Literature without philosophy, philosophy without literature, etc.
Link to the video on à-bas-le-ciel: https://youtu.be/sYeMFCyXedU
Link to the video on From Ink to Inc.: https://youtu.be/8mMDwxseWEE
House of the Dragon Season 3. #hotd #asoiaf #hotdseason3 #season3 #s3 #grrm #gameofthrones For those who don't know, "ASOIAF" = A Song of Ice and Fire, a broader category (of books) that includes both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.
This is a modest proposal for the total reform of systems of immigration in the Decadent West, with an unhealthy emphasis on the examples of Finland and Canada. The theory of evolution is not racist: immigration policy is racist and always has been.
The first few minutes of this video are, admittedly, rather boring, however, if you either fast forward or endure, the ensuing anecdotes about daily life during the period of the insurgency (circa 1988 to 1993) are extremely important and interesting.
He explicitly compares the effects of the social control exerted by "the men with AK-47s" to the Taliban, e.g., threatening (and later shooting) a school teacher to try to compel the female students to wear more conservative uniforms (although the style of dress reflects a Sikh tradition, in this case, rather than an Islamic one).
The extent of the ignorance of Canadian politicians in getting entangled with the Khalistan independence movement is unproven and unknown —and I do not here mean the politicians of any one party only, but all Canadian politicians in general since 1984. The attitudes of those who were not ignorant may be more difficult to understand than those who were.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6mm-woNAy8
I note for the record that the original title of the video I'm linking to was, Row over Diljit Dosanjh’s Satluj, Khalra, and the bloodied years that took Punjab there[.] This is an unbelievably boring title that likely would have led to the video being ignored.
IMO, you can start playing the tape right around the ten minute mark: the preamble about America's "remarkable experiment" bringing "freedom to the world" for "a quarter millennium" is difficult to endure, not to mention the anecdote about his adopted son, but he proceeds to make some important points about "basic math" (in his own idiom) soon thereafter.
This is David Schweikert of Arizona. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Schweikert
Despite claims about tax cuts, he argues, the percentage of the economy harnessed by taxation has not declined: the debt crisis is caused, on the one hand, by excess spending but, on the other, by excessive numbers of the elderly and the declining numbers of the young —his emphasis on this latter point is rare.
[11:10] Next year, we're going to have fewer under 18 than we had 20 years ago, and double the number [of people] 65 and up, but are we allowed to actually say that? It's not personal! It's not actually [a matter of] Democrat [vs] Republican, it's just math!
LINK: https://youtu.be/szOiGOziFRA
Aaaaaaaand here's the link to MKULTRA hearing from a few days ago in the American House of Congress, i.e., the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQulJS-R50
I will make an effort to avoid posting each and every "short" as a Patreon update…
…this one is only two minutes long…
however, in this case, I'm aware that most people will see the video without seeing the title (if they see it at all) on youtube.
The title, alas, is an important part of the package here.
This video is under three minutes long (and is therefore "a short", in Youtube's hierarchy of categories) but it occurs to me that I should post is here, separately, in part because it directly pertains to the informal article I wrote a few days ago, And, in politics, when men become tired of talking they become dangerous.
LINK: https://youtube.com/shorts/28xHVEoUoc4
The same video was posted to my Monolingual Polyglot channel under a significantly different title: there are over 100,000 muslims living in the city of Helsinki alone, perhaps 140,000 in Finland as a whole. There are certainly more than 15,000 speakers of Somali languages in Finland now; I cannot find a source for the claim that this number exceeds 23,000 or 28,000 —but these claims are bandied about the internet. The future of Islam in Finland is now an extremely contentious question but —of course— I am not willing to counterpose Christianity to Islam, I am instead trying to clearly counterpose atheism to all religions.
And this was discussed at greater length in my video Islamophobia is Doomed: the Critique of Mass Deportation as a Moral Cause.
This linked-to article, here, will give you some sense of why nobody wants "to stand up to" this guy, no matter how despicable he may be, no matter how many enemies his defamation campaigns (and his "career" of petty conniving against comedians) may earn him: although his comedy constantly addresses the fact that he's an object of pity, he doesn't realize that this same pity conceals the extent to which he's despised. Or, at least, it allows him to deceive himself: he is, in fact, a rare example of someone far more hated than I. And for worse reasons, of course.
I was not exaggerating when I said that people warned me about him on the very first day that I arrived in this city, and I am not exaggerating when I say that other comedians told me that Josh had made their lives miserable, however, they are all willing to suffer in silence while this guy plays his self-appointed role as the king of comedy. And, again, we all know why: pity, a slow poison endured by both the poisoner and the poisoned.
