A text dump on Eisel Mazard’s past content

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Kalel, the Future of Veganism is Who?

27 July 2019

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Cosmic Skeptic vs. Peter Singer: Nihilism Wins.

27 July 2019

#vegan #vegans #veganism Are moral and ethical judgements objectively real (is there “objective morality”?) or do we need to proceed from the understanding that all of these values are profoundly and ineluctably subjective? A response, in part, to this idiotic “debate” between Cosmic Skeptic vs. Peter Singer: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/tSEfiPm_YRE

Why my daughter is French, NOT Canadian.

27 July 2019

Any Excuse is Good Enough for Bonny Rebecca.

27 July 2019

#vegan #vegans #veganism

If you don’t know who Bonny Rebecca is, don’t learn now. Here’s her (ex-vegan) youtube channel: youtube.com/channel/UCOu3SAozsyQyKE2wDAIJtdQ/videos

Shout out to Simon Rex, formerly known as Dirt Nasty. He actually had a few messages back and forth with me on Tumblr, before I started this youtube channel, and back when he was still putting out rap albums. https://www.youtube.com/user/dirttothenasty/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=0

Against “A Course in Miracles”, Against Marianne Williamson, Against Religion.

26 July 2019

“Not Just Wrong: Evil.” Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Marianne Williamson, More Crazy than Evil? (Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur, TYT)

25 July 2019

^ Donate $1 per month to support the creation of (new!) political content on this channel, or else there won’t be no new content no more. 😕😞

The Inuit! Jordan Peterson & Joe Rogan must be right. #Science #Vegan #Carnivore

25 July 2019

Here’s the youtube channel mentioned, “Plant Positive”: youtube.com/user/PrimitiveNutrition/videos

You can support the creation of new content on my own channel(s) for $1 per month at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Stella Rae was the future of vegan activism, promoted by PETA, L.A. Vegfest & Vegsource…

25 July 2019

https://discord.gg/KKDuu5

There’s nothing wrong with video games, there’s something wrong with you.

24 July 2019

My argument is not that video games are “objectively bad”, but few people seem to be willing to take a subjective argument seriously: if something is, subjectively, a problem, that doesn’t mean that you can dismiss it as something unreal. This video is part of my “quit video games” playlist, and, also, the longest-running playlist on the channel, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”.

#quitvideogames #advice #advicenobodywantstohear

Stupidity is Fatal: Jordan Peterson’s Family Dying to Eat Meat.

23 July 2019

Yes, Jordan Peterson AND HIS WIFE signed up for the “100% meat diet” and they inspired others to try a similar experiment, claiming miraculous improvements in their health (curing everything from depression to psoriasis)… but, in fact, J.P.‘s wife, Tammy, has already come down with cancer…

#jordanpeterson #veganism #vegan #vegans

Freelee is WRONG, Jenna Marbles buys meat EVERY DAY.

23 July 2019

You should donate $1 per month to support this channel, even if you are really, really stupid. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

#freelee #vegans #veganism

The Belief in Socialism is Evil: When Moderation Leads to Radicalism.

22 July 2019

Commentary: I wasted my 20s. (Joshua Fluke) #grindreel

22 July 2019

#quitvideogames #quiteverything #grindreel

Age 40, Zero Protein Powder, Zero Steroids, Zero Testosterone Booster, etc.

22 July 2019

Lifting weights and getting in shape at age 40: some practical advice for people who are NOT professional athletes, but just struggling to fit effective methods into a meaningful life.

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Discord, I started a discussion forum (for à-bas-le-ciel / AR&IO)

19 July 2019

^ There’s the link, click to join the discussion (voice-chat and text chat).

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vs. ICE: the Elephant in the Room.

17 July 2019

I think there’s an important question for the future of our society that’s being ignored, right in the midst of the (tense) face-off between A.O.C. and Tom Homan (former director for I.C.E., i.e., American border security).

Bernie Sanders KEEPS LYING about Amazon.com’s Taxes

16 July 2019

Torn from the pages of Accounting Today magazine: .

https://www.accountingtoday.com/articles/tax-law-didnt-help-amazon-pay-zero-taxes-in-2018-it-was-just-savvy

By contrast, I note, Forbes.com puts more emphasis in the taxes that Amazon does pay (”$1.18 billion, accounting for local, state and international taxes”).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniedenning/2019/02/22/why-amazon-pays-no-corporate-taxes/#242b1c5654d5

(反共產) “The End of Exploitation” Promised by the Left. 🧐

16 July 2019

^ Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month. If you want to know how much (or how little!) I earn from this venture currently, I post monthly budget-statements (for total revenue) on my blog, here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/07/july-2019-financial-report-how-much-do.html

The meaning of happiness, as opposed to the meaning of life.

15 July 2019

A different version of this video (without the text on-screen, without the edited intro) was uploaded under the title, “Happiness, obduracy and the meaning of life.” That was on August 6^th of 2017.

This is now one of only two videos on “the meaning of life playlist” —somewhat more concise than the playlist on my own personal philosophy, I might add. ;-)

Anecdote: Cops and Confrontations on the Streets of Kunming.

15 July 2019

A funny story from my peculiar “real life” in China. ;-) #storytime #policestory #china

Earthling Ed’s Fake For-Profit Charity

15 July 2019

Yeah, there was more than one way to word that: “Fake Non-Profit”, “Fake Charity”, “Fake Not-For-Profit Charity”… in any case, Bobby’s Perspective drew attention to the fact that Ed’s charity is not a charity at all, but, instead, a for-profit business. However, Bobby didn’t quite tell the whole story (there was one big, obvious omission, in his description of the registered company documents, and I explain it here).

The video quoted from “Bobby’s Perspective” can be seen in full here, titled “The Mysterious Case of Earthling Ed | Episode 3”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/pJhC93u8tAo

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Alt-Right Racism Adapts: from Evalion to Brittany Pettibone.

14 July 2019

Here are the remnants of Evalion’s youtube career, preserved by Leafy (LeafyIsHere) making fun of her: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjbbE817Q-SNS4biXLeDIDW6LahYh5qQo

Against Hipster Communism, Against NonCompete.

14 July 2019

NonCompete jokes around, but he’s preaching a dangerous ideology, historically responsible for mass-murder and economic failure on an astounding scale, and (I believe) he’s damaging the day-to-day lives of followers/true-believers here and now, even if they never lift a finger in an actual revolution. His youtube channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCkZFKKK-0YB0FvwoS8P7nHg/videos

The particular video quoted (and criticized) is “A Beginner’s Guide to Overthrowing Capitalism”, found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2NuqxMpkH6Y

Maddie Lymburner’s youtube channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCH7fZDHwZR7ww23A50R1ppA/videos

The particular video quoted is here: “WHAT I EAT TO STAY LEAN & FIT (Pre+ Post Meal Recipes)” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/mDic8F1IuAM

(反共產) Can Anyone Deprogram a True-Believing Communist? (Anti-Communist)

13 July 2019

An attempt (as an anti-Communist) to talk sense to a thoroughly brainwashed, true-believing Communist.

Open Relationships, the Anthropology of the Hmong, Akha & Ourselves, Too

13 July 2019

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CiFXacTf0hA

& Support the creation of new content on the channel.

And yeah, this video is part of the Mayim Bialik playlist. The video of hers that I’ve quoted and responded to is titled, “I Was Wrong About Open Relationships || Mayim Bialik”, and you can find it here:

Flexing on Mayim Bialik: Vegan vs. Vegan Misinformation.

12 July 2019

I’m vegan but we’ve got to recognize that even with the best of intentions, vegans often spread misinformation and rely on pseudoscience. #vegan #vegans #veganism

Mayim Bialik’s video (quoted here) is titled, “How To Raise Vegan Kids || Mayim Bialik”, and here’s the link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/zaxGR6ncu3c

Support the creation of new content for $1 per month on Patreon, so that I can afford to be sued for defamation by Mayim Bialik: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Veganism: Everywhere you go, life is a struggle.

12 July 2019

Everywhere you go, life is a struggle. You don’t get to choose whether or not your life is a struggle: you get to choose whether that struggle is meaningful, or meaningless. You get to choose what it is you struggle about/for/against, and how. That’s my argument for veganism: I won’t tell you that it isn’t a struggle, I’ll tell you that the struggle is meaningful —that it is worthwhile.

—————

And yes, for the record, I was tempted to title this something along the lines of, “Zero waste leads to vegans quitting veganism”, as that is one piece of the puzzle here. :-/

Link to the video quoted from “Alicee”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/lMjjXiKERqQ

Link to “the fairly local vegan”. youtube.com/channel/UCJ3cJEWlDyZfeyOLSDjR7fw/videos

This is part of the longest-running playlist on the channel, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”. #advicenobodywantstohear #advice

Support the creation of new content on this channel via Patreon for $1 per month, or else you’ll have nothing better to watch than Bonny Rebecca. You know I mean it.

Jeff Epstein, Alan Dershowitz & the Implications.

12 July 2019

^ Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month, over at Patreon… so that I can afford to get sued by Alan Dershowitz. 哈哈哈😄

PUA, the Doomed Subculture of David Bond.

11 July 2019

This video may or may not contain the secret to the meaning of life, revealed in passing while heaping scorn on “Pick-up artist” (P.U.A.) David Bond. And, yeah, this also deals with the specific issue of “white guy in Asia” privilege, I suppose. Support the creation of new content on Patreon, and you (YES YOU!) can suggest the target of my future demicomedic criticism.

#AntiPUA #AntiMGTOW #advice

Vaush vs. Veganism (vs. Ask Yourself vs. Me vs. Whatever)

10 July 2019

On my other channel this is titled, “The paradox of the authoritarian left”, and that is, perhaps, a better summary of what my interest is, in responding to (and criticizing) this peculiar debate.

^ Support the creation of new content on Patreon for $1 per month.

The Meaning of Life (vs. Jordan Peterson)

09 July 2019

“A Meaningful Life”, I’d prefer to say, rather than “The Meaning of Life”.

The video quoted (from Peterson) was originally titled, “Jordan Peterson on the True Meaning of Life”, and can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Z4yOfk6IHGc

Earthling Ed is a Bullshit Merchant, Vegans are Buying.

09 July 2019

You can have a movement guided by critique, or a movement stumbling ahead blindly. Real vegans recognize real vegans, AND real vegans criticize real vegans, you dig?

#vegan #vegans #veganism #EarthlingEd

Earthling Ed vs. Bobby’s Perspective: Idiot vs. Idiot.

08 July 2019

I may be vegan, but even I can offer a better critique of Earthling Ed than “Bobby’s Perspective” can. 哈哈哈😄 The video quoted in the intro is here, “The Mysterious Case of Earthling Ed”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/FF1eFio7fqw

Earthling Ed’s youtube channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCVRrGAcUc7cblUzOhI1KfFg/videos

#vegan #vegans #veganism

What if Clinton is Guilty? Billy Jack Haynes, History in the First Person.

07 July 2019

(1) Mainstream press coverage of the issue, including a short video of Billy Jack Haynes speaking on his history working for Bill Clinton (within the article, not on youtube) at the Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5407479/Billy-Jack-Haynes-says-witnessed-1987-Arkansas-murders.html?fbclid=IwAR3vWynC2x9I-1IvQAuTrFrftYdkqjo5lPDXTtKy_RVfZ-ee159mIF3ouN0

(2) A long (32 minute) interview, with B.J.H. reflecting on the events, and on his own motivations in now speaking about them publicly: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/mEus_D0PJVM

(3) An 11 minute summary from an informed outsider’s perspective, also reflecting on the extent to which the story can be objectively verified: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/k5Tt7BycjEw&feature=youtu.be

(4) The documentary film “The Clinton Chronicles”, the first half of which (roughly) is salient to the topic of this video. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/zCGW033-82c

Napoleon the 3^rd… J.J. McCullough is WRONG!!!

07 July 2019

Napoleon the 3^rd was one of the most important figures in the history of the world, not least of all because of his influence on Karl Marx. He did get a youtube biography, over here: _ Napoleon III: The Forgotten Bonaparte_ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/cn7Bxsqhcps

J.J. McCullough’s video (briefly mentioning Napoleon the 3^rd) is here: _”Every leader of France, EVER”_ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/7ppuA4sAmc8

And yeah, BTW, the publication of _L’extinction du pauperism_ is 1844, the same year that Marx and Engels publish “The Holy Family” (vs. Max Stirner and Bruno Bauer).

The False Ecology of Bernie Sanders (2019–2020)

06 July 2019

https://www.monbiot.com/2017/10/06/the-meat-of-the-matter/

What, you don’t already know Georges Monbiot? Here’s the link:

Monbiot has directly addressed (false) grass-fed beef industry claims repeatedly… in part because (at a much earlier stage of his career) he was once gullible enough to believe them.

Example: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/04/livestock-farming-artificial-meat-industry-animals

Bernie Sanders gets remarkably few views on his own youtube channel: youtube.com/user/SenatorSanders/videos

At the time of going to press, he had only 2,000 views on this video, “Farmers Can Help Address Climate Change”… if you help to share the link, we could easily exceed that number, even here on my own, small channel. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ReeWPc2ju9c

#vegan #vegans #veganism

What if Lauren Southern is Innocent? (Seriously…)

06 July 2019

The factoid that Milo Yiannopoulos is over two million dollars in debt was widely reported and discussed in the mainstream press: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/03/milo-yiannopoulos-more-than-2m-in-debt-australian-promoters-documents-show

On the Morality of Joe Rogan.

05 July 2019

^ Find me on Patreon, support the creation of new content on the channel.

#JoeRogan #vegan #vegans #veganism

No, Capitalism DOES NOT Require Growth: Sometimes, the Left Lies.

05 July 2019

There are slogans that become bedrock assumptions in political life without anyone questioning their empirical basis, without anyone even going through a Socratic process of defining the clams and assumptions clearly, to test if they could be true.

^ Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month, or else… free market forces will result in this lemonade stand relocating to the same part of the beach with all the other lemonade stands, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.

Two Lies Bernie Sanders is Telling About the Economy… and One He’s Not.

04 July 2019

The mainstream left is clinging to this illusion that “the poor are getting poorer” and “the middle class is stagnating (if not being reduced to poverty),” even when very clear economic facts prove that these claims are untrue (charts from the C.B.O., the census bureau, and so on). Bernie Sanders may not be aware that he’s lying, but he’s repeating dangerous misinformation that has ossified into “bedrock assumptions” rarely challenged in the mainstream left (e.g., in the Democrat Party presidential primary debates).

Why Did Carrie Fisher Die? Jeff Adachi? #SOBRIETY

02 July 2019

This is not about Star Wars. This is about life, ethics, the decisions we make, the type of people we aspire to become… and the consequences. Why Exactly Did Carrie Fisher Die? And Jeff Adachi?

At the time of her death, Carrie Fisher’s blood contained (i) cocaine, (ii) morphine, (iii) oxycodone, (iv) MDMA (“ecstasy”), (v) heroin, (vi) prozac, (vii) abilify, and (viii) lamictal.

#quitdrugs #quiteverything #sobriety

Veganism, Obstacles to Cooperation (w. Ask Yourself)

01 July 2019

The vegan movement is fractious and fragmentary, with invidious silences, narrowly defined ideological camps that dare not speak to one-another, brittleness of beliefs, and very little internal collaboration, co-operation or debate… and I spoke to Ask Yourself about his efforts to create a round-table for conversations of some kind to proceed upon.

And here’s the link to his channel: youtube.com/channel/UCQNmHyGAKqzOT_JsVEs4eag/videos

Idiot vs Idiot: Unnatural Vegan vs. Destiny the Streamer

30 June 2019

Support the creation of new content on the channel: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

How much I earned from youtube, monthly reports: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019-financial-report-how-much-do.html

My Girlfriend on Line One! 🧐 + “Career” Update.

30 June 2019

A deeply personal and reasonably profound conversation with my girlfriend on the phone (she’s in the U.S.A., while I’m in Taiwan) including also some updates about my career, education and “misc.” personal/professional life situation.

Andrew Yang vs. Aristotle: the Limits of U.B.I.

29 June 2019

I had only four hours of sleep the night before this was recorded, and if you want proof, I made an uncharacteristic slip-up after @2:45, “Unyet untested”. Support the creation of new content on Patreon, or else there will be no new content to (thus) find fault with: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Bonny Rebecca is single, BUT I AM NOT.

28 June 2019

In many ways a video following up on, “Breaking up with my girlfriend REPEATEDLY” (uploaded circa one week ago), found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/pnItgeCWbcY

Jordan Peterson: the Lobster as a Symbol in His Social & Psychological Philosophy.

28 June 2019

I have no idea who deserves the credit for the lobster-chariot image appearing in the thumbnail, so I can only provide this link (unless someone writes in to let me know a name). https://carleton.ca/align/2018/jordan-peterson-uses-pseudoscience-to-support-his-intellectually-feeble-ideas/

If you’re unfamiliar with the horrifying facts about anti-depressants, check out this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7rq7l8i6VGhFUrGAwTBoTS1

The Left is Lying About Poverty in America… WHY?

28 June 2019

It is so commonly said that “the poor are getting poorer” that, apparently, nobody does a quick google search to put political claims about economic inequality in check. In the debates within and surrounding the American Democratic Party primaries, this has become a meme… BUT WHY? If you’re going to advance a plausible case for a new economic and social policy, why build it on an obvious lie?

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If you don’t wanna hear about my breakup with my girlfriend, etc., you might be interested to know that I maintain a separate channel for “serious politics only” called AR&IO (Active Research and Informed Opinion), here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Ethics, activism, egoism, acne. (Chat w. Ask Yourself)

26 June 2019

Should I include “virtue ethics” as a topic here? / vegan / vegans / veganism / street activism / Jeff Nelson / Vegsource / Ask Yourself / Faraday Speaks / Caleb Cain

The Christchurch Massacre Aftermath: Censorship, Democracy and Dissent.

26 June 2019

Not a monologue, a discussion with two (yes, TWO) people!

https://www.instagram.com/briannaejackson/

Originally titled, “the Professionalization of Censorship, the Amateurization of Democracy and Dissent.”

Ted Cruz vs. Youtube (Project Veritas vs. Google)

26 June 2019

Yeah, Ted Cruz is my hero, all of a sudden. His youtube channel gets suspiciously few views, and you can find it here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/q1YENAvOveE

I give you two options: support this channel on Patreon, or else it will cease to exist. It will cost you $1 per month: if you really think that the meaning brought into your life by this channel (past, present or future) isn’t worth $1, then I’m not in a position to disagree with you, I’m just in a position to quit. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Gwyneth Paltrow is Neither Vegan Nor Ex-Vegan.

25 June 2019

A strange case of illusion vs. reality.

Jordan Peterson’s Bad Advice is Literally Killing His Fans.

24 June 2019

Jordan Peterson’s meat-eating fans wrote in to defend him, and to defend his daughter’s promotion of a 100% meat diet —something eaten by the whole family (from the ailing grandmother, Tammy, to the one year old baby!). “But it can’t possibly be bad for your health, it’s 100% grass-fed, organic, free range meat!” Yeah, right.

Acne: Quitting Nina and Randa’s Insane Diet.

24 June 2019

Nina and Randa promote “The Clear Skin Diet”. In my girlfriend’s case, the diet had very negative consequences (her acne got worse, and it had much more negative impacts beyond that) and there’s a more general lesson to be learned here about having scientific attitudes (even/especially toward claims made about the curative powers of vegan diets).

#clearskindiet #vegan #vegans

It takes a village to raise a family, thus jealousy. ⓸

24 June 2019

My old catchphrase “Bronze Age Virtues”/ “Bronze Age Values” gets a mention here. #bronzeagevirtues #bronzeagevalues Support the creation of new content on Patreon, or else this channel is gonna disappear (sorry, but it’s true). https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Here’s the monthly report for how much I earn from Youtube: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019-financial-report-how-much-do.html

Activism: Don’t Waste My Time.

22 June 2019

(反共產) On the Definition of Communism (Anti-Communist Perspective)

22 June 2019

Well, imagine what I could do if I actually got a credential (M.A. or PhD) to do real research or university level lecturing. This presentation had zero script, zero preparation, zero edits, and was recorded between 1:40 AM and 2:00 AM, local time. Support me on Patreon, so that I have a shot at going back to university and getting an M.A., I guess. :-/ https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

#politicsinpyjamas

My emails with ex-vegan Brianna Jackfruitson / Brianna Jackson

22 June 2019

Yep, you can lose weight, feel great, and get in shape, with only a vegan diet and… 600 hours at the gym per year, I guess.

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Tariff & Trade: Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump, “By the Book”.

22 June 2019

Support the creation of new content on Patreon, or else this channel will cease to exist: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

I post how much (how little) I earn on this blog, month by month: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019-financial-report-how-much-do.html

Incidentally, I do have a separate channel for book reviews (as well as a playlist within à-bas-le-ciel), and my “main” channel (with fewer viewers!) is “for serious politics only”, AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion).

Reviews Channel = youtube.com/channel/UCwFVGsSXOM5d3xLSunquAPA/videos

AR&IO = youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Jordan Peterson & His Wife, Eating Themselves to Death.

21 June 2019

The carnivore diet has consequences; carnism has consequences. For people, for animals, for the environment. Jordan Peterson, Tammy Peterson, Mikhaila Peterson, and the tiny granddaughter of the family… they all need to face up to those consequences.

If you think this message delivers a message that people need to hear, or that the channel brings important conversations into your life, support this channel on Patreon, or else it is going to cease to exist: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Brianna Jackson is Ex-Vegan (Brianna Jackfruitson eats meat, dairy and eggs now)

20 June 2019

Yeah, breaking news, right? If you wonder why the vegan movement is weak in 2019, it’s partly because people backed the wrong leaders (and even the wrong entertainers) for several years leading up to 2019. Partly. Not entirely. But partly. And Brianna is one memorable example. #vegan #vegans #veganism

Links? Okay, you want links, you got em. youtube.com/user/BriLovesPetite/videos

Eggs, a typically brutal vegan debate (w. Mic the Vegan)

19 June 2019

This discussion took place on/via the Ask Yourself Discord server, found here: https://discordservers.com/server/363108109797031936

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Breaking up with my girlfriend REPEATEDLY.

19 June 2019

Theatricality and honesty, in politics, on the internet, and in real life.

18 June 2019

On twitter, I wrote: “Theatricality and honesty are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes, you need to be theatrical precisely to be honest. And theater has always been an aspect of democracy, since Athens invented the game.”

https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1141226978885816321

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

This video is part of my longest-running playlist, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”.

#advice #advicenobodywantstohear #politicsinpyjamas

JEALOUSY ⓶ Feelings of Injustice, rage and revenge.

18 June 2019

Support the channel on Patreon, or else it will cease to exist: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

If you wonder how much or how little I earn per month from youtube, it is publicly stated here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019-financial-report-how-much-do.html

[反共產] Against Communist Idealism, Live Debate.

17 June 2019

Support the channel on Patreon, or else it will cease to exist. No, I’m not joking. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Here’s how much (i.e., how little) money I make from youtube, reported monthly: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019-financial-report-how-much-do.html

Stop Blaming the Algorithm: Youtube is Curated Content.

16 June 2019

Youtube is not a meritocracy; success is neither the result of an algorithm nor random “good fortune”; unless you already know to seek out a particular creator yourself, what you see (and what you don’t see) on youtube is, simply, curated content.

Communists are creepy: Mexie is wrong about sex… and politics.

16 June 2019

Vegan Activism is Broken: the Phony Revolution of “Nation Rising”, Ottawa, Canada, 2019.

15 June 2019

The extent to which the failure of this one movement is representative of a larger problem is shown by just how many organizations were founding co-members of the group: PETA, DxE and many more “signed on” to “Nation Rising”… along with Pig Save, Cow Save, seemingly every vegan and animal rights organization of any size. And yet they fail in every way, including size itself. :-/ Vegan activism is broken. Who can fix it? :-/

Facing Facts: Veganism is a FAILURE (in 2019, in Canada)

14 June 2019

Here we look at a very simple metric showing the extent to which veganism is an absolute failure (as a movement) compared to feminism, and several other examples used as a metric (measuring tool) to give a calibrated sense of scale to how little organization we now have.

On Activism, vs. Vegan Gains, Tofu Goddess, Modvegan.

14 June 2019

Reflections on the lack of progress in the movement in the last 5 years, including some of the unique personalities I tried to collaborate with (i.e., as named in the title: Vegan Gains, Tofu Goddess, Modvegan). Currently, BTW, the only income I have is youtube, so you can donate $1 per month to support the channel, OR NOT: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

You can see exactly how little I earn from this youtube thing in a series of monthly reports, here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019-financial-report-how-much-do.html

Vegan Activism: Invitation to Start a New Organization.

13 June 2019

I received an invitation to be part of the process of forming a new organization, with an unknown father-and-son team, who say they have enough money in place to get it up and rolling. For more pragmatic, real-world advice on vegans getting organized and trying (one way or another) to make the world a better place (politically, through public education, or other forms of activism) check out the Brass Tacks playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7okWjcSH0HnY6BUbMkELHEG

And BTW, it would really help if you’d donate $1 per month via Patreon: although my rent here in Taiwan is cheap, I currently earn much less than my rent. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegetable Police is Vegan Again: He Never Apologized.

12 June 2019

Conservatives on Empty: Turning Point USA.

12 June 2019

Empty. Empty platitudes. The name of Jesus, invoked again and again. You might imagine that “Conservative” is a political movement with clear principles, goals and policy positions that unites it as one: no, it really isn’t. Not in the United States of America. Not in the year 2019. And yes, YWLP = Young Women’s Leadership Summit.

Destiny: the Live-Streamer Who Lectures On Morality.

12 June 2019

The Lion Who Said Moo, Talking to My Daughter, Age 3.

12 June 2019

Against Mexie, Against Halfway Veganism.

10 June 2019

Yeah, I could have put “intersectionalism” or “intersectionality” in the title, I suppose. The video quoted is Mexie’s _Why I’m No Longer Vegan™_, link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/oY_Dt1jey4M

Believe it or not, this channel has a playlist of critiques of Mexie, and some of them may surprise/delight/horrify you: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qPz0cttZX51ucLUnFfx2z_

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Can Vegans Love and Respect Ex-Vegans? No.

10 June 2019

The moral of the story is that Jacko Wacko should quit youtube. Really. Now.

The Political Consequences of Youtube: Caleb on the Cover of the New York Times.

10 June 2019

Youtube politics on the front page of the New York Times: “The Making of a Youtube Radical”. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html

This is a story related to the youtube channel “Faraday Speaks”, discussed on this channel previously. You’ll find Faraday (a.k.a. Caleb) here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Hwqnuqo1MMuJUsLNlgqmw

#Politube #PoliticsInPyjamas #FaradaySpeaks

Youtube Censorship is STILL BROKEN (new policy, June 5, 2019)

06 June 2019

Protecting political critique is both why “freedom of speech” exists, and why censorship exists (paradoxical though that may seem)… and that is why limits to Youtube censorship need to be imposed.

Partly in response to: (1) https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-tackle-hate.html and (2) Philip DeFranco “Woah...Is The New Adpocalypse Here?! VOX Crowder Chaos, Trump Republican Tariff Tussle, & More” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/DFpEIn7DAVo?t=482

What I hate about Conservatives (vs. J.J. McCullough)

06 June 2019

I would just point out that the URL for J.J. McCullough’s “conservative” youtube channel is, in fact, “Wartmamu”, whereas the URL for my channel is “HeJinZhengZhi”…mysterious, hm? youtube.com/user/wartmamu/videos

The Moral Basis of Veganism (His Girlfriend Should Dump Him)

06 June 2019

A hard-hitting, ten minute discussion of ethics, ecology and political activism (in the context of uncertainty about dietetics, nutrition and health outcomes) ensues… completely unbiased by the fact that this guy has a vegan girlfriend who is helping him raise his six year old kid, AND she does pole dancing. Pole dancing.

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Veganism Jumped the Shark. And Here’s Why.

05 June 2019

Veganism jumped the shark… and no, I don’t just mean “Veganism on Youtube”… and no, I’m not just asking WHEN did it jump the shark, but also WHY?

—————

When you look at the list below, you may ask yourself, how many of them are still vegan? How many are still doing activism, of any kind? How many of them (or how few) still upload to youtube?

1. Ali the Friendly Activist = https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFriendlyActivist

2. John from Vegan Health Fitness = https://www.youtube.com/user/VeganHealthFitness

3. Abdullah from The Glucose Network: https://www.youtube.com/user/abdullahzeinab1

4. Immy “That Thai Vegan” = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3gql886jiycHU297-xtVg

5. Sorsha Morava = https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSorshaOfficial

6. Joey Carbstrong = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG6usHVNuRbexyisxE27nDw

7. Brett Rawlings = https://www.youtube.com/user/brett2961

8. The Vegan Activist = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE0yGL4Bgs2QNomOrslyLtw

9. Andy Vegan = https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAndyLoraProgram

10. The Vegan Brunette = https://www.youtube.com/user/laurenmichelle102

11. Matt from Powsimian = https://www.youtube.com/user/powsimians

12. The “quit everything” guy = https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi

The video alluded to, combining clips from all of these people, is from November of 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6CCullE1kRg

Bernie Sanders Did Support Communism: Does It Still Matter?

05 June 2019

Patreon: the high price of “free” political analysis on youtube. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/posts

And yes, if you’re curious, I do post a monthly report on how much (or how little) I earn from Youtube: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-2019-financial-report-how-much-do-i.html

My Secret Emails with Durianrider + Jezebel (Gawker Media) Interview.

04 June 2019

Cosplay is not about sex. Colossalcon is NOT about sex.

04 June 2019

No, but seriously…

Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eiselmazard

Why is it left-wing to be anti-war? Is there a conservative peace movement… yet?

04 June 2019

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

If you only want to hear the more serious, political content (and you’d like to avoid the videos about my personal life, anecdotal stuff, etc.) then you might want to switch to my other youtube channel, AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Communism, illusions of progress, from China to Ireland.

03 June 2019

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Links to two of the articles mentioned:

(1) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/world/asia/china-marxist-students.html

(2) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/world/asia/china-marxist-students.html

Sargon Still Claims He’s ¼ Black: Mystery Solved.

02 June 2019

The particular video from Sargon of Akkad that inspired this reply is found on his channel called, “The Thinkery”, and the video has the somewhat misleading title, “All White People are the Same”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/0vJaoYmc8kk

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon, or else you’ll have nothing better to listen to than Sargon of Akkad: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

For the parents, serious update, serious decisions.

02 June 2019

Sobriety: The Unbroken Awareness of Who You Really Are.

02 June 2019

This is included in the playlist, “Advice nobody wants to hear”, but the truth is: it’s advice at least one person wrote in wanting to hear (hey, he asked for it). #QuitEverything

Vegan Wars: Dr. Fuhrman Strikes Back.

31 May 2019

Here’s the link to Fuhrman’s defense against allegations from Vegsource a.k.a. Jeff Nelson & T. Colin Campbell:

https://www.drfuhrman.com/get-started/eat-to-live-blog/174/dr-fuhrmans-response-to-campbell-nelson-accusations

#VeganWars #VeganDrama #Veganism

I should have sued Jeff Nelson (Vegsource) instead of Durianrider. :-/

30 May 2019

Yeah, you can complain about the American justice system, but it’s a safe bet the courts would have come to a more decisive conclusion for Jeff (Vegsource), Durianrider and myself than the Thai court system did. :-/ And, as this video says in its conclusion: I hope somebody, somewhere, is sincerely interested in the future of the vegan movement, because it ain’t Jeff, and it ain’t Durianrider either. :-/

Ethics. Knowing and Feeling.

27 May 2019

Practical philosophy, ethics, and reflections on why the vegan movement (2016 to 2019) has accomplished so little.

#vegan #vegans #veganism #Thailand

And yeah, right: “See you in Thailand”. :-/ The people who were involved in organizing that event for December of 2016… how many of them are still vegan today? And how many of them are still advocating veganism today (on Youtube or otherwise)? I’m one of the few, and (next week) I’m going back to Thailand very much alone (I doubt a single person or activist will meet up with me).

Your “Mental Health Problems” Are Who You Really Are.

27 May 2019

Yes, inspired by “Jacko Wacko”, an unreasonably profound installment of ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR.

Veganism: You’re Only as Good as the People You Make Excuses For.

27 May 2019

In part a discussion of “Jacko Wacko Vegano”, “Vegan Footsoldier”, and more, but this quickly spirals into philosophical and political observations far beyond. :-/ Yeah, here’s the link to Jacko’s garbage video, “What you gonna do?!” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/nEo2V_sKMnI

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, or else you’ll have nothing better to watch than Jacko: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

ProJared Told the Truth: the Witch Hunt Mentality.

25 May 2019

Moby vs. Natalie Portman: Scandal and/or Vegan Activism.

25 May 2019

Yeah, Moby at age 33 was looking across a huge “age gap” at Natalie Portman, then aged 18, but now, 20 years later, the middle aged duo (vegan vs. vegan) are innovating a whole new sub-genre of “Lifestyle Activism”… “Scandal Activism”? Or, perhaps, “Gossip Activism”?

Jordan Peterson & Slavoj Žižek: Defining Left and Right… Reconsidered.

24 May 2019

The words “Conservative” and “Progressive” denote political parties, but connote a confusing sense of moral character; let’s reconsider our assumptions about the definition of “Left” and Right”.

This video guest-stars Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Žižek —meaning that, for once, Eisel Mazard is not the hardest name to spell in the video. Support the creation of new content via Patreon (for just $1 per month) here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Source quoted: “Marxism: Zizek/Peterson: Official Video” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/lsWndfzuOc4

In India, white people get special seats in parliament, but American Indians…

23 May 2019

The article being quoted at the start of the video can be found here: https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/living/story/19810815-anglo-indian-community-dwindles-with-the-end-of-british-raj-773154-2013-11-14

This is part of the “Canadian Politics” playlist on à-bas-le-ciel, where you’ll find many videos on related issues, and reflecting on my own peculiar history studying First Nations languages and politics: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7ph4GjbjjUHDnImp9NpHyDE

Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Fan Mail (Q&A)

23 May 2019

Support the channel on Patreon for $1 per month and you, too, can ask questions, get answers, and make suggestions for video topics: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

This is part of the longest-running playlist on the channel: “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7roNNGMARf3BPJj_1cB3IHN

Laos: Does Anyone Think the United Nations Will Help?

22 May 2019

Does anyone think the U.N. will ACTUALLY support democracy in Laos, in China, or anywhere in Asia? Does anyone think the U.N. will do anything to change the status quo… ANYTHING to help?

I assume that absolutely nobody wants to click on the links to read the interviews with United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, and that absolutely nobody thinks that his “final report” will have any real-world outcomes (changing the history of Laos now unfolding) in any way whatsoever, but… here are the links:

(1) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/un-alston-laos-03182019170133.html

(2) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/rfa-interview-alston-04092019172552.html

(3) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/expert-03282019145123.html

Lies That Ruin Lives: Jordan Peterson, Meat & Depression.

22 May 2019

To learn more about the research presented by Dr. Irving Kirsch, quoted in the second half of this video, click through here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ECFZB5aEG2I

To support the creation of new content on this channel, donate $1 per month via Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

To find out just how much money (i.e., how little) this channel earns per month, you can check out our monthly financial reports, here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-2019-financial-report-how-much-do-i.html

Bonny Rebecca: Anti-Vegan, Pro-Consumerism, Hollow as Hell.

22 May 2019

Part of the Bonny Rebecca / Brainy Rebecca playlist.

“Inspired by” ex-vegan “activist” Bonny Rebecca… youtube.com/channel/UCOu3SAozsyQyKE2wDAIJtdQ/videos

And by her new video, “DAILY LIFE | Creating my DREAM Office + Decorating and Organising My Life”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ibFEeeUMriI

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

The Public Domain: Star Wars Should be “Deregulated”.

22 May 2019

Fake Ex-Vegans.

21 May 2019

Jordan Peterson’s Diet is Killing His Wife.

21 May 2019

Yep. She’s in the hospital with liver failure. You can see Jordan Peterson’s daughter boasting about how her mother lost 10 pounds on her 100% meat diet, here: https://mikhailapeterson.com/2019/01/18/tammy-peterson-my-mom-on-zero-carb/

ACTUALLY GARBAGE (& Here’s Why)… Game of Thones “finale”, Season 8, Episode 6.

20 May 2019

Years ago, the one thing that made this show better than Lord of the Rings (or Xena Warrior princess) was political realism: people used to urge their friends to give this show a chance, precisely because of that peculiar realism (that it retained, despite the use of magic and dragons).

Debt: Paul Krugman and Milton Friedman are BOTH WRONG.

19 May 2019

This is the second video in a series, explaining the fundamental fact that Government Debt exacerbates social inequality. The first part in the series was titled, “Increasing Government Debt = the Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Poorer.” And you can see that video here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/90VBPNLJUAU

—————

Support the creation of new content on this channel via Patreon for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

If you’d like to know exactly how much (or how little) I currently earn from Youtube, I post monthly reports here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-2019-financial-report-how-much-do-i.html

The Internet Has Zero Empathy for ProJared. :-/

18 May 2019

Stop calling him a narcissist, stop calling him a sociopath, stop calling him a predator, stop calling him a cheater. It was an open relationship. His ex-wife didn’t want him to leave her, and she decided to “destroy” him (i.e., destroy his reputation) when he filed for divorce. If you’re reproaching Jared for having a lack of empathy, maybe some of you should consider whether or not your lacking empathy yourselves?

Sources quoted: (1) Amanda the Jedi: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/9OS8Mbk4mPs

(2) Pat the NES Punk’s channel is here: youtube.com/user/PatTheNESpunk/videos

He currently has over 74,000 views on the video accusing ProJared of “narcissistic sociopathy”, can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sPjOLQIcfgk

It’s Infanticide: Legalize Abortion Anyway.

17 May 2019

In 2019 this issue was re-examined (with very little sincerity from left or right) due to new legislation in Alabama that would make abortion illegal under almost any circumstances.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/us/abortion-law-women.html

Stop Hating James Charles, Hate Yourselves.

17 May 2019

Advice nobody wants to hear.

The Vegan Movement is Pathetic in 2019, “Nation Rising” Even Worse.

17 May 2019

The state of the vegan movement in Canada is really sad; and, yeah, it’s only gonna get sadder still with the upcoming (annual?) “Nation Rising” event, that promises (once again!) to be, “Not a protest,” but instead, “A revolution”! https://www.facebook.com/nationrisingcanada/

#vegan #vegans #veganism

If you want to see the earlier (much longer) video we made on the topic, here it is: “Vegan Politics: Are “Nation Rising” Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing?” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/u-xA2EjZFOc

Increasing Government Debt = the Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Poorer.

16 May 2019

An Open Letter to Professional YouTubers: CrashCourse & Vlogbrothers.

16 May 2019

Have you noticed that in the public eye, historical reporting (sincerity, honesty and integrity in research) only “matters” and “has consequences” when it’s World War Two for some reason? On any other topic, from any other era (especially if it’s on another continent), the most poorly-informed, sub-wikipedia-level “research” is celebrated as the PBS of Youtube? Yeah, I said it: CrashCourse World History has become “the PBS of Youtube” —and, in a sense, it should be taken more seriously, and criticized more thoroughly, for that reason. The people making these videos speak out of blithe ignorance, and lead an audience of millions astray on meaningful and important issues in political history —they just don’t happen to be THE ONE ISSUE (World War Two) that would get them into trouble, I guess. :-/

Links to sources quoted:

(1) Izzy G / Pink_Sparkles = youtube.com/channel/UCGY5CuDBRZNz3nn_yZzx4Vw/videos

(2) CrashCourse = youtube.com/user/crashcourse/videos

(3) The specific VlogBrothers video, “An Open Letter to Professional YouTubers” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/1lgL4jaMMFU

Diversity is Neither the Problem nor the Solution (SAT’s New ‘Adversity Score’ )

16 May 2019

Link to a New York Times article on the subject, “SAT’s New ‘Adversity Score’ Will Take Students’ Hardships Into Account” = https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/us/sat-score.html

Check out our earlier (much longer) video, “The University is Broken: “Academically Adrift” Book Review.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/J_KEXfDpeDs

Support the creation of new content on Patreon for $1 per month: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

AlexandrasGirlyTalk, We Need to Talk About “Vegan”

14 May 2019

AlexandrasGirlyTalk is ex-vegan. Her channel is here: youtube.com/user/AlexandrasGirlyTalk/videos

The specific video quoted is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MRQwutTsYKA

The clip at the very end of this video is quoted from this (horrifying) video here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/cr5oyFSrZ9I

Bad Writing, Better Writing. S08E05

13 May 2019

Season 8, Episode 5 of Game of Thrones (ASOIAF / A Song of Ice and Fire)… we’re going to play a game called, “Bad Writing, Better Writing”… and no, this is not remotely the worst written episode of Game of Thrones, and perhaps that makes the game MORE interesting to play, hm?

Season 8, Episode 5, of Game of Thrones [ASOIAF]

13 May 2019

NE RECONSTRUISEZ PAS Notre Dame de Paris.

13 May 2019

Traduction française par: https://www.instagram.com/anotherxlara/

Moi, le gars qui parle: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Vous pensez probablement que toute personne avec une mentalité de progrès et de droit croit à la séparation entre l’Église et l’État, mais qu’une fois que la religion en est séparée, elle se déroule incontrôlée par la constitution ou le gouvernement par quelque intervention que ce soit,et qu’en ce sens, Notre Dame de Paris et une centaine d’autres cathédrales peuvent continuer à prendre une grande partie du paysage, de la géographie, de Paris et toute ville en France pour toujours et à jamais, et qu’elles peuvent prendre une grande partie des impôts, éternellement, pour que l’or brille éternellement sur cette relique, pour que tout soi maintenu et restauré. […] Si un jour vous voulez du changement culturel positif, si un jour vous voulez dépasser l’héritage des âges obscurs en Europe, alors il faut que vous croyiez en l’interférence du gouvernement, à un moment, pour mettre un terme à exactement ce que la cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris représente et exactement ce qu’elle est. Et c’est terrifiant de voir Emmanuel Macron se lever sans une parole critique de qui que ce soit, ni les athéistes professionnels en ligne, ni la gauche politique, ni la droite, qui se lève pour dire non, tout va être reconstruit à l’identique, …que Notre Dame de Paris reste un symbole de la France à jamais. Ce n’est pas l’avenir de la France, ca, ce n’est pas le présent de la France et ce n’est même pas l’histoire de la France, depuis que vous avez écrit votre constitution, ou même écrit votre première constitution pendant la Révolution Francaise.

Demanding Direct Democracy: Gilets Jaunes in France & China.

12 May 2019

I have a separate “serious politics only” channel called AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion), you’ll find it here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Support the channel for $1 per month via Patreon, here: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

And if you’d like to know JUST HOW LITTLE MONEY is currently generated by the channel, I put up monthly reports here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-2019-monthly-financial-report-how.html

Stop Hating Projared, Hate Yourselves.

12 May 2019

#witchhuntmentality #quitvideogames #quiteverything

AR&IO: The Religion of Democracy in Athens.

09 May 2019

In large part a critique of Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City (La Cité Antique). Support the creation of new content on this channel via Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

BTW, if you’re sick of hearing me talk about my personal life, I have a separate channel that is “serious politics only” called AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion). youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Softcore pornography destroyed the vegan movement (“activism”)

08 May 2019

Who Destroyed the Movement? Vegans, Ex-Vegans or Youtube Itself?

Bonny Rebecca and Rawvana co-star (in a production vaguely alluding to Freelee, Raw Alignment and “a cast of thousands” beyond)… as we reflect on the extent to which softcore porn destroyed the vegan movement.

ASOIAF: Everyone Wants to be a Dictator? (S08E04)

07 May 2019

A political and philosophical response to Season 8, Episode 4 of “Game of Thrones”. A.S.O.I.A.F. = “A Song of Ice and Fire”, i.e., the books of George R.R. Martin (G.R.R.M.), also known under the title “Game of Thrones”, used by the T.V. adaptation to refer to the series as a whole.

Ex-Vegan “Science” and Philosophical Skepticism.

07 May 2019

https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1122202176770588672

So, You’re Planning on Turning 40?

06 May 2019

Matt Dillahunty, “Kill Half the World’s Population, like Thanos!”

05 May 2019

Ecology, environmentalism and climate change, according to Thanos. No, wait, I mean, Matt Dillahunty.

Link to the source cited, “Re Think”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/gQH-NTQPQGU

The Ex-Vegan Euphoria: It’s Kinky.

04 May 2019

An R-rated reply to the question, “Why do so many ex-vegans experience some kind of euphoria (increased sex drive, or other psychological changes, presented as seeming health-benefits) when they decide to discard their ethical commitment to the vegan diet and revert to eating meat. #fakevegans #exvegans #veganism

Solving Suicide: Practical Advice for Terrible Times in Your Life.

04 May 2019

Support the creation of new content (on this channel) for $1 per month via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Quote, “Meat is Required for Clarity of Thought”, Matt Dillahunty.

