversation. 🦓 Just imagine if someone were to think it were the other way around!]

[The image of the uroboros in the title is linked to this problem of internet criticism that feeds upon the fabrications and delusions of the critic: imagine if I had simply made up what I imagined to be the political beliefs of my opponents, instead of working from the historical record (text, audio recordings, videos, etc.) of what they had actually said and done. People like Gump seem to be genuinely unaware of the extent to which they're interrogating a fictional character of their own creation —and, indeed, the literature he has created condemning me is so utterly boring (and detached from reality) that nobody would bother to debunk it. I realize that many people find it difficult to believe that (e.g.) Gary Yourofsky, Unnatural Vegan, Cosmic Skeptic and Peter Singer actually said the things I've criticized them for saying, but that is why I work from the historical record, and quote my sources in the process of criticizing them.]

Forgetting is about freedom from the past (including forgetting the languages you've learned).

Link to the original livestream on à-bas-le-ciel: https://youtube.com/live/axlyLtRdQAU

Link to the video on Eisel Mazard: Monolingual Polyglot: https://youtu.be/1aeeNrGWy4o

Link to the podcast on Spotify, under the heading of "Everyone Hates Eisel Mazard": https://open.spotify.com/episode/10lzGsjQzttDT55d23qnVS

As a nihilist, I don't even believe in charity —not in the sense of donating to PETA or Dr Greger or BLM.

[Theo / WildVirtue:]

Personally part of why I'd keep looking for meaningful employment in your situation is that you could potentially encourage your mom to give what charity she gives you now to people in more dire straits, or be able to give away what money she gives you yourself.

Out of curiosity did you get the personal fitness instructor qualification? Why not start pulling in an income continuing down that path?

—————

[And I reply:]

Re: "Out of curiosity did you get the personal fitness instructor qualification?"

I did indeed.

And the symptoms that would lead to my surgery were killing me during the online classes. I'd lose the ability to even walk, etc., soon thereafter, and begin this long period of recovery (i.e., a long struggle to get back into shape, again and again).

It has been physically impossible for me to work in that field —or in any field whatsoever— during this period of illness and injury.

The video about Hungary ("In Defense of Viktor Orban") shows me in a period when I'd managed to increase the amount I was bench pressing —gradually— after the surgery, but then all this progress would be lost and I'd be back to zero (pretty much) the next day.

(I think you are aware of this but had forgotten it, as it is mentioned en passant in many things that I upload.)

The money earned from working at a gym would not be significant, neither for my mother's charities (she supports many) nor for my own: it would largely be for the sake of socializing with others, and for the sake of the exercise itself. It would earn something like £100 per week.

I've chatted with people who currently do the job, in addition to the information that was included within the course. You can imagine: many of them do it just to motivate themselves to stay in shape.

There'd be more money in working as a bouncer at a nightclub, for instance, another job that requires me to stay in shape and lift weights.

Re: "Personally part of why I'd keep looking for meaningful employment in your situation is that you could potentially encourage your mom to give what charity…"

I am certainly looking forward to seeing you live up to your own principles, old man: you are well aware of my own history of engagement with the charity and non-profit sector (in Cambodia and Laos, yes, but I was also involved in Cree-and-Ojibwe for obviously charitable reasons)… I have heard nothing about your involvement in it.

If you had more experience in charities and non-profits, you might conclude that your anarchist critique of government applies even more devastatingly to these "non-government organizations". You might come to the conclusion that it would be immoral and counterproductive to give your money to them. (This is something I'd researched in political science even before getting involved myself, etc., as you can imagine.)

It is really not the case that people can simply "do good" through the act of donation: you seem to be uncritically repeating propaganda you heard on television as a child. I am now wondering if I discussed this in No More Manifestos (possibly I didn't). It is certainly something I've discussed in the critique of the vegan movement and (e.g.) the billions of dollars lost to the BLM organization.

[I am not listing off examples from my critique of the vegan movement, but I have many times discussed specific organizations that absorbed millions of dollars in donations, accomplishing nothing, or accomplishing shockingly close to nothing: this is a genuine problem throughout the field, even in the business of handing out sacks of rice to starving people in Laos, etc. —and I am appalled at the voluntary ignorance (resembling religious faith, and entailing a lack of moral responsibility) on the part of the donors.]

To breathe profundity into inanity: to grab a troll by his very soul and drag him down to join humanity.

—————

[BunnedGump:]

No malice. It's called push back. Give unto others...  You really do need help. I hope you can recognize that, at some point.   Let me try to get this through to you. I don't think you should be giving advice to others about anything because you've not achieved anything that gives you that gravitas.  I truely believe you have an NPD, this also makes your advice giving suspect.

