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

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

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