03 May 2019

Moral Obligation vs. Moral Virtue, Objective Morality vs. Subjective Morality… Matt Dillahunty is not a philosopher, and he’s nobody’s hero: he uses these concepts not to solve problems, nor to raise important questions, as a philosopher might do… he uses them to offer insincere excuses, obfuscation and distractions.

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Zero Talent: Matt Dillahunty vs Cosmic Skeptic on Veganism.

01 May 2019

#vegan #vegans #veganism #sugafree

Shout out to Suga Free (the only person with any talent to get on the microphone in this video).

You DO NOT want to click on this link. :-/ Matt Dillahunty | Extended Dialogue on Veganism | Cosmic Skeptic Podcast #3 https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/PAOzGNFamgQ

Book vs. Show: Game of Thrones Season 8, Ep. 3.

29 April 2019

The old “book to show” comparison, primarily discussing the overly simplistic “evil for the sake of evil” of the White Walkers, and the even less coherent significance of “The Red God” (as the show now stands).

—————

A.S.O.I.A.F. = “A Song of Ice and Fire”, i.e., the books of George R.R. Martin (G.R.R.M.), also known under the title “Game of Thrones”, used by the T.V. adaptation to refer to the series as a whole.

Jordan Peterson’s 100% Pseudoscience Diet.

28 April 2019

Are you telling me that the same “scientist” who disregards all of the hard evidence against SSRI anti-depressants would fall for a fad diet that’s 100% meat, and promises many of the same “feel good” (hard to measure) benefits? Jordan Peterson and Mikhaila Peterson want to heal the world, but they’ve placed their faith in a series of false cures (akin to faith healing) …despite J.P. supposedly having professional expertise in just this area.

Shout out to Vandetta and Weish (vocalists from Singapore), the specific song quoted is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ezK1zPLRdsw

More tracks by Vandetta: https://soundcloud.com/vandetta/tracks

#Vegan #Vegans #Veganism

When your gf dumps you because you’re not vegan.

28 April 2019

I have never said that veganism is a great way to meet women; I have never said it is “a great way to get a girlfriend”, and I’ve never said it’s a good foundation for a relationship. But it’s a great reason for a breakup. And now, a two minute examination: when your girlfriend dumps you because you’re not vegan (or, perhaps, not vegan ENOUGH).

Shout out to JackoWackoVegano: youtube.com/channel/UCyKOusEfW1wWrW1moG3oiAQ/videos

Shout out to Miki (the vocalist), linked to here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/tQtr1b5jGAs

And shout out to Jacko’s (ex?) girlfriend. Who doesn’t have her own youtube channel. I guess.

Jordan Peterson vs. Karl Marx vs. Breadtube.

27 April 2019

From Fake Vegan to Ex-Vegan: JackoWackoVegano ELIMINATED.

27 April 2019

JackoWackoVegano & Unnatural Vegan: COMMENTARY.

#vegan #veganism #fakevegans

Am I Still Buddhist? (Or, to what extent…)

27 April 2019

WHY DID YOUTUBE BAN THIS VIDEO? I am not joking: this video was deleted and banned outright. Here’s the screen-shot to prove it:

I did not receive an email explaining why, and I did not receive a community guideline strike, I did not receive a chance to appeal, etc.

—————

The original title was, “Am I Still Buddhist? (Or, to what extent…)”

ESL Teachers: Cultural Imperialism & Economic Necessity.

26 April 2019

The Ongoing Failure of Veganism (Beme News / Louis Foglia)

26 April 2019

Beme News put out a video entitled, “We’re running out of water”, and the creator of the video, Louis Foglia, kind-of-sort-of deals with the ecological and ethical implications of veganism (and, to some extent, he studiously avoids doing so). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/16AaXK_53ro

Juxtaposition: Insanity, Evil & One Ex-Vegan.

25 April 2019

#vegan #vegans #veganism

The Renaissance: Political Origins and Terrible Implications.

25 April 2019

The cover-image reads, “A revolution. No, literally.”

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

YOU CAN’T RAP: Nina and Randa.

23 April 2019

PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK WITH OTHERS… IT’S THE ONLY WAY WE’LL EVER SAVE THE FUTURE. The audience has to step up here, and have an intervention: they already do this with their father standing there watching (LITERALLY)…

#vegan #vegans #veganism

DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK unless you actually want to hear them rapping: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/YyoD5Kbajig

And, yeah, shout out to Chico DLX, Homestar & Strong Bad.

Bad Writing Clinic: Season 8, Episode 2 of Game of Thrones.

23 April 2019

Constructive criticism for bad, bad writing on Game of Thrones. And, yes, an attempt to have an in-depth discussion about a TV-show that now has zero depth. And yes, I feel like I’m the only person being honest about how terrible the writing on the show is nowadays.

Shout out to the ever-more-unhinged youtube channel, “The Dragon Demands”: youtube.com/channel/UCV3PgptMBNJlyBx_jg2TDHw/videos

And, yes, the video also alludes to the well-known screenwriting manual, “Save the Cat”. https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009

#ASOIAF #GameOfThrones #Screenwriting

Ex-Bakers, Not Ex-Vegan.

21 April 2019

From my girlfriend, Hei Mudan, who has her own channel over here: youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw/videos

AR&IO: Art as Protest, Language as Art.

19 April 2019

AR&IO is my “serious politics” only channel (Active Research & Informed Opinion), please subscribe to it and support it here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

There are even more impressive and beautiful photographs of this work of art on Xu Bing’s own website, here: http://www.xubing.com/cn/work/details/206?year=1991&type=year#206

The artist (徐冰, Xu Bing) has his own wikipedia article, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Bing

For more on the specific work of art (天書 or 天书), wikipedia does have an article, translating the title as “A Book from the Sky”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_from_the_Sky

For more on Wei Jingsheng 魏京生 (who served 18 years in prison for using the freedom of speech that was assured to him to call for democracy, etc.), his foundation does have its own website, here: http://www.weijingsheng.org/wei/en.html

The article cited in the conclusion of the video is by Rhosean Asmah (and edited by Victor H. Mair, who is responsible for drawing western attention to the 天書 as “dissident art”, over many years), http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp283_language_script_art_east_asia.pdf

Support the creation of new content on this channel with $1, on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

There are monthly updates on how much I earn, posted here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-2019-monthly-financial-report-how.html

One Billion Dollars to build a FAKE Notre Dame Cathedral?

19 April 2019

Vegan Music Video: Anthem for a Demonetized “Movement”.

19 April 2019

Shout out to Daylyt: https://www.youtube.com/user/1SPAWNONLY/videos?disable_polymer=1

Shout out to Freelee: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/rYkXyrdYLME

Shout out to Henya Mania: youtube.com/user/G0V3GAN/videos

Shout out to Plantriotic: youtube.com/channel/UCjOKgw4ndKt52LTESwqvAGg/videos

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Our Culture is Dominated by Christianity: How Will It End?

19 April 2019

The cultural domination of Christianity (and Islam) over our daily lives does not fall under any simple heading like “Freedom” or “Oppression”… but atheist activists seem to be unwilling to even recognize the problem (they are neither gradually nor passionately working toward any solution).

DON’T REBUILD the Notre-Dame Cathedral.

16 April 2019

Jar-Jar Binks in a Fur Cape = Game of Thrones, Season 8 Episode 1

16 April 2019

Yes, the writing is THAT bad. Toward the end of the video, I say, “Shout out to ‘the dragon demands’”. Here’s the link to the TV show’s harshest critic: youtube.com/channel/UCV3PgptMBNJlyBx_jg2TDHw/videos

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Socrates Wore a Robe, but he was NOT a Buddhist Monk.

15 April 2019

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The Vegan Prince vs. the Vegan President: Tim Shieff vs. Bill Clinton vs. Reality.

15 April 2019

Headline: “The ‘Vegan Prince’ Tim Shieff Says Veganism Made Him ‘Sick’ | This Morning” LINK = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/azVortse4VQ&t=28s

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Pay $1 per month to support the creation of new content on this channel, via Patreon (if not you, then who?). https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

This Week In Utopia: Libya.

14 April 2019

In the context of the reconquest of Libya by Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army, here are some reflections on the “tragic realism” of Thucydides’s view of political history… in contrast to the surreal “optimism” propounded by the U.N. and the mainstream media.

Legislation Against Fake News: is the solution worse than the problem?

12 April 2019

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, at Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Please support my “serious politics only” channel, AR&IO: “Active Research & Informed Opinion”, link here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

(You want a synopsis? C’mon… the title is long enough that you’ve got an entire synopsis right there: “Legislation Against Fake News: is the solution worse than the problem?”)

Tim Shieff says, “Be selfish, eat meat!”

11 April 2019

#vegan / #vegans / #veganism / vegan / vegan / veganism

Candace Owens Attempts to “Pwn” Congress.

10 April 2019

No comment. Because some stories tell themselves.

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Americans Are Having Less and Less Sex: Fact Check.

08 April 2019

As a statistical fact, are Americans having less and less sex? This comes up in the context of Vegan Gains complaining about the implausibility of Fully Raw Kristina’s sex life (or lack thereof), and Ashley Elisa’s attempt to… uh… valorize… virginity? I guess?

Vegan Gains Confronting Anti-Semitism. (vs. John Rose)

08 April 2019

Vegan Gains = youtube.com/channel/UCr2eKhGzPhN5RPVk5dd5o3g/videos

Fully Raw Kristina = youtube.com/user/FullyRawKristina/videos

Commentary: Vegan Gains vs. FRK (Racism, etc.)

08 April 2019

This Week in Utopia: Afghanistan.

06 April 2019

The Afghan government was not invited to negotiations between the United States and the Taliban in the last few weeks: these talks would have secured the conditions for the United States to evacuate its troops without admitting outright defeat. The Taliban, who are already occupying a significant portion of the country through outright military force, left the negotiating table to pursue that “outright defeat” aforementioned —or, at least, to wait for Donald Trump to lose patience and bring the American Army home. There’s a great deal of talk about “learning the lessons of history”, and vague allusions to the Vietnam War… but those are lessons most would rather not learn. Very few seem to be willing to face up to the extent to which the war is already over, the Afghan democracy is doomed, and the Americans (with the one trillion dollar budget) have lost.

Here’s the link to the article mentioned toward the end of the video:

https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2016/05/1954-1979-wars-in-china-cambodia-vietnam.html

Here’s the link to my “serious politics only” channel, Active Research & Informed Opinion: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

And you can support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month, over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Pirates: Pewdiepie, Brittany Pettibone & Martin Sellner.

06 April 2019

Support the creation of new content on this channel at Patreon:

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Here’s the sum total of exactly how little money I make on my blog (updated monthly): http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/03/march-2019-monthly-financial-report.html

AR&IO: The News You’re Ignoring. (Ep. 001)

03 April 2019

Please support and subscribe to my “serious politics only” channel, AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion), here:

If you want to talk to me, or support the creation of new content for $1 per month, find me on Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#TheNewsYou'reIgnoring #PoliticsInPyjamas

I know why Nipsey Hussle died.

03 April 2019

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/SFXK9t

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

The Wigs we Wear: a Vegan Morality Lecture.

01 April 2019

Shout out to Cruelty Free #Cosplay youtube.com/channel/UCB2XtUWSP0pAfEPiOqf1Kjg/videos

#vegan #veganism

Shout out, also, to Helen Stifler, who appears as “Spider Gwen” in the thumbnail: https://www.instagram.com/helenstifler/?hl=en

New Era, New Error? 令和 or 冷和? Japan’s Reiwa Epoch.

01 April 2019

AR&IO: In China, the High Price of Dissenting Opinions [许章润]

31 March 2019

Please support AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion), my “serious politics only” channel (whereas around here, on à-bas-le-ciel, you get more reflections on my personal life, etc.). youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Support the creation of new content for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

And I would be remiss if I did not include a link to Top Hat Gaming Man, who is briefly quoted toward the end of the video: youtube.com/channel/UCZiiGwQJ0ybsCcN3fyGBQCQ/videos

Unnatural Vegan: Our Emails Revealed.

30 March 2019

The emails back and forth between myself and Unnatural Vegan. Reading this stuff again now, I think she had her mind made up that she wanted to put together a hatchet job against me BEFORE we had this conversation. Uh… what hashtags am I supposed to use for this sort of crap? #VeganDrama #Vamous #Gossip

Pettydeep: the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. 🤮

30 March 2019

Although regarded as science, the origins of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis are beyond pseudoscience: they’re overtly spiritual. The real philosophy of Benjamin Lee Whorf is being ignored, as western academia presents a strange kludge of ideas gathered under his name. In many ways, what’s now called Sapir-Whorf is very much opposed to Whorf’s thesis (and his whole life’s work). #Pettydeep

Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Here’s the link to the youtube channel of the guy in the black t-shirt (his views are briefly quoted throughout the video, in contrast to my own). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/kApO0dTLmbw

Lack of Economic Opportunity = Political Perspective?

30 March 2019

An autobiographical and political conversation with my girlfriend, Melissa.

Political Identity and Desire: Faraday Speaks.

29 March 2019

A response to an influential new video from “Faraday Speaks”, link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sfLa64_zLrU

Check out my (separate) “serious politics only” channel, AR&IO, here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Find me on Patreon, and support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

AR&IO: Brunei vs. Gay Rights vs. George Clooney?

29 March 2019

Brunei revealed that they will now treat homosexuality as a death-penalty offense (execution by stoning), and the western media briefly (BRIEFLY!) showed some interest in the issue today… but headlines fade fast, and the struggle for gay rights is long-term. If the United Nations has no agenda AGAINST Sharia Law, who does, exactly? Aside from George Clooney, who else is a player in this game?

Please subscribe to and support AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

You can support the creation of new content on all of my channels for $1 per month, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Vegans in Thailand: The Politics Are Fine, Jump Right In!

28 March 2019

Yeah, and you may notice that the same video appears on my “serious politics only” channel with a more serious title and thumbnail affixed to it…

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

AR&IO: the Mediocrity of the American Constitution.

27 March 2019

Please subscribe to my “serious politics only” channel, AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion), here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Where else are you gonna see Solon, Cesare Beccaria and 韓非子all in the same video? Okay, I admit, in this video, you’re going to see the Chinese characters for 純素 a lot more than you’re gonna see 韓非子, but still…

AR&IO: When the U.N. Lies About Israel… Nobody Questions It.

27 March 2019

Please subscribe to and support my “serious politics only” channel, AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) here:

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Support new political analysis on this channel for $1 per month, via Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The video mentions a link showing the details of exactly how little money I made from Youtube this month, and here it is: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/03/march-2019-monthly-financial-report.html

The Illusion of Inherited Intelligence (Autobiographical & vs. Ask Yourself)

26 March 2019

People find it appealing to believe in a link between heredity and intelligence, people find it appealing to believe that almost any (or all) aspects of character, desire, inclination and aptitude are the result of heredity (with or without the specific mechanism of DNA). However, people also believe in Astrology, for much the same reasons…

You can find me on Patreon and support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

“Ask Yourself” is the name of a youtuber, you can find his channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCQNmHyGAKqzOT_JsVEs4eag/videos

The Politics of Pretending to Stand For Something.

25 March 2019

Questioning the sentiment of people saying “I stand with…”, and “I stand for…” on the internet, in politics, and in life.

This was originally uploaded to my “real” youtube channel

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

My Daughter’s Identity Crisis (Still Unfolding). [Divorce]

21 March 2019

Daoism & the Decline of University Education (老子，道德經）

21 March 2019

Eisel Mazard, 2019, in Taiwan.

Questioning Kristina’s Virginity.

20 March 2019

My basic premise is: ignorance is being portrayed as purity. Ignorance doesn’t make you “clean” as opposed to dirty; ignorance doesn’t make you morally good, quite the contrary. This is our carefully considered rebuttal of FullyRawKristina, “Why I’m a 32-Year Old Virgin”, a video you can find here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Hw85SHtPivw

Fully Raw Kristina = youtube.com/user/FullyRawKristina/videos

While Paris Burns: the Yellow Vests Movement (Gilets Jaunes)

19 March 2019

Several people wrote in asking me my opinion about the Yellow Vest movement in France: here it is. Please click on the link below to see the full video (about 20 minutes long) on my “main” channel (Active Research & Informed Opinion) —a channel that is still struggling to find its first thousand regular viewers, I might add.

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Phillip DeFranco is WRONG: “No Face, No Name”.

19 March 2019

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon, or else you’ll have no better source of political analysis than Phillip DeFranco: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The Backlash: Raw Alignment, “I am not vegan.”

18 March 2019

Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month at Patreon, or else you’ll have nothing better to watch than Raw Alignment: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Laos: Death Threats While Doing Humanitarian Work, etc.

17 March 2019

Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month, here, on Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

And here’s the link to a selection of current news-stories on Laos (largely about politics, the lack of democracy and human rights) over at Radio Free Asia, mentioned in the video: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos

The Christchurch Massacre: the Responsibility to Reveal (Not Conceal).

16 March 2019

It may seem horrifying for journalists to relay the original footage and manifesto that Brenton Harrison Tarrant left behind, but this video argues that this is, indeed, the real moral obligation of journalists: to reveal (and never conceal) the primary sources they’re working from.

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

The short quotation from the New York times article can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/technology/facebook-youtube-christchurch-shooting.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

Ashley Elisa: it’s shallow and it’s deep at the same damn time.

15 March 2019

Ashley Elisa asks… “Why Do Women Have Superficial Standards?”

Link to the video: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Gby7dK29kbI

Link to her channel: youtube.com/user/ashkid888/videos

Link to my Patreon, where people pay $1 per month to support the creation of new content on the channel: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Stop lying about the money: demonetization & donations.

14 March 2019

Here’s the link to my first monthly financial report, showing just how much (or just how little!) I make from youtube revenue (with demonetization playing some role in lowering the number, yes, but perhaps not the decisive difference that Philip DeFranco, Jimmy Dore and Jaclyn Glenn would like you to believe: https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/03/march-2019-monthly-financial-report.html

Censorship: Yes, the Comment Section is Censored.

13 March 2019

This channel does not exist to cater to the stupidest 40% of the audience: yes, a lot of comments get deleted… and a lot of comments are really mean-spirited, and would offer nothing of substance to the discussion of the particular video being commented on anyway.

Defining Vegan: Negative, Positive, Passive & Active.

13 March 2019

Are vegans merely “non-animal-eaters” in the same sense that non-smokers share a (negatively defined) category, or is there something more to it? There’s an implicit difference between vegan and plant-based that often overlooked, IMHO.

A Critique of John St Julien Baba Wanyama.

13 March 2019

And just like John St Julien Baba Wanyama, I want your donations: in my case, a whole one dollar per month, to support the creation of new content, here on Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Two Vegans: whole, unedited conversation / podcast.

13 March 2019

An interview with Weiner Workouts.

His version of the conversation is here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OkCtcYMd5u0

Vegan Outreach: Talking to Communists on Sidewalks.

12 March 2019

A few of you may be interested in reading the caption (the joke, frankly) in the cartoon shown in the thumbnail (cover-image)… if you can’t quite read it within youtube, here’s the link to the full-size image on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1105456493606760449

And yeah, if you wanna find me on Patreon, here I am: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

(I have a book-review channel!) The Other Slavery: Political History Book Review.

09 March 2019

Here’s the link to my book-review channel (sometimes reviewing things other than books):

youtube.com/channel/UCwFVGsSXOM5d3xLSunquAPA/videos

Here’s the link to the particular book-review: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/FIuYp-I0p6M

And here’s the link to my OTHER channel, “Active Research and Informed Opinion”:

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

[Divorce] Return to 台東 (Taidong / Taitung, Taiwan)

08 March 2019

But is Veganism ECONOMICALLY effective? (Consumer Choice & the Boycott as Activism)

06 March 2019

http://www.cavelightfilms.com/

But is Veganism ECONOMICALLY effective? (Consumer Choice & the Boycott as Activism)

06 March 2019

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/FtuQQH

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

#vegan #veganactivism #veganism

Charity & Insanity: Erin Janus & John St Julien.

04 March 2019

A critique of John St Julien Baba Wanyama (not to mention Erin Janus); you can find his youtube channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCEyS0AontNPiOFt5Pttpf0Q/videos

If you want to support the creation of this kind of content on this kind of channel for $1 per month… here’s the link to Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#Vegan #Vegans #Veganism

Vegan Mind Tricks: Sam Harris’s “Net Positive” Argument vs. Ask Yourself.

03 March 2019

Recorded Oct. 7^th, 2018, as a Patreon exclusive. If you’re a supporter of the channel, feel free to share this with your boyfriend/girlfriend/etc. (it ain’t top secret) but the video will remain exclusive to Patreon supporters for about a year.

About Me, Filmmaking, & the Future of Veganism.

26 February 2019

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 a month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

An interview recorded as a patreon-exclusive podcast in October of 2018. At the other end of the wire is Jordan from Cavelight films:

youtube.com/user/cavelightfims/videos

Where have all the Skeptics gone? The future of a failed movement.

25 February 2019

Movements sometimes fail because of the lack of positive, shared objectives (as opposed to being united merely by what they disapprove of or despise).

Skepticism / Secularism / New Atheism / Richard Dawkins / Sam Harris / Christopher Hitchens

Is the Future of Buddhism Hopeless? No, Not In My Opinion.

24 February 2019

Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month, or else you won’t have anything better to watch than Vegan Gains filling up a glass of water: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

R Kelly Goes to Jail: The Moral of the Story.

23 February 2019

More meaningful than Charlamagne Tha God’s commentary. Yeah, you can tell me if I’m wrong.

Jussie Smollett: What Would the C.I.A. Do?

22 February 2019

Missing my daughter / the agony of the separated parent [divorce]

22 February 2019

AR&IO: Simplified vs. Traditional Chinese: Stop Lying About the Differences.

22 February 2019

Check out my “real” youtube channel, AR&IO: Active Research & Informed opinion, here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

What is the difference between “Simplified Chinese” and “Traditional Chinese” REALLY? There’s a great deal of misinformation, propaganda and mythology floating around the internet… and some of the worst comes from the youtube channel China Uncensored!

And yeah, you can donate $1 per month via Patreon to support the creation of new content on the channel: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The Sentimentality of the Left Wing… Lately.

21 February 2019

As mentioned up front: I have another channel called AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion)… you might want to check it out INSTEAD… over here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Barely Legal Bikini Haul Censorship Crisis: The State of Youtube in 2019.

21 February 2019

Whereas in recent months the crowds have been crying, “Less censorship! Less censorship!”, the none-too-shocking revelation that Youtube has videos featuring people under 18 in swimwear (including the peculiar genre of “the bikini try-on haul”) has set of a wave of slacktivism in the opposite direction: cries for “More censorship!” on Youtube. Rather than just complaining about the phenomenon, this video proposes a solution: youtube should be split into several mutually-competing websites, with several different standards of censorship (for different target audiences, and different styles of content).

—————

Links to sources mentioned:

(1) Philip DeFranco “YouTube’s Predator Problem Stokes Fear and Concern…” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uxkdQgLZMRc

(2) JaclynGlenn “The Downfall of Social Media — More Than Just A Conspiracy” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/nqJQGx1neic

(3) The female in the thumbnail does indeed try on swimwear in her youtube videos, and is (AFAIK) a university student: Caroline Zalog youtube.com/channel/UCOEh3c86x53SdzGm0M8SPzQ/videos

(4) The male in the thumbnail is the notorious Faze Censor: youtube.com/user/CENSAT1ON/videos

Jenna Marbles is So Vegan She Feeds Her Dogs Meat.

20 February 2019

JennaMarbles, “I Filmed My Dog Whenever He Cried Or Was Nasty For 24 Hours” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/xf0Mi3kWKhY

The musician (Dusty Allen) = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/t506uGZ6tTw

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, or else you’ll have nothing to watch but Jenna Marbles, forever and ever! https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

IF YOU ARE BUYING MEAT, YOU ARE PAYING FOR ANIMALS TO BE KILLED: FIGURE IT OUT. EVEN IF YOU DON’T EAT IT YOURSELF, YOU ARE STILL PAYING FOR ANIMALS TO BE RAISED IN CONFINEMENT, AND FOR EVERY STAGE OF THE INDUSTRIAL SLAUGHTER TO CONTINUE, AT A PROFIT.

Jordan Reichert: Vegan Politician.

20 February 2019

It’s not just name calling: pop psychology denunciation.

19 February 2019

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

How I justified eating Meat after 6 years Vegan (Tim Shieff Response)

19 February 2019

WHAT I GOT TO DO TO GET IN THE GAME, MAN????

—————

Shout out to *Prince Paul.* https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDNgbcCVvWfvysgd7tB2diqdpf--K5SD2

The Paperwork: Norvegan is the Lowest of the Low.

19 February 2019

Opening with an anecdote about Dominique Strauss-Kahn and my recent experience being interrogated by Canadian border guards for over an hour (even though I’m a Canadian citizen, etc.).

#VeganDrama #Vamous #FakeVegans

Norvegan Blames the Police, I BLAME HIM.

18 February 2019

#VeganDrama #Vamous #FakeVegans

Tim Shieff: Bad Leaders & Vegan Lemmings.

17 February 2019

https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Veganism, The Killing Joke.

17 February 2019

Uh… the subtitle could be “Proximity is Not Morality”? Maybe, “The Devil is in The Cognitive Dissonance, Not the Distance”? This is part of the playlist, “Vegan Mind Tricks.”

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

I don’t even know what other tags or descriptions to put in here: “But it’s locally raised and locally slaughtered though!”, or “But how can you buy something imported over a long distance, in plastic packaging, though!” Something like that.

[Divorce] Politics & the Price of Fame… At Even the Smallest Scale.

15 February 2019

#Divorce #Vamous #VeganDrama

Grandpa Pete! “A Chat With Eisel’s Father-In-Law” #VeganDrama #Vamous

15 February 2019

Disclaimer: avoid this kind of horrible video about my personal life by subscribing to my “serious content only” channel, by following this link, instead: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

#Norvegan

ACTUALLY INNOCENT: Durianrider vs. Norvegan.

15 February 2019

Here’s the link to the youtube channel simply called “Truth”: youtube.com/channel/UCbYraNxD_AYyHQVJYSFzEJw/videos

#Veganism #Vegans #Vegan

The Talented Mr. Pete Ripley. #VeganDrama #Vamous

14 February 2019

None of you find this as hilarious as I do. You may think it’s funny, but trust me… you haven’t laughed as hard as I have!

LINKS: (1) Book Review | The Talented Mr. Ripley by unmanaged mischief = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6wHQ02zE6lg

(2) The Talented Mr Ripley Review by AnaïsReads = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uooyPxrMRew

(3) Vegan YouTuber Stole Entire Online Personality From Someone Else by Charles Marlowe- Cremedas = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sKCa0WXlP5w

(4) Do I Wish I Was Still With My Ex? by CandidMommy = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/-cLo4K30iHw

(5) Norvegan’s two hour long video, “A Chat With Eisel’s Father-In-Law” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uDCHLTSkNo4

Hitting on strangers… not being a creep… not an option?

13 February 2019

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THIS CRAP ON PATREON? WHY???? https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Twentysomething Virgins & Video Games: Addiction is Not the Problem.

11 February 2019

Quit video games. Quite making excuses. Quit everything. #QuitEverything #Storytime #VideoEssay

Links to sources quoted:

TooManyMoths, _How to Waste Your Life | A Short Film on Video-Game Addiction_ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/TFS7Zybkx9s

Albert Legacy, _HOW TO QUIT VIDEO GAMES_ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XavnCo815NY

Did Vegan Gains Win? Censorship AND GUNS.

10 February 2019

AR&IO: The Dunning-Kruger Effect: a Myth that Sounds Like Science.

07 February 2019

My “serious politics only” channel is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion), please subscribe to it over here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

My earlier video on Dunning-Kruger (strictly following peer-reviewed, published research, with links and citations) can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/LZvhZSrWT0Q

You can pay one dollar per month to support the creation of new content on this channel at Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

—————

And yes, sadly, I’m aware I that I had a typo in the middle of the name of the bikini model: this isn’t an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. OR IS IT? Shout out to Caroline Zalog: youtube.com/channel/UCOEh3c86x53SdzGm0M8SPzQ/videos

Phillip DeFranco is SLIGHTLY Wrong About China (Geopolitics & Trade).

07 February 2019

Inspired by (or “in response to”) Philip DeFranco’s informative video, _”China’s Century of Humiliation & Why The South China Sea Is Such a Big Problem...“_ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/q4H4iNm0gtU

My “real” youtube channel (for “serious” videos) is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion), found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

^ That channel is STILL really tiny, so please do click through and subscribe.

Conversely, if you want to support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon, you can find me here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

We’re Moving to Taiwan. NOW.

07 February 2019

Channel update / life update / etc.

Jon Venus: Quitting the Movement, Not the Diet.

06 February 2019

The Anguish of the Vegan Ex-Vegan. (No, that was not a typo.)

#whyimstillvegan #vegancommunity #vegan

Court Case w Vegan Gains: Completely Accurate Summary.

05 February 2019

This is a completely accurate summary of (and update on) the ongoing conflict with Vegan Gains; and we can all rest assured that, true to his word, Vegan Gains will indeed employ lawyers to hold me to account (because let me tell you… his attempts to flag my videos FAILED MISERABLY… my criticisms of him are still monetized, even the ones showing clips of him with guns and knives!). Here’s the last email I sent to him, and, of course, he hasn’t replied: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2019/02/vegan-gains-threatens-lawsuit-dodges.html

Learning to Live, Living to Learn. On Scientific Research and Just Reading Books.

04 February 2019

Subscribe to my “serious” channel (Active Research & Informed Opinion) here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA

Support the channel for $1 per month on Patreon if ya wanna:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2E8f2sx4a2w

Broken Tattoos: Ariana Grande vs. James Aspey.

04 February 2019

Tattoos by illiterates, for illiterates: the problem here is NOT cultural appropriation… and no, this is not the first time I’ve used my (limited!) ability in Chinese and Japanese to question the meaning (or meaninglessness) of other people’s tattoos… I understand that it creates a lot of… uh… friction?

For a strictly Japanese perspective on the translation of Arianna’s “corrected” tattoo being “even worse” (perhaps “a small BBQ grilled finger”) see: アリアナグランデが変な日本語の刺青を見て爆笑した！！！ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/DWR0Vv_my_8

If you want to find me on Patreon, here I am: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

I have a separate, “serious” channel (for videos… uh… more serious than this?), and you can find it here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Spirituality: Lies & Consequences. (Light Twins)

02 February 2019

The opening comments on censorship, defamation and slander between vegans… do you ever get the feeling that history is repeating itself? This is an old conversation with The Light Twins, still salient to several controversies today. Spoilers: the Light Twins split up “for spiritual reasons” (one of the two joined a new-age religion, and rejected his own family, including his own twin brother).

Vegan Gains Tries to Censor Me, Silence Me, Get My Channel Deleted, etc.

02 February 2019

Vegan Gains Says He’s Gonna Sue Me!!!

02 February 2019

Yeah, he decided he cares so much about freedom of speech that he’s going to deprive me of mine, when I’ve been much more mild in my criticism of him than he’s been in his criticism (and “satire”) directed toward so many others. Hey, it’s real easy to practice what you preach when you’re a hypocrite. Oh yeah, right: you think Vegan Gains wasn’t making “criminal allegations” when he claimed specific athletes were taking illegal steroids? Did he make criminal allegations when he made R——— allegations against Durianrider? If you consider my critique of Vegan Gains to be “slander”, how do you evaluate his library of past videos?

Vegan Gains: Half Evil, Half Stupid, 100% Insane.

01 February 2019

The Warning Vegan Gains IGNORED.

31 January 2019

He was warned. Now his channel has been deleted. And why? Because he wouldn’t apply “the golden rule”: he was doing things that he’d disapprove of in others, indeed, he was doing things he’d perceive as dangerous and immoral in others… but he refused to apply the same rational standards to his own life that he made ostentatious use of in online “debates”. Philosophy, ultimately, doesn’t exist to fill up a chalk board: VG was a big fan of “Reason with a capital letter R” when he could use it to bully and intimidate others (in “discussions”), but wasn’t willing to think rationally about what he was (so clearly) doing wrong. Hey, the video is only 4 minutes long: you really need a synopsis? #vegangains #vegan #veganism

AR&IO: Pessimism about Democracy (China, North Korea, Vietnam…)

31 January 2019

AR&IO is the name of my “real” channel (Active Research & Informed Opinion), that you’ll find here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

You can, also, find me on Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#AR&IO

Maddie Lymburner & Logan Paul: Hollow Tourism.

30 January 2019

Slightly eccentric video here. DO NOT draw a Venn Diagram of the point I’m trying to make here: you DO NOT want to over-think this one. ;-)

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). Click here: https://discord.gg/KHUR3r

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

AR&IO: On Cicero’s “Democracy”.

30 January 2019

Please support the future of the channel by subscribing to my main channel (for “serious content”) AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

You can also find me on Patreon, and support the future of the channel for $1 per month: http://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Quote, “I Reported Vegan Gains to the Police” (the Criminal Investigation)

29 January 2019

I received an email from the person who reported Vegan Gains to the police, resulting in his being investigated (his house searched, etc.) and charges answered in court (to some extent) over a period of more than a year following after that date. In this video, I read out that email aloud, with some commentary on my own perspective and experience with Richard (Vegan Gains).

Stella Rae is my hero: so honest and authentic.

29 January 2019

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Here are the links to the sources quoted. *Stella Rae.*

_Am I Still Vegan? Let’s discuss..._

Pigs on a farm, 1 of 2: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8sd3rFeARmw

Pigs on a farm, 2 of 2: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/mRuRm8hr2gU

Being “Good at Sex” (Who, Really, Is An Expert?)

29 January 2019

When discussing sexuality, paradoxically, the people who have the most experience are NOT the people you’d want to take advice from; and the people who claim to have the expertise to offer advice (at a fee)… well… what are the numbers we’re really looking at, as “qualifications”? Sources quoted:

(1) HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU (blank) IN 4 YEARS || Q and A || Conor and Brittany https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/UTUoqWB13sY

(2) Conor and Brittany: How many times do we have sex per week? || 4+ YEAR OPEN RELATIONSHIP

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OCu_M_qQ2SE

(3) Brittany Taylor: WHY I CHOOSE POLYAMORY www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fFnc_9d1c8

—————

In closing, may I add: ONLY FIVE TIMES PER WEEK??

Vegan Gains, GUILTY AS CHARGED: “We Have the Moral High Ground!” says Jasmin Gains.

28 January 2019

Bonny Rebecca Does Book Reviews! Mao Zedong, Politics of China.

28 January 2019

Little do you realize that I’ve spun off my own “review” channel: youtube.com/channel/UCwFVGsSXOM5d3xLSunquAPA/videos

—————

The origin of the “Bonny Rebecca = Brainy Rebecca” trope is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Fkz64-sMb6g

And if you want to see the rest of that shower footage, the video being quoted is titled, “DAY IN MY LIFE | Hair Care Routine + New furniture & PUPPY UPDATE!!

“, and you can find it here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/bPnCc64kUTI

VEGAN GAINS Blames Others, Learns Nothing, “It’s Not My Fault”!

28 January 2019

(SLIGHTLY PHILOSOPHICAL) Vegan Gains: Channel Deleted.

27 January 2019

YOUTUBE: CONTENT BY AMATEURS… CENSORSHIP BY PROFESSIONALS. The thumbnail simply reads, “Youtube has rules. Comedians tend to break the rules.” Part of what Vegan Gains (Richard) did was comedy; part of it was political criticism and commentary; however, what has gotten his channel deleted (temporarily or permanently?) is precisely his use of free speech outside of these categories. And so, in this video, discussion ensues.

On Jealousy ⓷ The Open Relationship.

27 January 2019

For those of you who don’t get the “inside joke” in the thumbnail for the current video, you can click this link to the see the image close up: in the YOUNGER of these two photos, I am the same age that Melissa is now. :-/ https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1089693670482141184

Yeah.

Vegan Gains Got Himself Deleted (NOT PHILOSOPHICAL)

27 January 2019

Look, pretty much any insult (spoken or written) on youtube can be classified as “bullying and harassment” by youtube: the policy is EXCEEDINGLY VAGUE, and it is NOT enforced consistently. Here’s the link to the “snide” remark I made (mentioned in the video as an example): https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1089710238352138241

#vegangains

Bonny Rebecca vs. Unnatural Vegan: Bonny Bites Back.

26 January 2019

Bonny Rebecca, or Brainy Rebecca? “The Backlash”.

26 January 2019

If you share this video with just five other people, you will save the lives of ten chickens, two pigs and half a cow, and that is a FACT,¹ proven by STATISTICS,¹ made up to take your MONEY.¹

And now, with absolutely zero sense of irony, I recommend that you donate $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

—————

SOURCES? Why would you want the links to the quoted sources? WHY? (1) Bonny Rebecca, WHAT I ATE TODAY — UPDATE | *Responding To Comments* https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/HsggH1ka88A (2) Henya Mania, How To Become Instafamous ft. Essena O’Neill & bonnyrebecca https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/qEgmJfrFgeQ (3) Unnatural Vegan, Bonny Rebecca is no longer vegan https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8omh1dxQmtA (4) Bonny Rebecca, Why I’m no longer vegan... https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ZI1Be8C37-k

—FOOTNOTE—

¹ This is satire… but, sadly, there’s quite a bit of vegan propaganda that comes close to this level of absurdity. Take a look at: “A Scam within Veganism: the “Effective Activism” paradigm.” Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Eo2-NHlmUb0

I Blame the Audience (Durianrider v. Norvegan v. “The Crowd”).

26 January 2019

Partly about Durianrider vs. Norvegan, partly about infighting within Vegan Activism in General (and the vegan youtube demimonde)… NOT about Game of Thrones (really… the thumbnail is not intended to mislead you).

The Cure for Jealousy ⓵ (NOT Couples’ Therapy)

26 January 2019

EPISODE 1 (there will be more!), on the philosophy of jealousy, and our crumbling romantic relationship.

—————

The intro has a very brief snippet of Laineybot, saying that jealousy isn’t a problem for her. The video that is quoted from is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/v7XsyX_AMC0

Norvegan is Lying; Durianrider, also, is Lying.

25 January 2019

John Salley: Big Dick Energy, Flat Earth Mentality.

25 January 2019

FLAT EARTH? FAKE MOON LANDING? Do you REALLY think that’s the issue at stake here? Nope: it’s a question of who has leadership and influence in the vegan movement… and you know it’s imbeciles like John Salley, Tim Shieff and Vegan Gains. #Spoilers we utterly fail to avoid mentioning penis size.

—————

To see John Salley’s statement in full (in context) refer to: _”John Salley on Validity of Flat Earthers, Doesn’t Believe in Moon Landing (Part 14)“_, link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Q0NsxGlTBBc

Bonny Rebecca: Compassion is Irrelevant.

23 January 2019

Reflections on ex-vegan concern trolling. #WhyImStillVegan To see the text quoted directly from Bonny Rebecca, it is posted here as a screen-shot: https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1088245762322980865

You can hear her complete (written) statement read aloud in a (much longer!) video titled, “What Bonny Rebecca Said in her Instastory”, provided by “Those Annoying Vegans”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/HIORbV51Lnc

#iamstillvegan #stillvegan

Worst. Girlfriend. Ever.

22 January 2019

Melissa has her own youtube channel (using her Chinese nickname, Hei Mudan) that you’ll find here: youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw/videos

Nina and Randa’s Clear Skin Diet (a somewhat stricter variation on the vegan diet of John McDougall, MD) is here : https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Skin-Diet-Beautiful-McDougall/dp/1602865655

Onision, don’t date the babysitter. :-/

22 January 2019

Shout out to “The Blargh”. The specific video quoted (as a series of screen-shots) is on that channel under the title, “ONISION Tries to Clarify MAYA Relationship”. Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/LbgYRCEyVZM

(However, generally, you’ll find out way more than you wanted to know about Onision’s situation on the Blargh.)

Find me on Patreon, and support the creation of new (judgemental!) content for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The Dunning–Kruger Effect is NOT Real: Do the Math!

20 January 2019

Yep. Deal with it. Here’s the link to the REAL video, 20+ minutes long, on my other channel: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/LZvhZSrWT0Q

And here’s the link to my Patreon, in case anyone wants to support the creation of new content (under the slogan, “Active Research & Informed Opinion”) by donating $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

False Hope: Vegan Gains, Bonny Rebecca & the Moral Bankruptcy of the Movement.

19 January 2019

Hope, stress and suffering: we often justify the latter in terms of the former, and it’s a loss of hope (not an excess of stress), ultimately, that’s motivating demotivating the movement, IMHO. Maddie Lymburner, Kristen Leo, Bonny Rebecca, Vegan Gains.

Sources cited:

Maddie Lymburner’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCH7fZDHwZR7ww23A50R1ppA/videos

The particular conversation alluded to between Maddie and her boyfriend, titled, “What I ate today + thoughts on ex vegans.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EhEB5FtXaAg

Kristen Leo’s channel: youtube.com/user/KristenElleTV/videos

The specific video alluded to by Kristen Leo is, “Youtubers are quitting veganism and I’M OVER IT”.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/dI5RLl4sx1s

Bonny Rebecca’s channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOu3SAozsyQyKE2wDAIJtdQ

Bonny Rebecca’s video, “Why I’m no longer vegan...”, is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ZI1Be8C37-k

And here’s the text of what I said to Vegan Gains, and what he’d said to me immediately before, as a screen-shot: (1) https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1085960817240170496

(2) https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1085956908907868160

Here’s the link to his channel, Vegan Gains: youtube.com/channel/UCr2eKhGzPhN5RPVk5dd5o3g/videos

And you can find me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#veganism

The Alternative to Cultural Genocide: USA, Canada & Australia.

19 January 2019

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Here’s the link to the documentary quoted in the first few seconds of the video: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/rKPAuAJaY7k

Drew Hayden Taylor, Searching For Winnetou, a.k.a., “Drew Hayden Taylor wants to understand the roots of the German obsession with Native North Americans”. (I did, in fact, meet and briefly speak to Drew Hayden Taylor… but there isn’t any sort of amusing anecdote attached to the story.)

Penis Size, Money, Meaning of Life, IN THAT ORDER

19 January 2019

Vegan Gains: the last video I ever want to make about (or in reply to) Richard.

Over on Ethy’s channel, you can check out the “EISEL MAZARD DISSTRACK” (genre = rap / hiphop) as mentioned in the video: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/S5YsdEUqsFQ

No, Actually Quit Video Games: Vegan Gains & You, Too.

17 January 2019

#QuitVideoGames #QuitEverything

The thumbnail reads, “Being a Hero is Not a Game”.

Find me on Patreon: http://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The Philosophy of Stupidity: Video Games vs. Books vs. Reality.

17 January 2019

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR: Read books, try hard, take responsibility even though you don’t have to, struggle to become a better person. #quitvideogames #quiteverything #advicenobodywantstohear

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegan Gains STAYS STUPID (feat. Meaning of Life)

16 January 2019

Did you expect me to put Durianrider in the title? TBH, the meaning of life material really gets rolling around the @15:00 mark. #QuitEverything #QuitVideoGames

Find me on Patreon, and support my recover from jet lag (and/or the creation of new content) for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Bonny Rebecca: Not Vegan, Not Talented, Not Intelligent, Not Attractive (NEVER WAS).

15 January 2019

Bonny Rebecca, “Why I’m no longer vegan...” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ZI1Be8C37-k

Juxtaposed with: “Modern Poultry Processing Plant, 1000 Birds/H, #6" Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/eI6ywiHsqAQ

Let’s Get High Carb Hannah Pregnant!

15 January 2019

High Carb Hannah needs DNA: it’s DNA we’ve got. A Modest Proposal / An Indecent Proposal / A Sperm Donor for a (Vegan) Couple Struggling with Infertility.

LINKS. (1) High Carb Hannah https://www.youtube.com/user/Rawkaholics/videos?pbjreload=10

(2) Handeeman youtube.com/channel/UCb0s0qC96lCcx2pO2za6mcw/videos

(3) High Vibe Tribe youtube.com/channel/UCPnj0EpAm7lsJN49pg82nRw/videos

Bonny Rebecca & Vegan Gains: Stupid, Not Ugly?

15 January 2019

Being beautiful or ugly is, to a large extent, NOT something you can change or choose. “Being stupid is a choice. Being immoral is a choice.” This is In part a reflection on the philosophical and political problem of “arguments in bad faith”, but yes, spoilers: when someone builds their entire career on their appearance (and no other talent, no other substantive topic of conversation), the critique of their appearance (along with their intellect and morality) is fair game.