I'm not trying to prove moral superiority, nor intellectual, nor physical superiority. These are irrelevant.  You troll,  satirize, belittle, wage mini campaigns against anyone you like, on-line, yet you very quickly cry foul when you're the focus.

Attack me all you like, meme me, troll me. Go for it.

My boredom with you will set in when you finally seek professional help and try to address these things that have held back your life.

—————

[And I reply:]

Look, Gump, I'm willing to deal with the substance of anything you say that's substantive, and you've given me an occasion to prove it.

Re: "I don't think you should be giving advice to others about anything because you've not achieved anything that gives you that gravitas."

Okay, let's treat this as a well-intentioned objection on your part (and not as a mere insult). Let's treat this as a matter of substance.

My most recent livestream replies to questions from a young man that I really can answer, and he's asking about things that I have a great deal of experience with.

That's the livestream titled, The Rejection of Philosophy Becomes a Philosophy Unto Itself: Plato, Buddhism, Nihilism. You can also find that as a podcast, as a video, etc.

Your term gravitas is vague, but in that correspondence he's talking about the effect that reading Plato had on him as a young man, and I reply by talking about my own experience with reading Plato. He's asking about studying the ancient language Pali, and I'm replying by talking about my own experience with the study of Pali (and Buddhist philosophy, etc.). I do not lack any "gravitas" to discuss these things, and what I accomplished in that field is well-documented.

You say that I shouldn't give advice about anything: in that livestream I'm certainly working within the remit of giving advice about things I'm "qualified" to give advice about. Obviously, the young man had written to me before and after that one message: he wants and appreciates the advice I've given him.

I'm not offering advice on the history and politics of Jamaica. I'm not offering advice on how to learn Haitian Creole. I'm not talking about books of philosophy I haven't read. I'm not talking about areas of history or politics that I'm ignorant of.

I think another useful example here would be the video (and podcast) titled, Pretendian Politics: Thomas King v Jesse Wente. I don't pretend to be the world's greatest expert on this issue, but I do have years (YEARS!) of demonstrated interest in it and experience with it, obviously linked to my brief but intense period of studying Cree. So, yes, with my "credentials" being demonstrated within that video itself, I think it's fair to say that I can offer advice on that issue, in response to those news stories, and so on.

I would encourage you to criticize me: you can watch that video and then post some tremendously profound critique on Reddit about whatever you think is wrong with my (political) perspective on the issue. Perhaps you feel that you do not have "the gravitas" to do so yourself, I can't say.

Re: "You troll,  satirize, belittle, wage mini campaigns against anyone you like, on-line, yet you very quickly cry foul when you're the focus."

No, that's not true at all: throughout my entire career I've encouraged my critics including the few who satirized me. In many cases, I took videos that were directed against me and re-uploaded them on my channel without adding any commentary or objection (I can remember three examples of that pattern at this moment, there probably were a few others over the years that I'm not remembering now). And, of course, many people who've criticized me I responded to warmly, in videos and livestreams and other formats —many more privately.

Many, many satirical videos were made about me by "Joe Vegan". Those videos have now disappeared without a trace. He generally portrayed me as a former CIA operative: he would wear "a bald wig" and attempt to imitate my accent (i.e., despite his own British accent). It was quite a production. I spoke to him warmly and encouraged him at the time: I invited him to appear in an interview on my channel and so on.

He did, also, criticize me "seriously" at a few points, and I criticized him "seriously" as well: my videos about him are now among the few traces remaining of his meteoric career.

I do not appreciate stupid and pointless criticism, but anything of substance I'm happy to deal with. I do not complain when people criticize or satirize me, but I will naturally complain if I think the criticism or satire is stupid —perhaps too stupid to merit a reply.

I've never pretended to be infallible, and I've never exaggerated or misrepresented my expertise: certainly, when I first started talking about veganism, I expected more disputes of real substance (more "push back", to use your phrase) from other vegans. Obviously, my expectations of my fellow vegans are now very low, after many years of experience, but disagreements of real substance have always been welcome.

I would not have any objection to others criticizing and satirizing me to the same extent that I've criticized and satirized Vegan Gains and Unnatural Vegan, for example. However, my criticism of those two contains a great deal of real substance, reflecting real concerns and good intentions on my part. Obviously, real substance is preferable to blithering idiocy, whereas real concerns and good intentions are preferable to self-indulgent malice.

James Aspey is another good example: Gump, you've seen my critique of James Aspey, and you're welcome to criticize me in much the same way. In your imagination, apparently, I have a great deal in common with James Aspey, so this might be a useful comparison.