—————
Dude, you should hear Melissa's side of the story.
Chris gets on stage and says terrible things about his ex-wife.
You never hear his ex-wife's perspective.
Chris isn't banned from the club.
Luke makes jokes about his ex-girlfriend.
You never hear his ex-girlfriend's perspective.
Luke isn't banned from the club.
You've banned me from these two clubs because of a story you made up in your own head, and it just isn't true.
Melissa doesn't blame me: Melissa doesn't think I did anything wrong. And she uploaded both YouTube videos in which she's speaking alone,
and also YouTube videos in which she's talking to me, AFTER the breakup.
I don't think Chris or Luke (or Mav) are gonna do a podcast with their ex-girlfriends the way I did, bro.
E.M.
—————
[I am omitting his reply, out of some strange sense of chivalry.]
—————
Okay, cool:
problem solved.
If that's your story, there's clearly no reason for any hostility or conflict between us.
See you tonight at the club.
E.M.
—————
[Again, I am omitting his replies here. It should be intuitively obvious that they contributed very little to the conversation.]
—————
So what do you wanna do tonight?
You want to drink a cup of coffee sitting at the same table and actually get to know me?
Or do you wanna act like we're enemies for no reason at all?
Yeah, dude, I've had positive feedback from many comedians who appreciated my filming short clips of them: they say things like, "Oh, great, can you send that to me, I'm gonna post it on my Instagram?"
Some asked me if I'd captured a good moment of them after a set.
Many comedians here actually do regard filming from the audience positively, and they've told me this: they like the fact that they'll get free promotion and reach a few more viewers.
If you have a house policy that nobody should be filming, fine: I'll put the camera away, and it's done. No reason for any conflict.
Nobody has ever said that to me before, but I can totally understand the policy: if you don't want people to have their phones out, let them know, or let me know, and I'll follow the rules.
You've never said that to me before, but now, all of a sudden, it's an excuse to ban me.
You and I have no reason to be enemies: I don't think you're stupid enough to believe stories made up about me and my ex-girlfriend, Melissa...
when (1) you've met Melissa, and (2) you can hear her attitude in any podcast or video, any time (unlike Chris's ex-wife, unlike Luke's ex-girlfriend).
You're creating a conflict out of nothing.
E.M.
This was stated in response to my newly minted maxim, "But there are no lessons of history. There is only history."
Cf. "What I do is esoteric: I don't explain anything to anyone." https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2026/06/what-i-do-is-esoteric-i-dont-explain.html
Many years ago I observed that Joe Biden's policies, once elected, could be described as "Hyper-Trumpian" (or, perhaps, as "Hyper-Trumpism") —and we now see a similar pattern amongst the opponents of Donald Trump in Canada. Under several different headings, Canadians are implementing policies that are more Trumpian than Trump himself.
You may well say, "Canada has not yet had dead bodies in the street as a result of immigration raids, as the Americans had in Minneapolis." Indeed, not yet. The removal of "more than one million Indians" from a country the size of Canada could entail many brutal episodes of the Minneapolis sort. Or, instead, there may be no expulsions at all, entailing a different kind of scandal.
How we ended up with the headline number being one million rather than two million, I cannot say: "According to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or IRCC approximately 1,053,000 work permits expired by the end of 2025 and another 927,000 will do so in 2026." [I am quoting Anirudh Bhattacharyya, as published in the Hindustan Times, Dec 31, 2025.] Perhaps the reasoning behind using one million as a round number is that roughly half of these two million immigrants are migrants from India, specifically?
The actual numbers of people being expelled are rather smaller: 1,712 Indian citizens were deported from Canada in the first three months of 2026, reportedly. This is in the context of an overall decline in the country's population of 55,000 during the same three months, reportedly attributable to both these declining numbers of immigrants and also the inclement contrast between the number of births and the number of deaths this year.
If we set aside distinctions of mere rhetoric and rationalization, what is the difference between current Canadian and American policies on ecology and the environment? On the gas and oil industry? And, finally, on the topic of immigration?
The consequences of what Canada is now doing under these (Trumpian) headings are immediately palpable. Many, many other promises will remain as abstractions on a chalkboard for decades —perhaps forever. Immigration may not seem like an important policy in principle, but its importance is exaggerated in practice because so many other political principles have no practice at all.