If you want to see the full text of the comment (and my reply to it) about Bonny Rebecca’s beauty / ugliness / unattractiveness, here it is: https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1085235486837268480

If you want to support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, HMU on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

A few of you might want a clearer look at the thumbnail, or might be interested in the unedited source for the image on the left hand side of it. You can click through to see both here: https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/1085273275880501248

LET’S JUDGE ONISION! (Sarah, Ayalla Renan, Laineybot, Billie…)

11 January 2019

I JUST NOTE, my new/original commentary is in the 2^nd half of this video… a small number of you will have already seen every source quoted and juxtaposed in the first half. ;-) Sources cited: (1) guy with the striking blonde hairstyle = Repzilla (not to be confused with Repzion). Link to his channel: youtube.com/channel/UCXgGxoK-fsv1ScBHE7lYi_Q/videos

Link to the particular video quoted: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/gP--WLP1cCI

(1.5) Indirectly quoted here, also, is Madison DeCambra. Her youtube channel = youtube.com/user/MadiDeCambra/videos

(2) Ayalla Renan’s new video (quoted) is titled, _”The Truth about Onision and Laineybot”._ The link is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/1OVJye2Q3JE

(3) Laineybot (a.k.a. Lainey, a.k.a. Kai) has her own channel, where she has both attempted to “answer” current allegations about Sarah, and answered innuendo surrounding Billie in the past.

youtube.com/channel/UCAF0RSs6-MqQuXrC9eXs69A/videos

(3.1) Of course, much of this also indirectly alludes to or quotes Billie Dawn Webb. Her youtube channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCHd3pZkbDfqfIL5lSUUreHA/videos

(3.2) Onision continues to do “damage control” (and to present his own perspective on all of these relationships) on what is now his primary channel, OnisionSpeaks. Title: _”Laineybot, Sarah & Onision: Objective Facts.”+ Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/gbhPgy9WtdE

Channel link: youtube.com/channel/UCZhkUguiTBJVZrrdMSjLbsQ/videos

(4) And yeah, my own video in black-and-white (from two years ago!) can be seen in its original, unedited glory, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/9EXVC0i0E14

AR&IO (The original concept & future of the channel)

08 January 2019

AR&IO = (Active Research & Informed Opinion)

This is the name of my politics-only channel, here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

NOTE: THE COMMENTS SECTION IS OPEN ON THE OTHER CHANNEL, NOT HERE. Click through the link if you wanna comment, or HMU via Patreon if you’re really motivated to do so.

Me on Patreon = https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Is ASOIAF basically fascist or anti-fascist? (Game of Thrones)

08 January 2019

Somebody sent in a question about the (shifting) symbolic significance of Targaryen rule and Valyrian “superiority” in the political interpretation of ASOIAF: it’s a good question, but, frankly, I think I’ve got a good answer for it, too. ;-)

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Wetube: the Death of Youtube. (Bobby Burns x Elle Mills x Caitlin Shoemaker)

07 January 2019

Political science major wonders why “creators” have emotional breakdowns claiming “Youtube is SO HARD!” No, just… NO.

Bobby Burns x Elle Mills (quoted) = “The Reason YouTubers Have Breakdowns” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/VriDPEla2Zs

Caitlin Shoemaker describing her brutally hard life (quoted) = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8XKTCLBts00

Bobby Burns’s channel (careful now… he’s trying to spin off a rap career… apparently) = youtube.com/user/BobbyBurnsOfficial/videos

Elle Mills = ElleOfTheMills = youtube.com/user/ElleOfTheMills/videos

Caitlin Shoemaker’s channel = ttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0cxMY7jZ_kiE2bvykJffZA/videos

No, wait, what about Patreon? Wasn’t I supposed to mention “OUR SPONSOR”???? https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Biopsychiatry vs Critical Psychiatry: the Implications.

06 January 2019

Practical and philosophical implications of living in a “Post-Biopsychiatry” world (including a debate as to how we should conceptualize depression, NPD, and other diagnoses, after the debunking of SSRI marketing hype as pseudoscience).

Quote, “[Thomas] Szasz was a strong critic of institutional psychiatry and his publications were very widely read. He argued that so-called mental illnesses had no underlying physiological basis, but were unwanted and unpleasant behaviors. Mental illness, he said was only a metaphor that described problems that people faced in their daily lives, labeled as if they were medical diseases.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Against “Race Realism”: my DNA & IQ debate vs Ask Yourself.

05 January 2019

Against Scientific Racism; I.Q. in the politics of inequality.

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/posts

“Ask Yourself” is the name of a youtube channel; its protagonist is Isaac. This video relates to conversations I had directly with Isaac, in a public forum (Discord) that transpired with an audience (i.e., my opinion of his racist attitudes/tenets/beliefs is an opinion based on having extensive conversations with him, directly: they do not rely on interpretation or innuendo). EVERY SINGLE POINT made in this video I have made to Isaac (directly) in verbal conversations (AND MORE). Unless he is an amnesiac, he should be able to remember every single point made here, even the minor details about ethnic minorities in Northern Laos (really… we talked about this stuff AT LENGTH, in several conversations).

Imagination, Dreams, Creativity, Choice: Cause & Effect.

04 January 2019

DEBUNKING DETERMINISM.

Find me on Patreon, and support the channel for $1 per month: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Having a Personality is a State of Cultural Contradiction.

03 January 2019

This is an excerpt from a longer (24 min.) video posted to Patreon in direct reply to a request-for-help (advice on living a meaningful life) from a Patreon supporter. Yeah, I look tired: master chef of JET LAG over here.

Yep, the thumbnail reads, “Having a Personality: It’s not for everyone.”

Zero Irony: Patreon is Wonderful. The Right Wing is Wrong.

03 January 2019

Patreon is like a grocery store for political ideas: and it’s really (really!) wonderful compared to the options we had before (both as creative artists, and in trying to advocate for social/political change). The controversy over the exclusion of Sargon of Akkad, followed by the resignation of Jordan B. Peterson and Sam Harris (not to mention Milo Yiannopoulos) is the context for this video. However, truth be told, Patreon was a massively controversial thing within the vegan movement circa two years ago (many questions about its influence were raised at that time) and it then slowly ceased to be controversial.

How Stupid is Vegan Gains on a Scale of 1 to 10?

03 January 2019

The first five minutes are about racism. #spoilers

Not all indigenous people are tribal, not all tribal people are indigenous.

03 January 2019

Q: “Is WHITE NATIONALISM always RACIST? Is all ethic nationalism always a racist or bad thing?” A question from a supporter on Patreon. In my reply, I make use of examples spanning North America, Europe and Asia —but with some special emphasis on Asia and Native Americans / First Nations of Canada.

And yeah, you too can support the creation of new content on Patreon for $1 per month, and ask questions that will inspire new videos (much like this one… and yet, also, utterly different). ;-)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/technology/patreon-hate-speech-bans.html

I support Patreon, NOT Sargon, NOT Jordan Peterson, NOT Sam Harris.

03 January 2019

Yep, Patreon censors me, and I still support Patreon: I appreciate the website, and I positively appreciate their efforts at censorship. No kidding. If you disagree, and you’re not willing to hear a perspective that challenges your presuppositions, then don’t watch the video, I guess!

Here’s my “hardcore” Patreon page, if you wanna support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Footnote: this is the first video in which I’m referred to as “Master Chef Jet Lag”… THAT I KNOW OF. #Patreon #SupportPatreon #PatreonPurge

Oh yeah, and here’s the article from the New York Times:

How Racist is “Ask Yourself” on a Scale of 1 to 10?

03 January 2019

“Ask Yourself” is a.k.a. Isaac, and here’s the link to his youtube channel (note that he recently deleted the vast majority of his channel’s history of videos, and “started anew”). youtube.com/channel/UCQNmHyGAKqzOT_JsVEs4eag/videos

And yeah, if you want to support the creation of new (AND UNPREDICTABLE) content on this youtube channel, you can donate $1 via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Being Loving vs. Being in Love: Self-Discipline in Relationships.

02 January 2019

Ultimately a contrast between “doing” and “being”. Part of the True Love / True Romance playlist, found here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pJVoecem-78B_an41D0HlH

Support the creation of new content on Patreon for $1 per month: patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Vegan Activism and/or/as Humanitarian Work

02 January 2019

We start by questioning Vegan Activism in terms of “Career or Calling?” and proceed to question Vegan Activism period —and M. leans in with asking about the extent to which I sabotaged my own activism through “lack of diplomacy”. ;-)

Freelee is selling “the revolution”, but it ain’t free!

01 January 2019

It’s a $35 ebook, apparently (print it yourself). It’s a revolution that’s recycling Naomi Wolf (or, perhaps, doing a third-rate job of RIPPING OFF Naomi Wolf). :-/

Freelee (now writ “F r e e l e e”)

IT’S TIME FOR A F REVOLUTION!!

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/-mja35UU3HQ&t=428s

Jashonk: The Beatle’s Revolution Acoustic Cover by Jason Swain

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/y8JKXGYKX0U

Naomi Wolf on The Beauty Myth

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/kjKx_p5KwEk

#Freelee #FakeVegan #Vamous

Everyone looks like Condoleezza Rice until you fall in love with them.

01 January 2019

Including Nina and Randa. And Based Zeus. And you, yes you, whoever you are watching this video. This is part of the longest-running playlist on the channel, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”. #NinaAndRanda #BasedZeus #AntiPUA

Q&A: “I have no personality” (at 24 years old)

01 January 2019

A Q&A on “having” a personality, “being somebody”, and feeling that the opposite is true (feeling that you have no personality, and that you’re incapable of original thought, etc.).

Explaining Anti-Semitism to My (Jewish) Daughter. [5 Years Old]

29 December 2018

Why is the year 2019, and not some other number? What is Christmas? Who was “Santa”, and who was “Jesus”? What does it mean when I say that we’re Jewish —and that we’re hated for being Jewish, all over the world? We spent about a week solid trying to broach these issues with my daughter.

Stupid or Evil? Supreme Banana’s Disorganized Religion.

28 December 2018

You really do not want to click on this link. :-/ Title: HOW I MANIFESTED $15,000 WITH LAW OF ATTRACTION... (not clickbait)

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/IIUgDr7l4BE

You probably, also, do not want to donate $1 per month to support the creation of new content on this channel via Patreon:

[Divorce] How & why I fell in love with my (ex-)wife.

26 December 2018

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Our Age-Gap Relationship: ♀26 ♂40 (14 year age gap)

21 December 2018

*CRINGE.* About our smoldering sexual-and-intellectual relationship that 80% of the current audience seems to hate on.

反共產 Raising Children Communist: A Personal and Political Analysis.

21 December 2018

Spoilers: I am, in fact, #anticommunist —despite my parents’ best efforts to raise me “in the faith”.

Support the channel for $1 on Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

On ALMOST breaking up with my girlfriend. #Advice #Storytime

20 December 2018

THE TERRIBLE TRUTH THAT “BASED ZEUS” WON’T TELL YOU? Should you break up with your girlfriend or not? This isn’t a question you’re only gonna ask yourself ONCE, homeboy.

—————

Recorded while extremely jet-lagged in France, BTW (yeah, if you look at my eyes… I’m tired).

—————

Me on Patreon = https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Unnatural Vegan says you don’t need to be vegan! Neither do Moon & Rock!

20 December 2018

The thumbnail reads, “Vegan Activism is Not a Sneering Contest”, but you can read between the lines and figure out that I really mean “Vegan Activism should not be a sneering contest… but apparently it is.” HMU on Patreon to support the creation of new content on the channel:

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Wor4nA3RE1w

Earlier link on the fact (fact!) that Unnatural Vegan is continuing to take S.S.R.I. anti-depressants during pregnancy (she has confirmed this again, more recently than the video) and the body of peer-reviewed scientific research advising you NOT to do this:

Title: Brain-Damaged Babies: Unnatural Vegan vs. Ellen Fisher.

Other sources quoted or alluded to in the video follow.

Author: Unnatural Vegan

Title: Moon & Rock Should Not Be Vegan (Thanks, Ellen)

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ZqcOryHhr0g

Author: Brett Pullen

Title: Evan Rock Quits Veganism Reaction

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/m3_gKBSbWoE

Author: Earthling Ed

Title: Vegan Visits Dairy Farm

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/iL9QJEm_SJY

Veganism vs. Bimbo-ism: MELISSA SPEAKS.

19 December 2018

Give the video a thumbs up if you want to see more content where Melissa is the main voice on the microphone. HMU on Patreon to support the channel for $1 a month… if that’s what you wanna do:

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/hwoL6hWd4l0

The thumbnail of the video asks, “The future of the vegan movement is… who?” And yes, you may or may not be able to recognize Cammy (Supreme Banana) in full makeup (and, I believe, with full Facetune?) next to Tess Begg.

The Vegan Movement as “Meritocracy”: James Aspey = Why I Quit Veganism.

19 December 2018

Answering questions and criticisms, including, “Who Are You Competing With, What Are You Competing For?”

On Being Excluded: Vegan Politics, Education & Personal Life.

19 December 2018

Partly about the politics of veganism, but broadly dealing with a topic that’s been a significant part of “the meaning of life” —or, at least, the meaning of my life. Struggles with being excluded from opportunities are inevitable: it really hurts me to hear the meaningful reasons for those exclusions reduced to meaningless ones.

Stupidity is Real: Moon and Rock, James Aspey, Gary Yourofsky, Paul Bashir, etc.

18 December 2018

The video by “The Economist” (mentioned toward the end of the video) has now reached ca. 300,000 views, and is titled, “How could veganism change the world”

The video mentioned from CNN (approx. title, “Meat: a Neglected Source of Greenhouse Gas Emissions”) was broadcast on television today (within the last 24 hours) and appears to not yet be uploaded to youtube.

You really want the link to the video in which “Moon and Rock” admit that they’re no longer vegan? Really? You really wanna do this to yourself? Don’t come back to me crying if you subject yourself to this, and later regret hearing it:

Title: “Something We Need to Share....”

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/dwYRaHxMPuA

Alexander vs. Aristotle, Dictatorship vs. Democracy.

15 December 2018

A chapter of political philosophy and history that partly presents Aristotle as a servant to Alexander the Great, and partly presents him as an incongruous critic (who alternates between extremely harsh criticism of monarchy/tyranny/dictatorship, and equally harsh criticism of democracy —at least in its Athenian form). Note that this is neither the first nor the last video I’ve made on the politics of Aristotle: I am aware that this does not cover the whole of the topic (indeed, we’d need a sequel to describe exactly what Aristotle’s stated position on “polity” (and “moderate democracy”) really is, in contrast to his condemnation of the so-called “extreme democracy” of Athens).

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The Atheist Who Stole Christmas. #ReplaceChristmas #Socmas

15 December 2018

This channel will go through A LOT of changes in form and content in the next two months (starting, tomorrow night, with a flight to France), but if you want to be there with us, and support the creation of new content on this channel, HMU on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

And, BTW, you can download this whole this as a (more portable) podcast from Patreon (I make audio-only (MP3) versions available for all of the longer videos)… but, of course, it’s also podcast to download an audio version from Youtube (if you’ve got the patience and/or technical acumen to do it).

Extensively quoted in the second half of this video, you can find the original video from Godless Cranium with the same title _(The Atheist Who Stole Christmas)_ here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/F_5T8PA6Ipg

The Museology of Morality, the “Spirituality” of Universities: Critique of Alain de Botton.

15 December 2018

Part 2 of an atheist critique of “Atheism 2.0”.

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

(This video is one of numerous examples of a video “generated by” questions, suggestion or discussion sent in by donors who support the channel.)

Here’s the link to Alain de Botton’s original video, i.e., the one being criticized: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2Oe6HUgrRlQ&t=977s

Art as an Agent for Political Change: Critique of Alain de Botton.

14 December 2018

Part 1 of an atheist critique of “Atheism 2.0”.

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

(This video is one of numerous examples of a video “generated by” questions, suggestion or discussion sent in by donors who support the channel.)

Here’s the link to Alain de Botton’s original video, i.e., the one being criticized: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2Oe6HUgrRlQ&t=977s

Sometimes there’s not a lot of chasing, just whole lot of dreaming going on.

14 December 2018

Re: “CHASE YOUR DREAMS”. Featuring a remix of the Mute City (F-Zero) soundtrack by… Link:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/nBond5RUr3w

Death and Diet: Mumkey Jones, Blood Pressure & Heart Attacks…

13 December 2018

AND THE ALTERNATIVE.

We Support Nina and Randa 100% (vs. Unnatural Vegan… AGAIN!)

13 December 2018

Eating sweet potatoes as the staple of your diet is not “extreme”; it really isn’t. We support Nina and Randa on this, and within a few months, we’ll probably be living on their diet ourselves.

[Title]: Clear Cystic Acne with Diet — Nina & Randa

[Link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/3aAEBxNYTwM

[Title:] Nina & Randa Promote An Extreme “Clear Skin” Diet To Teenagers

[Link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/NgkmN811atI

Get the Clear Skin Diet audiobook here (Amazon.com):

https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Skin-Diet-Beautiful-McDougall-ebook/dp/B074SHB1B1/

[Title:] The Clear Skin Diet: The Six-Week Program for Beautiful Skin: Foreword by John McDougall MD

The Problem is Inter Generational Politics, Not “Identity Politics”

13 December 2018

You’ll find this video (and ALL of my content on politics) on AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion)… where you’re going to see more and more evidence of “Active Research” once I get back from this trip to France. Link here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

This is an answer to a question from a viewer on mainstream party politics (in the U.S., Canada, England, Western Europe, etc.).

Support the channel on Patreon (where you can ask questions of your own) for $1 per month, here: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Mumkey Jones: Political Censorship on Youtube in Practice.

13 December 2018

The banning of Mumkey Jones isn’t just about comedy: it’s the censorship of a politically significant channel for politically significant reasons. Note: this video mentions my criticism of “the permanent vacation lifestyle” of Ted Carr (almost getting my channel deleted… and it could still get my channel deleted again!)… you can see just how “tame” those video are by clicking the following link (this really is a lesson in how tight the censorship on youtube can be). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pT2VULD2abhlVRlXy80uk2

Bad Advice: Confidence, Dating & Romance. (vs. Based Zeus)

12 December 2018

Is it really confidence that makes the difference? IMHO, no, it isn’t. If you’re super confident selling the wrong product to the wrong person, what’s the value of the sale? If you’re the wrong guy for her (or if she’s the wrong girl for you)… a whole lot of confidence isn’t going to help in making a connection with someone who fundamentally doesn’t want you, and isn’t interested in what you’ve got to offer (regardless of the gender initiating the flirtation).

Title of the video I’m responding to here: “How to Be Confident Around Girls | How to Make Girls Like You & Be More Confident.” Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Xu3qENPYUII

Find me on Patreon, and support the creation of new content if you’re that way inclined: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#BasedZeus #BasedPawn #AdviceNobodyWantsToHear

Nina and Randa Say “Everyone is Beautiful”, WE DON’T.

11 December 2018

Real talk about ugliness and the unexamined life. “Inner beauty” isn’t what people pretend it to be; “outer beauty” might be MERELY what people pretend it to be, or less.

Featuring the off-camera voice of Melissa, who has her own channel over here: youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw/videos

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, and talk to me if you wanna, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Vegans ARE hypocrites: Piers Morgan is CORRECT, yet morally wrong…

11 December 2018

Ryan Lum is the professional moron over at “HAPPY HEALTHY VEGAN” who decided to make Piers Morgan look like a hypocrite, but who ends up looking like a hypocrite himself: the approach of Gary Yourofksy is so badly flawed that it ends up making us all look like hypocrites (no matter how well intentioned we may be as vegan activists)… but guess what? The problem is easily solved… IF you can admit to yourself that it’s a problem in the first place.

No, it’s about veganism, actually: Nina and Randa’s WE ARE UGLY AND STUPID.

10 December 2018

You may or may not know that Nina and Randa made a video titled, WE ARE UGLY AND STUPID. But if you have seen it, you may not even realize that it was criticizing me (!)… and even if you did know that, you might not have realized how much their criticism misrepresented what was there to be criticized. And as the title suggests: no, it’s about veganism, actually. There were (and still are!) some interesting and important questions raised by this minor vegan civil war, and none of them were understood by people like Happy Healthy Vegan and Jason Fonger who took it up with me. ;-)

Link 1: WE ARE UGLY AND STUPID — Nina and Randa https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XVlQYFL1GJs

Link 2: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

^ If you want to talk to me, or support the creation of new content on the channel, for $1 per month.

Genocide and Slavery on Wax: the “Bradley Campbell” Project.

09 December 2018

Link to the album: https://daylytmusic.bigcartel.com/product/littlewhitelie

Link to one of the videos posted wiith DJ Vlad to promote the album (halfway satirical, halfway grim performance-art): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CnuAE_0alxo

Bad Writing in ASOIAF (Not the TV show… in the books).

08 December 2018

A one hour discussion. I’ve heard other podcasts talk around it, I’ve heard other podcasts joke about it… but I’ve never heard any kind of direct discussion of BAD WRITING in George R.R. Marin’s books (“A Song of Ice and Fire” = ASOIAF, often referred to informally as “A Game of Thrones”). So here it is.

BTW, support the channel on Patreon for $1 per month, and you’ll get to watch as this channel gradually degrades into nothing but complaining about how awful Season 8 of the HBO television adaption is gonna be: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

A New Fable: Socrates and the Fox.

08 December 2018

This is a new story, and I’m sharing it with you as a challenge to parents, political leaders, activists and creative writers alike. If you want cultural change: make it happen. All Rights Reserved, Eisel Mazard (Dec. 2018). Support the creation of new content on Patreon for one dollar per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#ReplaceChristmas #Socmas

Atheism is creative, not destructive; we’re losing, here’s why.

07 December 2018

In the last 20 years, atheism has not had the (modestly) transformative effect on the world that gay rights (or even gay marriage) has had —it’s been a failure even compared to veganism or communism. Why? Let’s throw the underlying problems into a sharp contrast with a specific example: the creative challenge of destroying Christmas (no, I’m not joking, and I’m not a troll: I’m the sincere, secular parent of a 5 year old… and replacing Christmas is a real challenge).

#EndChristmas #ReplaceChristmas #Socmas

Lies & Money: Footsoldier vs Durianrider vs Vegan Gains vs Kalel.

06 December 2018

When a Holocaust Museum Whitewashes a Nazi.

02 December 2018

It would take courage to tell the truth about Henry Ford in Detroit; but it is, by the same token, real cowardice to lie. Detroit? Okay, technically, this is in Farmington Hills, Michigan, but it’s a suburb of Detroit.

If you’d like to know more, here’s a relatively brief article that clarifies the timeline of just how long Henry Ford continued to support the German side (covertly and overtly) as the war began to unfold. Link: https://www.thenation.com/article/ford-and-fuhrer/

For an article giving you more information about the earlier history of how Henry Ford first formed and expressed his extreme views, and his publishing “campaign” in the 1920s, see: https://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html

CORRECTIONS. (1) A viewer wrote in to insist that Hitler and Ford never met face-to-face, and, googling around, this seems to be true (Ford refused to travel to Germany in 1938, and received the award “from Hitler” only in an abstract sense, in the U.S.A.). (2) Although it is confirmed that Hitler kept portraits of Henry Ford, it has *not* been confirmed that Ford had portraits of Hitler: it is possible that this is “a false symmetry” that has crept into the telling of history.

To be clear as to which holocaust museum we’re talking about, this is a critique and review of the curatorial and political content of:

Holocaust Memorial Center

Zekelman Family Campus

28123 Orchard Lake Road

Farmington Hills, Michigan 48334

Chinese & Western Political Philosophy: Fundamental Differences.

30 November 2018

History, ancient and modern (and ongoing!).

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon… or else you’ll have nothing better to watch than “China Uncensored”: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/posts

Black-Owned Veganism.

30 November 2018

Shout out to GOTDAMN ZO, who gave the shout out to Vegan Cheetah #vegandrama in the closing minutes of his half-hour long video, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/7GDk_cHJIPE

The comedian appearing in black-and-white is Steve Harvey, who has three (!) vegan kids, which is three more than I’ve got at this point: youtube.com/user/SteveHarveyDaytime/videos

Support the channel on Patreon for $1 per month, or else you’ll have nothing better to listen to than the guilt-trip over at The Vegan Vanguard & A Privileged Vegan. Here’s the link to my Patreon if you wanna take a glance: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Kalel vs. My Vegan Girlfriend vs. Reality.

29 November 2018

Here’s the link to my girlfriend’s channel:

youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw/videos

Here’s the link to the particular video being quoted here, titled, “On Staying Vegan, Even if You’re Sick”:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/24_d8AL-Q_0

Here’s the link to my Patreon, where you can support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Oh, wait… you want links to the OTHER person quoted in this video? Right right… *sigh…* (1) Title: “I Just Don’t Understand”, link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/aaEAOBBhvpM (Channel = Kalel Deleted Video.) (2) The black-screen video that announces her ex-vegan, meat-eating ways is misleadingly titled, “SO... APPARENTLY, I’M A MAN”. Link = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/RwhTsKA2rIY

#Kalel #Kalol #Supermanisweeping

Diabetes: Unnatural Vegan vs. Neal Barnard.

28 November 2018

Why did U.V. decide to slander Neal Barnard on this issue? It’s a pretty clear case of truth vs. fiction, and the truth on veganism’s side… but not on Unnatural Vegan’s side.

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, or else it will gradually turn into 100% video game reviews and ASOIAF content. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

—————

The video being alluded to by Unnatural Vegan is titled “Why I Don’t Take Nutrition Advice From Dr. Neal Barnard”. Link = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/UQ4QCPR21zE

You’ll find numerous videos on the importance of veganism for diabetes from Dr. Neal Barnard by either searching for his name, or for PCRM: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=neal+barnard+diabetes

Admitting REGRET: the Last Taboo.

27 November 2018

10% philosophy, 90% straight-up autobiographical “storytime” video. And yeah, there’s a lot of laughter right up to the end of the video, so adjust your volume levels accordingly.

(Footnote: the thumbnail reads “A video about regret”… it is NOT a video about DMX… at this point, DMX is pretty much the lower-case-g god of regret, and he’s alluded to for that reason.)

When Vegans Call People Psychopaths (Cue the Laugh Track!)

27 November 2018

Treating food like pets; treating pets like food; whether vegans are killing cows to feed to their cats, or people are killing cats to feed themselves, it seems like there’s ample opportunity for everyone to reproach everyone else as a psychopath, sociopath or psychotic. Don’t do it. You can do better. Here’s how and here’s why (but first… cue the laugh track!).

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL FOR $1 A MONTH ON PATREON… OR DON’T! https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Sources quoted:

(1) Hiyeonni: a therapist’s reaction to part 2 of shane dawson’s docu-series / about sociopaths https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/FEKIxBYhe2c

(2) This Morning: The Farmer Labelled as a Psychopath by Vegan Activists | This Morning https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/znMjC6E7oHA

Why Sega Stalled: 8-Bit☛16-Bit☛Saturn.

26 November 2018

I was (briefly!) a video game journalist when the Sega Saturn was struggling to compete with Nintendo, and this video offers an analysis of why the company failed, at the level of the corporate culture that shapes creative decisions (because software is, ultimately, about creativity) rather than dealing with the details of hardware specifications. The discussion proceeds from the 8 bit through to the 32 bit era (the SG-1000, Mark III, Sega Mater System, Sega Genesis (Sega Mega Drive), Sega CD, 32X & Saturn).

NOTE: At one point I erroneously merged the titles of “Virtua Cop” and “Time Crisis” into one title (“Time Cop”!)… so, yeah, this is the disadvantage to working without a script (but the advantages are so many!

Alluding to the video’s final conclusions, the Thumbnail reads, “The Creative Process vs. [the] Consumer Product.”

And, yeah, you can support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month if you want to.

Fake Vegans and Fame Whores: James Cromwell Eats Eggs with DxE.

25 November 2018

Wayne Hsiung listens to James Cromwell explain that he eats eggs (sometimes fish?) and wears leather shoes, and just agrees, “Yeah, that makes sense” —even when James clarifies that if he didn’t eat eggs he “wouldn’t get enough protein” and would have a terrible diet! #FakeVegans

THE PLAYLIST = DxE: Critique of Direct Action Everywhere (Activism in Theory & Practice) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qhwg8QIrDTQu-GqKu8Rc4s

And (#Flemface) you can get a sort of survey of vegan news from TheFlemface, her channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UC5VKmVnpAneMg9KE-9rHcwg/videos

The Product of Your Ethical Decisions is YOU.

25 November 2018

You don’t choose outcomes: you choose who you want to be, what kind of person you aspire to become (despite your very real powerlessness over the more remote consequences of those decisions). You could describe this as a response to both, “The appeal to futility fallacy”, and its opposite, “The overly optimistic consumer boycott will indirectly save animals’ lives fallacy”… with special reference to palm oil (everyone’s favorite example!).

This is part of one of the longest-running playlists on the channel, “Vegan Mind Tricks”. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7o-xDppIDvXLZziqoNILs5m

My secret past as a video game journalist. (N64)

23 November 2018

Subscribe to my review channel (product reviews, book reviews, university reviews, everything) called Sv4rige (rhymes with “forage”), here:

youtube.com/channel/UCwFVGsSXOM5d3xLSunquAPA/videos

And yes, if you want to support the creation of new content on this channel, you can donate $1 a month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#N64 #ClassicGaming #VideoGameHistory

What I learned about weightlifting at age 40.

22 November 2018

Neal Barnard vs. Unnatural Vegan: The Last Laugh.

22 November 2018

Partly in response to: “Why I Don’t Take Nutrition Advice From Dr. Neal Barnard”, from Swayze (a.k.a. Unnatural Vegan). Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/UQ4QCPR21zE

Want more? Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Hooking Up as opposed to just plain “Hooking”.

21 November 2018

Is Buddhism a Philosophy? Was it Ever a Philosophy?

20 November 2018

Buddhism has sometimes been interpreted as a nihilistic “anti-philosophy”, and sometimes presented as a sort of secular-spirited skepticism that just happens to be dressed up in monastic garb; both of these interpretations are false. ————— You can find me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Why Does Philosophy Exist? Why Do We “Do” Philosophy?

20 November 2018

Ethics, metaphysics, epistemology (determinism and free will)… let’s take a step back and ask why a bunch of hairless apes “have” philosophy to begin with. Fundamentally, why is our species taking a step beyond food, shelter and sex to “do” this philosophy thing? What is its function?

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Support the channel for $1 per month on Patreon if you want to talk to me (or send in a question/topic for a video).

Determinism: A False Religion. A Sequel on “Free Will”.

20 November 2018

Is there a difference between the dilation of the eye and the movement of your hand? If you believe in determinism, you believe that there is no difference between the dilation of your eye (something involuntary: determined by cause and effect) and your choice in pointing at one thing or another on a menu with your finger. The dilation of the pupil of the eye is indeed something involuntary and determined by cause and effect (the relative presence or absence of light) and that I cannot decide myself (I cannot choose to “adjust” my own eye); and there is empirically obvious contrast between this experience of something “determined” by cause and effect and the things we do decide, arbitrarily or not (with further categories for modes of thought both dreaming and awake). To really believe that all the motions of your body and mind are determined in the same manner as your eye’s dilation requires a belief (a faith) in something determining all your actions: it requires a belief in “the will of god” with the god subtracted from the equation. It is, thus, a false religion, relying on something supernal and additional to empirical experience; and this “something” contradicts empirical experience; this “something” can neither be empirically observed (measured, verified) nor falsified (whereas the empirical contrast between the dilation of the eye and motion of the hand can be observed and falsified). Finally, I call determinism a pseudo-philosophy because a philosophy is a problem-solving method: this dogma (religious belief) is not an attempt to solve any problem, it does not have any problem-solving value (likewise, describing the body as containing a soul (or personal identity as consisting of a soul) does not solve any problem, does not have problem-solving value).

—————

Support the channel for $1 per month on Patreon… or don’t… it’s up to you… unless you believe there’s some kind of conspiracy of contributing causes that’ll make up your mind for you. ;-) https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Kalel Went Back to Eating Meat: Response in Description.

19 November 2018

I think there’s a lot of dishonesty on Kalel’s end, and that makes this “news” difficult to interpret. I’ve always found what she says about her university situation impossible to comprehend: various websites claim that she’s been caught lying about her university education at specific times, but, in general, the whole thing just seems like a loosely improvised fabrication. In these circumstances, it’s possible that she’s being dishonest on several levels, and that she set this up with lies at several different stages: perhaps she knew in advance that she would “come out” as a meat eater, and therefore engaged in a series of disclosures (provoking and reacting to vegan disappointment with her, “in advance”, so to speak).

In talking about Kalel, we’re talking about someone obsessed with her outward appearance: I genuinely lost count of the number of cosmetic surgeries she’s admitted to (i.e., I tried to keep a tally when she made that video summarizing her experience with plastic surgery).

Ask yourself this: if she’d spent a period of her life using heroin, cocaine or addicted to pain-killers, do you think she’d admit it? If she’d spent a period of her life using performance-enhancing drugs (either in an attempt to be leaner or more muscular or more curvy —there are drugs for all of those things, used by female fitness-models, etc.), do you think she’d admit it?

The scope for possibly-undisclosed health factors is, thus, near-infinite, when you’re looking at a confession from someone with such a propensity to deceive.

I am somewhat psychologically burdened by my own negative experience(s) with universities, so her dishonesty on that one issue seems outstanding to me (whereas a woman lying about weight-loss is not really so surprising from my perspective).

But the underlying reality may really be 180 degrees the opposite of what’s been presented today: maybe she just plotted a way to “come out” as a meat-eating bisexual (or even lesbian) and this story about her testosterone levels is the bizarre result of those machinations (and please note: she herself claimed that her testosterone levels were linked to her bisexuality/homosexuality, I don’t subscribe to any such theory myself).

As improbable as that may sound, it is, in this scenario (of an unreliable witness), more likely than the theory that she has an obscure form of (non-PCOS) high testosterone health condition that “requires” her to eat red meat and chicken eggs as “treatment”. IMHO.

—————

For the record, the direct revelation that she’s now eating red meat and chicken eggs is in Kalel’s video (today) titled, “SO... APPARENTLY, I’M A MAN”. Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/RwhTsKA2rIY

Anti-Depressants in 2018: Debunked, Discredited, Dangerous.

16 November 2018

The long shadow of the work published by Dr. Irving Kirsch, Joanna Moncrieff, and Peter Gøtzsche (with some brief comparative reference to non-SSRI psychiatric drugs (Neuroleptics, etc.), but primarily focussed on S.S.R.I. anti-depressants).

This video also contains a brief but memorable appearance from youtuber “Venus Angelic”: youtube.com/user/VenusAngelic/videos

A tremendous variety of related lectures (on bio-psychiatry and critical psychiatry) can be found on the oddly-named channel PoetDox: youtube.com/user/PoeticDocumentarism/videos

If you’d like to talk to the “author” of this video (the editor, who appears at the very start and end, briefly) you can support the channel over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The thumbnail (cover image) reads: “SSRI Stats: Getting Truth From Fiction.”

On Feeling Stupid: Intellectual Competition and Compatibility in Relationships.

16 November 2018

Part of the “True Love / True Romance” playlist: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Clarification: toward the end of the video, I tell an anecdote about an ex-girlfriend’s views on abortion. It sounds as if I’m speaking about recent events, but that was an anecdote from the year 2000 or 2001. It’s a bit confusing because I switch between talking about current events on youtube and past experience with dating / romance / relationships.

Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month Patreon, or don’t: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Vegan Activism is Not Cool: “The Vegan View”.

15 November 2018

Support the creation of new content on Patreon for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

—————

“The Vegan View” is a weekly talk show, here on youtube:

youtube.com/channel/UCA6KD0ZPpOvrJgKKvECsQ7g/videos

Examples of videos from their channel:

(1) THIS HAS TO STOP

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/oEMYJyIKMsk

(2) Is Veganism Accessible?

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/rvYA4wLLf5c

(3) “How to be a Vegan, NOT an A**hole with The Vegan Bros”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2Xv1uitgLl8

This video also includes my response to Unnatural Vegan *(sigh)* on the topic of, “Tim Shieff Should Not Be Vegan” (link follows)… although, of course, relatively little footage is devoted to it. Link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/AW70hbs9Zcw

STOP LYING ABOUT SENTIENCE.

14 November 2018

It’s not surprising that misleading definitions of sentience are used by meat-eaters in the process of making excuses for eating meat… but it is genuinely surprising that people within the vegan movement use these excuses, claiming that oysters and insects might not be sentient. Let’s talk about sentience, self-awareness and animal intelligence —and yes, sadly, this is another episode responding to Unnatural Vegan.

[Title:] Tim Shieff Should Not Be Vegan

[Link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/AW70hbs9Zcw

Baby, You Ain’t Sober Till You’re Sober: THE MUSICAL.

13 November 2018

#QuitEverything #Sobreity #VeganDrama Shout out to High Carb Hannah, Handeeman, Mic. the Vegan, Ask Yourself (Isaac), Vegan Gains (Richard), Tana Mongeau, Plantriotic, Fully Raw Kristina, and, of course, *Lil Cheetah,* along with all the vegans (and ex-vegans!) who struggle with sobriety! Quit EVERYTHING.

If you’re UGLY, a vegan diet won’t help: carnivore diet… ditto.

13 November 2018

The politics of Vegetable Police, Kasumi Kriss and Henya Mania all boil down to the psychology of being stupid and ugly on the internet (and trying to be famous anyway, in a marketplace crowded by the clever and beautiful).

—————

Visit and support the channel “Wiener Workouts”, who conducted this deadpan-serious interview in full uniform…

youtube.com/channel/UCx4kdMa58VqlewcS3fLlsig/videos

HOWEVER, I think I managed to record our conversation with higher audio quality (and better video of my own “side” of the discussion)… so you might want to hang in for my version of this podcast (two hours in length, zero jump-cuts, zero edits). Whichever way you choose to go, here’s the link:

[He titled it, simply:] “Effective Vegan Activism w/ Eisel Mazard”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OkCtcYMd5u0

You ain’t sober till you’re sober.

12 November 2018

#QuitEverything #TanaMongeau #VeganDrama

Unbelievably, according to google, I’m the first person to use the phrase (in English), “You ain’t sober till you’re sober” —or even the variants, _”You ain’t sober until you’re sober”, “You’re not sober until you’re sober”, & “You’re not sober till you’re sober”._ This isn’t even the first time this month I’ve been amazed that I “invented” something I assumed a dozen (or a hundred) people had said in print before. :-/

Getting shot in the head and “The Lessons of History”.

10 November 2018

YEAH, IT’S A DISCUSSION ABOUT VEGAN ACTIVISM, but with reference to the often-trite phrase “learning the lessons of history”.

Visit and support the channel “Wiener Workouts”, who conducted this deadpan-serious interview in full uniform…

youtube.com/channel/UCx4kdMa58VqlewcS3fLlsig/videos

[He titled it, simply:] “Effective Vegan Activism w/ Eisel Mazard”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OkCtcYMd5u0

Dating Mentally Mediocre People (Love & Learning)

10 November 2018

Sometimes, intellectuals fall in love with people who are NOT intellectuals. Sometimes people fall in love with each-other, and then struggle with feeling intellectually unequal. And yeah, smart people date stupid people —happens all the time.

The Nicest Way of Being an Asshole: Vegan Activism.

09 November 2018

Visit and support the channel “Wiener Workouts”, who conducted this deadpan-serious interview in full uniform…

youtube.com/channel/UCx4kdMa58VqlewcS3fLlsig/videos

[He titled it, simply:] “Effective Vegan Activism w/ Eisel Mazard”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OkCtcYMd5u0

Vegan Masterpiece Theater (Misc. Sass)

08 November 2018

Shout out to two channels, (1) Vegan Footsoldier, and (2) Rebecca’s World, links below. In case you can’t read it, the cover image (thumbnail) reads, “Vegans. Please Don’t Judge us By Our leaders”.

(1) Footsoldier = youtube.com/channel/UC75a5GNNdsohKwidfAWowyA/videos

(2) Rebecca’s World = youtube.com/channel/UCZw4oLe4guvTsb2buApVv2g/videos

The particular videos “remixed” here were:

(1) UNNATURAL VEGAN PROTEIN.exe https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/M313Y0yiznU

(2) Unnatural Vegan VS à-bas-le-ciel & Ellen Fisher https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/9B0qK2XPVqU

Tim Shieff vs. “The Vegans”.

07 November 2018

Money, fame, power, respect, sex; not necessarily in that order.

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Links to sources NOT quoted:

Sharing a tough truth = ifeeltruth = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/jfy54NpXn9c

Tim Shieff Not Vegan Anymore? = Vegan Gains = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/1AhYHc4cYP8

PlantbasedAthlete = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/3YFtFdVVkfo

Open Message To Tim Shieff = Happy Healthy Vegan = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/SuV4w_LUtm8

Tim Shieff no longer vegan? = Michelle Lowe = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vUTGlSjYSQY

How to Fail at Veganism by Purist Orthorexic Influencers = Tim Shieff Isn’t Vegan Anymore = The Roar Within = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/VKi2V-w9mAY

Tim Shieff Starts Eating Animal Products = theflemface = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MuQacmQumms

LAZY What I Eat In A Day (easy vegan recipes) — Nina and Randa = NinaAndRanda = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8zpO_o7-8-U

Healthy Crazy Cool = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/_X6HNFlkRzY

Veganism 2.0

07 November 2018

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/9Hg3hdAUAPs

Peter Singer’s Philosophy is Anti-Vegan.

04 November 2018

A video primarily discussing the legacy of Peter Singer’s work, but also involving Unnatural Vegan and Gary Francione.

#PeterSinger #UnnaturalVegan #GaryFrancione

IQ Is Not Intelligence. WHAT IS?

03 November 2018

Some reflections on objective measurements of intelligence (the I.Q. test, etc.). The “ray of hope” in the conclusion is that the paradigm of task-based learning can give rise to something along the lines of task-based testing (that might tell us more about the type of intelligence we’re interested in measuring, with the impossibility of objectivity being duly noted).

Disclaimer: if I look exhausted, it’s because I am exhausted. Filmed during the morning walk to the gym (after NOT a lot of sleep).

Support the creation of new content on Patreon for $1 a month: https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Unnatural Vegan IS LIVING A LIE.

01 November 2018

Brain-Damaged Babies: Unnatural Vegan vs. Ellen Fisher.

01 November 2018

Unnatural Vegan: Donate Now… For What, Exactly?

31 October 2018

With quotations from:

Unnatural Vegan. Bad Science & Bad Theology (Re: Sarah Therese, Why I Am Not Vegan) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/-SZdtuRA3Ww

PewDiePie. RATING YOUTUBER APOLOGY VIDEOS. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/HeZtOmiJGOQ

Unnatural Vegan: Reading & Replying to Criticism (in her defense)

31 October 2018

NOTE: if you want to read it, the full text of the criticism I received (defending Unnatural Vegan) is quoted below.

———BEGIN QUOTE———

The Patreon text is pre-motherhood & pretty sure pre-relationship.

It is unfair to take an outdated text that she has not touched since years.

Are you surpised that with one toddler and one toddler-to-come she stays with the man of her dreams in the moment? You should be able to relate to that? Don’t you thing that when the children are in kindergarden, she actually will meet, greet, organize, bake, invite non-vegan children etc.?

It was not your choice to get divorced and see your daughter only a few times a year — but yet, how would your life be with your daugher? Maybe toys, activities etc. would be more important than meeting other vegans or fight the fight for veganism while travelling around the world.

I am surprised that you argue that cooperation with hunters is necessary (which I agree to), but do not accept that there might be vegans who try to reach out to non-vegans and accept reductutarians. And that it is necessary to reach the 85–95% whol won’t be 100% vegen within the next ten, twenty years.

You can build a bridge as a mother of two small children.

Any vegan who has no sympathy with people who call themelves WFPB and shy from defining themselfes “vegan” in public just to avoid the toxic/ignorant vegans of the Durianrider-Freelee-“Influencer” type is suspicious to me.

She might reach more people and convince them of reasons to be vegan — and actually stay vegan b/c she does care what she/others eat. She is Mrs.“Well planned vegan diet” — which is more than so many fringe guys out there are able to comprehend. Why should she be forced to go to potlucks etc? She is not a vegan for people who are already vegan for a longer time watch nf-org etc. But she does attract the intelligent 16-year-old and the curious 60-year old in many forms, confessions and sizes.

She may not attact you or me, but she attracts enough people to make Patreon a reliable stream of revenue.

Your openness towards seems to crack down as soon as they do not follow your path 100%. If someone meditates, takes antidepressants, accepts small scale animal ownership, talks to non-100%-vegans and 2-day-a-week-vegans, you’re out. She does not promote that, she just talks to people you would accuse of being weak, dumb and immoral.

You refuse to sit down with your very family when they do not refrain from animal consumption. You do that for moral reasons. But you should accept that aside from Freelee and Gary and their posse, not many people are like that. Thy meet their family, they have non-vegan friends. How else would you attract new people? Not everybody wants to loose their foreskin in order to be “pure enough” to be accepted inside the congregation hall.

Concerning radicalness, you are closer to Yourofsky than you may like. You are the “boxing intellectual” kind of radical person. And I fucking like you for that, just as I like Stephen Fry & Chris Hitchens.

Kudos for taking down the most toxic guy on youtube. Without your courage no one would have had the guts do do that. But Vegan Cheetah, Henya, Nikokado, — I am always puzzled that you talk to such shallow people and can’t make peace/discuss with UV — your disdain seems to be so strong that even if she would talk to you, there would be no result.

UV is not “on permanent vaccation” — she has evolved from a raw vegan dogsitter to well-planned WFPB vegan mother who does her thing on yt/patreon. Huge plus — she does monetize her children, she does not even show them. She accepts that they have the right to privacy until they are old enough to decide themselves if they want to go online.