Youtube is just a website on the internet: whether you use it to become wiser or more foolish is up to you.

[Eisel Mazard:]

You're the one hanging out in a reddit group with my name on it.

—————

[BunnedGump:]

Nobody hangs around..I have a little.notifaction pop up that says "NPD alert" kind of like the bat signal.

So, I pull off the road and whip out my phone and check my bullshit meter.

The group is for fans and critics. It's not the your own personal stage you're attempting to hijack.

—————

[My reply:]

Reddit is for anyone who is stupid enough to waste time using it: dude, look at your own history of how much time you've wasted on this group in the last several years. IT IS PATHETIC. I've seen you insulting me for reading various Ancient Latin authors: do you really think that's a waste of time when compared to what you've done in your (increasingly lonely) role as the most highly motivated "hater" of Eisel Mazard?

Dude… I've never seen you offer a substantive criticism of my work under any heading.

It's not as if I can say, "The guy's insulting, but he really had an intelligent perspective on climate change" —nor any other topic (out of thousands) that I've covered in my videos, podcasts and books.

You get to choose if you're sharpening your mind or blunting it, here on the internet: you're making the wrong choice, again and again, and on some level, you know it.

You know you'd be better off reading the Tragedies of Seneca and uploading your thoughts and feelings about the text (as I've recently done) or even making comedy videos, etc.

You know you'd be better off imitating my hobbies rather than insulting me for having them.

And keep in mind: all of this stuff you're criticizing is just a hobby for me.

Youtube is just a website on the internet. Uploading my thoughts about Seneca or Cicero or Stendhal is really just a hobby for me. And you do nothing like this in your spare time —and you know you'd be better off if you did.

[I'd remind you of what Aristotle says (toward the end of Politics) about the importance of what we do in our leisure time: this is one of those things that's simultaneously shallow and profound. Yes, it really does, eventually, have a profound effect on who you are, even if each book you read and each creative project in isolation seems silly. I'm surrounded here by people who are slowly killing themselves by making the wrong decisions under this heading: what they want is joy but what they end up with is a cycle of short-term self-indulgence, drinking themselves to death, smoking themselves to death, eating themselves to death. Imbeciles commonly claim that I have "a fake laugh" when I really am enjoying myself in making these videos, some serious, some ridiculous. I'm really laughing in that video, today, about a sixteen dollar textbook that's only eleven pages long: to me that really is hilarious, and one part of my hobby here is just sharing my sense of the ridiculous with the audience. Misunderstanding happiness is dangerous: what people will do to be happy is fatal in every sense of the word —it becomes your fate. Understanding happiness entails that you have something to share, even if (for example) your sense of humor excludes some and includes others. Research interests exclude some and include others in much the same way.]

Talking to the moron who runs my reddit page ("WildVirtue").

[WildVirtue:] Youtuber thanks commenters for the engagement, sets the hamster wheel of Eisel's mind in motion

In before Eisel calls this just high-level triple-uno-reverse-satire.

—————

[EM:] Both of you need to get in line for some kind of therapy: this is a very mild joke, funny if you're aware of the history of each youtube channel in relation to the other (i.e., I have discussed Lindie's polyglot philosophy in the past)…

…the only people who would find this hard to interpret have some condition that prevents them from interpreting social cues.

BTW, also, I notice that neither one of you actually has any kind of objection to my side of this story: if I actually had a crush on Lindie Botes, or if I thought she had a crush on me, so what? Like, the point of the joke presumes that you're intelligent enough to be aware BOTH that I don't want her AND ALSO that I'm aware she doesn't want me, but if (if!) you're too stupid to pick up on it… what are you pretending to be offended by?

—————

[WildVirtue:] My desire to post this fully accounted for the possibility you're aware Lindie doesn't want you. You desired to make a tacky joke because you're a novel lil fellow. I like discussing novel lil fellows.

I get you don't feel this was a tacky joke, but out of curiosity are you able to acknowledge you've made a lot of tacky jokes in the past, such as in your tumblr days, where you painted people into imagined weird sexualized scenarios such that most of the people you were trying to make laugh just cringed?

—————

You're really addressing this from the perspective of a mentally disabled person who assumes everyone else shares your mental disability: we don't.

"Are you aware that this joke you were making was a joke?"

Yes, I am aware. Everyone else is aware. Everyone else gets the joke. Not you. Just you "have difficulty reading social cues".