Here is the National Post presenting you with a series of salient graphs and statistics: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-immigration-data
I am not the sort of imbecile to say, "This is the meaning of the word Liberal, therefore, if your party is called the Liberal Party, this is what your political promises and policies must be." I am a nihilist who sees in words something less than an imperfect tool made to imprecisely express culturally conditioned meanings —less, not more. And, unlike Plato, I cannot imagine anything profound in the gap between the imperfect use of words and our supposedly perfect intended meanings: I find nothing there to be believed in. However, the meaning of the word Liberal has now changed —suddenly— for reasons that nobody is willing to talk about. And, in politics, when men become tired of talking they become dangerous.
Link to the video on my (still obscure!) creative writing channel, From Ink to Inc. = https://youtu.be/9hBxBy1nnQs
Link to the video on my (still obscure!) autobiographical channel, à-bas-le-ciel = https://youtu.be/aVUpaEKRwsw
House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 2. Yes, that's William Shakespeare in the thumbnail. You're lucky I didn't include Seneca. #hotd #asoiaf #hotdseason3 #season3 #s3 #grrm #gameofthrones For those who don't know, "ASOIAF" = A Song of Ice and Fire, a broader category (of books) that includes both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.
Today we have a seemingly bland headline in The Daily Star,¹ Bangladesh-China ties enter a ‘new era’. This is actually quite dramatic news, if you're aware of trail of dominoes tracing back to 1971. Dead bodies and dominoes, I suppose.
The salient Wikipedia article is simply titled, Bangladesh Genocide.² And that title is itself a sort of political declaration. Some people say that 3,000,000 died. Some say 300,000. Some say 30,000. But we all say genocide. And we all blame Nixon and Mao —who were engaged in negotiations, at the time, and who both felt they needed Pakistan (or, rather, "West Pakistan") to continue to be their ally —partly but not entirely because of those negotiations.
This article reflects "the state of the art" in anonymous authors counterposing contradictory sources —and it is a dying art form. In 2026, this tapestry of many patches (and many tailors) is now being replaced by the A.I. synopsis of unseen sources. Here's a telling excerpt:
Australian Doctor Geoffrey Davis was brought to Bangladesh by the United Nations and International Planned Parenthood Federation to carry out late term abortions on rape victims. He was of the opinion that the 200,000 to 400,000 rape victims were an underestimation. On the actions of [the] Pakistan army he said "They'd keep the infantry back and put artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all those were (sic) sexually matured would be segregated. And then the women would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the troops ... Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being raped again and again and again. A lot of them died in those [rape] camps. There was an air of disbelief about the whole thing. Nobody could credit that it really happened! But the evidence clearly showed that it did happen." [better source needed]
In October 2005, Sarmila Bose published a paper suggesting that the casualties and rape allegations in the war have been greatly exaggerated for political purposes. Whilst she received praise from many quarters, a number of researchers have shown inaccuracies in Bose's work, including flawed methodology of statistical analysis, misrepresentation of referenced sources, and disproportionate weight to Pakistani Army testimonies.
Historian Christian Gerlach states that "a systematic collection of statistical data was aborted, possibly because the tentative data did not substantiate the claim that three million had died and at least 200,000 women had been raped."
Is it possible, now, for Bangladesh and China to become allies instead of enemies? The political elite in India still bitterly resents the decisions Americans made circa 1971 —although, of course, there would be more utterly immoral decisions to come. It is difficult to imagine that the political elite in Bangladesh would blame the Chinese less.
All of this, of course, is connected to Cambodia. I cannot say the two are parallel, nor that they are intersecting: they are two points on one and the same straight line.
Justin Trudeau and the Khalistani phenomenon are linked to a relatively minuscule massacre from 1984 with a Wikipedia article merely titled Operation Blue Star to describe it, utterly lacking the word genocide, you will observe, although there's a similarly bizarre range of estimates as to how many died (from a few dozen to a few hundred to more than five thousand, etc.) with a similar struggle on the part of the anonymous authors contrasting ostensibly respectable sources raising their eyebrows at one another. My point here is merely that this "minor massacre" is enough to put Canada in a position of permanent and perpetual hatred, although Justin Trudeau's connection to it is far more tangential than the connection between Nixon (and Mao) and East Pakistan in 1971.
I have purchased a copy of Joe Sacco's (relatively recent) book, the Once and Future Riot. Whether or not it was the intention of the author, this book will doubtless make an important political myth out of an even smaller massacre, the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013. Although this is certainly a massacre important enough to be remembered within India, it was never remembered outside of India for long enough to be forgotten before Joe Sacco's book made this myth out of it.
I have always heard socialists say that we must learn the lessons of history. But there are no lessons of history. There is only history.