You have this strong point that your philosophical videos are excellent and your hangout-videos are great. Talk to people. Some people have to be called out.

I would appreciate that you reduce the callouts of UV to substantial stuff (like the antidepressant-discussion or the palm oil/date dilemma).

This was an ad-hominem-attack with cheap tricks.

———END QUOTE———

Vegan Gains = GARBAGE CONTENT.

28 October 2018

Vegan Gains’s current content has zero educational value, and zero entertainment value: if I wanted to hear analysis at the level of “you’re a dumb *****”, I’d watch CNN. https://twitter.com/eiselmazard

Here’s the link to the earlier video mentioned, “The wonder that was Freelee (RT4 in the past tense).” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XJd6wQlMW5Y

[還擊] “Honest Opinion On The Vegan Community & Why I Am Not Vegan”

24 October 2018

Support this channel for $1 per month on Patreon, or else you will have nothing to watch but makeup artists making excuses for their lifestyle choices. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

—————

The video being replied to = Sarah Therese: Honest Opinion On The Vegan Community & Why I Am Not Vegan. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/B1fqcbhcVM0

A day or two after my video was posted, Vegan Gains made a video of his own on the same topic, titled, “Sarah Therese vs Vegan Gains”. Dare to compare: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/W-K7QX3EPag

Tankie see, Tankie do: Against Marxism, Against Excuse-ism.

23 October 2018

In response to RichardDWolff, “Richard Wolff takes on Jordan B. Peterson”.

It is not clear to what extent R.W. had a specific lecture from Jordan Peterson in mind… but… perhaps…

Title, “The ONLY Reason Marxism Will ALWAYS FAIL,” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/1lTGu35BpZs

Or any of these: https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos/search?query=marxism

Disorganized Religion: Self-Selected Belief Systems (e.g. “The Law of Attraction”).

23 October 2018

Guest starring (1) Kristen Leo and (2) Bonny Rebecca (links ensue).

(1) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/YY59N0kFl5s

(2) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/y9JfxVoFzm4

—————

And if you don’t support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, IT’S ONLY GONNA GET WORSE. ;-) https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Nihilism vs. Determinism (“Free Will” Debates)

22 October 2018

WORST. PHILOSOPHY. EVER.

For those who can’t quite see, the cover image does show two portraits of Arthur Schopenhauer and Baruch Spinoza, with the text reading: “Nihilism vs. Determinism: When Philosophy Becomes Religion…”

Redefining Fascism: A Dangerous Step into Pseudo-History.

21 October 2018

This video is anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi, but it is also offering a critique of misleading statements by leftists (in their characterization and critique of 20^th century fascists and nazis).

In this video I mention having made “an earlier video” dealing with other aspects of this history (the importance of Italy and Syndicalism). That video is here: _”Understand Fascism to Oppose Fascism (vs. Jimmy Dore).“_ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/fIbkjhiGNwU

The video also briefly mentions an essay I’d written that includes some gruesome examples of anti-semitic violence from the (Communist) Soviet Union (Russia). That link is here: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42

Here are the links to the other sources alluded to and contrasted in the discussion.

Three Arrows: “Was Hitler a Socialist? — A Response to Steven Crowder and Others.”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/hUFvG4RpwJI

youtube.com/channel/UCCT8a7d6S6RJUivBgNRsiYg/videos

Steven Crowder: “Louder With Crowder”.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/VybWkpt_3Jo

youtube.com/user/StevenCrowder/videos

The Amazing Atheist (T.J. Kirk)

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/-3TeL7TtoFA

youtube.com/user/TheAmazingAtheist/videos

The Amazing Atheist’s video, in turn, is criticizing Ben Shapiro (who uses talking points similar to those offered by Steven Crowder and Dinesh D’Souza, but who is not directly addressed in this video).

—————

This description is getting pretty long, but two more links:

(1) Yes, I have a Patreon page, where you can talk to me and support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

(2) You will also find this video on my “politics only” channel, (Active Research & Informed Opinion), here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

What’s the Opposite of Commitment? (Jake Paul, Logan Paul, Alissa Violet)

19 October 2018

A carefully considered perspective on Jake Paul’s open relationship disaster, putting the blame and responsibility entirely on him (on Jake, NOT on Logan, and NOT on Alissa). Guys: it ain’t a love triangle if THERE’S NO LOVE. :-/

Hashtags: Open relationships / love / dating / advice nobody wants to hear.

Who is to be sane, and who is insane? (純素主義)

18 October 2018

A reply to a video originally titled, “You’re Mentally Ill If You Don’t Eat Raw Meat”, found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uRRdexcWO9Y

As mentioned on-screen at the conclusion of the video, the source of the slaughterhouse footage is Radio Canada International (and it originates from Toronto, Ontario, Canada). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/5mVr9TEszmI

And you can support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Secular Christmas, the Hypocrisy of New Atheism.

18 October 2018

The challenge of atheism (and secularism) in the 21^st century is creative, not destructive: replacing cultural traditions is more difficult than hurling criticism at them.

#ReplaceChristmas #Socmas #Parenting

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Open Relationships are NOT for Everyone.

17 October 2018

Part of the longest-running playlist on this channel, ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR. And if you’d like to hear more advice that nobody wants to hear, support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Links to the sources quoted:

Richard Carrier’s interview with vitodamico: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/wb9TyBnyCik

Thunderfoot: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/jMvj1eLdYqI

PZ Myers: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/n69yleebaUc

我們需要重新評價殖民主義: European Colonialism Reconsidered.

15 October 2018

IT’S IN ENGLISH.

Taxation is NOT Theft: Laughing at Libertarians & Anarcho-Capitalists.

14 October 2018

The cover image (thumbnail) reads, “Libertarians ‘help’ the poor by closing public schools” —and, indeed, provision of education to the poor is the main example this video comes back to, again and again.

You will also find this video over at my “politics only” channel:

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

You can support the creation of new content on Patreon for $1 per month, assuming you think it’s morally superior to my coming around and collecting the $1 as a tax: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Joey Graceffa and Sam Harris: MEN OF PRINCIPLE.

14 October 2018

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, to make this world just SLIGHTLY more absurd, through satire and criticism construed in the vain hope of making it LESS absurd: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

LINKS TO THE SOURCES QUOTED:

Joey Graceffa explaining to that he is a person of outstanding moral fiber, upstanding ecological concern, and of a refined, principled sensibility: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/L8ZLf-Z7xYw

Sam Harris standing in front of a plain, white background:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/qZ-hkpqVlYw

Sam Harris having the question put to him by Ask Yourself (Isaac): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/S4HXvhofoak

The cover image says, “Beware ‘men of principle’,” in this case being wary of how they differentiate their principles from their deeds.

How to Handle Libertarianism: Refuting Principles with Praxis.

13 October 2018

Sometimes, it can be more difficult to swim in the shallow end of the swimming pool than the deep: how to challenge Libertarians, Minarchists, Anarchists and Anarcho-Capitalists.

HMU on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Worse than Islam: “The Law of Attraction”.

12 October 2018

Featuring Supreme Banana, in: “How To Manifest ANYTHING✨(Law of Attraction Guide) 🔮+ Maldives Retreat” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6V9NHMzIQZo

The Youtube channel “Mumkey Jones” is primarily known for comedy/satire, but it has an extensive set of non-fiction videos salient to this discussion:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXOY6LHThPAMAzvWsieWCH1UJHZagxBxl

The particular video from Mumkey quoted here is: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/RrGrp4ZYrjg

——————

Where I’m at on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

A “War Story” from Laos & Vietnam.

11 October 2018

This (heartbreaking / heartwarming) story was formerly buried away (along with a lot of other really dark autobiographical reflections) in an old video with a seemingly innocuous title on this channel: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/3HN6nPDNSwE

IMHO, If you CAN’T share this kind of material, why bother being on youtube in the first place? Keep it real and/or GTFO.

Sv3rige: Anti-Hospital Hysteria Makes Hypocrites of Us All.

09 October 2018

Sv3rige is known his paranoid, pseudo-scientific opposition to the hospital system, and his creating/propounding conspiracy theories about the evils of doctors and modern medicine. What happens when he (or someone he loves) gets sick and needs to go the hospital? You’ll see. :-/

What happened to the spherical microphone? ☞ My new product review channel.

08 October 2018

The name of my new PRODUCT REVIEW channel is Sv4rige, rhymes with “Forage”. You’ll find this video over there, at: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/4m8XM8a6n-s

Røde NT-USB vs. Blue Snowball vs. Samson Meteor (a comparative, analytical product review for the competitors amongst relatively low-end, “everyday” microphones).

And yes, this video is PARTLY in response to the often-asked question, “What happened to your snowball (white sphere) microphone?”

The Hero (Myth): Against Jordan Peterson & ComicPop.

07 October 2018

The Fundamental Problem with Jordan Peterson’s Religious-and-Political Philosophy: “Narrative Morality” and the Hero Myth as “the scaffold of civilization”.

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month over at Patreon, or else… you’ll have nothing else to watch but Kevin Smith’s interminable Batman commentaries. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Sociopath, They Say. (Vs. Shane, Jake Paul, Logan Paul)

03 October 2018

Doja Cat “Mooo!” (I’m a Cow) ALBUM REVIEW

02 October 2018

If you want to click through to the song being reviewed… it went well above 20 million views in its first month, and then was UNLISTED… https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/mXnJqYwebF8

Yes, believe it or not, this channel has a playlist of videos for “Rap Music / Hip Hop (Commentary)”.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qGb4Be2LkDxG4hetoMHL5f

And if you’d like to hear more of the song that ISN’T reviewed in this video, but pops up in the second half, it’s by C-Swag, found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8DoSR0WFXlM

—————

Yes, I think that one (n = 1) of the supporters paying to support new content on Patreon is there for this reason… but more than one (n = 2) of the women in my life got in touch with me in the first place with rap music as the reason/pretext… so… yeah, I should probably just transition to doing nothing but album reviews and hip-hop commentary at this point. :-/

youtube.com/channel/UCLE6bDbrn5kNG94-1VlH_XA/videos

Cocaine & Prostitution. [道德講座]

01 October 2018

It’s a morality lecture. And all morality, viewed objectively, is satire.

A link to a source quoted (you do NOT want to click on this link, man): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/NxvQPzrg2Wg

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/ueMgds

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

En vegansk bok för barn: Till och med daggmaskarna vill se himlen.

24 September 2018

With special thanks to Jennifer Lindgren for the Swedish translation (the story was originally written in Chinese, and here has English as well).

[Andra översättningar:] [Other languages:] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pperokk75ic6XpyLqy7MUw

馬大影 = Eisel Mazard, 2018.

#ReplaceChristmas (“New Atheism” Needs New Holidays)

23 September 2018

Raising children without Christmas is a real challenge: and you can’t just offer a critique of Christianity, you need to replace the ritual with something better. Please press this issue (as a positive, creative challenge) with all of the secular activists and atheists you know: online or IRL. I believe this will be the first post under the hashtag #ReplaceChristmas and I hope that this will spark some new thoughts (and new efforts) from “New Atheist” youtubers who have had nothing new to talk about for years (including Jaclyn Glenn, the Amazing Atheist, Richard Dawkins and the rest).

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month on Patreon if you want to (but don’t act like it’s gonna save your soul or anything…). https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

馬大影 = Eisel Mazard, 2018.

Blaire White Quit Politics: There Are No “Conformist Radicals”.

23 September 2018

I do have a separate “politics only” channel, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ (Active Research & Informed Opinion), and you might want to subscribe to that: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month… https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/ …or else you’ll have nothing better to watch than Blaire White polling the public as to who looks more feminine, her or Jaclyn Glenn (yes, that actually happened).

This video is in part a reply to, “Why I’ve Changed (The Truth)” found on Blaire White’s channel as follows:

[Video link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/S7Ft2E_ibxQ

[Channel link:] youtube.com/channel/UCDmCBKaKOtOrEqgsL4-3C8Q/videos

馬大影 = Eisel Mazard, 2018.

THE WORST ADVICE on Learning Languages: Welcome to the Internet.

22 September 2018

Support the creation new content this channel on Patreon for $1 a month or… well, find some other channel to support instead. ;-) https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The first source quoted is “Study with Jess”:

_5 HACKS FOR LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE!_

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vAGCMmVj6CM

The second source quoted is, “What I’ve Learned”:

youtube.com/channel/UCqYPhGiB9tkShZorfgcL2lA/videos

_How to Learn a Language: INPUT (Why most methods don’t work)_

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/J_EQDtpYSNM

And yeah, BTW, I have a separate “politics only” channel called (Active Research & Informed Opinion), that you can find over here:

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

馬大影 = Eisel Mazard, 2018.

Learning Languages: ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR.

21 September 2018

This is advice applicable to learning any/all languages, with the particular examples discussed being (1) learning Chinese, and (2) learning Pali (巴利文).

Patreon: support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month… or else I’ll spend more time learning Chinese, and less time talking to you. :-/ https://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

An example of TERRIBLE advice on learning languages, that I’m here (partly) trying to offer an antidote to:

How to Learn a Language: INPUT (Why most methods don’t work)

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/J_EQDtpYSNM

馬大影 = Eisel Mazard, 2018.

Zero Personal Integrity: the New Politics of Allegations.

20 September 2018

A video drawing on examples of (1) allegations from Klaus Mitchell of Plant Based News, and (2) allegations and counter-allegations between S.H.A.R.K.‘s Steve Hindi and (professor-and-filmmaker) Will Potter.

Links on SHARK vs. Will Potter:

(A) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/PPtoiWZDD7Y

(B) https://www.youtube.com/user/SHARKonlineorg/search?query=potter

Links on Klaus (PBN) vs. myself:

(A) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Ma7kkouU4Zo

(B) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uVPx-Scpqi4

You can support the creation of new content for $1 per month on Patreon:

youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

You can also subscribe to my “Politics Only” channel, AR+IO: (Active Research & Informed Opinion)

For those who can’t see the cover image clearly: it reads “False Allegations, Real Consequences”, and includes an image pained by Felix Nussbaum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Nussbaum

So, You’re Planning on Turning 40?

16 September 2018

Support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, or else the only birthday content you’ll have to watch is Nina and Randa with their oil-free birthday cake. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Links:

[TITLE:] 40 IS THE NEW 40 [AUTHOR:] IMMORTAL MINDZ

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Pbl2SlJKefs

[TITLE:] I’M IN MY 40’S AND LOVING IT [AUTHOR:] RISA DOES MAKEUP

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vF2GxiIbtKs

[TITLE:] HOW TO WEAR SHORTS OVER [40 AUTHOR:] BUSBEE STYLE

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/od4KBg38jJg

[TITLE:] TURNING 40... WTF [AUTHOR:] LUCYRED202

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/beiJ6eXDsBQ

[TITLE:] I JUST TURNED 40! [AUTHOR:] WAYNE GOSS

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/fAr-3R9fcR4

[TITLE:] I’M 40!!!! [AUTHOR:] BANANABLONDIE108

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/outftykJX9g

(And, according to Instagram, Banana Blondie is now 42.)

(I guess Nina and Randa are now 25?)

馬大影 = Eisel Mazard, 2018.

Checkmate, Vegans! Bernie Sanders Saves the Dairy Industry!

11 September 2018

You see, this is why “Unnatural Vegan” is so much more successful than I am: what people really want is a vacillating, self-contradictory position on these issues, that concludes with, “But I don’t really know what I’m talking about, what do YOU think?”

Support the creation of new content on this channel (for $1 per month) on Patreon or else you will have nothing better to watch than Unnatural Vegan’s cashew-butter product reviews, and hypocritical excuse making for the occasional eating of meat and wearing of leather shoes. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

And yes, BTW, Bernie Sanders has a Youtube channel:

youtube.com/user/SenatorSanders/videos

“Vermont Viewpoints: Taylor Franklin” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/5dsk4uZG57Q

#vegan #vegans #veganism

馬大影 = Eisel Mazard, 2018.

Culinary College as a Vegan: NWCAV Baking Program.

08 September 2018

“Let me ask you this one thing,” he said, “is it REALLY so hard to be a vegan?”

I may make a separate, shorter video that simply acts as a “review” of NWCAV (Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver).

^ If you want to support this channel and follow the… uh… UNPREDICTABLE events in our lives (after culinary college has abruptly ended) HMU on patreon.

Note that this video was recorded on Friday, Sept. 7^th, i.e., the evening of the same day when many of the most tumultuous events happened.

We’re Not Winning: Veganism is Not Edgy or Exciting Anymore.

06 September 2018

In part a riposte to Earthling Ed —but only in part.

Support the creation of new content on the channel for $1 per month and you’ll get to see a bunch of photographs of just how busy we are at culinary college now (learning to be vegan bakers, hoping to use baking as a platform for “real world” vegan activism in future). And, yeah, if you don’t… you’ll be watching nothing but Sorsha Morava doing extreme close-ups of sandwiches as “vegan content” on youtube.

Critique: Earthling Ed’s Political Philosophy. [TBT]

06 September 2018

youtube.com/channel/UCrLXXqMXz36JNzDam-UCO5g/videos

Support this channel for $1 per month, or else you’re really not gonna have anything better to watch than “Bonny Rebecca” narrating her imaginary ailments and how explaining how discussions with her naturopath led her to assume she had them. Creating content isn’t free; it has real costs; running this youtube channel has, in fact, had some tremendously negative impacts on my life; watching the content is free, and that’s (nevertheless) a wonderful thing. Donate or don’t.

#vegan #vegans #veganism

On Critical Thinking: Carly Taylor’s False Facts About Birth Control.

30 August 2018

I’m a critic of “critical thinking” itself: it’s become an excuse for the worst elements of higher education, and a distraction from more difficult problems of whether or not the student (or the instructor) actually cares; whether or not there’s a tutorial process in which the instructor sees and corrects the mistakes the student is making, questions their methods, assumptions and motives, or even shows them why it matters how much they care. We tend to use words like “precision” and “accuracy” rather than “caring”, but they mean little more than “caring about the details”, caring that you’ve understood what you’ve read, or even caring that you’re being understood in what you’ve written. A great deal of the process of learning and teaching (and political organization!) is really about caring —and that’s inconvenient for an era of (frankly uncaring) university education, in which it’s supposed to be a trivial matter if the students (or even the teachers) do not care.

The comments section is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

With September, school starts, and I definitely do not have time to maintain a youtube comment section (although the quality of comments in the past month has been higher than at any other point in the channel’s history). If you want to support the channel for $1 per month, you can talk to me in various ways, as we return to a somewhat busier schedule.

My girlfriend, also, has her own youtube channel, BTW: youtube.com/heimudan/videos

So does Carly Taylor:

However, both Carly Taylor and James Aspey are primarily known via their joint youtube channel, “James & Carly”, here: youtube.com/channel/UCcKFPLxaWvKMwbjd5GjhzKg/videos

The cover image (or thumbnail) reads, “More than honesty, less than genius: so-called ‘Critical Thinking’”.

Emily J. Court: Communism is Cancer.

29 August 2018

A message for #vegans addressing the obfuscatory influence of anti-capitalism within #veganism, co-starring John Sakars:

youtube.com/user/TheSakars/videos

There’s a short quotation from Prof. Steve Best, with the disclaimer that he has been criticized on this channel for unrelated issues (i.e., not anticapitalism, nor crypto-communism). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sHDTZniuzyc

There are also split-second clips from the overtly-Communist Mexie and Marine (“A Privileged Vegan”).

youtube.com/channel/UCepkun0sH16b-mqxBN22ogA/videos

youtube.com/user/Highonfruit1/videos

And, of course, the star of the show is Emily Court:

https://www.instagram.com/emily.j.court/?hl=en

She is a vegan journalist at Plant Based News #plantbasednews, but was formerly (surprise!) a fan of Durianrider and Freelee who relocated to Chiang Mai, Thailand, for quite a long vacation.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of capitalism… you can donate $1 to support the creation of incisive new content on this channel at Patreon.com… 哈哈哈😂 because we all know there isn’t any money in journalism anymore, least of all journalism preoccupied with a fringe ecological movement. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

The dumb get dumber: “The Meritocracy of the Mind”.

27 August 2018

Some people were asking, “Is it really such a big deal if someone has wasted 10 years of their life?” And, roughly, they were talking about a decade leading up to turning 30. I’m not here to lie to you, kid: it really is a big deal, and you’ve got to face up to the horrendous consequences of your own “lost decade”, if that’s what you’ve done. You can go back to school; you can get a credential; but you’re not remotely compensating for what you’ve lost, in terms of the development of the mind.

Support this channel for $1 per month on Patreon, or else… you’ll all be watching Nina and Randa videos (right up until they turn 30 and quit youtube in disgust, realizing they’ve wasted their lives).

youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw/videos

This video is part of the longest-running playlist on the channel, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”.

Vegan Clown College: Earthling Ed’s School for Saviors.

27 August 2018

Yeah, I said it. Support this channel on Patreon for one dollar a month, because nobody else will. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

For an in-depth discussion of Ed’s political philosophy, check out my earlier video, “Critique of Earthling Ed…”. Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pSA8BC6yoB22Xwh9G5OJOu

#veganism #earthlinged #vegancringe

Ah, and if you’re looking for original source quoted from Earthling Ed, it’s titled _”The Change That is Coming | Speech at The Official Animal Rights March 2018.“_ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/YjQMUIcI9BU

My mom talking about her life & theory of urbanization.

27 August 2018

Well, some people wrote in with disbelief at how many hours I claimed I spent with the Sega Master System in my youth… here’s the woman who supplied me with those video games, and many of the other (even worse!) influences that shaped me, talking about her own (university) education (a stark contrast to my own!) and how her approach to museology links to a broader social theory of the progress of urbanization.

No, I didn’t film this myself. The source of the video is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/M_KNEM3pvV0

Devastating Aimee: Veganism as Personal Growth.

26 August 2018

Putting a moral to the story of Vegan Gains vs. Aimee K. And yes, BTW, I was much (much) more cruel to Aimee than Richard was (when I had my own “debate” with her).

Support this channel for $1 per month on Patreon, or else you’ll have nothing to watch but Vegan Gains shouting at people, again and again, FOREVER. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The song quoted (for a few memorable seconds) is from the channel of Carla Gormley. Hear it here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/_4U--KSPiqc

Here’s a link to the two other channels mentioned. (1) Vegan Gains: youtube.com/channel/UCr2eKhGzPhN5RPVk5dd5o3g/videos

(2) Aimee K. youtube.com/channel/UCPpqC3yj99p4dKzBQp1jaLA/videos

#vegan #vegangains #veganism

Morality: What You Do When Nobody’s Watching.

24 August 2018

Pulling in examples from vegan debates about (against) excuses for wearing second-hand leather and the (even stranger) debates with anti-natalists. The cover-image reads, “Who we really are when there are no witnesses”, and, yes, one of the people in the picture is Kalel (Kalel Cullen / Kalel Kitten) who recently was criticized for “being vegan” while eating non-vegan food “when nobody was watching”.

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Prelude: JAMES ASPEY GOES TO ISRAEL.

24 August 2018

This is a prelude. The very next video uploaded after this one is a critique on a subject I’ve been asked to discuss many times over the years: the situation of vegan “lifestyle activists” in Israel. You’ll find that video here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vK0rFz_kdCk

The text on the cover image reads: “Israel: Paradise for Some… Humanitarian Disaster for Others”.

The music is a remix of a Kid Chameleon tune by _Fixions_, link here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/1UUjHXnO4_4

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Vegans: INSTAGRAM IS TREASON.

24 August 2018

From “Lifestyle Activism” to “Street Slacktivism”… what’s next? James Aspey, Joey Carbstrong, and Earthling Ed are all selling a mixed cocktail of (old-fashioned) “Lifestyle Activism” and the (current trend of) “Street Slacktivism”, based on edited selections of (filmed) conversations with random strangers being uploaded to the internet. We’ve seen quite a few fads come and go in the last 5 years. What’s next?

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Vegans in Israel: What Would Martin Luther King Do?

24 August 2018

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Credit for the (memorable!) one minute of music goes to _Fixions_ who remixed a track from Kid Chameleon: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/1UUjHXnO4_4

Idiots: Vegans On/Against Birth Control.

23 August 2018

Check out my girlfriend’s channel (and it is on her channel that you’ll find the links to the studies/sources mentioned in the video):

Donate $1 per month to support the creation of new content on this channel… or else my girlfriend is gonna leave me for Pewdiepie or whatever. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegans “vs.” the Far Left: Intersectionalism.

22 August 2018

Coincidentally, quite a few vegan activists asked me about this issue in the last few weeks: several were NOT stating it as a question, but just a complaint about how often they have to deal with this (anti-vegan flak from the far left, especially those employing intersectionalist terms). And, yes, Jason Fonger was one of the people who asked, in his interview with me (perhaps because _”Cube of Truth” (Anonymous for the Voiceless / Paul Bashir)_ have endured some criticism of this kind lately.

If you do not support this channel for $1 per month on Patreon… the Communists will win. Or the Capitalists. Or both. I’m just trying to pander to whatever preconceived moral/political conceits you’ve got here. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

James Aspey’s Permanent Vacation: Donate Now?

20 August 2018

Celebrity culture has devoured vegan activism: the donation-driven permanent vacation has challenged the most basic assumptions of what a “professional activist” is supposed to be. And yes, BTW, you can donate $1 per month to support the creation of new content on this channel, via patreon (I GET THE IRONY). https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Sources quoted. (1) James Aspey, a.k.a. “James & Carly”: youtube.com/channel/UCcKFPLxaWvKMwbjd5GjhzKg/videos

Their Caribbean cruise (and the beach footage) is from this video, specifically: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OQML2QNFqts

(2) Claire Michelle: youtube.com/channel/UCdSx2rlQo4TAY-VZGthC6Dw/videos

(3) Sv3rige, the guy sitting in the forest: youtube.com/user/sv3rige/videos

(4) If you’d like to see James Aspey being interviewed by Freelee, BTW, here it is: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/5lO8KREJUPI

For those who can’t read it, the thumbnail has two lines of text: “Celebrity Culture Devoured Activism” & “Donation-Driven Vacation ‘Politics’”.

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Vegans: Life and Politics Are Not Two Separate Things.

19 August 2018

A direct answer to the question, “So, what SHOULD we do as vegans?” —moving beyond bikinis (“instagram activism”) and shouting slogans in street protests. Co-Starring Claire Michelle. Her channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCdSx2rlQo4TAY-VZGthC6Dw/videos

The questions were asked by Jason Fonger. You can find his channel here: youtube.com/user/JasonFongerMusic/videos

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Vegans: We’re More Hated than Jehovah’s Witnesses.

18 August 2018

Something that might be intriguing the first time people see it will become resented the tenth time people see it: when it becomes a regular obstruction to their daily lives. There’s a lot of public resentment (and mockery) directed at Jehovah’s Witnesses and Hare Krishnas… but really, if you’re honest with yourself, what “Cube of Truth” demonstrators routinely do (as vegans) will create far more resentment.

This video is an excerpt from an interview with Jason Fonger, regional director for Anonymous for the Voiceless.

Links to persons (other than myself) featured in order of appearance:

Lola Monroe (now vegan): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/09lcj3r1uRU

Cedric the Entertainer (still vegan?): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EKMl4TyWNpo

Styles P (now vegan): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/cj8ar2mN2qc

Jason Fonger (off camera!): youtube.com/user/JasonFongerMusic/videos

King Los (now vegan): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8IVUeY36Dhk

And the guy on camera most of the time is me, Eisel Mazard. You can support the creation of new content on this channel for $1 per month, on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Veganism: Tough Love for a Weak Movement.

16 August 2018

Co-starring James Aspey. And yeah, if SOMEBODY doesn’t donate $1 per month to support this channel on Patreon, all you’re gonna hear is more empty platitudes, _à la_ James Aspey. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Is Reducetarianism Retarded, Or Is It Just Me?

16 August 2018

Vegan Gains vs. Unnatural Vegan vs. Brian Kateman.

#vegan #reducetarian #kalel

Are you stupid enough to support the creation of new content for $1 a month on Patreon? If not, let’s pretend! https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Let’s Save Nikocado Avocado (Ex-Vegan Train Wreck)

14 August 2018

Believe it or not, this video was made in response to a request from a supporter on Patreon… you can ask him if he was hoping I’d help (or mock) old Nik in broaching the subject:

youtube.com/user/sv3rige/videos

This is “advice nobody wants to hear” (dealing with discipline and self-discipline, not quite the meaning of life)… but if nobody donates $1 per month to support the creation of new content on Patreon, guess what? You’ll only have garbage content like Nikocado Avocado on this platform.

Ex-Vegans: the Flat Earth Mentality.

14 August 2018

Support this channel for $1 a month on Patreon, or else I’ll start making the type of horrible, horrible youtube content that a larger audience actually wants to see.

#exvegans #exvegan #veganism

Marriage, Money & Politics: For Love or… for the Movement?

13 August 2018

Support this channel for $1 per month (on Patreon) or else… well… I’m gonna have to marry rich, I guess. 🤔 https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

This video makes use of both vegan and (surprise?) anti-vegan examples: some of you will immediately recognize “pro-meat activist” sv3rige, who opens up the topic of how your love life, your political life, and your economic life, are all intertwined. Until they become disentangled, that is.

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Vegan vs. Vegan; Idiot vs. Idiot. (Vegan Gains & Unnatural Vegan)

12 August 2018

Support this channel on Patreon for $1 a month, or else nobody else will… and then YOU KNOW what will be left for you to watch on Youtube. :-/ https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Activism, Puritanism & Separation of Church-and-State.

12 August 2018

The (current) tradition of political pluralism (incongruously) has its origins in Puritanism (in English-speaking countries like England, Canada and the USA), and this shapes popular modes of activism as well as profound assumptions about the function and limits of the law (e.g., “Can circumcision be made illegal when we have clear scientific knowledge of the harm being done?” e.g., “Can/should the government have an active role in changing people’s diets (by coercion) when we have clear scientific knowledge of the harm being done?”).

Vegan Supervillainy: Daphne Reloaded vs. Freelee.

11 August 2018

Support this channel on Patreon for $1 per month, or else vegan youtube will become nothing but an endless montage of weight-loss smoothie recipes and bikini/gym-shark try-on hauls. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Do you really want the links to the sources?

Daphne Reloaded: “Veganism is a SCAM — Why I No Longer Eat Fruits & Veggies, nuts or seeds — Part 2” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8cpQG_tT2GY

Freelee’s repeatedly-retitled video, “Should Meat Eater’s be Forced to be Vegan?” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ZDS_th9WPLE

The aerial photography is from “Mercy for Animals” (those videos have surprisingly few videos in total, I note). youtube.com/user/mercyforanimals/videos

And, yes, the advice on how to eat celery comes from “Bro Science Life”: youtube.com/user/BroScienceLife/videos

#exvegans #veganism #comedy

Vegans: Still Crazy. Cory McCarthy: Still Crazy.

10 August 2018

Here’s the link to my page on Patreon: support this channel for $1 per month, or else… you’ll end up hearing about vegan politics from bodybuilders and fitness gurus like Cory. :-/ https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Is Cory McCarthy Racist? Is Tara McCarthy Racist? YOU DECIDE!

10 August 2018

Cory McCarthy claims that his words have been edited to make him appear to be racist. In this video, you can hear his “philosophy” UNEDITED: you be the judge. Of course, this video is not your only source of information…

https://realitycallsshow.com/start-here/

^ I notice that this web-page is now somewhat (self-)censored compared to what it used to be… but…

And she has a forthcoming book, published with/by “Vox Day”, whose political platform you’ll find summarized here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Day#Political_views

MEANWHILE, this channel has a whole playlist of videos discussing “Racism and/in Vegan Politics”, and this does include several videos dealing with Tara and Cory respectively. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7otvz8UHrY0I58cacC2mzoD

Some of these videos have been banned (by youtube) in some countries, despite their self-evident purpose in offering political criticism of the racist views concerned. Youtube censorship does not distinguish between anti-racism and pro-racism (not even when there’s a disclaimer on-screen, not even when the critique is very bluntly stated as condemnation, etc.).

The Street is not “Real”. #Activism

10 August 2018

Questioning “the street” in 21^st century political activism. You could make history anywhere… why here?

Why I Am No Longer Vegan | Quitting After 4 Years

09 August 2018

Don’t make excuses for people who make excuses. Stupidity is real.

Ladies and gentlemen: KasumiKriss.

Her original video: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Dp3_qstqpn4

Her youtube channel: youtube.com/channel/UCp4_eaWIdkiW37Fg4Moi9Ag/videos

And now, for something totally unrelated, a short documentary film called, “From Farm to Fridge”, sponsored and produced by “Mercy for Animals”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1863233/

Support this channel on Patreon for one dollar per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#KasumiKriss #exvegans #veganism

Kalel: Fake Vegans, Fake Buddhists, Fake Communists.

08 August 2018

Link to Kalel’s Video, “PSA TO VEGANS”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/qVyVbpinr9k

Link to Vegan Gains’s response video, “Kalel vs Vegan Gains Part 2”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/UXInpQVWw40

Link to my Patreon page: support this channel for $1 per month. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#Kalel #Activism #VeganActivism

Who I really am; why I became vegan.

08 August 2018

An autobiographical and autophilosophical video.

Support the channel for $1 per month on Patreon… or else you’ll have to listen to Kalel, forever and ever. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#philosophy #storytime #growingup

For those who can’t read the cover-image (or thumbnail), it reads: “We are all born ignorant.”

Name the Trait: On the Meaning of Being Human.

08 August 2018

Here’s the link to Isaac’s channel, “Ask Yourself”: youtube.com/channel/UCQNmHyGAKqzOT_JsVEs4eag/videos

Here’s the link to my Patreon page, if you want to talk to me, and/or support the creation of new videos for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#NTT #NameTheTrait #Veganism

à-bas-le-ciel = THE DUMBEST

07 August 2018

Another installment of “Vegan Masterpiece Theater”, featuring our regular contributor… youtube.com/user/vegan4life666/videos

Support the channel for $1 a month, especially if you’re one of those “book readers” who get insulted in this video (around the @6:45 mark)

Uniqueness vs. Conformism: Vegan Mind Tricks.

07 August 2018

Every activist should be an intellectual, every intellectual should be a dissident.

Here’s the link to Roger R. Blenman’s channel: youtube.com/user/RogerRBlenman/videos

Here’s the link to the particular video quoted: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/fbNQRTVkWlQ&feature=youtu.be

And, if you want to talk to me, you can support the channel for $1 per month, and we’ll talk: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#vegan #vegans #veganism

Circumcision’s Final Century (Eric Clopper)

06 August 2018

Here’s the link to: _Sex & Circumcision: An American Love Story by Eric Clopper._ https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/FCuy163srRc

Here’s the link to my Patreon, where you can support the channel for $1 per month, and talk to me (send in questions that become the subject-matter for future videos): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

And here’s the fundraiser for Eric Clopper, who (apparently/reportedly) lost his job at Harvard, as a consequence of the youtube video linked above: https://ca.gofundme.com/eric-cloppers-defense-fund

#Intactivists #skepticism #pseudoscience

For those who can’t read the cover-image, the subtitle for this video is, “The End of a Century of Excuses”.

Activism Motivated By Money: Veganism & Patreon.

05 August 2018

youtube.com/channel/UCG6usHVNuRbexyisxE27nDw/videos

#Vegan #Vegans #Veganism

No More Masks (vs. Joey Carbstrong & Cube of Truth)

03 August 2018

This is PART FOUR of a discussion of “Cube of Truth” and “Anonymous for the Voiceless” involving some commentary from Joey Carbstrong (that I here reply to directly). Check the playlist to see all of the videos in the set: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7o2tfT6y8w7OeQmnAt_42mn

#Vegan #Vegans #Veganism

On Life: For a Suicidal Viewer.

03 August 2018

Support me (and yourself!) on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

If you’re on the internet… sometimes people write in, and ask you to talk them out of suicide. For me, this is the second time this year, I think.

#storytime #advice #therapy

Being Vegan FOR THE VOICELESS. (vs. Kalel)

01 August 2018

Don’t make excuses for people who make excuses (vs. Kalel & Unnatural Vegan). Here are the links to the sources quoted:

1. *Kalel* “I’M NOT REALLY VEGAN? (4/5)” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/qhYzBy012NI

2. *Unnatural Vegan:* “Re: Kalel “I’m Not Really Vegan?” (imperfection is failure?)” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EHLzMyXBGvw

3. *à-bas-le-ciel:* “Vegan Youtube “Activism”: the Politics of Performance, the Future of an Illusion. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Svany7sSS2M&t=1960s

#Kalel #Veganism #Ethics

Vegans vs. Paul Bashir

31 July 2018

It’s easy to say, “Question everything”, but the reality is that there are uncomfortable relationships of authority even within political movements that use anarchist memes (like the Guy Fawkes mask, etc.). Here, we’re questioning “Cube of Truth”, we’re questioning “Anonymous for the Voiceless”, and we’re questioning the leadership of Paul Bashir and Joey Carbstrong a wee bit. And those questions are, evidently, unwelcome from the other side: they seem to encourage Socratic method about everything except the assumptions (and shortcomings) of their own organization. Yeah, you can wear an anti-authoritarian mask easily enough, but it’s another challenge entirely to make judicious use of authority in a political movement. This video is titled: Vegans vs. Paul Bashir.

And I can provide a link to the channels quoted:

(1) Paul Bashir: youtube.com/user/pbashmusic/videos

(2) Joey Carbstrong:

(3) Vegan Called Quest:

youtube.com/user/Taizembe/videos

#vegan #vegans #veganism

An end to PETA’s “Sexiest Vegan” competition… but…

28 July 2018

My earlier video on the topic had the self-explanatory title, “PETA’s “Sexy Vegan” Thing IS NOT SEXY anymore.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Dqiws7edFGk

If you want to support the channel for $1 per month, do so on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

You may be wondering about the image in the thumbnail. Yes, of course, the two people on the right-hand side are (1) Benedict Cumberbatch and (2) Ava DuVernay… but near the center of your field of vision, who is that? She was a vegan activist who briefly rose to fame under the name “Baby Vegan”, later changed her name to “Dahliaeyes”, then split up with her boyfriend, and erased most of the traces of her former digital fame. In contrast to the artificial process of PETA nominating one “sexiest vegan” after another, she’s an example of someone who rose from obscurity to fame (on her own blog, basically) due to sex appeal —and yes, beauty and sex-appeal may be topics we’re uncomfortable addressing within politics, but, if so, PETA’s coping method is only making matters worse.

#PETA #Veganism #ConstructiveCriticism

Review of BUMBLE: the Art of Not Being Alone.

28 July 2018

Here’s the twitter link for Tofu Goddess (mentioned in the intro), please go over and let her know that the audience would like to see her return to the channel: https://twitter.com/TofuGoddess_

You can find videos of the discussions we had on 21^st century romance (in no particular order) by searching the channel for “Tofu” plus “Dating”, or by clicking on this link: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=tofu+dating

And, BTW, this is the first video recorded with a $200 microphone (can you tell the difference?). Support the channel for $1 a month and your reward is both that we won’t go out of business, and you get to ask questions that become future videos, talk to me, etc.

(1B) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/hwwK5h7P4ug

#Bumble

Vegans, “Ready for Jail”? (DxE, Wayne Hsiung, etc.)

27 July 2018

#DxE #Activism #Veganism #Vegan #Politics #Vegans

Source 1 = France 24 = youtube.com/user/france24english/videos

Source 2 = interview with Wayne Hsiung (leader of DxE = Direct Action Everywhere) = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/TJxV293ccbw

Source 3 = a quotation of my own, earlier video, pointing out the contradictory messages from DxE on arrests, going to jail, the nature of their protests, what they’re actually doing as a movement/organization, etc. = “DxE: Arrests, Lies, Videotape (Direct Action Everywhere)” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/X4f7Xmqk_gM

My playlist of videos on (i.e., criticizing) DxE = https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qhwg8QIrDTQu-GqKu8Rc4s

Cube of Truth: Joey Carbstrong is WRONG.

24 July 2018

Ask hard questions: support this channel for $1 per month on Patreon. https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

#veganism #vegan #activism

VEGANS: Can We Stop Kidding Ourselves? (“Cube of Truth” etc.)

18 July 2018

#veganism

Tana Mongeau: Greatest Rapper of 2018.

17 July 2018

#TanaForPrison #TanaCon #ActuallyAboutTheMeaningOfLife

False Cure, Fake Skeptics: Anti-Depressants as Dogma.

17 July 2018

Self-identified skeptics (like “Armoured Skeptic” and “Jaclyn Glenn”) are really dragging the name (and principles) of Skepticism through the mud. Please check out the other videos in the playlist (there is a short video on Jaclyn Glenn, from just a few days ago): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7rq7l8i6VGhFUrGAwTBoTS1

Ah, yes, and how could I forget to provide a link to Pewdiepie? https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/cg_n6yChXhU

Do I Hate White Canadians? Do I Hate the Culture?

16 July 2018

The Real Cost of Meat (Vegan vs. Vegan)

16 July 2018

Meat is cheap. Meat makes money. Don’t kid yourself: there are inconvenient truths on all sides of this one. Partly in response to “Mic. the Vegan” on “The Real Cost of Meat”, linked to here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/tA9f2JU5bRs

And yes, I was tempted to put “Mic the idiot” in the title here.

Body-Positive, Intellect-Negative: Edyn Jacks.

16 July 2018

Find me on Patreon = https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

A video with quotations from (1) Edyn Jacks, (2) Nikocado Avocado, and (3) blndsundoll4mj = Trisha Paytas.

(1A) youtube.com/user/CelebrityMUA/videos

(1C) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/QYJTgHXGXyk

(2A) youtube.com/user/NikocadoAvocado/videos

(2B) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/KM_pllzDDww

This video is part of the channel’s longest-running playlist: ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR!

If you can’t read the thumbnail image, the “subtitle” (I suppose) is: “Obesity and/or/as the philosophy of “self-love”.

For the poor vs. for the majority: questioning democracy.

11 July 2018

This is an excerpt from a much longer discussion, found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/GJqcV5MG1Ys

Title: Philosophy: Ethics, Politics, Nihilism, Buddhism, Life.

Join the conversation on Patreon and support the channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Jaclyn Glenn on Anti-Depressants: ZERO SKEPTICISM.

08 July 2018

There was a time when Jaclyn Glenn was a self-identified leader in the “Skeptic” movement: many people need to seriously reconsider their assumptions about medical treatment for depression, but it’s no less important that we re-examine our assumptions about the meaning of Skepticism.

Source 1: “De-mystifying psychiatric drugs, a presentation by Joanna Moncrieff: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XfiubXSzzz8

Source 2: “Why I Stopped Taking My Antidepressants” by JaclynGlenn: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/AxLOXVKmPIA

The Meta-Politics of Aristotle’s Politics.

07 July 2018

If you want to comment (and/or support the channel) do it on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

You’ll find this video on my “politics only” channel, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ: youtube.com/c/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

For the links to secondary sources (peer-reviewed, scholarly, etc.) on the historical and political context within which Aristotle’s work was written, click here:

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2018/06/sources-on-aristotles-political-context.html

----------

(1) “Aristotle’s Paradox of Monarchy and the Biographical Tradition.” J. Miller, 1998, in: History of Political Thought, Vol. 19, No. 4,

(2) The “extreme” position (i.e., arguing strongly that Aristotle was “an agent of Macedonia” in Athens) is presented in “Aristotle and the Foreign Policy of Macedonia.” Anton-Herman Chroust, 1972, The Review of Politics, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1972).

Source #1 repeatedly alludes to the extent to which source #2 has been reluctantly/negatively received by other scholars in the field; for a sense of why this is, see (3) Christopher Kirwan’s (negative) review of Aristotle: New Light on His Life and on Some of His Lost Works by Anton-Hermann Chroust, in: The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1976), pp. 69–70

(4) For a “simple” biographical source on Aristotle, it doesn’t get any simpler than Diogenes Laertius (but secondary sources such as the ones linked above are engaged in skeptically questioning to what extent these biographies are historically valid, especially given the long “pause” between the death of Aristotle and the writing of these accounts): http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D1

(5) There is one further (analytical) source salient to this discussion hidden away in the pages of Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science, 1991, edited

by Carnes Lord and David K. O’Connor, although I have left this in fifth place, as its salience is of a more general character. It is titled, “Aristotle’s Critique of Athenian Democracy” by Barry S. Strauss (staring on p. 212). https://books.google.ca/books?id=q58eP8kKBmMC&pg=PA212&dq=On+Aristotle%27s+Critique+of+Democracy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiw0ZG68czbAhWZGTQIHSOqAqgQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Democracy “As Such”, Intervention & Colonialism ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ

03 July 2018

My “new” channel (politics only) is over here: youtube.com/c/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

Understand Fascism to Oppose Fascism (vs. Jimmy Dore). ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ

01 July 2018

Jimmy Dore means well, but he’s incorrectly defining fascism. This video examines the overlapping ideological histories of fascism, communism, socialism and syndicalism to come to a brief description of what Fascism originally was (and, thus, to some extent, why it is the way it is. Georges Sorel and Benito Mussolini are more important names for understanding this than most people realize (and, I think, they’re more important than Jimmy Dore realizes, too).