Not everyone who gets the joke finds it hilarious, but several thousand people just saw that video with Lindie Botes in the thumbnail (you can see many, many appreciative comments on it, BTW, showing that people responded to it in a thoughtful way: it isn't a shallow or mean-spirited critique of what she has to say about polyglottery).

Yep, in that context, it is slightly amusing to point out that Lindie Botes gives my comment a heart, etc., not realizing who I am — and it is slightly amusing for me to refer to myself as "too hot for Lindie Botes".

You will notice that I posted this myself, publicly, intentionally, both on Instagram and on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxlsuM7jIJimab7oyv7ZAOJe2-40DYjmGO

You behave as if you're "exposing" something I'm trying to "conceal"… nobody else is stupid enough to see it that way. It's a joke I made en passant, and posted on youtube, where it's visible permanently, as shown above.

Now, again, if you actually wanted to criticize my comedy videos, you could do so, if you had something intelligent to say. On some level, tragically, you're aware that you don't, so no actual criticism ensues. You can easily hear me criticizing my own engagement with comedy in hour-long podcasts, etc.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4JPuusVMWoBdQ3kOUwi0we

Dude, not everyone is upset and deranged about this stuff: some people are capable of being serious intellectuals for a finite number of hours per day, and then joking around about the absurdities of life in their spare time. Not you, apparently.

I've recorded very grim, very serious reflections on climate change (carbon parts per million, etc.) but I've also recorded lighthearted comedy videos about it —probably some of them contained sex jokes you found offensive. So what? If you think that being an intellectual means that you can't have a laugh (including having a laugh at your own expense) you're wrong: even Machiavelli wrote comedy. And the one example that survived history was a bawdy sex comedy, BTW.

———ADDENDUM———

I'd just point out, I'm the "proud" author of a comedy video (eight minutes long, one take) titled, She calls me the n-word, but I don't identify as black. I just cannot relate to the stupidity of WildVirtue asking, here, if I'm aware that my comedy involves "imagined weird sexualized scenarios" —yeah, bro, that video takes politically provocative humor about as far as it can go. And it isn't joking around about sex for self-indulgent reasons: it actually is making a political point through farce.

[LINK:] https://youtu.be/zurq4cVDUho

The Rejection of Philosophy Becomes a Philosophy Unto Itself: Plato, Buddhism, Nihilism.

On à-bas-le-ciel:

LINK: https://youtube.com/live/t6vBgeJRiyI

On Eisel Mazard, Monolingual Polyglot:

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tY7o0cE-sk

As always, the podcast version can be found "practically everywhere", not just via Spotify, but you may get the audio only version via Apple Podcasts and other competing services, whereas Spotify gives you video plus audio, for better or worse: https://open.spotify.com/episode/13mMEYi9LljRQWfqAjuwXg

Television Made You Retarded: Learning Another Language WON'T HELP.

The longest 15 minutes of your whole entire life. ;-) 

LINK: https://youtu.be/6anldXYhRHQ

Islamophobia is Doomed: the Critique of Mass Deportation as a Moral Cause.

LINK: https://youtu.be/WexsCFdRS_8

Also on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc., as an episode of Nihilism Now.

The Positive Part of Being a Polyglot: the Banal and the Profound.

Originally broadcast as a livestream on à-bas-le-ciel…

LINK: https://youtube.com/live/6TFXEVITr5Q

…and later uploaded to Eisel Mazard: Monolingual Polyglot…

LINK: https://youtu.be/PI7NkMQWn4w

…and the Everyone Hates Eisel Mazard podcast.

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Fu6hk7X1Y1YwV2diGb9ij

I learned Chinese in six months BUT EVILDEA CAN'T!

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.

LINK: https://youtu.be/XhvL7bGmD1I

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.

Learning a New Language Ruined My Marriage. ‪@daysandwords‬ #polyglot

On youtube…

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciCKdVwXDX0

…and as a podcast…

LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Rbnn7WkOL1ABfV9m9ebUP

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.

Defiance leads to liberation. Liberation leads to defiance.

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.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6uYxzmGuSCWtk7hzb2JJU6

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.

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.]

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.

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?

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".

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.

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…

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsTs-Lw_oPI

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.

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

Antisemitism in Stand Up Comedy: Emptying Out the Left.

LINK: https://youtu.be/Yz8Bhqj5rYA

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

Falling Birth Rates and the Fallacy of Composition. #feminism

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

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

LINK: https://youtu.be/ASSKl0fHHnk

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

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

LINK: https://youtu.be/chK0oZlQFJE

Alcoholism and environmentalism are one.

Torn from the comment section of my own youtube channel.

—————

[SolarSolWaves writes:]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—————

[And I reply:]

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