—————
Footnote 1: https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/diplomacy/news/bangladesh-china-ties-enter-new-era-4209866
Footnote 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_genocide
This documentary film (made by and for the National Film Board of Canada) is now impossible to find a copy of, impossible to pay to see via streaming services, etc.
https://www.nfb.ca/film/letters_from_karelia/
The topic here is taboo in the extreme, whereas "the opposite" story is commonly told: ethnic Finns and Karelians escaping from Communism in the Soviet Union / Russia (to live in Finland itself, or sometimes in the United States and Canada).
The reality is that people moved in both directions: there were Finnish and Karelian people voluntarily signing up to become a part of the utopian experiment. To what extent those people were honest with their children and grandchildren thereafter is an open question.
Keep in mind that even in Japan there were always a few Japanese and Ainu (in each generation) who would flee north over the Sakhalin Island border to sign up for Soviet citizenship, voluntarily.
My impression is that Finns still exoticize Karelians, regarding them as significantly different from the Finns of the west coast —not merely in their accent and religion but even in their physical appearance.
—————
The 2005 documentary Letters from Karelia (directed by Kelly Saxberg) chronicles the tragic "Karelia Fever" of the 1930s, when hundreds of idealistic Finnish Canadians emigrated to the Soviet Union seeking a socialist utopia. It centers on the personal story of Aate Pitkänen, an electrician who left Thunder Bay, Ontario, for Karelia in 1931.
While many migrants faced crushing hardships, typhoid outbreaks, and Stalin's Great Purge, Aate's ultimate fate remained a mystery after he was separated from his family and disappeared in 1941. Over sixty years later, his unmailed letters from a Finnish prisoner-of-war camp were discovered. These letters reveal his dramatic journey from a communist pioneer and USSR ski champion to a Soviet spy, ultimately uniting his sister, Taimi, with the son he never met.
—————
[UPDATE:] https://vimeopro.com/shebafilms/shebafilms/video/20276087
^ One of my viewers, Evan, sent in a working link. It is evidently being distributed, for free, on the creator's Vimeo.
LINK: https://youtu.be/1yuYGg5zZsA
House of the Dragon Season 3. #hotd #asoiaf #hotdseason3 #season3 #s3 #grrm #gameofthrones For those who don't know, "ASOIAF" = A Song of Ice and Fire, a broader category (of books) that includes both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.
The last time I really listened to music "in my target language" was back when I was studying Cambodian. Kommando Tehtävä are probably too left wing for me… but they're certainly of more interest than the average Beijing punk band.
Joku taas rappukäytävään oksentaa
Viikonloppuisin baarissa turpaan saa
Viinanhuuruista melankoliaa
Joka neljäs meistä lottoaa
Someone is throwing up in the stairwell again
You get a mouthful at the bar on weekends
Melancholy from alcohol fumes
One in four of us plays the lottery
Kyllä Suomi on maailman paras maa
Täällä Karpollakin riittää asiaa
Hengitysilmastakin veroa kai maksaa saa
Korkeakulttuuria Salkkarit toimittaa
Yes, Finland is the best country in the world
There is enough to do here in Karpo
I guess you have to pay a tax on the air you breathe
High culture delivered by Salkkarit*[A Finnish TV "soap opera" that has been broadcasting continuously since 1999: like my own life, it's just one sex scandal after another, apparently.] 🦓
Ei täällä töissäkäynti kannata
Suomessa ei saa rikastua
Köyhiltä tuet pois leikataan
Ne säästötoimiksi meikataan
Kyllä Suomi on maailman paras maa
Täällä Karpollakin riittää asiaa
Hengitysilmastakin veroa kai maksaa saa…
It's not worth working here
You can't get rich in Finland
They're cutting subsidies for the poor
They're pretending to be austerity measures
Yes, Finland is the best country in the world
There's plenty to do here in Karpo too
I guess you have to pay tax even on the air you breathe…
Link to the video on "From Ink to Inc.", a relatively unknown channel: https://youtu.be/gMfIwIWJ6vo
I will, eventually, also upload this to à-bas-le-ciel —my well-established channel that nevertheless remains utterly unknown. ;-)
LINK: https://youtu.be/2fEIeJEZAMM
I said "Daemon Blackfyre" when I meant "Daemon Targaryen" AGAIN. Throughout THE WHOLE VIDEO. You'll figure it out. House of the Dragon Season 3. #hotd #asoiaf #hotdseason3 #season3 #s3 #grrm #gameofthrones For those who don't know, "ASOIAF" = A Song of Ice and Fire, a broader category (of books) that includes both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.