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/UFGxkr

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

Peer review and the construction of knowledge: antidepressants & philosophy.

24 June 2018

This is a video that does, indeed, press further with the controversy over anti-depressants (Prozac, Zoloft, SSRI drugs, etc.) in which I’m opposing “Unnatural Vegan” —but, also, the video deals with an example from Buddhist philosophy at some length.* Peer review is not a substitute for skepticism; the average of wrong answers is neither a scientific consensus nor a simple fact.

* For more on that example, see: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/causality-and-canonicity-46091f5da69

Causality and Canonicity: A Sequel on the Misinterpretation of Buddhist “Dependent Arising” and/or/as/vs. “Interdependence

Please refer to the playlist (“Anti-Anti-depressants”) for more on this topic. My videos often quote Joanna Moncrieff… http://joannamoncrieff.com/

…and Peter Breggin… https://breggin.com/books/

…but this particular video repeatedly quotes Robert Whitaker, and you can see the lecture quoted in its entirety here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Ep1ODxCoYlI

You can learn more about his book on the topic, “Anatomy of an Epidemic”, here: https://www.amazon.ca/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/0307452425/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1529890280&sr=8–1

Philosophy: Ethics, Politics, Nihilism, Buddhism, Life.

23 June 2018

1:15 – Role models

9:25 – Nihilism in politics

15:10 – Can we make moral judgements without belief?

34:50 – Veganism as a political struggle

41:10 – Morality should be worrying

48:10 – Do you need to assume human nature is good in order to ground politics in nihilism?

54:00 – Is your philosophy based on elitism?

57:45 – How and where do you draw the line on coercion?

88:20 – What activist role do you see yourself playing over the next 5 years?

119:25 – What did you see in Buddhism?*

This starts as an interview by Mohammad Socrates, and ends as conversation with Mohammad Socrates. I met him through Patreon, and that’s where you can join the conversation (supporting the channel for $1 per month). https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel Perhaps —perhaps— I’ll eventually add “time-stamps” to allow you to jump to the specific topics discussed within —but, as you can imagine, I don’t (currently) have a list to work with. The discussion of Buddhism (and Buddhist philosophy), as I recall, begins just before the two hour mark.

* [Footnote:] The time-stamps were noted down by Theo, over at “Activist Journeys”. youtube.com/channel/UCO54vzfpG-F-ueZvArhgdqA/videos

Political dissent and the basis of moral judgement.

23 June 2018

“I think the more honest and accurate your moral philosophy is, the more worrying it’s going to be, and the greater the dynamism of doubt is going to be: that we live with doubt and uncertainty involved. Now, are there philosophers who claim to have constructed a reassuring rational edifice of universal, reliable answers to these questions? Yes. […] And all of that approach is deeply flawed, dangerous, misleading and wrong. […]”

“Universal, rational ethical principles are reassuring, and they’re all the more dangerous for that reason. […] Be worried, I think that’s quite appropriate.”

This is an excerpt from a much longer discussion, found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/GJqcV5MG1Ys Title: Philosophy: Ethics, Politics, Nihilism, Buddhism, Life.

The Pseudo-Science of Depression: Unnatural Vegan on SSRI Drugs.

22 June 2018

Scientific skepticism. Easy to preach, difficult to practice. Especially when it’s your own ego (your own happiness, your own misery, and even your own sanity) that’s on the line. Here is the link to the playlist of videos on anti-depressants hosted on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7rq7l8i6VGhFUrGAwTBoTS1

Against Civil Disobedience. ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ

18 June 2018

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

My “other” channel, politics only: youtube.com/c/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

A Review of the Animal Liberation Conference (Berkeley, California)

18 June 2018

My playlist of videos criticizing DxE: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qhwg8QIrDTQu-GqKu8Rc4s

If you want to comment, ask a question or send in a suggestion for a future video, try my patreon “channel” (or “page”, I suppose?): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

I Killed Anthony Bourdain.

17 June 2018

Suicide hotlines do not work. Really. They don’t.

-----

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1-800-273-8255

Canada Suicide Prevention Service

Toll-free 1-833-456-4566

Text: 45645

Chat: crisisservicescanada.ca

-----

Satire is not comedy.

The Meaning of “Being an Intellectual”. ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ

16 June 2018

Please take a look at and subscribe to my “politics only” channel, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ: youtube.com/c/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

This video is a reply to a question from a supporter on Patreon (you, also, can support the channel for $1 per month, and send in comments and questions): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Although this may be more interesting after hearing the video than before it, I’d note that there is a contrasting-and-partly-overlapping definition offered by Wikipedia: *"An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about society and proposes solutions for its normative problems.* Some gain authority as public intellectuals. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by rejecting, producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.”

My 1000^th Video: Top Ten Dumbest / Greatest Moments.

14 June 2018

A lot of laughter in this video, reflecting back on 4 years, one thousand videos, and 2.8 million views “in the demimonde”.

Vaccination & Vapid Celebrities in Politics: Kat von D vs. Unnatural Vegan.

14 June 2018

Real talk on vaccines. Disclaimer: the cup at 2:22 is larger than most bowls (I realize this makes it seem as if I’m miniature in terms of relative size).

If you want to comment on the video, do so where I’ll see it: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ Neoliberalism & Globalization: Trump & Trade.

14 June 2018

Trade, Trump and New Answers to Old Questions. Support the channel for $1 per month here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Check out “my other” channel (politics only) here, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ: youtube.com/c/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

Philosophy and Politics (with Darren McStravick)

08 June 2018

A discussion of ethics, philosophy of education, politics, the relationship between philosophy and politics, and, yes, the road ahead for vegan politics.

Yep, given that it’s over two hours long, you might want to download it as a podcast instead (and I will upload it as an audio-only MP3 to Patreon, where you can support the channel for $1 per month): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

You can find Darren’s own youtube channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCcQvFXbosYV-RMAKhbnohPA/videos

Note: this was recorded on the Australian time-zone and, for me, it ended around 2 AM! ;-)

A Conversation: Ask Yourself vs. À-Bas-Le-Ciel

08 June 2018

A productive conversation (I can’t call it a debate!) discussing some of the fundamental ethical and political concepts employed by Ask Yourself and myself respectively (“Name the Trait” and “The Wildlife Management Paradigm” are in there, along with some discussion of Nihilism vs. Objective Morality, and so on). This was a recording made without the permission of the participants by “Activist Journeys” (link below), here “stolen back” to post on my own channel (after checking with Isaac if he’d tolerate it: his position is that the harm is already done with the initial recording/publication —so re-posting it does no harm (is this deontology or consequentialism, I ask you?)). youtube.com/channel/UCO54vzfpG-F-ueZvArhgdqA/videos

-- Time stamps —

0:00 Vivisection and Desert Island Scenarios

26:40 Comparing & Contrasting approaches / philosophy

1:22:00 Is Direct Action Everywhere a cult?

Vegan Ava: Durianrider’s Last “True Believer”.

08 June 2018

Even “the last of the true believers” have lost their faith in Durianrider / Freelee / RT4 / etc. etc. For a more meaningful exploration of the issues, I’d recommend my (old, but in-depth) video, “the wonder that was Freelee”, reflecting on why it was that so many people became devoted to

Sousveillance: Academia Will Be Transformed.

06 June 2018

“Academia is Babylon”, but having hidden cameras in the hands of so many students may well transform “Babylon” from within. Here’s why.

Support the channel for $1 per month and you incrementally increase the chance that I’ll go back to academia —yet again— to get a PhD. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

A Conversation: Plantriotic, Izzy Davis & Durianrider’s Long Shadow.

06 June 2018

Yeah, we also talk about veganism. Just a little bit in there. ;-)

You can check out Plantriotic’s channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCjOKgw4ndKt52LTESwqvAGg/videos

Izzy Davis’s channel is no longer called “Izzy Davis”, but here it is:

youtube.com/user/izzydsammies/videos

And my Patreon page (if you want to support this channel, talk to me, etc.) is here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

JUST THE DRAMA: Durianrider vs. Plantriotic vs. Izzy Davis

06 June 2018

If you want to see the whole conversation, unedited, it’s here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MtBCGV_Z9_Y

If you want to see the video that initiated this conversation, it has the snappy title, Izzy Davis is ex-vegan; Plantriotic is a coward.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Yx7f4AkH6Yw

Plantriotic’s channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCjOKgw4ndKt52LTESwqvAGg/videos

Izzy Davis’s (ex-vegan) channel is here, now called, “Relax with Izzy”: https://www.youtube.com/user/izzydsammies

And, yes, there is a vegan youtuber called Durianrider, and, yes, I can provide the link to his channel, too, in case anything said in this conversation makes you interested in seeing his content. ;-) youtube.com/user/durianriders/videos

Nihilism “vs.” Veganism (Is Veganism “Just Another Religion”?)

06 June 2018

People do, sometimes, ask me, “How can you be a vegan if you’re a nihilist?” This opens the door to a much more serious question: “What is it that you imagine we must have faith in, in order to make the decision to be vegan?” I do not concede that veganism requires a basis in faith or belief of any kind; on the contrary, I think it’s stronger without it.

Talk to me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Izzy Davis is ex-vegan; Plantriotic is a coward.

05 June 2018

If you want the link to see Izzy Davis eating meat (and talking about eating meat), here it is:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/PBQt-s4HsYY

youtube.com/user/izzydsammies/videos

Plantriotic has a name that’s pretty easy to find via google:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjOKgw4ndKt52LTESwqvAGg

Both of the videos quoted from his channel had “Durianrider” in the title, e.g., https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/905Npkwn40E

Peer Review is Dead: Publishing & Progress (in Science and Politics).

05 June 2018

If you watch the whole video to its end, you’ll get to an optimistic thesis on “sousveillance” and the future of academia —but, admittedly, the thesis of the video (on the nature of peer review) is pretty disheartening up to that point. :-)

Please subscribe to my other, “politics only” channel, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ:

If you want to leave a comment where I’ll actually read it, support the channel for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

If you’d like a cited source on the historical claims made in the video (on the origins of the institution of peer-review itself) you’ll find them in a few clickable links in this short article on my blog: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2012/08/when-the-author-cancels-peer-review.html

Against utilitarianism & consequentialism (within the vegan movement)

03 June 2018

I’m amazed at how many “vegans” wanted to defend the practice of wearing leather, fur and even eating meat (within “veganism”) with the single caveat that they acquired the product free of charge (2^nd hand leather, 2^nd hand morality).

Assassination and/or Democracy: Cambodia & Thailand.

03 June 2018

Active Research & Informed Opinion ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ I have a separate channel that is “politics only”, please subscribe and share the link over there: youtube.com/c/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

Veganism: beyond ecology, consumerism & the boycott mentality.

31 May 2018

A sustained argument on the importance of NOT minimizing your negative impacts (ecologically), but maximizing your positive impacts: a shift from process-oriented- to goal-oriented-thinking, and from “minimalist lifestyle activism” to more overtly political mechanisms in pursuit of social change.

(The thumbnail image reads, “Are Vegans Just Shopping for Social Change?”)

And, yes, if you want to reply, or press the discussion further, support the channel for $1 per month on Patreon (and send in questions (or answers!) over there): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

OIL PIPELINES: Justin Trudeau and Ecologists Could Both Be Wrong.

31 May 2018

You’ll also find this video on my “politics only” channel, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ: youtube.com/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

If you want to leave a comment in a place where I’ll see it, support the channel for $1 per month (many of the videos here are in reply to questions from supporters on Patreon): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegans vs. Second Hand Leather (Second Hand Morality)

30 May 2018

The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Socrates Must Die: On Plato’s Euthyphro.

29 May 2018

Talk to me via Patreon (and support the channel for $1 per month) here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Find my girlfriend’s channel here (with more on Plato’s Euthyphro, as mentioned in this video): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw

Check out my OTHER channel, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ, here: youtube.com/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

Being vegan: suicide, misery & isolation.

28 May 2018

The struggle is real.

——————————

With a cameo appearance from, “So You’re Dating A Vegan”: youtube.com/user/soyouredatingavegan/videos

And a clip from their video, “How We Manage Our “Mixed Diet” Relationship (vegan vs. non-vegan)”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/deJTqdpO134

Going Bald / Shaving Your Head / Getting Laid.

28 May 2018

Toxic Masculinity 101. Includes references to Batman, Buddhist monasticism and Jordan Peterson.

反共產 Growing Up Communist (EX-COMMUNIST perspective)

27 May 2018

With a film review of “The Death of Stalin” thrown in as a bonus.

Why I’m Forcing You to Read Aristotle: Athenian Democracy.

27 May 2018

Aristotle, Thucydides, Xenophon & Plato: a lecture on exactly what to read, and WHY YOU MUST read it.

If you’d prefer to hear this as a podcast, I do share (audio-only) MP3 versions via Patreon… and, also, Patreon is pretty much the only way to talk to me, and the most obvious way to support the channel. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

And you will also find this video on my “politics only” channel”, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ, (Active Research & Informed Opinion): youtube.com/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

This is part of the longest running playlist of videos on this channel: ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR!

Faith Goldy: “Race Realism” gets SURREAL.

25 May 2018

She’s been “BANNED FROM PATREON”, and can you imagine why?

Disclaimer: I was not wearing shoulder pads in the making of this video.

And, yes, there was a much more substantive analysis of Faith Goldy’s politics uploaded to this channel less than 24 hours ago, and you should probably check that out if you haven’t seen it yet: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/_xJp2mEwyeY

Faith Goldy: Canadian Hitler. ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ

24 May 2018

If there’s one thing I have in common with Faith J. Goldy, it’s the fact that we’re both e-begging for support on Patreon (or… are we?).

youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw/videos

I do, in fact, have a separate channel for “real politics”, and this video is on it, ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ: youtube.com/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

Answering “White Privilege” (Vs. Joey Carbstrong!)

24 May 2018

Vegans should be prepared to deal with questions of how our claims clash with traditional, indigenous culture —with or without the language of “privilege”. We need to be prepared for this type of rhetoric because Veganism is a challenge to every cultural tradition: indigenous or not, white or not, privileged or not. Here’s how I address it —in contrast to Joey Carbstrong.

Democracy means government by the poor, for the poor.

23 May 2018

See more on my other channel (politics only) ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ (Active Research & Informed Opinion) = youtube.com/ActiveResearchInformedOpinion/videos

The full-length video (38 minutes long) is titled, “ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ Democracy & (In)Equality”, link here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/zhfuR6gYdic

Send me your questions (or your answers) via Patreon, and support the channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Nihilism vs. Lauren Southern vs. Nihilism.

20 May 2018

What we’re trying to overcome here is not any particular faith, but the desire to have faith: nihilism is not based on a critique of god, but a critique of belief itself. And, meanwhile, “5 Cures For Nihilism” is a video that proposes that Catholicism could be preferable to nihilism… if that’s “the cure” I’d prefer to advocate for the disease. I doubt that Lauren Southern herself would get much out of this video, but if you’re interested in nihilism generally, or in how it fits into my own psychology particularly, this video may have a few interesting reflections to offer.

Open Relationships vs. Enforced Monogamy (vs. Jordan Peterson!)

20 May 2018

EVERY RELATIONSHIP SHOULD BE AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP. And if that’s the part of the argument that interests you, start @13:00 —as the first half of the video is preoccupied with the hilarious (but absurd) social philosophy of Jordan Peterson.

This is Sparta [Melissa only]

19 May 2018

The full video is 17 minutes long and titled: _The “Real” Xenophon: The Spartan Constitution_, over at my girlfriend’s channel, Hei Mudan:

The Politics of Remembering Slavery: Kanye West & Sargon of Akkad

19 May 2018

Sargon of Akkad states that black people have a problem because the history of slavery is something that “they just can’t shake off”, but this is built on the implicit premise that “shaking off history” would be a good thing (and what this really means is living in willing ignorance and calling it “liberation” from the past).

PETA’s “Sexy Vegan” Thing IS NOT SEXY anymore.

18 May 2018

Whether or not the “Sexy Vegan Competition” was a bad idea in the first place… it has clearly degraded into a terrible idea at some point before this moment now. :-/

https://www.peta.org/features/sexiest-vegan-next-door-2018/finalists/

“The 2018 Sexiest Vegan Next Door finalists are here! Two winners (one male and one female) will each receive a trip for two to Maui, Hawaii, courtesy of Humane Travel, the solution to all your compassionate travel needs.”

DxE’s Sex/Rape/Cult Allegations (READ THE DESCRIPTION)

17 May 2018

LINK 1, below, quote at 11:00, “Wayne Hsiung told my rapist to sue me”.

Wayne says to her, “I love you dearly, I’m trying to support you in grad school, I’m trying to support you in your legal case…” (around 8:05–8:16).

At 10:45, he says he’d pay her even more if he could, but, “I don’t have any money”. She replies, “Wayne, you know that’s a lie”

https://www.facebook.com/wayne.hsiung/videos/10216293991926284/

LINK 2, below, DxE admits their elections involved “40 to 60” participants. At the 45:40 mark they say, “It’s not like only 5 people [were allowed to vote,] it’s not like we voted ourselves in… there was [sic.] 40 to 60 people, I can’t remember off the top of my head, who voted…”

https://www.facebook.com/wayne.hsiung/videos/10216337377130887/?fref=gs&dti=1577393289227073&hc_location=group

DxE is an abbreviation for “Direct Action Everywhere”.

Veganism Must Change, Here’s Why.

17 May 2018

#PoliticsInPyjamas

Socialism: Dave Rubin vs. Bernie Sanders (on ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ)

16 May 2018

You’ll find the full video (15 minutes long) posted to my new channel (“politics only”), ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ:

Vegan Isolation, Making Meat-Eating Friends & My Surreal Life in Asia.

14 May 2018

Opening with a substantive discussion about being alone (loneliness / isolation) as an element of both language learning and veganism.

Talking About Political Philosophy (& misc. update on learning Chinese, diet & exercise update).

14 May 2018

Reflections on political philosophy (as youtube content) starts at 4:15. Mentioned at 2:00, this is still true of me now: I’ve got A LOT of desks/tables in this apartment right now 7 or 8, depending on what counts as a table). This video was originally a Patreon exclusive. Join Patreon or GTFO:

On Feminism (vs. 3^rd Wave Feminism)

14 May 2018

This is another “Old Patreon Exclusive”. By now, most of you can guess what my position is on 3^rd wave feminism, but, at that time, I did receive questions about it. ;-) https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

The Image of the Ringing Bell.

14 May 2018

A short reflection on how Buddhist Philosophy continues to influence my “discourse” on Veganism… and, yes, Freelee and a few other issues are also covered in these five minutes.

Reading Philosophy & NOT Reading Philosophy.

14 May 2018

This is not the only video reflecting on the fact that “recommended reading is hard to do” —although this one specifically deals with philosophy in the narrow (bookshelf) definition of the term.

This was an old Patreon-exclusive video: pay $1 to support the channel.

Doomed Gym Romance (& Reflections on Learning Languages / Chinese).

14 May 2018

Formerly a Patreon exclusive video from November of 2016.

Life in Kunming (the job that never was, and other anecdotes, Dec. 2016)

14 May 2018

Reflections on why I DON’T want to learn Chinese 52:10, ancdotes about my work/job situation in Kunming 11:19, anecdotes about , and on the importance of NOT hitting on people at the gym 33:25.

Originally titled, “REAL LIFE UPDATE”, and, originally, a patreon exclusive.

Dave Rubin is Wrong About the Left (on ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ)

13 May 2018

You’ll find the full video (30 minutes long) posted to my new channel (“politics only”), ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ:

[Old Patreon Exclusive:] Dehong, the Vegan Hotel on the Edge of the World, etc.

13 May 2018

Patreon subscribers, please note: a collection of photographs accompanies the original post (within Patreon), so click through there to see the pictures that accompany this podcast (and, yes, you can download the MP3 version, too, etc.).

Jealousy & Sympathy: A Practical Philosophy Of.

11 May 2018

Jealousy, Envy, Psychology, Fame: About Me, and About Veganism.

11 May 2018

Well, I was really, really busy (and stressed out) back in November of 2016… and, apparently, this video was never made public! I think it was only shared with Patreon supporters, and, yeah, if you wanna join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

Incels: the Problem is Jealousy, Not Celibacy.

10 May 2018

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/pzzPCf8PkQ8

There is no “easy” weight loss: vegan or carnivore.

10 May 2018

The “Bikini Body” Discourse Must Die: The Activism of “Easy Aesthetics” Must Die.

Pseudo-Xenophon: The Constitution of the Athenians

10 May 2018

Melissa going solo on the microphone again. If you want to leave comments for the video, you might as well do it on her channel (instead of mine): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVLWpNJZtA-FHunSIRS5xtw

Getting Started with the Ancient Greeks. [Melissa Only!]

07 May 2018

As described in the first few minutes of the video, Melissa is starting her own channel. You can follow her here: Hei Mudan (黑牡丹) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/DBZs_4FDmdM

Donations for “Rescue” and “Revolution”: Vegan “Charity”.

07 May 2018

Criticizing DxE (Direct Action Everywhere) & Nation Rising. And yeah, there are a whole lot of quotation marks in the title… and throughout this video!

Meanwhile… DONATE $1 PER MONTH TO MY PATREON, OR ELSE I WON’T HAVE ANY FOOD FOR THESE “LIBERATED” RABBITS I KEEP IN CAGES!!!!!! THEY’RE SO HAPPY TO HAVE BEEN “RESCUED”, DONATE NOW!!!!! https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Anti-Depressants Have Been Debunked: Joanna Moncrieff.

07 May 2018

To cite just one source for further discussion, here’s a podcast with Joanna Moncrieff discussing (in a more pragmatic and prescriptive manner) how to cope with anti-depressant use and misuse (in conversation with a man who was, formerly, on the drugs).

Jordan Peterson’s 100% Meat Diet.

06 May 2018

Beef, seasoned with anti-depressants.

Plant Based News is “The New Freelee”.

05 May 2018

Quote, “Weak leaders have developed weak followers”. Plant Based News is now promoting the same kind of pseudoscience and grossly exaggerated “health” claims (meaning beauty and weight-loss claims). The network has become self-adulating “lifestyle activism” with a veneer of journalism, but it certainly isn’t news.

And now, for something completely different, the charity “SHARK” has their youtube channel here: youtube.com/user/SHARKonlineorg/videos

The Great Debate: Inmendham vs. à-bas-le-ciel.

02 May 2018

I think I can genuinely say that my original argument was “concise” (at 20 minutes), given that the response from Inmendham is closer to an hour and a half.

(Link 1:) The Meaning of Life: Against Anti-Natalism (Sam Harris, David Benatar, Inmendham) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/fwe4KUX5Spo

(Link 2:) Inmendham’s riposte (an hour and a half long, and a LOT LESS COHERENT than this (edited) video you’re watching now): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sIC_pMiJa8Y

When Multiculturalism Means Genocide.

28 April 2018

Can you name a language indigenous to Los Angeles? Can you name a language indigenous to any part of California?

BTW, my girlfriend is slacking on her one (and only) duty “in video production” here: my EYEBROWS are NOT ON FLEEK in this video… honestly… do you expect me to look in a mirror before filming, or what?

Joking around.

28 April 2018

Younow is dead. Looks like I’m gonna have to find a new platform for interactive broadcasting / live-streaming.

Veganism: A False Religion. Lexie Lombard Quits.

26 April 2018

Quoting, “Why I’m No Longer Vegan”, by Lexie Lombard, found in its original form here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/c7LvNb0m3RI

PhD Options: Discussion with a Professor of Buddhism.

26 April 2018

A discussion on the bleak, depressing possibility of getting a PhD in Buddhism —or, possibly, in some other area of Asian Studies.

It’s a friendly, constructive discussion for a while, but then the mood suddenly sours around @33:22 (up to the 35 minute mark). From my perspective, this statement (at this time-stamp) is a very reasonable, down-to-earth statement (that Tibetan scholars only want to work with Tibetan specialists, that Japanese scholars only want to work with Japanese specialists, etc. —and these categories exclude me). But, evidently, this is shocking to hear, when stated so bluntly, to a professor. And, yes, I’m even more blunt in the minutes that follow thereafter. ;-)

TKAT: “Heroin is Vegan”.

25 April 2018

What, did you think Supreme Banana was gonna collab with me while I was in Los Angeles? Here’s his channel, TKAT:

youtube.com/channel/UCTAY8JvB-icDcn83FI6gQ9g/videos

ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ Cicero & Socialism (the Definition of)

21 April 2018

Posted to my new channel (“politics only”), ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ:

^ Click on the link, see it and subscribe over there.

[Q&A] Why We’re NOT Global Warming Activists (And Why I Choose, Instead…)

20 April 2018

A lot of autobiographical material ensues in discussing what I do and don’t try to research, record videos on and change —as an author or activist. But, in two words, the answer is: “The Establishment”.

Support the channel on Patreon (for $1 per month) and your questions, also, can result in video replies of this kind:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXgGxoK-fsv1ScBHE7lYi_Q/search?query=poppy

Mars Argo vs. Poppy vs. Charlotte.

19 April 2018

Titanic Sinclair always wanted to be on TMZ, and now he is, for all the wrong reasons: http://www.tmz.com/2018/04/17/youtube-legal-feud-titanic-sinclair-mars-argo-thatpoppy/

Other coverage includes Repzilla:

Further updates from Mars Argo superfan Mandy Monett:

https://twitter.com/mandymonett

She (M.M.) also has a youtube channel with acoustic cover versions of Mars Argo songs: youtube.com/channel/UCh0Zt1vUeBzgHVgb9k9AXsg/videos

I spent all my youtube money on T-SHIRTS for my viewers.

18 April 2018

We fly to Los Angeles on April 22^nd, so supporters in the USA, especially, should HMU immediately (with address and other details). The t-shirts are free —we ask that you pay only for the cost of the postage stamp (meaning: it’ll come in a really cheap envelope). ;-) Links:

(1) https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

(2) The storybook project (translated into several languages), as mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pperokk75ic6XpyLqy7MUw

(3) The new channel on politics is AR+IO, branded as ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ, link here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA

(4) Against reducetarianism (“being pragmatic is not selling out your fundamental principles”): Brass Tacks: Reducetarian Pragmatism vs. Vegan Optimism. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/WSJSfGGGsUo

Our parents: why they didn’t become vegan, and we did.

16 April 2018

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/X5gl3WHQYfU

^ Patreon, it costs $1 per month, it supports the existence of this channel, and it lets you talk to me / meet me / get a free t-shirt / and propose topics for future videos.

Shoot the Gorilla: Harambe and the Vegans.

16 April 2018

This video was originally published in September of 2016… and disappeared soon thereafter due to Youtube’s ever-shifting standards of censorship (apparently over 2,000 people saw it in the few days it was online). After writing in to appeal the decision (repeatedly!), insisting that this type of edited juxtaposition (for the purpose of political commentary) perfectly fits into the category of protected free speech… today (April of 2018)… finally… I can share this strange clip with you once again. ;-)

Here’s the link to “the original” video (it’s exactly the same, BTW):

Critique of “Fat Positive” & “Fat Acceptance”

15 April 2018

Getting Disrespected by Your Mom: Vegan Mind Tricks.

15 April 2018

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

^ Join Patreon, pay $1 per month… or else the channel will gradually devolve into a bunch of Onision-style rant videos… no, wait… that may have already happened. :-/

More “Vegan Mind Tricks”, check the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Vegan Mind Tricks (vs. “Name the Trait” & Peter Singer)

14 April 2018

What do I say to meat eaters when first broaching (or defending) the concept of veganism, face to face? The origins of the “Name that Trait!” are, incongruously, rooted in the philosophy of Peter Singer —where they had somewhat different implications. This video was recorded immediately after a discussion of what we considered the most persuasive arguments (I.R.L.) in contrast to the methods now promoted by Ask Yourself and Vegan Gains.

Let’s get organized: my pitch to a room full of 100 vegans.

11 April 2018

Vegans make a positive difference as isolated individuals, but there’s a significant “pitch” to be made in asking vegans to give you their time and attention taking the next step, to become (politically) organized in the pursuit of positive social change. You can find my “manifesto” (translated into several languages) here, titled, “On Community”: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7r2yc18ZAehpfiLBtBwmNQh

Me on Patreon = https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Unnatural Vegan & Joe Rogan: the Anti-Vegan Clique.

10 April 2018

The moral position adopted by Joe Rogan is, in fact, very similar to that of Unnatural Vegan: they both support eating eggs from “happy” chickens, and they both put a lot of effort into blaming vegans for “being crazy” (against a very flexible and self-serving standard)… which is to say they both approve of the moral goal of abolishing slaughterhouses and factory farming, but they’re not willing to do anything “crazy” (meaning: anything at all) to make it happen. :-/

For an earlier videos discussing my fundamental, moral opposition to Unnatural Vegan’s “philosophy”, see:The debate has been “fleshed out”, but with the positive participation of one side only (i.e., myself). See, e.g.,

(1) “Captive Animals ARE NOT Companion Animals (Unnatural Vegan is NOT Vegan)”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CHTNMYBiTic

(2) No, You’re NOT Vegan: Unnatural Vegan, Fully Raw Kristina, & Peter Singer. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8A3GlQK_0JU

(3) “Castration: vegan excuses for enslaving animals. [vs.] Unnatural Vegan.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/rf8pHjhsTE8

(4) “Stop castrating dogs and cats, stop making excuses for it.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6ax--rEsXWE

(5) “Your Cat Hates You: Unnatural Vegan is Wrong, and it Really Matters.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/rsUu3aYdbRU

Unnatural Vegan actually takes a step further than Joe, in that she approves of drinking “happy” cow milk (something Joe regards thinks is not morally acceptable —making him more vegan than U.V., paradoxically enough).

Lies, lies, lies! Mic. the Vegan & Dr. Greger.

08 April 2018

Trafficking in lies and pseudoscience “for a good cause” comes a little too close to religion for my taste: both Mic. the Vegan and Dr. Greger seem to have a very flexible standard for the truth when it suits them (while harshly castigating “the other side” for offering exactly the same sort of convenient lies). And yes, it is especially despicable to lie when you’re appealing to human frailty in this way (people with cancer, or even people who’ve had relatives die of cancer, may be DESPERATE to believe such lies). See the earlier videos in the series (criticizing Mic. the Vegan) by clicking through the playlists section of the channel, here:

The channel of “Dom the Bower” (a.k.a. DomBower) is here: youtube.com/user/dombower/videos

Ask Yourself’s Vegan Bloodsport: A Failed Paradigm.

07 April 2018

“Ask Yourself” is the name of a vegan activist youtube channel, known for a peculiar form of confrontational debate (with both vegans and non-vegans). You can find his channel, here:

youtube.com/channel/UCQNmHyGAKqzOT_JsVEs4eag/videos

Meanwhile, à-bas-le-ciel has a playlist of videos criticizing Ask Yourself: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7o1jwm5FHUI0Jkh1-14bKce

Why Don’t You Debate ‘Ask Yourself’? [Q&A]

07 April 2018

Link to the short text mentioned, “Giving advice to a suicidal (long-time) viewer.”

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2018/04/giving-advice-to-suicidal-long-time.html

In case you didn’t see it, BTW, this is very much a sequel to the video immediately prior: “Ask Yourself’s Vegan Bloodsport: A Failed Paradigm.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Hb1ZnBIX-2E

It’s about money: vegan suicide shooter attacks youtube HQ.

05 April 2018

A vegan, Iranian, Bahai youtuber (and animal rights activist) recently engaged in a shooting spree at Youtube headquarters, concluding with her own suicide. However, this was not “a vegan protest”, nor an act of “vegan terrorism”: her grievance was, fundamentally, about money.

https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/youtube-shooters-bizarre-videos-key-to-suspected-motive-199261/

And yeah, implicit in the discussion of finances in this very video, is this: I have 9,000 subscribers on Youtube, and maybe 400 twitter followers, but only 130 donors (paying $1 each, monthly) supporting the channel on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/posts

Street Protest vs. Stand Up Comedy (25 min. discussion)

05 April 2018

A conversation about activism and outreach with “Vegan Called Quest” (who has a youtube channel, and is also known for live-streaming on younow).

youtube.com/user/Taizembe/videos

Sargon is WRONG: Why Everyone is Joining the Left.

05 April 2018

Sargon of Akkad, previously, made a video entitled, “Why is Everyone Leaving the Left?”, and here’s the link to it: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/mdvMt2Orv6k

The title of this video is, of course, somewhat self-referential: I’d prefer not to be “Left”, but I basically have no choice (definitely not in Canada!), and, thus, I’m an example of someone “joining the left” myself, despite (e.g.) my prior video entitled, “Why I am not Left Wing”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/cAqkFFCVslE

ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ Lindsay Shepherd’s “GOODBYE TO THE LEFT”.

03 April 2018

I’m launching a new channel, all of the videos will be on politics and political philosophy, basically: ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ

^ Yeah, you can click the link to find out what the acronym AR+IO stands for, hm? ;-)

The Meaning of Life: Against Anti-Natalism (Sam Harris, David Benatar, Inmendham)

03 April 2018

A reply to a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

It costs $1 per month.

I suppose I’m coining the term “Lunarism” to indicate the (sometimes explicit) view of David Benatar and Inmendham that the lifelessness of the surface of the moon is preferable (and morally superior) to the cycle of suffering entailed by the earth’s ecology (whether we think of this in terms of wild animals in the forest, or in the ocean… or the life of a human intellectual sitting with a stack of books at a desk).

[华人文化] The Future of Veganism Ain’t Nostalgia for Feudalism.

02 April 2018

Speaking on veganism in a Chinese cultural context, in which the legacy of Buddhism makes many of the tropes familiar (compassion, non-violence, etc.) —perhaps too familiar. A reply to a question from a Patreon supporter, paying $1 a month to support the channel:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/iATn3GsnOqA

Veganism is not a revolutionary cause: it’s principled but moderate.

01 April 2018

The subtitle could be: “Why I’m never working with Harrison Nathan (again).” Many vegans feel more comfortable with a sort of edgy misrepresentation of veganism as “extreme”, “liberating” and “revolutionary” —they’re more comfortable with those lies and exaggerations than they are dealing with the cause being as moderate as it really is. :-/ Lousy synopsis, I know: working from examples, I think I do a better of explaining what I’m on about in the video.

Jordan Reichert: vegans wouldn’t let me join a SILENT protest!

31 March 2018

Jordan Reichert is a vegan activist here in Victoria, B.C., Canada… and, yeah, I’m a vegan activist who just recently returned after living in China for about two years.

Ken Saviour: Satire “vs.” Vegan Activism.

31 March 2018

You can find Ken Savior on Facebook (unlike myself: to talk to me, you have to join Patreon): https://www.facebook.com/kenthesaviour

The main video (from my own past, on this channel) alluded to is “Permanent Vacation 2… this time, it’s personal!” —still a banging video (I watched it again while editing and uploading). ;-)

Footnote: the American spelling of the word is “Savior”, and the British spelling is “Saviour”. :-/

Farting: Why Vegans Quit Veganism (Indigestion & Ethics)

30 March 2018

“You can’t have an ethical movement that requires people to be flatulent 24 hours a day: do you want to be ethically right, or do you want to be farting all day?” The ex-vegan phenomenon has several recurring patterns: one is the ethical vegan who just can’t make the diet work in terms of digestion, indigestion and flatulence.

WHY I STOPPED BEING VEGAN AFTER 10 YEARS

28 March 2018

Blaire White: Ex-Vegan.

Here’s the link to the video I’m responding to: WHY I STOPPED BEING VEGAN AFTER 10 YEARS. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Io7oKs9B8UU

DxE is Anti-Vegan: they lied about it, and it still matters.

26 March 2018

DxE is an abbreviation for “Direct Action Everywhere”. To hear the full conversation quoted here, cf. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/QZFJZOfH5iQ

This youtube channel does, indeed, have a whole playlist of videos criticizing DxE, and, sadly, we’re not running out of material to criticize:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Vegan Food is Overpriced (really, most of it, in 2018)

25 March 2018

This video is not about the excuse offered by some meat eaters that they imagine a vegan diet would be more expensive… it is, instead, about the doleful reality that vegans themselves live with: rip-off food prices. Sadly, meat eaters are not wrong to regard the word “vegan” (where it appears on a label) as a pretext to raise prices: as with “organic” and “gluten free”, that is too often the case.

Why I Hate Vegans & Why Vegans Hate Me.

24 March 2018

A conversation with Delphine Leardini: another example of my receiving fan-mail that quickly turns to hate-mail (from an admirer who seemingly instantly ceases to admire me).

How to Get High Grades in University/College.

23 March 2018

Yeah, I could have put “Easy!” in the title and gotten more viewers… but c’mon… this is education, not entertainment: it shouldn’t be easy, even if it is. The thumbnail for this video shows my grades from my first year at UVic (the Chinese language course counted as two classes) and I’ve posted the image on Twitter and Patreon, in case you wanted to get a closer look:

http://twitter.com/eiselmazard

https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42

“The essay that brought us together” (circa @2:00) about a massacre in 1920 (involving Russia, Japan and China) is here:

This video is part of the longest-running playlist on this channel: “ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR!”

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Cancer: Vegans are Lying to You (vs. Mic the Vegan)

22 March 2018

The earlier video mentioned (vs. Mic the Vegan) is: “Mic the Vegan IS WRONG: Brain Damage from THC.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EUbyVBi8Ams

The source of the 15% statistic is: *"Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: A systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies."*

[Authors:] Dinu M, Abbate R, Gensini GF, Casini A, Sofi F.

Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2017 Nov 22;57(17):3640–3649. doi: 10.1080/10408398.2016.1138447.

PMID: 26853923 DOI: 10.1080/10408398.2016.1138447

The Problem with Vegan Gains: Gun Control and Self Control.

19 March 2018

The Election of Jordan Reichert: Vegan, Animal Rights Activist.

18 March 2018

www.jordanreichert.ca/

^ Currently, the text on this website reads: “Make history. Vote for Victoria’s first representative for animals on city council. It is my view that the moral baseline of our society is measured by its treatment of those most vulnerable within it. In Canada, no individuals are more vulnerable than non-human animals. They are defined as property under the Canadian Criminal Code, they lack recognition as contributing members of society, and their forms of communication are invalidated as of a lesser kind than human communication in normative social discourse.”

THAT’S THE PLATFORM YOU’RE RUNNING FOR ELECTION ON???

Compromise: A False Idol. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

18 March 2018

A vegan asks, “What do I say if my parents ask me to compromise, i.e., eating meat just a few times a year…” —and I give practical advice on how to answer this request, with, also, a brief reflection on “the false god” of compromise itself.

Vegan Politics: Co-Opting and Being Co-Opted by the Left.

18 March 2018

https://www.instagram.com/rtk_fitlife/

This video is a reply to question from a supporter, and each supporter pays just $1 per month to support the channel.

#politicsinpyjamas

Sam Harris Has an Incurable Disease: Akrasia.

17 March 2018

When asked about veganism, Sam Harris’s reply is “the Akarasia problem”. No, it’s not really an incurable disease, but it is his explanation for what he’s not vegan.

儿童小人书: 甚至蚯蚓都想看天空.

16 March 2018

[汉语/中文] 叙述者：张馨文 (Zhang Xinwen). 作者：马大影 (Eisel Mazard). A story written in Chinese by Eisel Mazard (马大影).

People who CAN’T be vegan: the ethics of doing the best you can.

16 March 2018

Some people have serious health problems that make it impossible to be vegan —or, at least, make it extremely difficult to cope with conflict advice from doctors, and the way their own symptoms react to the foods vegans rely upon. What about them? In this video we hear a lot about Crohn’s disease (from someone who didn’t believe Durianrider’s claims to have cured it with a vegan diet) and, ultimately, about the ethics of just doing the best you can.

Vegan Bodybuilder, Activist and Health Food Entrepreneur (Interview).

14 March 2018

I can provide a few different links for you to find out more about Randy Kujawa. His Instagram is here:

His “Compassionate Warriors” facebook page is here:

https://www.facebook.com/TheMikeandrandyshow/

Zelfs de wormen willen de hemel zien. (Kinderboek)

13 March 2018

This video is in DUTCH. The same story has been translated into several languages (English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and German), here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pperokk75ic6XpyLqy7MUw

Recap: vegan rhetoric vs. vegan reality (why this channel is so different from others).

10 March 2018

A recap of why this channel is pro-vegan, but critical of the concepts of speciesism, of human-animal equality, and of animal rights as such. This video is a recap of some of the distinctive approaches to vegan rhetoric that you’ll hear on this channel, reflecting a different understanding of vegan reality.

Fist Fights: why I do push-ups (on my knuckles) every day.

10 March 2018

Peace is the shadow of war. Peace, order and good government are all created by fear, enforcement, and an awareness of the danger (though not the difficulty) of breaking the laws that govern our daily life. Real talk. And, yeah, some guy tried to start a fight with me on a bus in Victoria. :-/

Libertarians Say, “Legalize Heroin and Cocaine”. I Disagree.

07 March 2018

Spoilers: this video contains the phrase, “Cocaine is a Human Right” —and no, I’m not the one saying it! If you leave comments, you must leave a time-stamp (example @38:55) because, naturally, most people will comment before they’ve finished the video, and others reading your comments won’t know what part of the video you’re referring to.

ModVegan vs. à-bas-le-ciel engage in a debate that spans Colombia, Canada, China and (of course!) Cambodia and Laos (with Japan somewhere in-between). A massive, sprawling, trenchant debate on a massive, sprawling trenchant issue for ethics and politics in our time.

Here’s ModVegan’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

Why is there so much hostility from leftists against vegans?

06 March 2018

10 Signs He’s Not THAT Into You — Nina and Randa

05 March 2018

Live-streaming right now (Vegan in B.C., Canada)

04 March 2018

youtube.com/channel/UC5VKmVnpAneMg9KE-9rHcwg/videos

^ That’s the link, click to join the conversation.

Vegan / vegans / veganism / activism / join the conversation

A White Supremacist Who is Non-White: Tara McCarthy.

04 March 2018

The death penalty for drug addicts: China & Canada.

02 March 2018

Drug addiction IS A CHOICE, indigenous or not, we’re each responsible for ourselves.

02 March 2018

A vegan perspective, also dealing with language-extinction (i.e., the possibility of native languages disappearing from countries like Canada entirely), diet, hunting, the misperception that indigenous peoples are living in the past, and the ultimate sense of moral accountability we all must have —even if we face a lack of opportunity due to racism— for choices surrounding our sobriety and personal ethical code. Not for the first time on this channel, meat-eating and drug addiction are present in a somewhat imperfect parallel argument.

Meat is manslaughter: reducetarianism is murder.

01 March 2018

Join the conversation: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

I suppose the title is misleading, as we’re really discussing the extent to which reducetarianism is WORSE THAN murder. :-/

Quote, “When push comes to shove, some people shove and some people get pushed.”

Veganism (纯素主义) in Chinese: why people say, “It’s not (just) a diet”.

26 February 2018

A reply to Reddit on the meaning of “vegan” (纯素) in Chinese, etc.

Kevin Smith Will Die of a Heart Attack: the Vegan Peril.

26 February 2018

Apparently I’m coining the phrase “the vegan peril” to refer to situations in which people become vegan (or try veganism) as a sort of crisis (most often a health crisis) rather than through any sort of rational process of recognizing the ethical, ecological or even nutritional issues involved. :-/ Yeah, in his heart attack announcement today, Kevin Smith said that perhaps he’ll now have to adopt a vegan diet: after many years of ridiculing it in his podcasts and youtube videos.

Jessica Nigri: the difference between a wolf and a dog and a toy.

22 February 2018

The video being “quoted” is Jessica Nigri: PLAYING WITH REAL WOLVES! (SKYRIM COSPLAY) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Q-HBxIv5BSc

The source of this social commentary mashup is “Cruelty Free Cosplay”: youtube.com/channel/UCB2XtUWSP0pAfEPiOqf1Kjg/videos

Visiting Seattle, Vancouver, Nanaimo & Victoria (Discussion)

21 February 2018

Two vegans discussing life in the pacific northwest… and veganism (we visited four cities in rapid succession, as stated in the title).

Februdairy: Vegans Deconstruct DAIRY’S LAST STAND (feat. “the Flemface”)

19 February 2018

THIS IS PART THREE: there is a playlist with all three videos from this conversation (and any future conversations/collabs with TheFlemface) on this channel. And she’s still working toward her first 1,000 subscribers, here:

BTW, in case you’re new to this channel (à-bas-le-ciel) you might want to take a look at the playlists (a list of lists, I suppose) to get a sense of the diversity of content around here. It isn’t all bad.

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

You don’t need to be brilliant… you just can’t be a crackhead.

18 February 2018

(To move forward within veganism (or vegan activism) how bright do you really need to be? Being wrong and being stupid are two totally different things. I may be a snob, and I may revile some of my contemporaneous vegan leaders as idiots, but I really do understand that being wrong doesn’t mean that you’re stupid. And, really, within veganism… how smart do you need to be?)

HMU on twitter, patreon or my email:

twitter.com/eiselmazard

To find other videos alluded to, check the playlists (there’s one on Gary Yourofsky, etc.): https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Vegan Activism in Canada, Now or Never.

17 February 2018

If you’re vegan wanting “to do real things” (political activism, as discussed in the video) HMU —especially if you’re a Canadian citizen.

twitter.com/eiselmazard

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/greenspace-cafe-ferndale-57951

DETROIT: Every Vegan Restaurant Reviewed (in-depth discussion of vegan food services in 2018)

15 February 2018

0. Green Space.

1. Detroit Vegan Soul.

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/detroit-vegan-soul-west-detroit-106290

2. Om Café.

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/om-cafe-ferndale-3551

3. Chive Kitchen.

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/chive-kitchen-farmington-68260

4. Seva.

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/seva-detroit-detroit-30323

5. Inn Season.

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/inn-season-cafe-royal-oak-2727

6. Lunch Room (Ann Arbor).

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/the-lunch-room-ann-arbor-26797

7. VedgeCafe (Ann Arbor).

https://www.happycow.net/reviews/vedge-cafe-ann-arbor-82294

Above, you’ll find the names of each of the restaurants reviewed, with links to pages showing photographs of the food, etc. (this video is more “philosophizing about food” and offering analysis of what’s going on in the industry, from various perspectives).

Ferris Wheel & Vegan Fishing Trip (With My Daughter)

14 February 2018

More “quality time with the family Mazard”: for absolutely no reasonable reason, my ex-wife forced us to travel by train to collect (and drop off) my daughter from Dijon, France. This cost me over 1000 Euros, and, also, took up two days of my seven day visit (we spent four days, in total, just riding the train, i.e., ALL DAY, back and forth, although only two of the four trips were with my daughter). My ex-wife has never given me any reason as to why she did this to us (we booked long in advance, and included her in the decision-making as to where we’d book a home for the holiday, etc.). But yes, we had to pack quite a lot of vegan food, and try to prepare fun and games for a very long train ride with a 4 year old: and, despite everything, it was indeed fun. On the way back I prepared for her a chocolate-covered banana (to eat on the train) and the remains of this banana were, hilariously, received with horror by my ex-wife, who then wrote me an email accusing me of feeding my daughter nothing but chocolate bananas. This was, indeed, hilarious, but for all I know, my daughter boasted that she ate chocolate-covered bananas every day (whereas, in fact, it was something she had twice during a 7-day trip).

On Vegan Slactivism in 2018: Discussing “the Demimonde” with Flemface.

14 February 2018

“Money, power, fame, sex, respect… not in that order.”

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

^ There’s a playlist collecting together the three parts of this conversation (with “TheFlemface”), and many more.

Eisel Mazard vs Flemface: Ethical Questions WITHIN Veganism.

13 February 2018

Rat infestations, domesticated animals (“pets”)… and the strange conflicts (psychological and political) that divide vegans.

THIS IS PART ONE: there will be a playlist, on this channel, with all three videos from this conversation (and any future conversations/collabs with TheFlemface). And she’s still working toward her first 1,000 subscribers, so check her channel out here:

youtube.com/channel/UC5VKmVnpAneMg9KE-9rHcwg/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Dignity, beyond animal rights discourse, human rights discourse, etc.

11 February 2018

Nihilism: Religious Ideology vs. Political Ideology.

11 February 2018

Not just atheism, nihilism. This was recorded as a reply to a question from a Patreon supporter, you can join up (for one whole dollar) and have your questions answered here:

youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

MGTOW is Wrong (Reason 1 of 999).

10 February 2018

Take your “emotional support hamster” AND FLUSH IT DOWN THE TOILET!!!!

09 February 2018

Why I wear “VEGAN” on my sleeve: literally.

09 February 2018

Yep, I’ve patches sewn on the arms of my coat just lately.

Political Philosophy vs. Reality: Examples Never Represent Ideals.

07 February 2018

Proceed from particular examples to particular examples, don’t get into the game of treating ideals as the criteria that we use to judge/filter the empirical evidence we’re willing to consider (as “real”). Here’s the link to my Patreon page, if you’d like to ask another question, and steer the conversation in another direction:

Seducing INTELLIGENT Women (advice / how to).

07 February 2018

Real talk, posed in direct contrast to “Based Zeus”, etc.

Communism and the Charitable Instinct: An Ex-Communist Perspective.

31 January 2018

Stupidity is Real: Matt Dillahunty & Unnatural Vegan.

30 January 2018

The video is only 5 minutes long, and it requires no prior knowledge of the Vegan Gains vs. Matt Dillahunty debate (on veganism).

Veganism & the political goals of this youtube channel.

28 January 2018

The video ends somewhat abruptly, as the waiter comes up the stairs to tell us that the café is going to close in 5 minutes: I suppose the pacing would be better if I’d let him say that, and then closed out the monologue thereafter, but, as it stands now, this is the conclusion “foreshadowed” in the first few minutes. ;-)

Culture and Counterculture: Ecology and “The End of the World”.

28 January 2018

Vegan / Vegans / Veganism / Ecology / Ecological Politics / Activism

The Future is Vegan and/or You. (Live streaming on Younow)

27 January 2018

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

^ That’s the link, click to join the conversation.

Should we become lawyers? (Law school: an option.)

08 January 2018

Career and education options, with a cameo appearance from my mom (Gail Dexter Lord).

An Education in Politics: WHAT DO I READ?

29 December 2017

Some useful advice and reflections for students, educators and autodidacts.

Rightly or wrongly, this is included in the “advice nobody wants to hear” playlist — but, in fact, several people (spontaneously and separately) asked me to make this video in the weeks leading up to the recording.

Chiang Mai Reminiscences (Vegan Tourism & Autobiographical Reflections)

28 December 2017

Vegan / vegans / veganism

2018: Every Vegan Restaurant in Chiang Mai Reviewed.

28 December 2017

Yep, links to every restaurant reviewed can be found here. First, however, here’s the link to the music played in the intro (acoustic): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/3Nym_fSyaOM

(1) Amrita: https://www.happycow.net/reviews/amrita-garden-chiang-mai-49074

(2) Vegan Heaven 2: https://www.happycow.net/reviews/vegan-heaven-2-chiang-mai-92072

(3) Imm’Aim: https://www.happycow.net/reviews/immaim-vegetarian-cafe-chiang-mai-31687/

(4) Free Bird Café (thumbs down!): https://www.happycow.net/reviews/free-bird-cafe-chiang-mai-17922

(5) Reform Kafe, a.k.a., Green Tiger: https://www.happycow.net/reviews/reform-kafe-chiang-mai-84403/

(6) Salad Concept: http://www.thesaladconcept.com/menu.php

That time we live-streamed from Bangkok airport.

26 December 2017

youtube.com/channel/UCUE62Sk1VvLWtW60jMOakFA/videos

Live-streaming on #Younow from #Bangkok airport! We’re using #couples instead of #vegan… why are there no couples, only #girls & #guys? https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

Yes, I am calling you a Neo-Nazi: Fully Raw Kristina & John Rose.

24 December 2017

The video is not monetized, so “BE SURE TO LIKE, SHARE AND SUBSCRIBE!!!” We’re talking about Vegans who engage in (1) pro-Hitler statements, (2) holocaust denial, and (3) anti-semitic conspiracy theories (blaming the Jews for an even more dizzying array of things than Henry Ford did —and nevertheless including/recycling the old propaganda from Henry Ford). I think it’s reasonable to, thus, use the term “Neo-Nazi” in criticizing them.

For more on the grandfather of Fully Raw Kristina (and his political views/connections), mentioned here in passing, see: https://elpais.com/diario/1988/02/08/internacional/571273209_850215.html

The Meaning of “Conservative” (vs. Veganism: a Message without a Movement)

23 December 2017

From Edmund Burke on down.

As mentioned toward the end of the video, here’s the link to the “BRASS TACKS” playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7okWjcSH0HnY6BUbMkELHEG

Durianrider: Last of the True Believers.

21 December 2017

Liam Anthony is a piece of shit. And, yeah, he just did a collab with ModVegan, and you can see that on his channel, here:

Rappers Reply: Kitty Pryde asked me to make this video.

20 December 2017

Rap / Hip-hop / Lil B / Simon Rex / Dirt Nasty / Kitty Pryde / Kitty Kitty / moira main / kittaveli / Orion’s Belt / God’s Father Mixtape

Historical Amnesia and/or Racism: Asian Perceptions of Blacks, First Nations, etc.

20 December 2017

I think it’s genuinely impossible to express the topic of this video in the title alone, but hey, I tried. This discussion is featuring a Japanese channel called, “Find Your Love in Japan” = youtube.com/channel/UCcIsxujzLRO5qY5f9buahCQ/videos

Vegans: false copyright claims and even “hate speech” complaints.

20 December 2017

It still happens. There are two sources to be cited here, the first being “The Flemface”: youtube.com/channel/UC5VKmVnpAneMg9KE-9rHcwg/videos

The second being Rebecca’s World: youtube.com/channel/UCZw4oLe4guvTsb2buApVv2g/videos

TkyoSam: Un-Vegan Weight Loss Advice.

19 December 2017

INJUSTICE: Durianrider’s Day in Court (No, He Wasn’t There).

17 December 2017

Another day in court in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

No PhD? No Friends? [Q&A] Earnest answers to insincere questions.

16 December 2017

A Q&A of sorts (with some meta-Q&A commentary). “Why doesn’t Eisel already have a PhD?” & “Why didn’t you keep more of your friends (from high-school, or other, earlier chapters of your life) as you moved from one chapter to the next?”

Vegan Fundraising Scams: Who’s Accusing Whom?

16 December 2017

About Vegan Gains (Anti-Racism, Cory & Tara McCarthy, etc.)

15 December 2017

Co-starring “VeganCalledQuest” on Younow: https://twitter.com/vegancalledQ

Apologies for the terrible sound quality (in fact, within the first few minutes of the video, I directly apologize for and explain the poor sound quality).

This video is a spontaneous, informal conversation: if you want to follow it up with a scripted, well-researched discussion of scientific racism (“Race and IQ”, “The Bell Curve”, J. Philippe Rushton, etc.) take a look at “Reading the Right — Volume One”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/GgZFGgJlAsk

An Asymmetry: “Pro-Capitalism” vs. “Pro-Communism”.

15 December 2017

A follow-up video on many (many!) in which I’ve more directly dealt with mass-murder and (man-made) mass-starvation under Communist regimes (thus, you may notice, those themes and issues are not discussed here). I also mention an earlier video with Capitalism in the title that replies to a very memorable email I received from a Mapuche man from Argentina, and you can find that here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CZpcyJmKGoc

I was wrong, says ex-Durianrider supporter, Ultrafitrunner.

15 December 2017

An edited excerpt from Ultrafitrunner (who describes himself as “not vegan”, and yet a supporter of the raw food diet… I shudder to think what that entails…). His channel is here: youtube.com/user/ultra100able/videos

I do find it implicitly hilarious that so many of my critics claim (as he does at the very end of this excerpt, as I’ve edited it) that somehow political and legal causes are trivial things compared to “focusing on one’s own health” —and although I DON’T put much of a priority on my own health, I’m nevertheless in a state of much better health/strength than they are. A lot of this sounds like an echo of the old John Lennon attitude of trying to win arguments by saying, “just focus on yourself man”. Well, I’m not a John-Lennon-ist: my own health and happiness are a relatively low priority… and I think that is true for most people who are passionate about politics in general (perhaps ecological causes in particular).

Theatricality vs. Dishonesty (Ask Yourself, Durianrider, Vegan Gains, Cory & Tara McCarthy)

14 December 2017

This is not a new video but, to my astonishment, this is still a new issue: the commentary on Durianrider is still very salient today, and, even more strangely, on the connection between Ask Yourself (and Vegan Gains) and the overt racism of Tara & Cory McCarthy.

Still Not Boxing? Durianrider: Defamation & the Damage Done.

14 December 2017

This does contain a screen-shot of Durianrider’s reply, and (in the final few minutes) a minor update on the court-case (we are in Chiang Mai in order to attend the next hearing). However, the major theme here is, indeed, “Defamation and the damage done”.

SHILL: you realize the intellectual caliber of the critics I’m facing. :-/

13 December 2017

The video being criticized here is an old one: “The Death of a Dream: Veganism After the End of HCLF / RT4 / Durianrider / Freelee /etc.”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/tgJMKXJadlE

This might be an appropriate time to mention my thematically-related video (i.e., salient to this criticism), ““Chase Your Dreams” = BAD ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR.”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/fwBUTFdNe14

My critic (who believes that you can cure Crohn’s disease and schizophrenia through “fruit and fasting”) can be found here:

youtube.com/channel/UCgXcU3g82RNg56ijEZE-Ekg/videos

Incidentally, I notice that he did (many months ago) make a short (two minute) video simply stating that Durianrider was in the wrong, and that I was in the right: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/1z5WFoa7dJs

Boxing Match for Charity: Durianrider vs. À-Bas-Le-Ciel?

12 December 2017

Want to know more about the (vegan) storybook I’m proposing we’d raise donations for in the fundraiser? Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pperokk75ic6XpyLqy7MUw

Durianrider and I are both in Chiang Mai this Christmas: will there (finally) be a boxing match for charity in one of the town’s arenas? He’s made threats of street-violence before (see the link, below, if you don’t know how serious that situation once was), and I’ve responded by offering to meet him in the ring… repeatedly.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7rnlpe1mrR7bnaQwSaBYfij

Quoting myself from the fourth video in the playlist:

@22:45 “What more can I do for an audience of vegans who say they’re trying to save the world, but who have gradually become accustomed to this culture of constant defamation and conspiratorial thinking?”

@22:39 “We need to replace a culture of conspiracy-theory thinking with a culture of sincere engagement.”

Interview, hiring and protocol: teaching in Chinese universities.

11 December 2017

Part of the playlist: “[ESL中国] Advice on Teaching English in China”.

The Vegan Demimonde: Mexie, Ask Yourself & Anti-Communism.

11 December 2017

A conversation about the digital vegan demimonde and, in large part, about Communism and Anti-Communism.

BTW, criticism of Mexie does, in fact, get its own playlist on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Predictions (vs. Preston Jacobs) [ASOIAF / Game of Thrones]

10 December 2017

Opening with a discussion of “The Children of the Forest” and their (evident) religious significance given GRRM’s prior writing, e.g., in “A Song for Lya”. In general, I state my opposition to Preston Jacobs’s interpretation of GRRM as “pro-Communist” and “pro-loss-of-individuality” —precisely the same stories (from ASOIAF itself to “A Song for Lya”) can and should be interpreted that opposite way (GRRM doesn’t put forward “the moral of the story” as a simple statement in the protagonist’s mouth).

This channel does, indeed, have an ASOIAF playlist (11 videos so far): https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Why are ESL teachers so despised? (& Tkyosam)

10 December 2017

Philosophizing about teaching English in Asia (and, yes, this is a response to a Tkyosam video).

[芒市的金塔] Descent from the Golden Temple.

10 December 2017

Cannibals when Convenient: Edwin’s Generation & Unnatural Vegan.

09 December 2017

Partly in riposte to Unnatural Vegan’s video: “When vegans eat meat (freeganism, Edwins Generation)”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/nFShfj8Phf4

Partly in response to: Edwin’s Generation “I’m Vegan, But I Could Eat Meat”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/KKjBlW4yaxg

The Campus (德宏师范高等专科学校: Mangshi, Dehong, Yunnan)

07 December 2017

Tkyosam format: walking (and talking) around the campus of Dehong’s main university (in 2018 it will be rebranded (or upgraded) from a teachers’ college (师范) to a university (大学), sensu stricto).

No compromise with Communists: what “Marxist-Leninist” really means.

06 December 2017

Mexie may or may not know the meaning of “Communist, Marxist-Leninist”, BUT I DO, and in this video, I’m going to explain it to you: it is just as serious as someone identifying themselves as a hardline Nazi (not a Neo-Nazi, but a Nazi, _sensu stricto)._

Mexie is a Communist (Marxist-Leninist).

05 December 2017

Here’s a screen-shot of Mexie describing her position within the Communism spectrum (note that “ML” = Marxist-Leninist):*

https://twitter.com/EiselMazard/status/938062398014988293

The context for that comment (i.e., the youtube video it appears below) is here: the source of Mexie’s comment: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/KVUa5Svrt5M

The channel providing that video (and that context) is also host to (e.g.) the following video, showing what exactly he supports (i.e., men with balaclavas and assault riles, carrying out terrorist attacks around the world, etc): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/09qTJBiwjy8

AND FINALLY, the link to the essay that played such a romantic role in our personal lives (but that might give you nightmares) describing political events around the fateful year 1920, in easternmost Russia: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42

* Within the Canadian political context (and many other contexts, although not consistently so) the suffix “Marxist-Leninist” normally indicates Maoism, i.e., parties that have an “anti-revisionist” (pro-China, pro-Mao-Zedong) alignment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Canada_(Marxist%E2%80%93Leninist)#Maoism

Nihilism: Living as if Santa Claus Isn’t Watching.

03 December 2017

A very spontaneous (but also personal and profound) discussion on issues surrounding religion, disillusionment, death, the relationship between virtue and belief —and, in general, how life changes when you no longer believe that Santa Claus is watching.

Veganism: Despised Minority, or “New Technology”?

03 December 2017

There are many false assumptions built into the view that veganism is “a new technology” in the process of being adopted (by the masses) on a predictable “curve” (increasing exponentially from “early adopters” to the great majority). To a very limited extent, veganism may be compared to a a new technology, but it can also be compared to fringe religious groups —and to failed fringe religious groups, especially. Should we be planning for “a vegan future”, meaning an vegan majority, or should we, instead, be planning for a long-term future as a despised minority, seeking to lobby for social change, even if we only represent 1% of the population? :-/

A topic proposed in reply to ModVegan’s video, here: “Veganism & the Innovation Adoption Curve”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/80YXIbbRpMs

Based Zeus is WRONG: “Achieve ANYTHING You Want”

02 December 2017

A response to “Achieve ANYTHING You Want | The Best Motivational Video & Speech Ever”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6VOW-fAuzzE

If not you, then who?

28 November 2017

Atheism ☛ Nihilism ≈ Vegetarianism ☛ Veganism.

27 November 2017

“Atheism is to Nihilism as Vegetarianism is to Veganism”. Answers to some recent questions (on “Historical Nihilism”, but related to veganism) sent in to the channel.

Vegan Gains vs. Plant Eats vs. Canadian Culture.

26 November 2017

The critique of Canadian culture (and how this presents a problem for organizing the vegan movement (or ANY KIND of movement) in Canada) begins around 7:00 …many of you might prefer to start the tape at around that point. :-/

Vegan Gains vs. Plant Eats vs. Canadian Culture.

26 November 2017

Stop Treating Native Americans Like Infants (vs. Mexie & Privileged Vegan)

26 November 2017

With or without good intentions, a lot of left-wing white people seem to talk about indigenous people as if they’re not quite human: this seems especially surreal when the linked issues of ecology, health and veganism come up (in the North American political context).

(“Mexie” & “Privileged Vegan” are the names of two (other) vegan channels here on Youtube… not really the names of the people… but, hey, I’m often referred to as “à-bas-le-ciel” by the same token.)

Mangshi, Dehong, Yunnan, China (中国云南德宏芒市), downtown, 2017.

26 November 2017

A glimpse around downtown Mangshi during my last few weeks here (I was the foreign English teacher at their small university for one academic year).

Durianrider: The Court Case. Final Update & Reflections.

24 November 2017

1% Indigenous Means 99% Genocide: Explaining America to Asians.

23 November 2017

Here in Asia, some people are surprised to learn that the vast majority of the current population is NOT indigenous to Canada, the United States or Australia. It’s an interesting challenge to explain this aspect of British Colonial history in Asia, to Asians (the examples in this video reflect my own experience in China, Laos and Cambodia).

Kanadajin3: Historical Nihilism vs. Islamic Idealism.

23 November 2017

The article alluded to (with “the link below the video”) is: _1920: The Other Russo-Japanese War. The Massacre at Nikolaevsk-on-Amur (尼港事件)._ https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42

Debating Islam with KanadaJin3 (“Is Not Debate”)

23 November 2017

This is part 3 of our ongoing debate with Canada’s own convert to Islam AND Japanese Nationalism (although not in that order). If you want to find parts 1 and 2, refer to the playlist (yeah, KanadaJin3 already has her own playlist on this channel). https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Attraction: Instinct and Understanding.

23 November 2017

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR!

I don’t believe in linguistic genius.

22 November 2017

Reflections on language-learning, philosophical and not-so-philosophical.

Kanadajin3 Replies: Slavery & Racism in Islam!

22 November 2017

Politics / Baking: the future format of this channel?

21 November 2017

Cambodian democracy, the conquest of Mosul, North Korea, Syria… should this channel transition to being a bit more of a foreign-policy news-desk? Maybe. This video discusses the future content and future format of this channel (that definitely WILL change, when I’m no longer broadcasting from within China).

Seeking an illustrator for a VEGAN storybook (children’s picture book)

21 November 2017

You can see the script for the storybook (in multiple languages, with various readers performing it aloud in English, German, Russian, with Japanese and Chinese text, etc.) here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pperokk75ic6XpyLqy7MUw

Aristotle’s philosophy (in/and my life)

21 November 2017

In response to this video I received many questions about the significance of a certain three-letter word within the philosophy of Aristotle (no spoilers) —so, if you, too, would like to follow up on that question, after watching the video, here’s a link.

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.jp/2017/11/yes-aristotle-really-meant-election-by.html

Can We All Stop Saying “First World Problems”?

21 November 2017

#FirstWorldProblems

Why I’m NOT Depressed (vs. Kalel, Henya Mania & Supreme Banana)

19 November 2017

Often (not always), when people say, “get professional help”, in truth THERE IS NO PROFESSIONAL HELP pertaining to your situation. :-/ Hey, maybe that makes these questions of “practical philosophy” all the more important: deciding how we’re going to live, the objectives that will motivate us, how we’re going to feel in relation to the things we deem meaningful and meaningless in our lives.

And yes, this video is part of the playlist “ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR”. :-/

Zoos: Confinement & the Nature of Nature.

16 November 2017

This is closer to philosophy than it is to politics: two vegans talking about zoos, animal nature, human nature, and the nature of nature.

The voice on the phone is Jae Costly, his new/current channel is largely about cosplay:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/W1_zwj2zrSI

You can find his older youtube channel, with a few more videos reflecting on veganism, the domestication of animals, wildlife management and zookeeping, here: youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

Overpopulation: Vegan Gains vs. Unnatural Vegan (vs. Reality).

16 November 2017

The Birth of My Daughter: The Best Laid Plans…

15 November 2017

Sort of a Q&A on why my daughter was born in France (not Taiwan, not Canada) and some of the strategic decisions/planning that surrounded the birth. Some of this MAY be useful advice for others.

Vegan “Purity”: Collaborating with Hunters to Save the Hunted, etc.

15 November 2017

A video addressed to the ways in which the “personal purity” paradigm can shape our engagement with political issues in veganism… although “political pragmatism” does not offer us any sort of easy alternative.

Usual disclaimer: IF I LOOK EXHAUSTED, IT’S BECAUSE I AM EXHAUSTED. ;-)

The High Price of Micro-Fame (My Face on Phil’s Wall)

15 November 2017

Who’s Phil? This is Phil: youtube.com/user/philddlesticks/videos

Trust me, I have no delusions as to just how “micro” my “micro-fame” is… but yeah, some days, you wake up and find out that you’re on a poster on SOMEBODY’S wall. Shout out to Phil. Stay vegan, you fucking degenerate.

Money in Politics: Bite Size Vegan, Go Vegan World, Mic the Vegan AND YOU.

14 November 2017

I couldn’t fit “Plant Eats” into the title (nor DxE). However, this is a discussion of “charity as such” —vegan politics, non-profit organization, donations, and the money motive even here on Youtube (via Patreon, most likely). And, yes, you can indeed donate $1 to support this channel via Patreon (conflict of interest!).

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wheres-the-proof-that-mindfulness-meditation-works1/

Yes, You CAN Learn Cree & Ojibwe (Even If You’re White!)

14 November 2017

The function of education is not to narrowly prepare us to make money: I’m not sure how I’ll ever make any money out of the Shakespeare I was forced to read, or nine tenths of high-school-level math —and learning First Nations languages like Cree and Ojibwe really can be more meaningful than Shakespeare (EVEN FOR WHITE PEOPLE).

Skepticism vs. Meditation (& Unnatural Vegan)

12 November 2017

The “softball” article quoted in the video is from Scientific American magazine, and can be found (in full), here: “Where’s the Proof That Mindfulness Meditation Works?”

People: “no evidence” means “no evidence”.

Falling in Love for Ugly People.

12 November 2017

Advice Nobody Wants to Hear!

Asymmetrical Relationships: An Obligation to Break Up?

12 November 2017

A slightly philosophical response to Jaclyn Glenn’s break up with Social Repose: are we, sometimes, morally obliged to break up with someone, because the relationship is asymmetrical?

[ESL中国] Class Discipline: Bad Students & Bad Teachers.

11 November 2017

I Don’t Believe in “Open Rescue” (vegan / vegans / veganism)

10 November 2017

Two vegans talking about the politics and the future of the movement. This is part of the “Brass Tacks” playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

The Conformist: From Japan-ism to Islam-ism (an Ex-Buddhist Perspective)

09 November 2017

Kanadajin3 is a Canadian vlogger who recently made the transition from (white, Canadian) pro-Japanese conformist to (white, Canadian) Muslim conformist. This video explores some of the personal, philosophical and practical issues.

The film mentioned (by Woody Allen) is titled, “Zelig”. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086637/

Reconciliation is Irrelevant. First Nations Languages & the Future of Canada.

09 November 2017

Why White People Don’t Learn Cree, Ojibwe, etc. [First Nations Languages]

09 November 2017

Onision: Some People CAN’T Be Vegan.

09 November 2017

Stupidity is real.

Unmasking Norvegan: Durianrider’s “Narc Hunter”.

05 November 2017

Norvegan presents himself as “a narcissist hunter”, but his self-styled criteria are so sloppy that he could pretty easily classify himself as a narcissist as well. The blonde guy in the video (in case you don’t know) is Charles Marlowe: youtube.com/channel/UCSDjC2eMJQBwu2QATm8bZNA/videos

This is “Part 3”, I suppose (it could be Part 4 or 5, depending on how you count the videos before it). You can find the others by searching for Norvegan on my channel.

Critique of “Terrorism Lite”: Mic the Vegan, Glenn Greenwald, etc.

05 November 2017

In the 21^st century “open rescue” has incorporated some of the worst elements of both internet fame-whoring and terrorism —and I’m opposed to it as a matter of principle (despite all the vegans lining up to make excuses for it as “terrorism lite”). Frankly, the F.B.I. is right on this one. If you believe in transparent, democratic method, then you do not believe in DxE, and you shouldn’t be making excuses for them!

Footnote: the thumbnail image goes with the slogan, “The F.B.I. is right: no excuses for ‘Terrorism Lite.’” I was tempted, instead, to build the title around the concept of “dry snitching”, but I think that a very small percentage of my audience would have had any idea what I meant by that (slang) term. :-/

You Can’t Take Criticism! Boo-Hoo.

05 November 2017

(1) There’s the topic of constructive criticism, (2) then there’s the topic of responding to criticism constructively, but this video is, in fact, about (3) the question of how to constructively deal with someone else handling criticism poorly. And, sure, I guess that some of the examples are drawn from a number of known-names in “vegan drama”. :-/

[ESL中国] Grading & Classroom Discipline (teaching in China).

04 November 2017

Advice on teaching English in China.

Teddy Bears’ Picnic (Aspiring Parents, NOT Aspiring Vocalists)

04 November 2017

Sort of a rehearsal (before singing the song for my daughter). You can find the original recording from Henry Hall and his Orchestra here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/dZANKFxrcKU

[ESL中国] Work-Visas, Bureaucracy and Economics.

04 November 2017

Advice on teaching English in China.

Teaching ESL in China WITHOUT Speaking Chinese.

03 November 2017

Advice nobody wants to hear!

Contained Rage: Vegan & Anti-Vegan (Joey Carbstrong)

02 November 2017

The fellow with the beard and glasses uses the name “Milk Jar”: youtube.com/channel/UCJoLPtRqSI-FvvPmY4n_lMw/videos

The young woman who refuses to watch the world burn is Poppy:

youtube.com/user/thatPoppyTV/videos

Meanwhile, Joey Carbstrong remains Joey Carbstrong: youtube.com/channel/UCG6usHVNuRbexyisxE27nDw/videos

And PCRM is PCRM. youtube.com/user/PCRM/videos

The R Word: Norvegan vs. Me (not Durianrider?)

01 November 2017

I DO NOT believe Durianrider is “A Narcissist” (N.P.D.)

01 November 2017

People with N.P.D. are not comic-book villains (like “The Joker” dueling with Batman), they’re real human beings, struggling with a mental disorder: a “diagnosis” of this kind should not be used as a weapon to slander and humiliate someone —not even when it is a REAL diagnosis (let alone an “internet diagnosis” made up on the basis of youtube clips selected by a biased party who is (intentionally?) ignoring evidence to the contrary).

Rape allegations are a very serious matter: Norvegan, Durianrider, etc.

01 November 2017

The principle that everyone is “innocent until proven guilty” is easy to preach and hard to live by: although Durianrider has defamed me (repeatedly!) I am here very careful to make a fair report of what little I know about the allegations against him, in the midst of contradictory (sometimes self-contradictory) information provided by all sides. Although it is true that Durianrider has been unreasonable, my direct experience is, also, that Norvegan has been unreasonable, and I’m here making great efforts to be reasonable, despite the invective they have both directed against me.

My Apology to Norvegan.

31 October 2017

The Respectable Face of Anti-Natalism.

31 October 2017

You know, there are some really negative stereotypes about people who believe in anti-natalism. Period.

Life is Suffering: Have Babies Anyway. (Against Anti-Natalism)

30 October 2017

This video contrasts political ecology to the “pessimistic ecology” of anti-natalism —with reflections on various (related) debates ongoing within veganism. Generally, I’m opposed to the assumption that ecology is about minimizing your impacts; in a very different sense, I argue that political ecology (and life in general, with all its waste, harm and suffering) is about maximizing your impact.

Join Patreon, join the conversation, support the channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

If you’re wondering what my view on ecology positively is (as this discussion only states what it isn’t) check the playlist on “the wildlife management paradigm”:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Nihilist Philosophy: Beyond Belief (in Truth, Good & Evil).

29 October 2017

Practical Nihilism: Stop Believing You’re “A Good Person”.

29 October 2017

Conflicts often escalate because people feel that their own sense of themselves as “a good person” is being impugned by the problem at hand. With this defensive feeling in mind, we then have a culturally-inculcated tendency to demand, “Who do you think you are? Don’t you know who I think I am?” —although this is never so directly stated. The tractable then becomes intractable, as the disputing parties struggle to apportion blame and cast aspersions on one-another, though this behavior can never give either side the reassurance they’re seeking: it’s a struggle for the moral high ground in which both sides feel denigrated. In praxis, this sense of our own “ethical identity” shouldn’t be involved in the dispute/resolution at all, and it can be removed by one side simply claiming the low ground: parting with the pretense that they are “a good person”. And yes, BTW, this is a video that explains my rhetorical device of insisting that “I’m not a nice guy”, and, also, that I’m “a terrible person” (in various practical, problem-solving contexts!).

I’m not a nice guy, veganism is not just instagram models and hippies.

29 October 2017

And this isn’t an academic lecture. I guess this could have been titled, “I am not a hippy”.

This video is comprised of excerpts from a longer video titled, “Life isn’t fair, save the planet anyway.” You can still see that video here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/qDQa-DcDUco

Having Kids: Being Anti-Anti-Natalist. REAL TALK.

28 October 2017

Cults: Religious, Political and Vegan.

27 October 2017

This video includes reflections on how to speak to friends/relatives who may be (currently) cult-members or suffering from some sort of cult-like mentality (i.e., reflections on my own experience, and not only within Buddhism).

Caterpillar and propaganda poster (Dehong, Mangshi, Yunnan)

27 October 2017

A moment from daily life in the China-Myanmar border area (where nature meets propaganda, 傍边的金塔).

Vegan Politics: Are “Nation Rising” Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing?

26 October 2017

No, that was not a typo: with their promises of “revolution”, I am indeed asking if they’re sheep in wolves’ clothing (not vice-versa, wolves masquerading as sheep).

Men Pursuing Women: It Changes Who You Are. [vs. Based Zeus]

25 October 2017

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR!

Vs. Based Zeus: “FIND Your PASSION …RIGHT NOW!”

24 October 2017

Catharsis: the “Game of Thrones is Garbage” Bandwagon

21 October 2017

This could have, also, been called, “HBO’s award-winning garbage”. It contains some brief comparisons to HBO’s Rome and other shows that seem to have been (to some extent similarly?) a victim of its own success.

This ain’t the only video on this topic that I’ve got… on the contrary, there’s a whole playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7oK5ShvyvAswb-3lSWjlQe6

R-Rated Q&A: Ted Carr, Durianrider, Freelee, Charles Marlowe, etc.

20 October 2017

Questions asked by “A Vegan Called Quest”, you can find more of him here: https://www.younow.com/VeganCalledQuest

Vegans: Want My Job? I’m Leaving in December.

18 October 2017

Google it: 德宏. Here’s the video showing what the apartment looks like: “Vegan Anti-Minimalist Apartment Tour (Maximalist?).” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6wthB1SRFig

Nothing But Regrets: Learning Chinese, Leaving China, etc.

18 October 2017

Reflections on the last two years or so, and why basically ALL of the decisions I made were wrong, given what I know now (and didn’t know then!).

Included here: why I moved to Kunming (China) in the first place, Why I moved to Mangshi / Dehong in the first place, what the assumptions were about my career and education that guided these decisions —and what’s involved (now) in my long, slow road back to western academia.

Durianrider: Channel Deleted, Case Closed?

18 October 2017

The case isn’t over yet (next court-date is in mid December, in Chiang Mai), but yes, in many ways, we’ve already won —and “we” is, really, the nascent vegan movement / “vegan community.

The University is Broken: “Academically Adrift” Book Review.

15 October 2017

This is an hour solid, so, if you wanted to download it as an MP3, you could do so from Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

The book in question is here:

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. 2010. Richard Arum, Josipa Roksa, et. al.

https://www.amazon.com/Academically-Adrift-Limited-Learning-Campuses/dp/0226028569

Vegans Learning to Bake in College (+ Sex / Relationship Misc.)

15 October 2017

Learning Languages in Universities: Is it Worth the Cost?

14 October 2017

Advice nobody wants to hear!

Live-streaming on Younow, right now. (Vegan / vegans / veganism)

13 October 2017

Click the link to join the conversation.

Immigration: is there a “moderate” position anymore?

13 October 2017

The meaning of “moderate liberal” and “moderate conservative” are much more confusing than the extremes, in the context of discussing 21^st century (“globalized”) immigration policy.

University: Grad School Applications, Languages & You (First Nations & Asian Languages).

12 October 2017

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR!!!!

Is Veganism based on belief? Should it be?

12 October 2017

Trying to do the best you can, or doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, need not be based on belief in ideal. Or, at least, this is my nihilistic perspective.

Veganism vs. Alt-Right Racism: Vegan Gains & Ask Yourself

12 October 2017

The Conspiracy Theory Mentality.

12 October 2017

A reply to a question from a Patreon supporter, just like you!

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/04/now-peter-singer-argues-that-it-might-be-okay-to-rape-disabled-people

You can pay $1 per month to join the conversation, and support this channel.

Mental disability, Eugenics, and Vegan Politics.

12 October 2017

For more on Peter Singer’s “controversial” views on disabled people and euthanasia, see:

http://social-ecology.org/wp/2005/01/peter-singer-and-eugenics/

For the connection between J.M. Keynes and eugenics, see, for example:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/eugenics-skeleton-rattles-loudest-closet-left

https://www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/12/british-eugenics-disabled

Multiculturalism vs. Social Cohesion: “Trust” as a political concept.

12 October 2017

Yeah, my ex-wife phoned up Durianrider, Cheetah, Joe Vegan, etc.

12 October 2017

Colonialism & Genocide (vs. “Ask Yourself”)

07 October 2017

Motivation: the difference between brilliant & brainless, good & evil?

06 October 2017

From both the teacher and the student’s perspective, motivation is often discussed as a sort of meta-virtue, or even as a superpower, separating the exceptional from the mediocre and so on. However, most people think about motivation (both intellectually and ethically) in an overly vague sense, and here, instead, I reflect on (or philosophize about) motivation in education, in my own experience, with some degree of precision.

So, yes, I suppose I could have instead titled it, “Motivation & Education: Learning Languages, University & Life.”

A Scam within Veganism: the “Effective Activism” paradigm.

05 October 2017

Primarily concerning A.C.E. (Animal Charity Evaluators) and the critique of their work offered by (1) SHARK…

youtube.com/user/SHARKonlineorg/videos

and (2) Harrison Nathan.

https://medium.com/@harrisonnathan

My own Patreon page (mentioned toward the end) where you can talk to me, etc.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/DOzvgmBapZ8

The Endgame to Cultural Genocide: Cree, Ojibwe, Nez Percé (Languages).

05 October 2017

Marijuana Causes Brain Damage: Scientific Facts.

03 October 2017

[This is a high-resolution version of a video that was first “rushed-to-upload” under another title, and at lower quality.]

A stack of peer-reviewed sources presented in response to “Mic. the Vegan”, who made a video titled: “Is Marijuana Unhealthy? An In-Depth Look at the Research”.

The link to the article that started it all (from my old blog, vegan-mind-tricks) is here:

vegan-mind-tricks.tumblr.com/post/58138831334/brain-damage-caused-by-cannabis-adult-and-infant

You can find all of the peer-reviewed sources either by clicking through the links in that article, just linked-to above, or by looking up the sources via the info shown on-screen in the video itself (really, you can see the “D.O.I.” number, along with the title, authors’ names, publication, etc., on-screen for each one).

Cree and Ojibwe: the Politics of Language Extinction.

03 October 2017

This is a short excerpt from a long discussion I had with Jae Costly (most of it will be, eventually, uploaded as a podcast to Patreon).

À-Bas-Le-Ciel vs. Ask Yourself! Racism, Veganism & the Meaning of Life!

30 September 2017

Some people will rush to ask, “Did we talk about racism?” Or even, “Did I confront him about Cory McCarthy / Tara McCarthy?” Yes, we talked about all that of those things at length (and more!), but there was nothing confrontational about it: we had a totally productive conversation.

THIS IS JUST A PROMO. Maybe it’ll take 12 hours to upload the “real” video, we’ll see. However, I don’t mean to mislead you: the video I’m uploading now is just my set of reflections after the conversation wrapped up. We DID NOT record the original conversation, partly because it transpired between 3:00 AM and 8:00 AM in Isaac’s time-zone! He said he wasn’t feeling too sharp, but, in fact, he was exceedingly sharp throughout the entire dialogue.

New Values: Politics, Personhood, Meaning of Life.

30 September 2017

Sam Harris is Lying: Cognitive Science, Buddhism & Meditation.

30 September 2017

Here’s the link to my earlier video (mentioned at the conclusion of this one), “Buddhist Meditation, Pseudoscience & Sam Harris”:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MmH-tma1upY

When your grandmother bakes you a non-vegan cake.

30 September 2017

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

^ That’s the link to Patreon if (as mentioned) you want to talk to me / join the conversation.

Added to the “Vegan Minds Tricks” playlist (videos about talking to meat-eaters… possibly including your grandparents.)

Economics and/or Activism: Soymilk is More Profitable than Cow’s Milk.

29 September 2017

@15:58 “Changes in cultural values will prompt people to recognize the underlying economic reality but, conversely, cultural values can completely blind people to economic reality, and prevent them from making the right decision.”

Many left-wing vegans presume an antipathy between capitalism and veganism, but is there, perhaps, “an economic approach to veganism” embracing the relative efficiency (and profitability) of vegan products in free market competition?

This video is “vs. ModVegan” to some extent, and you can find her channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

And, yes, as mentioned, you can click through to my Patreon to join the conversation: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Mic the Vegan IS WRONG: Brain Damage from THC.

28 September 2017

A stack of peer-reviewed sources presented in response to “Mic. the Vegan”, who made a video titled: “Is Marijuana Unhealthy? An In-Depth Look at the Research”.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/DOzvgmBapZ8

The link to the article that started it all (from my old blog, vegan-mind-tricks) is here:

vegan-mind-tricks.tumblr.com/post/58138831334/brain-damage-caused-by-cannabis-adult-and-infant

Autobiographical: Buddhist Meditation, Superstition & Philosophy.

27 September 2017

Asking “How real is meditation?” is, in many ways, just as absurd as asking, “How real is a dream?”

Activism: if you’re irreplaceable you’re making a difference.

27 September 2017

Many vegans struggle with the feeling that they’re not making a difference —whether or not they (factually) are making a difference.

This video is part of the “brass tacks” playlist: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

“YOU CAN BE REPLACED!”

Veganism: Personal Purity vs. Politics.

25 September 2017

One aspect of veganism is, indeed, a boycott: a refusal to buy certain products, for ethical reasons. However, it’s self-defeating if/when people get stuck at this first step (which is far from the last step) to start extending the list of things-to-be-boycotted ever further (palm oil, rubber, cellular phones… you can ban it all to make yourself feel more “pure”, but is this really going to bring about changes in real-world outcomes?).

(This video is a reply to Joey Carbstrong, believe it or not.)

A Vegan Diet DOES NOT Save Animals’ Lives. (Brass Tacks)

24 September 2017

Part of the “Brass Tacks” playlist: practical discussions of “where do we go from here?” —how to make progress (not just propaganda) with/for the vegan movement.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7okWjcSH0HnY6BUbMkELHEG

Debating Meditation with Buddhists: the Fallacy of Having Faith in a Feeling…

23 September 2017

Faith in a feeling; is it more or less absurd than putting your faith in a stone?

On Youtube, there are no special effects: no plot, no drama. Honesty is the only currency we’ve got.

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

Above, the link to my Patreon (where we talk that talk), and, below, the link to the playlists section of the channel (yes, there’s one on Buddhism).

Pseudoscience & the Future of Buddhism: A Nihilist Perspective.

22 September 2017

So, your best friend wants to be a Buddhist monk? [REAL TALK]

21 September 2017

“It is possible for modern Buddhism to be just as different from ancient Buddhism as Jesus Christ is different from Santa Claus.”

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR.

There is, indeed, a playlist that gathers together the video (more than 25) about Buddhism on this channel (but there are over 700 videos on this channel, so, otherwise, they’re not so easy to find): https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

“Shout out to Smolensk!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk

Autobiographical: Video Games and/or Real Life.

18 September 2017

You Choose.

Against Video Games: The Principle of the Thing.

18 September 2017

One of those questions of “the meaning of life” and of “having a meaningful life”, this video is (suitably) included in my playlist, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”.

A third video in this series will appear tomorrow (i.e., within 24 hours, if the uploading speed is decent) with a more autobiographical angle: a discussion that reflects on video games in my own life (childhood, etc.).

Quit Video Games. #QuitEverything

17 September 2017

Nihilism: “If animals don’t have animal rights, why do humans have human rights?”

17 September 2017

Please turn on the SUBTITLES (字幕) for this one: the sound quality is poor, but I prefer to share this video than to record another, less-spontaneous version (“take two”).

Thanks to Theo for typing out the subtitles. You can check out his (vegan-politics-and-youtube-related) website, here:

activistjourneys.wordpress.com/eisel-mazard

From my perspective, this video discusses an important set of issues within veganism, and clearly shows the contrast between ideological and nihilistic thinking, the contrast between utopian and empirical thinking, and so on, with conclusions that link my current perspective on vegan politics to my past work on Buddhist politics and Communism (HINT: I’m Anti-Communist).

IRL “debates” with meat eaters are not really debates…

16 September 2017

…they’re, uh, more like non-debates.

vegan / vegans / veganism

Making Money Out of Defamation & Slander: the End of an Era?

15 September 2017

Anna Scanlon’s channel is here: youtube.com/user/TheAnnainWonderland/videos

My own channel has a playlist of past conversations I had with Charles Marlowe (Vegan Cheetah) and, as is alluded to in this video, there’s a remarkable contrast between the earlier conversations and what his channel would later become: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

The Mars Colony is Never Gonna Happen: Outer Space is Bunk.

14 September 2017

I grew up being taught a lot of lies about space exploration and the future of humanity’s place in the solar system/galaxy. Really, I had to learn that much of what I was taught as “science” (in this respect) was just as much a fable as hearing about elves or yetis in the forest, etc.

How to Create a Vegan World (Discussion) [vs. Tobias Leenaert & Peter Singer!]

10 September 2017

Tobias Leenaert’s new book is titled, _How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach._ You can buy it on Amazon, here: https://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Vegan-World-Pragmatic-ebook/dp/B073JLS3CV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8

(And, yes, the book has an introduction (and an endorsement) from Peter Singer!)

On Critique Itself (vs. Unnatural Vegan)

09 September 2017

Vivisection, an Insider’s Perspective (Vegans in Lab Coats?)