The source being quoted (and promoted) here was written in a less barbaric and brutal era of internet communications, 2014, when humanity was not exclusively devoted to wearing a mask, wielding a knife, and stabbing itself in the back:
‘Adulter, impudicus, sequester‘ convicium est, non accusatio.
(‘Adulterer, pervert, dealer in bribes’, this is the language of slander, not of prosecution.)
The strange tale told (and in large part concealed) in Cicero's strange Pro Caelio is the only evidence we have that what Catullus had to say about his own sex life was not fictional —and was not intended to be seen as fictional by his contemporaries.
Our Pro Caelio purports to be the speech delivered by Cicero to conclude the defence; a speech which is famous among classicists for its over-the-top denunciation of the sexual mores of the prosecution’s star witness, Clodia (a woman alleged to have been the inspiration for Catullus’ lover, [referred to in his poems by the pseudonym] Lesbia).
Here is the short article I am drawing your attention to:
https://whatwouldcicerodo.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/power-corruption-and-lies-in-defence-of-caelius/
The author is still alive and (as is typical of this era of the internet) continues posting to Instagram, but no longer to his (long abandoned) blog, linked to above.
https://www.instagram.com/sillettandrew/
York University —quite possibly the most miserable place on this earth that I have ever set foot— somehow ended up making a translation of the Pro Caelio available to the public without crediting the translator.
[Cicero:] But now I will handle her [Clodia, a.k.a. Catullus's Lesbia] with moderation, and proceed no further than my honor and the case itself demand. I have never thought it right to take up arms against a lady, especially against one whose arms are so open to all.
The denunciation that ensues, delayed by many digressions to contrast the morals of "the fallen age" we are (now) living in to the glorious past of a still-more-ancient Greece and Rome, tells us more about Cicero's character than it does about Clodia or Caelio or Catullus.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUptMmb9IKs
House of the Dragon Season 3. #hotdseason3 #season3 #s3 #grrm #gameofthrones For those who don't know, "ASOIAF" = A Song of Ice and Fire, a broader category (of books) that includes both House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.
I think this one is not appropriate for any of my podcasts… so it will remain a youtube exclusive.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7hkc-nlxVU
Here's the link to the article… although it is an article about an article, I note. https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/emily-ratajkowski-used-sex-to-become-new-woman-after-divorce/ She has said of herself that she stopped having sex with her husband around precisely this time when he'd cheated on her ("[they] stopped being intimate six months after she gave birth") although I would not assume a six month timeline, nor would I assume they had a wonderful sex life immediately before those six months —I would just assume that the decline of their sex lives, as a couple, was somehow related to his infidelity (perhaps his infidelity was the cause of the decline, rather than merely being an effect of the decline, we don't know).
Happiness: a mask without a face.
The longest three minutes of your whole entire life. ;-)
It would be reasonable to say that within the last ten years these events have had unforeseen consequences in Canada more dire than those in India. The Sikh separatist movement now "unites" Canada with India, in a surreal sense of the term, and yet of course also divides the Canadian government against India from time to time.
Yeah, look, I'm not going to try to explain the humor of the thing… if one thousand people see the video, fully one hundred of them will find it hilarious… and I can't exactly apologize to the other 900. ;-) More than one language and more than one inexplicable internet subculture is involved here. 🦓
This was uploaded to à-bas-le-ciel under the title above, Quitting Esperanto to Learn Chinese, the International Language OF LOVE.
LINK: https://youtu.be/MeclMkB-hgY
It's on my other channel (Eisel Mazard: Monolingual Polyglot) under the more "pointed" title, Polyglot Secrets: Why Evildea Moved to China, THE REAL REASON.
He is more honest when discussing the conflict between Russia and China, more diplomatic when discussing the conflict between China and India, I note.
I am not nearly as optimistic as he seems to be. Seems.
Take a glance at the increase in India's military budget per annum, 2015 to 2025:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?locations=IN
Climate change is salient: the disappearance of the glaciers in western Canada is one thing, the disappearance of the glacier in the middle of India quite another. This is a chess match being played with a timer counting down.
I dare not mention the effects of climate change on Siberia (a more important theater for the conflict than most commentators are willing to suppose). I'm not the only one who remembers Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. From a Chinese perspective, those borders make no sense, and urgently require rationalization. At the end of this Ukraine war, presumably, Russia will be weak enough to be rationalized with.
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!
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.
—————
[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.]
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
[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.]
—————
[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.
[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.]
[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
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
The longest 15 minutes of your whole entire life. ;-)
Also on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc., as an episode of Nihilism Now.
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
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.
A "read along" video, with an accompanying article on the blog, etc.
I think there are three categories to consider —and they may overlap —and they may need to be disentangled.