09 September 2017

[This is the full, 37 min. version] Some vegans treat vivisection as the most extreme transgression of animal rights, but some (even the “vegan abolitionist”, Gary Francione) are willing to admit that it’s much more morally complex than the situation we’re facing in factory farming and leather-production (i.e., a situation in which the animals are being raised and killed for products that are unnecessary, unhealthy and obsolete). Can we really say that the use of animals in laboratories is “obsolete”, “unnecessary”, or “unhealthy” (in terms of human health)?

Chiang Mai: Paradise for Some?

08 September 2017

Paradise for some, purgatory for others? Conversation with an anonymous, mystery guest (who is no longer on youtube / vegan social media generally). This was recorded in June of 2016.

Patreon Question: Cosmopolitanism & Gaining “Perspective” Through Travel.

08 September 2017

URL:http://www.thai-blogs.com/media/blogs/richpictures/IMG_5731.jpg

^ Pay $1 per month to support the future of this channel.

Ancient Religions vs. The Future of Veganism

08 September 2017

This is a video primarily (although not entirely) discussing Buddhist philosophy (with reference to the future of veganism, etc.).

Marxism within Veganism; Socratic Method is Dead.

08 September 2017

A non-book-review of: David A. Nibert, “Animal Oppression and Human Violence”, in large part discussing the weakness of “anti-capitalism” (in this case, crypto-Communism) in relying on overly-vague and obfuscatory terms.

This video was recorded in December of 2016, and was originally titled, “Socratic Method is Dead; Don’t Dehumanize Your Opponents.”

Q&A2:The Ethics of Clothing-Factory-Conditions & Veganism on Paper (Publications).

08 September 2017

This is Part 2 of Q&A within my Patreon page (a social network that costs you $1 per month, and puts you in touch with myself and a few hundred other people with common interests): http://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Patreon Q&A Part 6 (Four Questions in 22 Minutes)

08 September 2017

1. A question about “pruning” your social media contacts/presence (reaching out to strangers, and cutting people off).

2. Studying methods for learning languages (learning Chinese, etc.).

“The mistake most people make is searching for simplicity… we learn language through the associations between things… plunging into the complexity of language and meaning, rather than starting with the simplification of things… learning complex clusters of ideas [is easier to remember] than working with isolated factoids…”

3. What is your opinion of studying psychology in university?

4. A question about the wildlife management paradigm: isn’t there still some advantage to people regarding farmed animals as equivalent to pet animals?

This is Part 6 of a Q&A within my Patreon page (a social network that costs you $1 per month, and puts you in touch with myself and a few hundred other people with common interests): http://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Why Vegans Hate the Green Party (with Tofu Goddess), etc.

08 September 2017

The fourth and final part of the podcast (in conversation with Tofu Goddess), this was originally posted as exclusive to my Patreon subscribers. Although I won’t attempt a summary of its contents here, complaints about the Green Party, and reflections on being vegan in Canada, are a considerable portion of our discussion.

This was recorded in early August of 2016.

The definition of veganism is deeply flawed & still debated.

07 September 2017

Human Rights: A Nihilist’s Perspective.

07 September 2017

“Human Rights is like a baseball cap: people wear it to show what team they’re on.”

For more on what I mean by Nihilism, take a glance at the playlist titled, _*"Historical Nihilism, 历史虚无主义, “My Own” Philosophy."*_ https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

I don’t believe in Animal Rights.

06 September 2017

Defining veganism.

Veganism, the Long Game and the Short Game (Mike’s Question).

04 September 2017

“New sweater… I bought this today… I’m trying to look 65, is it working?”

This video was recorded back when I was living in Kunming (late November, 2016) —evidently, it was cold enough to wear that red sweater at the time (it ain’t now… not in Dehong [德宏]).

Answers! Patreon-exclusive Q&A (May 8^th, 2016)

04 September 2017

SHORTCUTS, FOOTNOTES AND CITATIONS.

35:00 = Social Media: Lifeline or Waste of Time? (Genevieve’s question)

41:27 = Laotian cuisine (vegan, of course).

Footnote 1: what Khao Lam / Khao Laam looks like:

45:45 = Critical aspects for organizing a successful political movement (Mike’s question).

55:33 = Favorite books, fiction and non-fiction (Eva and Haruki’s question).

[Link 1:] http://www.abebooks.com/Outlaws-Marsh-Water-Margin-Translated-Sidney/9053297199/bd

[Link 2:] http://www.hackettpublishing.com/on-justice-power-and-human-nature

1:02:54 = Why go to China now, given the divorce proceedings? (Scarlett’s question)

1:08:30 = Why did you get married in the first place? (Julia’s question)

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2014/05/how-i-ended-up-learning-chinese-part-one.html

(There are three parts in total, i.e., in that written account on my blog, and that’s part 1 of 3.)

1:14:41 = Nihilism, nihilistic atheism, & historical nihilism (Marmar’s question).

1:18:51 = Mineral extraction, military service, the morality of vegans having various jobs; the question of habitat conservation as opposed to faulting a specific crop or industry. (Linda’s question)

Feeling Like Garbage on a Vegan Diet.

04 September 2017

The Fundamental Flaw with Vegan Abolitionism (or “Abolitionist Vegans”).

04 September 2017

This video is from Oct of 2016, and it alludes to earlier videos on the topic, but, now, I can also link you to more recent videos (I did a book-review of Gary Francione’s final book that runs more than an hour long, in collaboration with ModVegan) titled, “Vegans: Beyond Abolitionism”: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=francione

Floppy Foxes Invented by the Fur Industry.

02 September 2017

The video-footage quoted here is from a recent video by “Oikeutta eläimille” (a Finnish animal welfare group); you can see the original video, titled “Turkistarhojen jättiketut”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/hJTGC1KxWPE

No comments section? Join the conversation on Patreon, and support this channel for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Why vegans still won’t join PETA.

02 September 2017

A reply to a comment on Patreon. You can pay $1 per month to join the conversation if you wanna:

Live-streaming, two vegans on the China-Myanmar border.

01 September 2017

^ That’s the link, click to join the conversation now.

Happy Cow: Are Bad Vegan Restaurants Bad for Veganism?

31 August 2017

Like the channel? Join Patreon to join the conversation, and, yeah, support its meagre existence: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Animism, Not Minimalism: Marie Kondo Book Review.

30 August 2017

The book is titled, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”, by Marie Kondo.

Live-streaming on Younow, right now. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

30 August 2017

^That’s the link. Join the conversation.

Unify and Divide: DxE and the Future of Vegan Activism Generally.

27 August 2017

Here’s the link to the website mentioned @8:45, the “faction” of Direct Action Everywhere challenging the leadership of Wayne Hsiung and Priya (and challenging assumptions about leadership/inequality in principle): https://liberation.global

Reviews: Honesty vs. Academic Strictures. (ARZone Controversy)

24 August 2017

veganism / activism / animal rights / Buddhism (as a contrasting example) / academia / the PhD treadmill

Brass Tacks: Beyond Pamphlets, Protests, & Prison.

24 August 2017

^ That’s the link to my Patreon page, join the conversation if you wanna. Long-term, I still do think of it as a crossroads for aspiring activists to get organized, create new foundations, etc.

Shout out to Roger Yates (formerly pro-violence, now anti-violence, using standard public-education methods, as mentioned) who is now on youtube: youtube.com/user/1flats/videos

Live-stream, talking about vegan politics, animal rights, etc.

24 August 2017

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB2XtUWSP0pAfEPiOqf1Kjg/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0

^ That’s the link, click to join.

Weeping on camera, for a change (vs. humane slaughter).

23 August 2017

In this episode, our vegan co-host gets a letter from a viewer (describing the “humane” protocol for slaughtering chickens in some detail) and breaks down weeping for a change.

vegan / vegans / veganism

Anthony Fantano is WRONG: “Black Ken” by Lil B (Album Review)

23 August 2017

You’re telling me that Lil B gets 5/10 from the same critic who gave The Death Grips a 10/10? And for a genuinely innovative tape like “Black Ken”? This is in part a vindication of Lil B’s recent album and in part an examination of the problematic role of the rap critic in an era when downloading is instantaneous (and often free).

Oh, and I guess I’m gonna coin the pseudonym, “Based Cog” (#BasedCog) for this and some future videos (on rap music and, conceivably, in further criticism of Based Zeus).

Vegan Cake: “Converting” People in Casual Conversations.

23 August 2017

Just a bunch of anecdotes from my personal life (most of them involving veganism) in Kunming, Yunnan, China.

(Note: this was recorded in late November of 2016, when it was cold enough to wear a scarf indoors.)

(Anti-)Minimalism discussion… book review of Marie Kondo coming soon.

23 August 2017

This is a video from late November, 2016 (discussing minimalism, etc., following up on other videos that were current at the time). Yeah, in November, in Kunming, it really was cold enough to be wearing so many layers on camera. At that time I had not read Marie Kondo’s book (title, “the life-changing magic of tidying up”). I am now planning to read and review her book on this channel.

The Vegan Identity: “Ghosts” of Public Perception.

21 August 2017

Although unrelated to the answer presented here (which is more-or-less strictly vegan politics), the guy asking the question is, in fact, the guy behind “Cruelty Free Cosplay” (yeah, it’s a vegan cosplay channel).

On Reading Philosophy: How & Why?

21 August 2017

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR [Ep. 011]

https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel (Support this channel for $1 per month. 👈 The comments section is on Patreon.)

Conversation w a New York Vegan: Languages, Life & Activism.

14 August 2017

If you want to support the future of the channel (or just talk to me, and get a reply, etc.) you could sign up with Patreon (costs all of $1 per month), BTW. A significant percentage of my content consists of responses to questions (and links) sent to me via Patreon. The original idea was to create a basis for people to actually network and start doing “real activism” (at least as real as my children’s book, etc., maybe as real as lobbying parliament, etc.) --but the “long term” nature of such aspirations is discussed (and lamented) toward the end of this selfsame video (above). https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Workout/Weight-lifting: Vegan Parent & Teacher & Student.

13 August 2017

This is “Version 0.9a” —I should make another video with actual footage of the push-ups and hill-climbing involved.

Racism: Where Do You Draw the Line? Why Draw the Line?

11 August 2017

Vegan Cheetah / Unnatural Vegan / Cory McCarthy / Tara McCarthy / Vegan Gains / etc. / vegan / vegans / veganism /

Live-streaming now, stop by to chat. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

10 August 2017

Live on younow, right now, that’s the link, above.

Accusations of Insanity Within Veganism (NorVegan, Durianrider, NPD)

10 August 2017

NPD = narcissistic personality disorder. For more about this widely-misunderstood disorder, you can take a glance at the work of Sam Vaknin: youtube.com/user/samvaknin/videos

vegan / vegans / veganism

Based Zeus is WRONG (about sex / dating / everything)

10 August 2017

Well… he’s not wrong about everything… he is vegan, and that’s how I discovered his channel.

Vegan Youtube is Dead.

09 August 2017

Live-streamed at: https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

vegan / vegans / vegansim

Happiness, obduracy and the meaning of life.

05 August 2017

Live-Streaming on Younow Right Now. (Vegan / vegans / veganism)

05 August 2017

^ Click to join the conversation

Mutiny and “Elections” at Direct Action Everywhere.

30 July 2017

Playlist: “DxE: Critique of Direct Action Everywhere (Activism in Theory & Practice)” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qhwg8QIrDTQu-GqKu8Rc4s

vegan / vegans / veganism / DxE / Direct Action Everywhere / vegan activism

Vegan couple in matching shirts (?) live-streaming from the Côte d’Azur.

30 July 2017

^ That’s the link, click to join the conversation.

Live streaming on younow right now, FROM FRANCE. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

29 July 2017

^ Click on the link (live from the Côte d’Azur, France)

Dogma: Axiomatic & Pragmatic Thinking in Vegan Politics.

27 July 2017

Yep. It’s me, talking about vegan politics. In Thailand.

Episode 7.2 was AWFUL! (Game of Thrones) (ASOIAF)

27 July 2017

Reasonably in-depth discussion / review / analysis (of season 7, episode 2 [S07E02], “stormborn”) —with comparative reference to book, show and everything else extant.

Here’s the playlist for all my Game of Thrones (& ASOIAF) videos, on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7oK5ShvyvAswb-3lSWjlQe6

Toys for my daughter (marble madness + Peppa Pig)

26 July 2017

Why We Listen to Rap: Middle Aged, Middle Class, White Vegans.

26 July 2017

Learning languages: how did this become such a major part of my lIfe?

21 July 2017

Live streaming on younow right now.

21 July 2017

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vS8Fzy3tGBo

^ Direct from Dehong, Yunnan, China.

Brass Tacks: Reducetarian Pragmatism vs. Vegan Optimism.

21 July 2017

(1) The reducetarian agency mentioned, “One Step for Animals”: http://www.onestepforanimals.org/about.html

(2) Video on Vox, “Want to save animal lives without going veg? Eat beef, not chicken.”

(3) My playlist of prior videos on DxE (Direct Action Everywhere, the group seen protesting here, briefly): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qhwg8QIrDTQu-GqKu8Rc4s

This is part of the “Brass Tacks” playlist: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

vegan / vegans / veganism

Captive Animals ARE NOT Companion Animals (Unnatural Vegan is NOT Vegan)

17 July 2017

Captivity is not companionship.

Looking for the comments section? It’s on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

[ASOIAF:] Season 5 (Book vs. Show)… will it get any worse?

16 July 2017

Here’s the playlist for all my Game of Thrones (& ASOIAF) videos, on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7oK5ShvyvAswb-3lSWjlQe6

Karl Popper’s philosophy (in/and my life)

15 July 2017

If this is your first time on the channel, you should probably check out the playlists section, to get a sense of the diversity of what goes on here: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

And if you want to talk to me, the comments section is on Patreon:

Q&A: The Future of this Channel (à-bas-le-ciel)

15 July 2017

Most of the questions answered on this channel come from supporters on Patreon, but not this one: I was asked this during a live-stream, broadcast on Younow (link follows). https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

vegan / vegans / veganism

The Vegan vs. Vegan Thing: Gary Francione vs. Melanie Joy.

13 July 2017

Career: Painter, Baker, PhD, Language-Educator… or What?

13 July 2017

Caterpillar (in Mangshi, Dehong: 云南，德宏，芒市)

13 July 2017

Max Stirner’s philosophy (in/and my life)

11 July 2017

The comments section is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Schopenhauer’s philosophy (in/and my life)

11 July 2017

The comments section is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Brass Tacks: Critique and the Making of a New Movement.

09 July 2017

This is the second video I’ve made on the nature and importance of critique itself, the first one having been titled, ““On Critique Itself”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/W8_shcdsuIw

Beijing: Vegan Restaurants and Airports (Not Much Else)

08 July 2017

I think we were in Beijing for less than 48 hours (if you don’t count the time wasted in-and-around airports). 在这个星期，北京飞机场很乱糟糟：two of the three airport runways were being renovated and, reportedly, there were thunderstorms as an excuse for the chaos, too.

Am I a Vegan Psychopath? (Politics & Personal Consequences)

08 July 2017

The controversy-of-the-moment (that created this video) was a guy called Joe Best leaning heavily on allegations that I’m a psychopath, but, as always, I try to talk about broader (and more meaningful) issues in a way that would make this video interesting if I came back and watched it myself a few years from now.

[ASOIAF:] Book vs. Show: Great Literature vs. Pop Art.

07 July 2017

Playlist of all my Game of Thrones (ASOIAF) videos, on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7oK5ShvyvAswb-3lSWjlQe6

I’m not cool with Joe Best: Digital Demimonde Drama Discussion.

06 July 2017

Live streaming on younow right now, from BEIJING AIRPORT

05 July 2017

^ That’s the link, click on it.

TWO HOURS SOLID from an airport lobby. It was really hilarious. We “recruited” talent from the crowd (as you can even see in this short clip). I wonder if anyone recorded it. A lot of Q&A about my relationship with Melissa, SOME discussion of veganism, and the blonde guy had about six beers and acted the fool throughout (no shade). ;-)

Vegan Politics: The Logical Fallacies Fad.

02 July 2017

Meet me in France, Thailand or Beijing. (Vegan / Vegans / Veganism)

01 July 2017

===TRAVEL DATES=== We’re in Beijing July 4^th & 5^th.

We’re in Thailand (Jomtien Beach) July 24^th — July 27^th.

In France we’ll be in the Côte d’Azur (Nice) from July 28^th to August 15^th.

If you wanna get in touch with me, BTW, Patreon is the way to do it:

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.jp/2016/05/1954-1979-wars-in-china-cambodia-vietnam.html

Vegan is a trademark worth $500,000 per year. :-/

30 June 2017

I was unaware that “vegan” is a trademark, and generating over half a million dollars per year for its owners.

Plant Based News talks to à-bas-le-ciel

30 June 2017

Will Klaus Mitchell and Eisel Mazard ever patch it up? No, probably not. BTW, I’d like to make a video (ASAP) talking about the absurd feud between Gary Francione and Melanie Joy… this is a recurrent feature within veganism, at all levels, and in all categories… although, as you’ll hear in this recording, I do reach out positively to other youtubers in general, and I reached out positively to Klaus, specifically, even in a tense situation such as this: Klaus did make a video (that he has now deleted) in which he referred to my court case as “a scam”, backing up lies that were then created by Durianrider and Vegan Cheetah.

Dead-End Losers & the “Attainable Fantasy” of Youtube Fame.

29 June 2017

Including an account of my meeting one of the last, die-hard supporters of Durianrider (face to face) in Chiang Mai (“Angry Vegan”).

Out of Limbo? Career, Education, Ambition & Vegan Activism.

29 June 2017

Not Vegan: Sperm Whale Hair Conditioner.

28 June 2017

Killing whales to make hair-care products? Yep, it happens. Apparently, in 2017, the sperm whale is STILL being hunted to manufacture beauty products out of a fluid found in their heads… in some countries… and China is one of them.

For SLIGHLY more information (not much) find the word “spermaceti” in this article: http://uk.whales.org/reinventing-whale

Beginnings and Endings: Durianrider, Freelee, NorVegan’s “Unmasking” & Me.

28 June 2017

Check out my earlier, more interesting video, “The wonder that was Freelee”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XJd6wQlMW5Y

Novegan’s two hour long documentary is titled, “THE UNMASKING, part 3: The Projections”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/y5n_e8he_rk

Brass Tacks: Authority in Vegan Organizations.

26 June 2017

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR [Ep. 010]

https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel (Support this channel for $1 per month. 👈 The comments section is on Patreon.)

Footnote: the ultimate origin of the quotation (from the F.B.I. director) is R.W. Emerson, “An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man”.

Vegan Politics: when science doesn’t tell you what you want to hear…

24 June 2017

The link to the article alluded to: https://medium.com/direct-action-everywhere-dxe/a-potential-summary-of-disagreements-and-agreements-on-direct-action-18fb8703f409

Living in the Moment: the Permanent Vacation Mentality (With TED CARR!)

24 June 2017

[Discussion:] A Protest-Based Diet? Revolutionaries & Restaurateurs.

23 June 2017

Vegan / Vegans / Veganism

An interview “for the future of the vegan movement”.

20 June 2017

WORST INTERVIEW EVER.

Shout Out to Vegan Footsoldier and TheGlucoseNetwork… One Year Later?

19 June 2017

This video has nothing to do with Durianrider. No, wait, it has everything to do with Durianrider, but, for that reason, has nothing to do with veganism. :-/

Critique of Earthling Ed: Vegans can’t offer “Social Justice” for animals.

18 June 2017

This video offers a different angle on some of the issues raised in the current approach of “Earthling Ed” (from a fellow vegan) —perhaps drawing attention to some of the assumptions about “Social Justice” that may have been left unexamined by others in the movement.

(MARCUS AURELIUS GETS THE SHOUT-OUT!) ;-)

DxE: Arrests, Lies, Videotape (Direct Action Everywhere)

15 June 2017

The link to the article mentioned in the first few minutes:

The link to the playlists section of the channel (where you will find a playlist with about 10 videos (so far) on DxE / Direct Action Everywhere, and many others related to questions of effective activism in/for the vegan movement):

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/playlists

vegan / vegans / veganism

Wheat Kills: vs. Vegan Gains (vs. No Bullshit)

12 June 2017

More on “the wildlife management paradigm”: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qrHC5-UQDpMKvEmQjPiTTv

More on Palm Oil (and the often incoherent arguments of vegans against it):

(1) Vegans vs. Palm Oil; Agriculture vs. Habitat. (Veganism)

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sccfY0T1eq4

(2) Vegan Lass is Wrong: Deforestation, Palm Oil & Progress.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/7Hw02rfVUvs

And here’s the link to the more recent Vegan Gains debate often referred to: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/eT0yC2exQZU

vegan / vegans / veganism

Plutarch vs. Jordan Peterson (vegans have philosophers, too)

10 June 2017

Links to sources salient to the video:

(1) A discussion of the current state of vegan politics, with extensive reference to the debates between Peter Singer and Gary Francione (reflecting on the ways in which Singer is now “unfashionable”, and why most vegans now reject his legacy): “Vegans: Beyond Abolitionism (Beyond PETA & Peter Singer, too)”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/DrZ5RwzvthY

(2) On leather (and the surprisingly strong health-science and ecological arguments against its ongoing use), ModVegan: “Leather is not Vegan, Humane, or Healthy”.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/M_5jjioaNEk

(3) Plutarch on vegetarianism/veganism (one of the most famous and influential authors of ancient Greece and Rome):

(3.1) http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/Animal_Rights_A_History_Plutarch.htm

(3.2) https://ivu.org/history/greece_rome/plutarch.html

(4) In the intro I refer to myself as a harsh critic of Will Kymlicka, and so I might as well provide the link to the harshest of my videos on this subject: a response to his book, “Zoopolis”, titled, “Veganism: what if our leaders are idiots? (No, seriously…)”.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XPBDJgtcP1w

(5) Yet another self-explanatory title: “Vegans Can Be Idiots, Too: Will Tuttle’s World Peace Diet.”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/K7lqJFYbhU4

(6) Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) has been discussed in quite a few different videos on this channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=DxE

Jordan Peterson says Veganism is a Religion without a Philosophy.

07 June 2017

He further says vegans are “clueless”, and that their crypto-religion is based merely on “ritual”. In daily life, veganism is a simple praxis with a number of different complex philosophies competing for legitimacy in ongoing debates —within and without the movement. In fact, Jordan Peterson himself would probably find much to admire in those debates, if he were not so ignorant of them.

Jordan B. Peterson / Jordan Peterson

The Girlfriend: how much of our relationship is ABOUT veganism?

06 June 2017

How I learned Chinese (Review of Keats Language School)

06 June 2017

With comparative reference to the ways in which Chinese is taught in a formal, university classroom, etc.

Keats School. Kunming. 济慈. 。昆明。云南。中国。学习中文。

Fake Facebook Accounts (Vegan Cheetah, Durianrider, etc.)

05 June 2017

More vegan-vs.-vegan skulduggery: it’s worse than the underhanded tricks in the average election for small-town mayor. :-/

Here’s the link to the fake facebook account (or, at least, one of them?) impersonating me, BTW: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007055086923

Facebook may or may not have deleted it by the time you get there.

vegan / vegans / veganism

Friendship, the perpetual parting of ways.

05 June 2017

Reply to a question from a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

[N.P.D.] Narcissism Within Veganism (& NorVegan’s Documentary)

05 June 2017

Check out NorVegan’s channel for the three-part documentary (this video only responds to part one of three): youtube.com/channel/UCT7ZSo4tI0-8Porr233FEjQ/videos

QUOTE, “The findings revealed that those subjects suffering from narcissistic personality disorder exhibited structural abnormalities in precisely that region of the brain, which is involved in the processing and generation of compassion. For patients with narcissism, this region of the cerebral cortex was markedly reduced in thickness compared to the control group.”

SOURCE: _Altered brain structure in pathological narcissism._ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130619101434.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmind_brain%2Fneuroscience+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Mind+%26+Brain+News+--+Neuroscience%29

Check out, also, Sam Vaknin’s channel on N.P.D.: https://www.youtube.com/user/samvaknin

The Kind Diet vs. the Judgemental Diet: Alicia Silverstone vs. Reality.

04 June 2017

Vegan / vegans / veganism

Why did I major in Political Science anyway? (vegan / vegans / veganism)

02 June 2017

For more on Thomas Hobbes and the (contested!) resemblance of the “cover portrait” (frontispiece) to Oliver Cromwell (and/or/vs Charles II), see:

http://www.bl.uk/eblj/1978articles/pdf/article4.pdf

(Alas, in my own education, many published sources referred to the resemblance to Cromwell (“in some editions”) as an established fact —and this article, also, says that this assumption went unquestioned in the literature on Hobbes for some indeterminate period of time.)

University: should ANYONE study Political Science? [ADVICE Ep. 009]

01 June 2017

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR! [Ep. 009]

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / environmentalism / making the world a better place in general / etc.

The Fist Fight That Never Was.

28 May 2017

Link to the original video from Sam’s channel (“quoted” briefly here) = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/9M7qRSqtR-g

Vegan / Vegans / Veganism

They don’t pay me to sing

26 May 2017

A scene from my extremely mysterious day job (that numerous tragically bored and mean-spirited people on the internet make up rumors about).

Q&A: Chiang Mai, Veganism, Meaning of Life, etc.

26 May 2017

And, yeah, I sincerely hope this is the last video I ever make mentioning Durianrider.

Lies, Lies, LIES. (Vegans, vegans, VEGANS.)

22 May 2017

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/exYtJT

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

Tear it down: why I oppose the Thai Fruit Festival / Bike Festival.

21 May 2017

Durianrider, Freelee… I sort of destroyed their stupid festival… BUT WHY?

Vegan Footsoldier: what if you (and Durianrider) are 100% right?

19 May 2017

Here’s the link to the earlier video that shows “Durianrider’s Threats & Allegations (in his own words)”.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CRLbgCzJHyM

[Interview:] The Ecological and Ethical Core of Veganism (vs. Freelee, etc.)

15 May 2017

The link to part one (of my interview with this mainstream journalist) is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uEU0zUHkXKI

The link to part two: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/azEAWWM0eVM

Bruce Wayne vs. Batman: Ted Carr’s Permanent Vacation.

13 May 2017

Further reflections on the importance of ambition and/or/as morality (in our lives).

Vegan / vegans / veganism

Bios3training vs. vegans: it’s not preaching, it’s about respect.

11 May 2017

[Interview:] Real Veganism vs. the Chiang Mai Permanent Vacation Mentality.

10 May 2017

The link to part one (of my interview with this mainstream journalist) is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uEU0zUHkXKI

Reckless Optimism (About the Future of the Vegan Movement) in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

08 May 2017

Featuring Dexter Deveau: https://www.youtube.com/user/sexydexy145

Plant Based News LIES (Retraction & Apology?)

08 May 2017

PlantBasedNews must (repeat: must) issue a retraction and an apology for the false claims you made about me (and my “financial misconduct”) and they should be willing to report THE REAL FACTS of the case instead. I told the truth about this case AT EVERY STAGE, and many other vegans lined up for their opportunity to defame me. Klaus, IF YOUR CHANNEL is regarded as more trustworthy (as “news”) than Durianrider, you must realize that a lie of this kind (told to 29,000 people) does serious harm to my reputation: you know this is false, and you have been totally irresponsible in how you handled this affair. PlantBasedNews may be a scam, but à-bas-le-ciel is not.

The stack of evidence presented in court (will Durianrider go to jail?)

07 May 2017

If you’re not already familiar what the trial is about (or why there are criminal charges being pressed against Durianrider, a.k.a. Harley Johnstone), the story starts here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CRLbgCzJHyM

My lawyer explained that the video-evidence (actual youtube videos) is submitted to the court on a CD-ROM: I did see the CD-ROM (in the courtroom, on the table where evidence is filed before the judge) but I did not see the contents of the CD-ROM (i.e., I haven’t seen the Thai translations of the videos, nor the selection of videos used... yet). However, yes, it was a surreal moment, seeing the stack of Facebook comments (etc.) translated into Thai.

ASOIAF: Religion & Regression (“A Song For Lya”, Preston Jacobs & Stannis as Anti-Hero)

05 May 2017

The link between religion and regression makes it into the title, but I can’t really offer a synopsis in so few words: these are themes very clearly linking ASOIAF to George R.R. Martin’s earlier writing in the “1000 Worlds” book series —and, frankly, I think Preston Jacobs has missed the mark on the issues addressed in this video (so far). I discuss the political and moral perspective that George is trying to share with the reader —although many regard George’s writing as depicting an amoral landscape, there is very often “a moral to the story” (especially as it pertains to religion).

TBH, I’d say that this video really gets rolling around the 10 or 12 minute mark, in terms of political analysis: give it a chance, as the opening is a bit casual and conversational.

Morality without Ambition is Meaningless. ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR [Ep. 008]

04 May 2017

Morality without ambition would not be morality at all.

Roaming Millennial is Right About Vegan Extremists.

03 May 2017

Links (as alluded to in the video) on the peculiar political legacy of Prof. Steven Best:

1. https://speakingofresearch.com/2012/10/23/prof-steven-best-gets-a-taste-of-his-own-medicine-and-doesnt-like-it/

2. http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/10/claws-come-out-in-dispute-between-animal-rights-activists.html

3. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420965/professors-manifesto-vegans-must-illegally-overthrow-society-save-world-katherine

Theatricality vs. Dishonesty on Youtube (feat. “Ask Yourself”, Ted Carr, Cory & Tara McCarthy)

02 May 2017

The intro and conclusion to the video deal with a separate (but linked) issue: take a look at my past videos criticizing Ted Carr here, and you can decide for yourself if this crosses a line into bullying (of a sort that could get your channel censored and/or deleted): https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=ted+carr

Roaming Millennial: the Gay Rights Model for the Vegan Movement.

02 May 2017

There are, in fact, compelling reasons for why vegans need to be “out of the closet”, even if it is inconvenient for non-vegans (dare I say veganophobes?) —and the future progress of veganism may resemble the past progress of gay rights in some respects, for some roughly-comparable reasons.

Sonia Elsie: Hiring an Instagram Model as your Nanny / Au Pair.

02 May 2017

Veganism makes this question more extreme: having someone help take care of your kid who is young (and inexperienced) BUT VEGAN seems much more appealing than having someone around who might secretly feed meat/dairy to your kid (a meat-eating nanny might feel better-informed than the vegan mom, and might never respect a vegan family’s wishes, complying only if you watch over them constantly, etc.). However, just saying it out loud, this doesn’t sound like a good idea: “Honey, I’m thinking about hiring an instagram model to help us take care of the baby”. :-/

vegan / vegans / veganism

There will be no vegan revolution: veganism is not “class war”.

01 May 2017

Here’s the link to the full-length, 35 minute video, “Against Violence in Political Praxis”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/pB4LXyL80Ds

Reg Flowers: À-Bas-Le-Flowers / Reg-Le-Ciel.

01 May 2017

Against Violence in Political Praxis (The 35 Minute Version!)

01 May 2017

Violence is not just a problem as a political means-to-an-end; it is profoundly distorting in the way the whole political process is conceptualized (even in examples like veganism and the Green Party of Canada, etc., where violence has so little to offer, it remains a dominant paradigm for the whole “left wing”, due to the legacy of 20^th century Communism... and while veganism is not intrinsically left-wing, it has been predominantly leftist so far).

Yeah, BTW, I’m vain: this is what I look like with 5 hours of sleep (no makeup!). Recorded after waking up at 6:00 AM (having fallen asleep at 1:00 AM the night before). And, sadly, I still have way too much to say on the issue (and, sadly, I think this stuff is of real importance... I sort of wish it wasn’t).

The essay alluded to, repeatedly, about the events in 1920 (revolution, violence, etc.) can be found here: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42#.zvgoq1tqb

You’re JUST a Youtube Vegan — DON’T BE ASHAMED.

29 April 2017

This is “a more modest manifesto” for Veganism WITHIN YOUTUBE, and the important role that youtube plays in many of our lives. Don’t quit, don’t be ashamed: if youtube is the only thing remotely resembling activism you’ve got going on in your life, recognize it for what it is (the good and the bad), don’t lose your sense of purpose, and rep your set.

Cambodia & Laos: How I FIRST Got Interested/Involved.

28 April 2017

Starting with my earliest childhood memory of how I learned the word “Cambodia”. Maybe you’ve heard it all before, but maybe this is the first video you’ve seen on my channel, so I just disclaim: I lived in Asia for many years, two-and-a-half-years solid in Laos, and maybe about a year solid in Cambodia (a lot of time in Thailand before, after and in-between). I ended up doing a fair bit of language research, historical research, political research and humanitarian-sector research, in-and-about all of these places: they ended up influencing my life in many ways (both shallow and profound). This video omits-to-mention the role of Theravada Buddhism in the story (there are other videos on that) but you may catch the word “Pali” mentioned in passing: Pali is a language that is almost-exclusively studied by people with a serious interest in the history and philosophy of Buddhism —and, yes, I was one.

Meat: The Justifications Are Harder to Quit Than the Real Thing.

27 April 2017

vegan / vegans / veganism

Reply to a question posted via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Tori Sterling: Chasing a Feeling. :-/

26 April 2017

You can find Tori’s channel here: youtube.com/user/macup101/videos

vegan / vegans / veganism

Alt-Right Racism: Vegan Gains & Ask Yourself Get Cozy with Cory & Tara McCarthy.

24 April 2017

The Nihilistic Approach to Humanitarian & Political Engagement.

24 April 2017

Posed in reply to a question from a Patreon supporter, this monologue does relate back to vegans / veganism, repeatedly, although it isn’t the primary point of the discussion. Here are the links to two articles alluded to (relatively early) in the video, the first being titled: “Sex and Celibacy in the Poverty Industry”:

http://www.akha.org/content/sexualabuse/sexandcelibacyinthepovertyindustry.pdf

The second has the more prosaic title, “Observations on an aid worker sex scandal in Laos”: www.akha.org/content/sexualabuse/onerebuttaltothenoradreport.pdf

Anti-Depressants: Euphoria, Sorrow & Science.

23 April 2017

Durianrider can’t be wrong about everything: even a broken watch is right twice a day. I can’t recall Unnatural Vegan ever taking a clear position on this, hm?

Want to hear more from Dr. Peter Breggin? LINK: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/u3K-CojzvzQ?t=7m20s

vegan / vegans / veganism / Supreme Banana / Supreme Camana

How I lost my virginity (teenage philosophy & politics)

17 April 2017

BTW, Sonia Elsie kicked me out of her Facebook group for no reason (and she used to give my videos the thumbs-up/whatever… Facebook idiosyncratically sends you alerts about that). Sonia: this video is for you (and my loss-of-virginity story totally pwns yours ya done know).*

* [Not that I’ve even seen her video.]**

** [On youtube, it seems to be customary to have strongly-held views about videos you haven’t actually watched yourself, hm?]

Dinner is Ruined: How Non-Vegans View Vegans

17 April 2017

…and vice-versa.

ModVegan’s channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

The other guy is called “Callum’s Corner”.

N-Word Please: Tara McCarthy, “Ask Yourself” & Vegan Gains.

14 April 2017

My nom-de-guerre.

14 April 2017

IT’S IN ENGLISH, NOT FRENCH. If I added “nom de plume” to the title, it’d be even worse, hm?

Martyrs Make Lousy Leaders: Beyond Gary Yourofsky.

13 April 2017

Gary Yourofsky: Bitter, Burnt-Out Loser Blames “Pacifist” Vegans for His Own Decision to Quit.

12 April 2017

Yeah, you can call it a “retirement”, but the title of this video is already too long to fit onto the back of a cocktail napkin. Gary Yourofsky did this “tough guy” act for years, describing himself as a revolutionary, and comparing himself to historical figures who fought in REAL revolutions… but he simply found it too emotionally damaging to answer emails from “pacifist” vegans, so he quit. What’s the tough-guy rhetoric worth now? What kind of “revolutionary” quits because he can’t cope with the “humanist” and “hippie” tendencies that Yourofsky blames for his early retirement? Apparently, it’s the same kind who spend his whole career endorsing violence (and complaining that the A.L.F. is “not violent enough”). :-/

*LINKS.* Here’s the specific video I mentioned, “Don’t debate the details”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/05V_v2Qd8G0

Here’s a list of all of my videos with “Yourofsky” in the title:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=yourofsky

If you look at the thumbnail image carefully, BTW… that’s not Gary. ;-) That’s actually Jae Costly, mirroring me.

Refugee policy should provide refuge (not assimilation).

11 April 2017

Note: the thesis of this video isn’t stated until (shortly after) the 11 minute mark, and, thus, while the point of the video is suggested by the title, you won’t know the direction I’m taking here (at all) if you just listen to the first few minutes and then quit. :-/

Vegan vs. Vegan: the online debating club fad (vs. “Ask Yourself”).

11 April 2017

Two of my earlier videos are mentioned, and here are the links:

(1) Veganism: Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy, by Casey T. Taft, Book Review. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/c59ckXsUcgI

(2) Veganism: Don’t Debate the Details. (Vegan Artichoke Response) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/05V_v2Qd8G0

Maybe try prison activism? (A Snippet from the Cutting Room Floor.)

10 April 2017

Morty! Stop messing with the lighting! This was followed by “Take 2”, running 22 minutes long (and uploading now).

Solutions: Vegan activism in my life and yours, right now. [Ep. 007]

10 April 2017

ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR [Ep. 007]

Comedy & Activism: Keep Love in the Game.

09 April 2017

Veganism can be bleak, and vegans can feel hopeless in facing the enormity of the task ahead of us, but that same sense of “doing the impossible” brings a lot of vivacity (and humor) to the movement.

Shout out to “Juice” (that’s his name!) quoted in the video: youtube.com/channel/UCU4o-HR74og31-wAa_m-PJw/videos

And Repzilla gets a shout-out, starting @13:51, you can find his channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCXgGxoK-fsv1ScBHE7lYi_Q/videos

(The music playing in the the final few seconds of the video, also, is Juice’s creation.)

Veganism: “Getting Attention” vs. the Mechanics of the Movement.

06 April 2017

Pamphlets: are there any new ideas in vegan activism?

06 April 2017

The article alluded to (repeatedly) in the video is by Nathan Harrison: https://medium.com/@harrisonnathan/the-actual-number-is-almost-surely-higher-92c908f36517

If you’d like to know more about “the wildlife management approach” (mentioned very briefly, in contrast to abolitionism), click here for a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7qrHC5-UQDpMKvEmQjPiTTv

Ex-vegans & pedophiles: don’t make excuses for people who make excuses.

01 April 2017

“Roll in the mud, come up dirty; hang out with nihilists… you might come out a bit… nihilistic.” It’s not surprising that this turn-of-phrase originates with me, but I just did a rapid internet-search… am I actually the first person to coin the phrase, “Don’t make excuses for people who make excuses”? Them’s words to live by. ;-)

Joe Vegan: A Stupid, Self-Pitying, Dishonest Ex-Vegan

01 April 2017

…and his fundraising failure (for a so-called “animal sanctuary” and “utopian” permaculture farm).

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). Click here: https://discord.gg/ZX3pbC

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

you’re either vegan or you’re not (Supreme Banana & Political Science)

30 March 2017

Debating the “I Don’t Care” Mentality (Vegan Gains vs. Bearing)

30 March 2017

Joe Vegan’s Fake Fantasy-Farm: I saw it six months ago.

29 March 2017

I made a 20-minute video titled, “The $600 Sanctuary Delusion” fully six months ago, and I’d still encourage you to watch it now (now, more than ever!): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/bLqPmh05WWU

Losing faith in Durianrider & launching a new (Vegan) dating app.

27 March 2017

Sam is launching a new (vegan-only) dating application called “Sprout”, you can check that out, here: http://www.gosprout.io/

Vegan life in small-town China & small-town Canada (a conversation)

27 March 2017

Why (Left-Wing) Feminists Hate Vegans / Veganism

26 March 2017

Co-starring the concepts of intersectionalism and anti-racist activism. For a sincere example from the opposite perspective (i.e., demonstrating that many feminists really do feel this way about vegans: I’m not arguing against an imaginary position here) take a look at this article from a Canadian university publication: http://theargus.ca/ac/2017/the-problems-with-veganism/

V is for Vegan, B IS FOR BIMBO.

24 March 2017

Effective Altruism is Rubbish, Innit? (Veganism / Ecology / Animal Rights)

24 March 2017

If you care about the future of the vegan movement, read the essay, here’s the link:

https://medium.com/@harrisonnathan/the-actual-number-is-almost-surely-higher-92c908f36517

Nathan Harrison, “the actual number is almost certainly higher”, an essay in large part about A.C.E. (Animal Charity Evaluators) and the effective altruism / effective activism paradigm.

Veganism doesn’t work for everyone… only for SOME PEOPLE…

24 March 2017

Yeah, you’ve heard it before: “veganism doesn’t work for everyone” —sometimes a sincere exception, sometimes an insincere excuse. A solid 30% of this video is an anecdote about romance/dating/love-life… but I assure you, we do get back to the point, and the anecdote is (really!) integral to what I’m trying to say.

Rap vs. My Professors (being a white, intellectual hip-hop fan)

23 March 2017

Here’s the link to the song named (as an example of what even my professors can so easily relate to / appreciate) in the last two minutes of the video, “Grits” by RZA: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8xU2VTFpXgI

Vegan Birth/Baby Story (how my daughter was born) [Vegan Parenting]

17 March 2017

Unnecessary Evil: Why Becca Bristow Won’t “Go Vegan”.

17 March 2017

You want the link to Becca Bristow’s original video on this topic? Here it is: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/orCnHZGy5JI

βιγκανισμός: Θα οργανωθούμε ποτέ να γίνουμε μια κοινότητα?

14 March 2017

“On Community”, a vegan manifesto; Greek translation by John.

“Πρώτα από όλα, δεν είμαι βίγκαν για να είμαι ή για να είμαι μέρος κάποιας κοινότητας.” * * * Μέσα στα πρώτα πέντε δευτερόλεπτα, η “Unnatural Vegan” αναφέρει το άλλο θέμα για το οποίο μιλάω συχνά· την κοινότητα.

Στο παρελθόν έχω κάνει πολλά βίντεο στα οποία μιλάω για το τι σημαίνει το να πούμε πως οι βίγκαν είναι μια κοινότητα. Ήμασταν ποτέ κοινότητα; Θα οργανωθούμε ποτέ να γίνουμε μια κοινότητα;

Η “Unnatural Vegan” κάνει την εξής ενδιαφέρουσα δήλωση πως δεν το κάνει για να είναι μέρος μιας κοινότητας. Δεν είναι ο σκοπός της, δεν την νοιάζει.

Λοιπόν, έχω διαφορετική άποψη από εκείνη γι αυτό, και δεν είναι κριτική κατά της, είναι μια προσωπική διαφορά μεταξύ μας για την οποία νομίζω πως αξίζει να συζητήσω.

Είμαι πιο φιλόδοξος από αυτό. Είμαι πιο άπληστος από αυτό.

Ναι, θέλω μια πραγματική κοινότητα. Κοιτάξτε τις “Μητέρες Κατά της Οδήγησης υπό την Επήρεια Ποτού”, έχουν τουλάχιστον ένα γραφείο σε κάθε Αμερικάνικη πολιτεία.

Υπάρχουν πενήντα πολιτείες στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες και έχουν πάνω από πενήντα γραφεία με προσωπικό που είναι ανοιχτά όλη την ώρα.

Εκείνοι το έχουν αυτό, εμείς όχι. Για πες μου, το 2016 ποιο μήνυμα είναι πιο σημαντικό, οι «Μητέρες Κατά της Οδήγησης υπό την Επήρεια Ποτού» ή ο βιγκανισμός... Είναι ο βιγκανισμός.

Ακόμα και αν στο παρελθόν, στην δεκαετία του 80, υπήρχε κάποιο επιχείρημα ότι οι «Μητέρες Κατά της Οδήγησης υπό την Επήρεια Ποτού» ήταν ένα πολύ σημαντικό λόμπι. Σήμερα, ο βιγκανισμός είναι ένα μήνυμα το οποίο οπωσδήποτε χρειάζεται πενήντα γραφεία στις Ηνωμένες πολιτείες.

Ξέρεις, έζησα σε μια εποχή στην οποία είδα τις ομάδες των γκέι να εξελίσσονται από περιθωριακές σε οργανώσεις με μεγάλη επιρροή.

Όταν ζούσα στο Τορόντο, υπήρχαν αρκετές οργανώσεις με κόσμο που δούλευε για τα δικαιώματα των γκέι,

Θυμάμαι πως υπήρχε μια οργάνωση η οποία είχε να κάνει αποκλειστικά με τις λεσβίες... διαφορετικές οργανώσεις για όλων των ειδών τις πολιτικές οπτικές γωνίες.

Και αν υπήρχε κάποια αμφισβήτηση, οι εφημερίδες πήγαιναν και έπαιρναν συνέντευξη από αυτές τις οργανώσεις, ξέρεις, ήταν μη κερδοσκοπικές πολιτικές οργανώσεις... όπως θες πες τες.

Οπότε, ας πούμε πως ο αρχηγός της αστυνομίας έκανε ένα ομοφοβικό σχόλιο. Οι εφημερίδες πήγαιναν και έπαιρναν συνέντευξη-- “Ας πάμε σε αυτή την ομάδα νομικής υπεράσπισης για τους γκέι και ας δούμε τι έχουν να πουν για αυτό”. Κάτι τέτοιο.

Έτσι είναι μια πραγματική κοινότητα. Αυτή ήταν μια όψη της γκέι κοινότητας. Στο Τορόντο υπήρχε μια πραγματική γκέι κοινότητα εκείνη την εποχή.

Είχαν μια γειτονιά, είχαν κτίρια, είχαν γραφεία, είχαν δικηγόρους, είχαν κλαμπ, είχαν φεστιβάλ. Πολλές πόλεις δεν τα έχουν αυτά, αλλά το Τορόντο είχε πολλαπλές γκέι κοινότητες και οι εφημερίδες μπορούσαν να πάνε σε αυτές, εντάξει;

Θα ήταν διαφορετικό αν ήμασταν στο επίπεδο των «Μητέρων Κατά της Οδήγησης υπό την Επήρεια Ποτού», θα ήταν επίσης διαφορετικό αν ήμασταν στο επίπεδο των Εβραίων στην Βρετανική Κολομβία.

Οι Εβραίοι είναι μια μικροσκοπική μειονότητα σε αυτό το κομμάτι του Καναδά, αλλά έχουν κοινωνικές υποδομές, έχουν πραγματικές οργανώσεις, έχουν υποτροφίες και όλων των ειδών τα προνόμια από την γέννηση μέχρι τον θάνατο,

και όπως και να έχει, μπορείς να πας σε ένα από τα πικ-νικ τους και να μιλήσεις με άλλους από κοντά, και αυτό, από εράνους, μέχρι φιλανθρωπική εργασία και πολλά άλλα, μπορεί να κάνει μεγάλη διαφορά.

Τα θέλω όλα. Θέλω μια πραγματική κοινότητα και δεν βλέπω κάποιον λόγο να προσποιούμαι πως δεν το θέλω ή πως δεν θα είχε αξία για εμένα.

Δεν βλέπω τον λόγο να προσποιούμαι πως ο βιγκανισμός μου είναι ικανοποιητικός αν είναι μόνο μια διατροφή ή κάτι που κάνω στην ιδιωτική μου ζωή που δεν έχει καμία πολιτική συνέπεια.

Εξ αίματος είμαι Εβραίος, αλλά από θέμα πίστης είμαι Μηδενιστής Άθεος. Ωστόσο, θα με συνέφερε και εμένα και την οικογένεια μου να προσποιούμαι πως είμαι θρήσκος Εβραίος,

το να αρχίσω να πηγαίνω στον ναό, γιατί ο Ιουδαϊσμός εδώ στον Καναδά μπορεί να μου παρέχει μια πραγματική κοινότητα.

Τα πάντα, από τα πικ-νικ και τα σχολεία μέχρι και τα γηροκομεία, εντάξει;

Από την γέννηση μέχρι τον θάνατο, τα προνόμια μιας κοινότητας σου τα παρέχει ο Ιουδαϊσμός, σου τα παρέχει ο Μορμονισμός, σου τα παρέχουν όλων των ειδών τρελές ιδεολογίες που στηρίζονται στο να πιστεύεις σε έναν Θεό που δεν υπάρχει,

που στηρίζονται στο να κάνεις προσευχές που δεν θα ακουστούν από κανέναν, εκτός αν τις κάνεις στο “YouTube”, τότε μπορεί να σε ακούσει το κοινό σου.

Time & money, why I’m doing less and less on Youtube.

10 March 2017

The alluded-to Patreon ($1 per month): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/

This is part of a series of videos with Tofu Goddess, find her channel here: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

ESL: Teaching English in Asia (esp. Yunnan, China & Thailand, Laos, Cambodia)

09 March 2017

Some practical advice (and reflections) on teaching English in Asia, with reference to both university-level classrooms and children (the whole range of ages, basically).

Why I Don’t Have a Future.

06 March 2017

The unexpected sequel to “WHY I DON’T HAVE A PhD”.

This is not a death-threat: Vegan Cheetah’s lawsuit.

06 March 2017

The link to the lawsuit’s fundraiser (describing the whole situation at some length): https://www.gofundme.com/protectyoutube

Animals that CANNOT survive in the wild: doomed to extinction & museum exhibits?

06 March 2017

[Low-Res. version] This is not a death-threat: Vegan Cheetah’s lawsuit.

05 March 2017

The link to the lawsuit fundraiser = https://www.gofundme.com/protectyoutube

THIS IS A LOW-QUALITY VERSION OF THE VIDEO, BECAUSE UPLOAD SPEEDS ARE SO SLOW HERE IN CHINA. The higher quality version of the video is now online (I think it took about 12 hours to upload).

Freelee didn’t quit, SHE IS A FAILURE (“Vegan Activism”)

04 March 2017

Start at the 8 minute mark (@8:00) if you’ve got a short attention span. *Conversely,* if you want more of a balanced, in-depth analysis (and you’ve got the attention-span to match) check out my earlier video, “The wonder that was Freelee (RT4 in the past tense)”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XJd6wQlMW5Y

Vegan Job Offer: University-Level Teaching in Dehong, China.

04 March 2017

Love & Ambition: low expectations are no defense against disappointment.

04 March 2017

Recorded after midnight, at the end of a very long day (that ended with waiting alongside my girlfriend at the airport).

Don’t sue the broadcaster, sue youtube.

03 March 2017

Yeah, apparently it is back in fashion for vegans on youtube to sue each-other, and people are getting their channels deleted.

You can’t read this stuff in a book: “recommended reading” is hard to do.

03 March 2017

Spoilers: Thucydides gets a shout-out. ;-)

War: should veganism imitate “the peace movement”?

03 March 2017

Here’s the link to the earlier conversation we had (a podcast over an hour long), titled, “Two Vegan Activists from Two Generations.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/D0YwTARMCXk

[Patreon Q&A] 3^rd Wave Feminism, Trump, Neoliberalism, Jordan B. Peterson.

03 March 2017

In case you don’t know what Patreon is: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

BLM: The Precise Problem with Black Lives Matter.

02 March 2017

Constitutions matter, too. A video partly inspired by Vegan Gains, and, of course, people at the opposite extreme, like “A Privileged Vegan”.

True Love, Self-Sacrifice (and Veganism).

01 March 2017

File under, “meaning of life, misc.”, and if you don’t already know Tofu Goddess, here’s her channel: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

Want to leave a comment? The comments section is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

#DOGGATE: An Analysis (Vegan Gains vs. Vegan Cheetah)

27 February 2017

The domestication of “companion animals”; the killing of other animals to provide them with food; the implications of the abolitionism vs. welfarism debate for “the pet industry” as a whole (in the same sense that we speak of “the meat industry” as a whole and we do not, e.g., make exceptions for second-hand leather), etc.

Come On, Fhqwhgads: Vegan Gains Feeds His Dog Meat.

23 February 2017

An Hour With Lance Carbstrong: On Substance and Scandal, Friendship and Politics via Youtube.

23 February 2017

Maybe I’m wrong: vegans working with meat-eaters in the movement.

23 February 2017

Veganism vs. Vegetarianism in my own life / subjective experience.

22 February 2017

How to Solve the Problem: Vegan Nazis on Youtube and…

20 February 2017

…Larger Channels (Like Unnatural Vegan & Vegan Cheetah) Promoting Garbage Content (Even If They’re Criticizing It).

Here’s the first link mentioned, criticizing “A Privileged Vegan” for her involvement in false allegations of racism while real neo-nazis (within veganism) were being ignored: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/liwJMLoyDmI

LINKS TO SOME OF THE BOOK REVIEWS MENTIONED:

A Vegan Critique of “Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach”, by Gary Francione. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/QeP0g0c2sHE
Veganism: Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy, by Casey T. Taft, Book Review. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/c59ckXsUcgI
Rules for Radicals: A (Negative) Book Review (on Effective Activism, etc.). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2QnX29V5zdY
Book Review: Half Earth by Edward O. Wilson. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/oEEauQW4p9E

FRANCE IS HELL (FOR VEGANS)

18 February 2017

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/g2gwGk

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

FAKE VEGAN BOYFRIENDS: brutal truths about love / dating / romance

17 February 2017

Part two of a slightly R-rated discussion with Tofu Goddess. You can find her channel here: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

Political Philosophy: Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich.

17 February 2017

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/ueMgds

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

Everyone is either a zero or a ten: vegans dating vegans.

11 February 2017

A slightly R-rated discussion with Tofu Goddess. You can find her channel here: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

The People vs. Durianrider: The Deeper Significance of the Case. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

10 February 2017

@22:39 “We need to replace a culture of conspiracy-theory thinking with a culture of sincere engagement.”

@27:08 “I *can* tolerate this stuff, but you guys ought to have some sympathy in your hearts, because I shouldn’t have to.”

Talking to Durianrider directly: the criminal charges are real, the court case is real.

09 February 2017

I keep telling people that I’m not a nice guy… but seriously… given what I’ve been through with this guy (and the damage he’s done to veganism as a movement, not to mention myself, personally, and so many other people) how much nicer could I possibly have been in this scenario?

Nobody Will Ever Love Me As Much As I Love Them.

09 February 2017

Do you ever feel that nobody will ever love you as much as you love them? One of a million moments in a three-hour conversation with Tofu Goddess.

FFS, Jeff! (Lawsuit Hypocrite Jeff Nelson still supports Durianrider)

08 February 2017

Comments closed on Youtube, open on Patreon & Discord.

06 February 2017

“Why are comments disabled on this video?” If you want to make comments (where I will actually read them, and where you can interact with other people who support the channel), the place to do that is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/exYtJT

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

Venus Angelic: When Nice People Do Evil Things.

06 February 2017

Vegans around the boardroom table: activism and democracy I.R.L.

06 February 2017

Politics on the smallest scale: a discussion with Tofu Goddess. You can find her channel here: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

If I were to start my own Vegan organization, what would it be?

06 February 2017

Veganism: Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy, by Casey T. Taft, Book Review.

06 February 2017

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). Click here: https://discord.gg/E6JhMS

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

Find me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eiselmazard

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

The Curious Case of White Guilt.

06 February 2017

à-bas-le-ciel on Twitter (single-sentence monologues on veganism?)

30 January 2017

Eisel Mazard (@EiselMazard) | Twitter

https://twitter.com/eiselmazard

There’s no schedule, but sometimes you can catch me on Younow (live-streaming chat-room format): https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

Photos from my daily life are uploaded to www.oneniceapp.com (apparently to find my account you must search for my Chinese name, 马大影 …so you can copy-and-paste that, or type (in Chinese) ma-da-ying).

And, yeah, if you pay $1 per month on Patreon, you support the creation of more content on this channel: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Stop Preaching NOFAP: Why I Hate Vegans.

28 January 2017

Publication Bias and Learning from Failure.

28 January 2017

…and, yes, Veganism on Youtube. I suppose I could have included that in the title somehow.

LOVE / RELATIONSHIPS — Supporting Your Partner in their Ambitions.

28 January 2017

I was tempted to title this something like, “Quit NOFAP, Quit MGTOW, Quit Kidding Yourself” —but the truth is that this video ended up with a much more positive message (about what you SHOULD do in relationships) than a negative/critical one.

Joy, Sorrow & Honesty Online: Joe Vegan, University & My Divorce.

27 January 2017

Ryan, Stop Treating Women Like Infants (Happy Healthy Vegan, HHV)

26 January 2017

Writing to Vegan Cheetah: Admit That You Lied, Patch It Up, Move On.

24 January 2017

Here’s a link to my earlier video (only 4 minutes long) clipped from the last conversation I had with Vegan Cheetah via Skype: “Vegan Cheetah vs. Durianrider: FINAL JUDGEMENT.” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/tITHWQtQAl0

Unnatural Vegan vs. Ethical Vegans; Insanity vs. Sanity.

24 January 2017

If you want to cut right to the chase, you can jump to 19:00 (although the first half of the video is, IMO, important to the point as a whole, those who simply want to know what the rift is between myself and Unnatural Vegan might well start there, at the 19:00 minute mark).

Asking my audience for advice: education & career options, in Canada?

24 January 2017

The Future of the Community (Brainstorming for a Better Vegan Movement)

24 January 2017

Get the podcast, join the conversation, and support the creation of podcasts like this one for $1 per month, on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Measuring “Effective Activism”? (Brainstorming for a Better Vegan Movement)

23 January 2017

An edited excerpt from a longer podcast (1hr 40min long) get it from Patreon now:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/QBKgzDNimPI

Onision, what it means TO BE UNDERSTANDING with a broken heart.

21 January 2017

This was made immediately after a video from Onision, titled, “Dear Ex Girlfriend (Cheating, Lying, Homewrecking & More)”:

However, if you’re new to this story, this earlier video (almost exactly one year old, as of today) is the more instructive one to see:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/W8RNbzscfXQ

Veganism is NOT a Social Justice Movement.

19 January 2017

Why I Am Not Left Wing.

19 January 2017

Vegan “Drama” is not Activism, It’s Defamation, Ryan. (Happy Healthy Vegan, HHV)

18 January 2017

We Don’t Need Another Durianrider, we don’t need another Vegan Cheetah --we don’t need another 1000 people pretending to be these “micro-celebrities”. Instead, we need 10,000 people who are prepared to get organized, and bring paperwork to parliament, to the school board and to city hall.

Omnivores by Design? (Nikocado Avocado vs. Vegan Gains, etc.)

17 January 2017

If you’re having trouble finding the prior video by Vegan Gains on the same topic (“Nikocado Avocado is an Omnivore?”) here’s the link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/dhrTG638xKQ

LOVE / RELATIONSHIPS — RICH PIANA — ALL CAPS TITLE FOR NO REASON

16 January 2017

Durianrider’s Diet Will Never Be Debunked, No Matter How Many People Gain Weight.

15 January 2017

In terms of time, money, and your own lost potential (“opportunity cost”), living in Thailand for 3 months is huge decision, with ramifications for the rest of your life; a commitment of one full year, even moreso. She gained 130 pounds on the HCLF diet, and then failed to lose the weight following Durianrider’s exercise plan in Chiang Mai; here’s the link to her channel, “Whale on Wheels”: youtube.com/channel/UCS6shoO1LKZZamE2KFfARuw/videos

Wearing Fur in a Vegan Restaurant: Outreach vs. Exclusivity.

15 January 2017

You can find VegaNut’s channel, here: youtube.com/channel/UCis94YQRIG1PeuUW6xUdbuQ/videos

A Little Bit Of Reckless Joy. (Laos, dealing with death-threats, etc.)

15 January 2017

Some anecdotes related to my fleeing Laos as a refugee (the whole story is told in a separate video) amidst threats of execution and torture from government officials.

Ryan from HHV: Vegans Against Violence and Defamation? (Happy Healthy Vegan)

13 January 2017

A casual conversation with Ryan from HHV about defamation and slander… and his peculiar approach to dealing with these controversies (basically by supporting whomever he happens to be friends with, or, apparently, whoever is the closest to downtown Los Angeles at the time, with zero interest in the facts, and zero interest in the consequences for either the individuals or the movement as a whole).

Nietzsche’s “Slave Morality” (& Vegan Gains): Is Philosophy a Science or Showbusiness?

13 January 2017

If you want to follow up on the bizarre theory of “the Chandalas” (Tschandala) and their alleged connection to Judaism, the name to google Koenraad Elst: he did exhaustive research on Nietzsche’s use (and misuse) of Indian/Sanskrit sources.

DxE: Is Vegan Activism Science or Showbusiness?

13 January 2017

Please note that this is NOT the first video I’ve made on Direct Action Everywhere (many of the earlier videos give more of a balanced critique (or broad-ranging discussion), but there’s no point in repeating that material here). You can see the list of such videos via this link: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=DxE

The shortest video I’ve made on this topic (with footage of their “disruptions”/protests) is titled, “DxE is a Joke: Vegans and “Disruption” as Protest.”, and, as it comes right to the point in only 3 minutes, you might want to see that one, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Osvas6zquD4

Adults Acting Like Teenagers: Freelee & Durianrider’s “Legacy” in Veganism.

12 January 2017

This video opens with a facepalm: we’re talking about fully grown men engaging in defamation just to get attention (no, Jeff Nelson is not the only one). Vegans have to start thinking about the future of the movement, and behaving in a manner that can build the movement: there’s a difference between debate and defamation, and some degree of “due diligence” is necessary before you slander people on the internet. You don’t have to respect me to realize this: you can have some respect for yourself, and some concern for the future of the movement.

Vegans: Beyond Abolitionism (Beyond PETA & Peter Singer, too)

10 January 2017

Support the creation of this content (for just $1 per month) on Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Check out ModVegan’s channel, here: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

As mentioned in the intro, you can see photographs of my (very photogenic) life in China if you find me on “Nice” (OneNiceApp)… this is basically a competitor to Instagram. Some people have said that it’s easier to find me if you search for my Chinese name (马大影, ma-da-ying) within the app. www.oneniceapp.com

The book discussed throughout this video is by Gary L. Francione & Anna Charlton, 2015, titled, “Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach”.

So, you’re starting a youtube channel? (Politics, philosophy, personal life, etc.)

09 January 2017

Advice Nobody Wants to Hear [Ep. 006] Episode Six.

The (Ongoing) Vegan Storybook Project & Reflections on University (in China & Canada).

09 January 2017

The whole conversation (with Jae Costly) is over an hour long, download the podcast now, from Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

You can find Jae Costly’s own youtube channel, here: youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

A Vegan Critique of “Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach”, by Gary Francione.

08 January 2017

Here’s the link to an earlier video (mentioned in this one) directly replying to Gary Francione (using clips of one of his public lectures) on the issue of slavery, as he interprets in his theory of vegan activism: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/hVk-mr9hRVs

Money: Ted Carr is lying to you. Vegans selling the “digital nomad” dream are lying to you.

06 January 2017

Earning a living ain’t easy: not in Asia, not in Thailand, specifically, not in teaching E.S.L., and not by selling a dream on the internet, either.

No, You’re NOT Vegan: Unnatural Vegan, Fully Raw Kristina, & Peter Singer

04 January 2017

Here’s an earlier video directly quoting Unnatural Vegan’s claim that it is okay to drink “ethically produced” COW’S MILK, and to eat honey, etc., https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/txY9NE_6MvE?t=15m59s

(If you agree with that philosophy, we can have a debate about it… but, very clearly, that position is NOT VEGAN.)

Here’s the link to the interview quoted with Unnatural Vegan: http://rvgn.org/2015/06/30/interview-with-an-unnatural-vegan/

Vegan Cheetah: What Is the Connection Between Us?

01 January 2017

Shout out to “Redneck2Vegan” who had the patience to put together some clips of Cheetah claiming (as he has claimed, repeatedly) that a vegan diet is LESS healthy than a diet with small amounts of meat (I’ve heard him say, directly, that “lean meat” is healthier than “processed” vegan food, such as veggie burgers); rhetoric of this kind, obviously, has led to new levels of hatred and contempt being directed toward Cheetah by vegans who are actually vegan: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MQ9KhLR5a9A

2017 Vegan Resolutions and Vegan Revolutions.

31 December 2016

This is a prelude to a patreon-exclusive podcast, hear the whole podcast by pledging $1 (to support this channel) here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Fyu2iaqrC_c&t=29s

(The real podcast is 1h30min (i.e., totally separate from and not overlapping with this 30 min. prelude).)

If you want to see photographs from my very-photogenic “home town” in China, sign get the app “Nice” at: www.oneniceapp.com

(You can search for my Chinese name, 马大影, to find my profile more easily.)

Vegan Anti-Minimalist Apartment Tour (Maximalist?).

30 December 2016

With some remarks on my life in Dehong, Yunnan, China (my diet, job, education, exercise, etc.). 中国，云南，德宏，芒市。纯素主义。

Defamation Destroys the Vegan Movement From Within: Jeff Nelson, Durianrider, Vegan Cheetah.

28 December 2016

Dealing with the latest flak from Jeff Nelson (Vegsource), and including an update on the legal case in Thailand (vs. Durianrider), toward the 42:00 mark.

Here’s the link to the earlier video alluded to in the conclusions (with “Elitism” in the title): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/b1eiv0ifBh4

The Philosophy of Ted Carr. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

27 December 2016

This is partly a critique of a particular video, and partly a critique of Ted Carr’s philosophy as expressed in many videos; if you’d like to hear the particular video quoted (from Ted) in full, here’s the link: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/HcrJ4vib3_o

Rules for Radicals: A (Negative) Book Review (on Effective Activism, etc.)

21 December 2016

Here’s the earlier book-review mentioned, by Sargon of Akkad:

Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/GYBsm4

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

vegan / vegans / veganism / animal rights / ecology

The Myth of Vegan Judaism; the Myth of Christopher Columbus.

21 December 2016

Here’s the link to “Jewish Veg” on Youtube:

youtube.com/user/JewishVeg/videos

Dehong, the sound of birds singing downtown, in December (cinéma vérité?)

19 December 2016

Pause the video at 1:32 and you can see that the street-signs use three languages (blue “box” on right right hand side, with white lettering, at the top of a red-framed advertisement-stand), 1. 德宏傣语，2. 景颇语，3. 国语。

Apparently, I need a more expensive camera, because the colors of the trees, of the skies, etc., are all muted to an absurd extent in this video: the final shot of the temple (on the mountain/horizon) at 3:20 seems to just show the silhouette agains a white sky, but the sky at the time was streaked with gold and blue (this is December, so the colors of the sunrise were still ongoing, fairly late in the day). The trees, also, do not seem nearly green enough in this video (compared to how they appear), etc.

云南德宏芒市2016

Anti-Minimalist Autobiography (a Mid-Moving Memoir)

19 December 2016

Veganism: this ain’t for you, this ain’t about you, your issues aren’t the center of the world.

19 December 2016

Dating Chinese Women, Dating Meat Eaters, Dating Vegans.

18 December 2016

WORST ADVICE EVER?

Permanent Vacation 2: Vegans Drop Out of School for Social Media “Activism”.

17 December 2016

Fame is fleeting: the objectives of veganism ARE NOT. Micro-fame is one thing, and the movement is another; but one manages to massively distort the other.

This video is (perhaps?) the sequel to, “Don’t Drop Out of University (to move to Thailand… because you’re vegan)”, a video still worth seeing, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/G2umtvqBEnM

[On Community:] O skupnosti: politika veganstva. [A Vegan Manifesto.]

10 December 2016

Slovenian translation by Lara, English by Eisel Mazard.

ASOIAF: Political Realism and Revenge (+ Trump vs. the Boiled Leather podcast).

09 December 2016

B.L.A.H. = Boiled Leather Audio Hour (Sean T. Collins), an ASOIAF podcast that recently took up a controversial position against Donald Trump.

Vegan Youtube “Activism”: the Politics of Performance, the Future of an Illusion.

09 December 2016

The mask becomes the face.

Stop Treating Women Like Infants: Wengie is 30, Ivanka Trump is 35.

07 December 2016

Weight Loss with Wengie! Lies, Lies, Lies!

06 December 2016

30 LAZY LIFE HACKS for WEIGHT LOSS That Actually Work!!! How to Lose Weight Easily Without Trying

Vegans, Alone in the Crowd: A Conversation With KiwiBanana.

05 December 2016

A conversation reflecting on the lonesome situation of many vegans (not all!) on and off the interent… and the possibility that Thailand (or somewhere… anywhere…) could be a crossroads for us to meet up in future.

You can find KiwiBanana’s channel here:

youtube.com/user/mizawizakiza/videos

You can find the link to my Patreon page (advertised by “RawAccess” in the intro) here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/posts

Insanity & Politics: A Vegan Stabbed Himself On Camera.

05 December 2016

Not clickbait, but let’s be clear: this video is a discussion of issues within the vegan movement (and it DOES NOT contain footage of the stabbing alluded to).

Campus Radicalism is Rubbish, Innit? (Vegan / Vegans / Veganism)

05 December 2016

Q&A about my “Core Message”, Domestication vs. the Wild, etc., with Alejandro.

03 December 2016

Support the creation of more content on vegan politics via Patreon:

It’ll cost you one dollar per month, you get exclusive content, you get to talk to me… and if nobody donates, this content will cease to exist.

IMHO, the Political Approach to Veganism is Less Depressing than the Alternatives.

03 December 2016

A response to “The Vegan Activist” (Michael Goodchild). This refers back to an earlier video titled, “Effective Activism: The Boycott Mentality”, and you can click on the link to that here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/oHH0-TS8viM

I don’t want to learn Chinese, I’m doing it anyway.

02 December 2016

This is an excerpt from a much longer (Patreon-exclusive) video-and-podcast.

Why I’m Against Trolling: Veganism is Not a Game.

02 December 2016

Quote, “I do not regard youtube as real activism, however, I regard youtube as creating connections between people who can really co-operate and can be part of a real movement in the future…”

(@5:30) --and, reciprocally, this is why I regard the trolls as doing something really negative (not merely neutral) within the would-be movement.

Here’s the link to the children’s storybook I wrote (mentioned repeatedly in this video): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/YcK4Y8_d5XQ

Kat Napiorkowska is against “vegan terrorists” & “black-and-white” morality.

02 December 2016

Minimalism is rubbish, innit? (Philosophy & Politics, I.M.H.O.)

02 December 2016

Warning: those of you who are taking a shot of vodka every time I mention Laos WILL GET DRUNK.

Vegan Cheetah Eats Cheese: Violence & “The Man of Principle” Problem.

01 December 2016

Reflections on Teaching English in Asia (DON’T MENTION CAMBODIA)

01 December 2016

The only vegan options at Kunming’s train station (Yunnan, China).

01 December 2016

在昆明火车站我们可以找比较少种纯素食物。

Vegan Cheetah is Wrong: What Patreon Means to Me & the Vegan Movement.

30 November 2016

Apart from Vegan Cheetah himself, can we try to list all of the vegan voices disucssed in this video? Happy Healthy Vegan (HHV), Unnatural Vegan, Jeff Nelson (Vegsource), Nina and Randa, Vegan Gains, Erin Janus, Bite Size Vegan, That Vegan Couple, Vegan Revolution, Joe Vegan, Durianrider, Freelee…

AND, YES, FINALLY, HERE’S THE LINK TO MY PATREON PAGE, IF YOU WANT TO PAY ONE DOLLAR ($1) TO SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL AND TO SEE PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT (VIDEOS, PODCASTS AND MORE)!!!!!!! ;-)

[Link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OG5UeDlFlQU&t=15s

Vegans over 200 pounds, represent (Vegan weight “loss”).

28 November 2016

Joe Vegan Will Fail: His Fantasy Farm Ain’t Gonna Happen.

27 November 2016

Joe Vegan’s proposed animal sanctuary (originally projected as costing only $600 per month!) is not feasible, his claims about it are not credible, and his wishful thinking about the subject (after the collapse of his “drama” channel) increasingly resembles the fantasy of the permanent vacation (in Thailand) that he escaped from, just a few chapters earlier in this same story.

If you’re looking for the link to my earlier video (alluded to here) on the high cost of keeping horses and pigs alive (in a so-called sanctuary), it is titled, “The $600 Sanctuary Delusion”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/bLqPmh05WWU

In terms of the ethical questions I raise (on this channel) about animal sanctuaries in general (and not about Joe’s project in specific), check out the following video (only two minutes long) and the links to earlier videos in its description: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OG5UeDlFlQU

Getting the “Thumbs Down” (On Youtube) Is Actually A Wonderful Thing.

27 November 2016

Here’s the link to the video I mentioned (only two minutes long!) that has far more thumbs-down than thumbs-up… but is, from my perspective, even more worthwhile for that reason:

[Title:] “Animal Sanctuaries”, Oppression vs. Liberation, Or What?

Quote, “The audience that needs to hear it, by definition, is not the audience that wants to hear it.”

Beautiful (vegan / vegans / veganism)

26 November 2016

[纯素／云南] “Traditional” Vegan food in Yunnan, China: the Basics.

26 November 2016

Booty-Call Text-Messages at 2:00 AM (Hating the Player AND the Game)

26 November 2016

^ No, the patreon-exclusive content doesn’t entirely consist of morality lectures and Q&A sessions on effective activism. There are also opportunities for me to burden my audience with horrible anecdotes from my personal life.

Veganism and Ecology in Party Politics: How to Build the Movement, Step by Step.

25 November 2016

Yes, this video is partly a critique (of what’s wrong with The Humane Party, what’s wrong with The Green Party, and even the trouble with Communist influence on ecology in the western world) but it is, also, in large part a positive guide (“step by step”) on pertaining to the future of veganism-and-ecology in party politics.

My Flirtation With an Ex-Vegan (& hypothetically dating ASOIAF / Game of Thrones fans).

24 November 2016

Eating meat “on doctor’s orders”, WHEN YOU KNOW IT’S WRONG!

^ That’s the link, in case the unending supply of personal anecdotes and morality lectures (provided on youtube) isn’t already sufficient for you. ;-)

Vegan Lobbying: A Voice for the Voiceless, or “Corporate Shills”?

23 November 2016

The wonder that was Freelee (RT4 in the past tense).

23 November 2016

An analysis.

Buddhism: Ancient Meditation & Modern Misrepresentation.

20 November 2016

“À-bas-ciel is recorded before a live, studio audience…”

^ That’s Younow (not youtube), where I have live-streaming sessions, and the audience can chat with me in real time (etc.).

Vegans: Anorexia, Bulimia, Body Image and the Movement.

20 November 2016

The myth of “effortless” weight loss and the politics of the vegan movement. NOTE: This video is, in large part, a response to a letter from a vegan viewer diagnosed with both bulimia and an anxiety disorder, asking for my advice as to whether or not she should share her experience on youtube, both to help others (with similar problems) as part of our peculiar social movement. Please do not bother to send me hate-mail if you didn’t watch the whole video (or, at least, fast-forward to hear the conclusion before posting a comment)… it is really counter-productive for these videos to accumulate comments based on the first 5 minutes.

HOW TO GET ASS! Veganism & The Politics of Diet-and-Exercise.

19 November 2016

And the title doesn’t even mention Jen Selter.

Thailand: Personal Safety, Politesse and the Impermanent Vacation.

19 November 2016

Mayim Bialik is NOT Vegan (A response to “Why I’m a Vegan”)

17 November 2016

Industrialization is not the problem, and abolishing the “economic efficiency” of modern capitalism is not the solution. You can see Mayim Bialik’s original video, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ofcUGuMhGGo

The catchphrase “the politics of the millennium” (in contrast to “the politics of the decade”) is my own coinage, but, of course, google reveals that it has been used before, in some unrelated contexts).

ASOIAF: Teenage Tyrants, Not Heroes: Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen.

16 November 2016

The title of this video is NOT clickbait: this is an evaluation of the political (and ethical) questions raised by the careers of Jon and Daenerys up to the start of TWOW (i.e., all in works published by the end of 2016).

ASOIAF: You Can’t Blame Cersei, You Have to Blame Stannis, Tyrion, etc.

15 November 2016

Cersei & Tyrion, Ethical and Political Themes (Over Plot-Based Predictions).

Buddhist Philosophy, The Fundamental Flaw.

15 November 2016

Quitting Caffeine & Missing My Daughter: Two Types of Withdrawal.

14 November 2016

Anthropomorphism, Domestication (of Pets) vs. the Wildlife Management Paradigm.

14 November 2016

[Veganes Kinderbuch:] Sogar Regenwürmer Wollen Den Himmel Sehen.

13 November 2016

German Translation by Veronika Neukirch. The original Chinese (and English) written by Eisel Mazard (à-bas-le-ciel).

Why Did You Start a Youtube Channel? (The Dumb Vegan Experience)

13 November 2016

^ That’s the link, Patreon costs you $1 per month, and gets you a bunch of exclusive content, including podcasts like this one, and, yes, yet more videos.

Vegan Cannibals.

13 November 2016

This video is A tribute and/or indictment from the mind of Jae Costly (Original title: “Eisel Mazard Is A Rabid Wolverine: The Top Heel of Vegan Drama”): youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

#VeganCannibals

Rappers supported Trump, before “Grab Them By The Pussy” became a slogan and a song.

12 November 2016

Yes, I remember G-Unit radio. How soon we forget… 50 Cent and other rappers paved the way to the Whitehouse for Donald Trump over many, many years. I suppose I’m glad to see that the level of vulgarity in mainstream politics is now so high that my own use of coarse language seems negligible. Maybe I can put together a mixtape and run for mayor of Podunk after all.

Vegans: I don’t respect my audience, I don’t respect your questions, and I don’t respect you.

11 November 2016

Freelee’s 4000 Calorie Per Day Diet and Its Dissidents.

11 November 2016

If your interest is purely in the diet, you can jump to 18:28 (as this is a conversation that covers many topics, starting with the study of languages).

This is the (complete) conversation alluded to in the video just uploaded (title: “Don’t Mention Durianrider…”). Previously, this video was only available to Patreon subscribers, and you can support the creation of new content of this kind for $1 per month at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel/posts

DID I CROSS THE LINE? Freelee & Durianrider, Political Critique & Personal Defamation.

11 November 2016

A lot of people genuinely do not know the information shared in this video: they hear, e.g., that I called Durianrider “insane”, and they’re not aware that I actually addressed his own (specific) claims that he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia --and his claims that he has cured his own condition. That is, really, not the same as just insulting (or defaming) someone on the internet for being insane.

The Simile of Sleepwalking (and Stannis Baratheon)

11 November 2016

Don’t Mention Durianrider: The Dumb Vegan Experience.

11 November 2016

The Dumb Vegan Experience: the Podcast NOBODY Was Asking For!

11 November 2016

#VeganIdiots rep your set. You wanna hear the whole thing (1hr 30 min) right now? You gotta join Patreon, man, you just got to:

[Link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/05V_v2Qd8G0&t=49s

And, in case you didn’t catch the name: the guy with the full head of hair is called “Dumb Vegan”. youtube.com/channel/UCIcel-8_AM1A-w6HDgUYUug/videos

The Alleged Love Triangle (Julia, Durianrider & Me) That Never Was.

10 November 2016

Violence and Veganism: The Slippery Slope.

10 November 2016

Laugh or Cry, Not Gonna Lie: Veganism is a Disaster, Just Now.

09 November 2016

Because the only thing worse than phony pessimism is phony optimism. ;-)

Excuses for Eating Meat, Excuses for Being a Good Person: Debating Veganism, Face-to-Face.

09 November 2016

[Title:] Veganism: Don’t Debate the Details.

Chase Your Dreams = BAD ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR.

09 November 2016

Advice Nobody Wants to Hear [Ep. 005]

Uh… does this count as “Practical Philosophy”?

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / activism / animal rights / Cambodia / Autobiographical reflections

ASOIAF: Barbrey Dustin & Jon Snow’s Father (“Abandoned Foreshadowing” in the Plot).

07 November 2016

COWARDS ON YOUTUBE: Why I Hate Vegans.

07 November 2016

Circa two months ago I made a WAY LESS OFFENSIVE video on closely related themes, and (remarkably) it is only 8 minutes long, so I’d encourage you to also click through to: “For the Future of the Cause: Why Would Anyone “Do” Youtube?”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ugYWMvDRmvs

Let’s keep it real: most of you have no idea what I’m talking about when I say, “The Four Tops”: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+four+tops

Vegan Mind Tricks: Debating “Intrinsic” and “Inherent” Evil.

07 November 2016

I’d urge you to check out an earlier videos on similarly pragmatic questions (of how we actually discuss/debate veganism, face-to-face), here:

[Title:’] Veganism: Don’t Debate the Details. (Vegan Artichoke Response)

[Link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/05V_v2Qd8G0

[Title:] “Dealing with disrespectful questions [about veganism]”

[Link:] https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/rtfudw6t2Mc

What I Love/Hate About Cambodian Culture.

07 November 2016

USE SOAP, YOU IDIOTS: Why I Hate Vegans.

06 November 2016

It’s amazing that anyone would consider this controversial in the 21^st century, but within the digital demimonde, IT DEFINITELY IS. I can’t recall Unnatural Vegan* taking on this one (i.e., though she was bold enough to tackle Splenda, risking the righteous ire of HHV [Happy, Healthy Vegan])… and, yes, there was a time when Freelee vocally encouraged her followers to give up using soap entirely, because (she claimed) her diet resulted in your entire body becoming “self-cleaning”.

* Credit where it is due: although I don’t think she dealt with the overall anti-soap mythology, U.V. did tackle the “anti-shampoo” idea, specifically, a few years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/L6DIsH2r9aE

ASOIAF: Preston Jacobs is 100% WRONG on “Seven Times Never Kill Man”.

06 November 2016

A.S.O.I.A.F. = “A Song of Ice and Fire”, i.e., the works of George R.R. Martin (adapted as “Game of Thrones”). This video also involves “The Thousand Worlds Book Club”, i.e., the interpretation of other works by the same author (in an overlapping, fictional universe). Preston Jacobs is the name of a well-known interpreter of these books, sometimes (by his own admission) prone to “over-interpretation”.

Here’s the link if you don’t already know him: youtube.com/channel/UCXU7XVK_2Wd6tAHYO8g9vAA/videos

VEGAN DRAMA BURN BOOK

05 November 2016

It’s realer than flip flop: “Dumb Vegan” is what we deserve. :-/

05 November 2016

The latest installment in the “Vegan Masterpiece” series, here’s the link to “Dumb Vegan”: youtube.com/channel/UCIcel-8_AM1A-w6HDgUYUug/videos

Real Animal-Lovers Don’t Own Animals, Don’t Raise Animals, Don’t Keep Animals.

05 November 2016

Because a cage is a cage is a cage.

Intelligence, 品位 and my sex life (the Airplane Anecdote).

05 November 2016

Shared in the spirit of “self-mockery”, alluded to. And here’s the link: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

The Struggle is Real: Veganism (I.R.L.) vs. Digital “Drama” Demimonde

05 November 2016

My legal case vs. Durianrider: update and “the principle of the thing”.

04 November 2016

Don’t have ten minutes? Here’s a written summary of the current situation: 1. The donations were collected, the lawyers were paid, the paperwork was filed. 2. Initial hearings transpired, and a court-date was set (for the first major presentation of the case). 3. In the Thai system, nobody gets arrested at this stage: everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and the accused have the opportunity to prepare their defense, etc.; my own case against D.R. is not the only one that is (to my knowledge) now ongoing, and he claims that he was never informed of the charges against him in either case. Would Durianrider tell a lie? Perhaps. It wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. If he’s telling the truth, it doesn’t really change anything. 4. When people (incl. one journalist) have expressed skepticism about the case, I’ve shown them legal documents: those documents are written in Thai, but I haven’t heard a single person express doubt about their authenticity. The case is real, and ongoing. The only people who claim otherwise have a very clear reason to misrepresent themselves --and/or a clear reason to defame me. 5. The principle of the thing is what really matters, and a large part of this video reflects on that (I hope you’ll reflect on it, and how we should all conduct ourselves, in light of that principle).

Ecology vs. Buddhism: Seeing Politics in 10,000 Years of Context.

04 November 2016

Misinformation and “The Movement”: Comparisons to Buddhism, Fascism and Worse.

03 November 2016

If you’re interested in seeing the article alluded to around the seven minute mark, it’s titled, “The Opposite of Buddhism” (and it’s written in very plain English, as it was presented to a Cambodian audience); the particular (salacious) material alluded to is (mostly) in §8:

https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/the-opposite-of-buddhism-1-a192b6880f30

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / activism

Zoopolis: a NON-VEGAN Political Theory of Animal Rights

03 November 2016

This is only HALF of a book review, telling you much less than half the truth: check out the sequel, “Veganism: what if our leaders are idiots? (No, seriously…”) https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XPBDJgtcP1w

Keeping it real, most of you will want to “fact check” what exactly this book says about eating chicken-eggs, so here’s the link:

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=LLE3UEe5LMoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=zoopolis&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=chicken%20eggs&f=false

Zoopolis, by Sue Donaldson, Will Kymlicka

Veganism: what if our leaders are idiots? (No, seriously…)

03 November 2016

Folks, I do not use words like “idiotic” and “stupid” without reason --and even if I’m laughing on camera, I am (genuinely) concerned. (Note that this is, in part, following up on the issues raised in my (infamous?) 20 minute long, “Nina and Randa” video.)

vegan / vegans / veganism / animal rights / ecology / political activism / Zoopolis / Will Kymlicka / Sue Donaldson

NinaAndRanda: Veganism Needs Ugly People, Not Idiots.

02 November 2016

Vegan / Vegans / Veganism / Ecology / Animal Rights / Activism

Vegan Gains Gets Married: Congratulations and Reflections.

02 November 2016

Do I now refer to her as, “Jasmine Gains”? #JasmineGains

Sixty seconds: Eisel Mazard becomes a Halloween Costume

31 October 2016

This makes me think I’d look good in an orange shirt. ;-)

Vegans Can Never Win: The Struggle Never Ends.

30 October 2016

Is the product of the struggle, ultimately, a vegan society? A vegan world? Here and now, the product is you.

Join the conversation (streaming live) on Younow: https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

Support my content (and talk to me, if you want to) on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegsource: what is “the deal” with me and Jeff Nelson?

30 October 2016

This video is only posted temporarily: some people really (sincerely) do not know “the deal” with what’s going on (or what happened) between Jeff and myself, and many people (including Jeff!) are trying to manufacture drama out of the ambiguities. However, the reality is not very dramatic, and not very interesting, THEREFORE this video will be deleted (“unlisted”) after people get a chance to catch up.

The most meaningful part of this video, IMHO, is the intro, reflecting on my past involvement with the Cree and Ojibwe (“First Nations”) in Canada, but this merely sets up a contrast for the remainder of the hour, talking about what happened in Chiang Mai, etc. etc.

Animal Sanctuaries, Oppression vs. Liberation, Or What?

30 October 2016

Not the first time I’ve discussed the ethics of animal sanctuaries on this channel:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/bLqPmh05WWU

Not the first time I’ve discussed zoos on this channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=zoo

And, in fact, most controversial of all, this is not the first time I’ve discussed the domestication of animals (and excuses made for it within veganism) on this channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=domestication

Why do Vegans Lie? (Politics, Religion and So-Called “Drama”)

30 October 2016

As mentioned, this was part of a live broadcast (spontaneously responding to a question from a viewer) on a platform called Younow: https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

Joe Vegan’s Melodramatic Exit (Two Commentaries)

29 October 2016

Some commentary added in the midst of a minor masterpiece of editing from “Stayin Alive”, a long-time commenter but first-time videographer. Find his/her channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCXDXLSK5eKiNX5NdebCrDew/videos

Vegan Abolitionism vs. Plain Old “Ethical Veganism”: What’s the Deal?

29 October 2016

If you’re not already embroiled in the controversies surrounding “Abolitionist Vegans” like Gary Francione, this is the video for you, as I’ve attempted to approach the issue here in a way that doesn’t require any prior knowledge of the (ongoing) political debates.

Although I think this video is clear enough in many ways, one point that gets lost in the mix is the significance of “analytical statements” about political issues involving “shades of grey”; I should have spent another minute on this, explaining that abolitionists refuse to allow of any comparative statements of degree (e.g., that cage-free chickens are better off than caged chickens) because they feel this is an implicit endorsement of animal-welfarism (and the latter term is used as the antithesis of abolitionism itself). I think every other point in the video is clear except this one: I just allude to their opposition to such comparative statements, and then move on to the next issue.

Footnote: According to google, I’m the first person to use the word “dissassemblism” (at least as the name of a putative political ideology).

Veganism vs. Cultural Anthropology: Reply to a Patreon Supporter.

29 October 2016

You heard about this Patreon thing? https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegan Cheetah vs. Durianrider: FINAL JUDGEMENT.

27 October 2016

YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-UPLOAD THIS VIDEO ON YOUR OWN CHANNEL (and to monetize it, etc.) WITHOUT ALTERATION.

Keeping it real: authenticity, academic integrity & the demimonde.

26 October 2016

#vegancannibals

Sugar & Glue: Are Vegans Really Better Than Vegetarians?

26 October 2016

A reply to a letter from one of my supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Talking to Vegan Cheetah: Worst of the Vegan Industry.

26 October 2016

In this video, I directly tell him that he is a parasite, making money from veganism, while having a “corrosive” effect on the movement.

@33:22 (Jump to this moment to get straight to the point: I explain to Cheetah why he is a fake vegan, why he is a scumbag, and how he transformed himself from being one of the most-loved (and most-widely-supported) personalities within youtube into one of the most despised. I directly explain to him that he earns his money through lies, slander and defamation, and that he’s eager to sell out everyone who was formerly his friend, just for a few more nickels and dimes.)

Happy Healthy Vegan: Zero Intellectual Integrity.

25 October 2016

#vegancannibals

Joe Vegan will hate me 5ever (but I still got love for him!)

24 October 2016

Why We All Hate the Humane Society: Veganism and the Human Rights Paradigm.

24 October 2016

Support content of this kind for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Watch content of this kind as it happens:

youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

Why I DIDN’T Drop Out of School: University & Brianna Jackfruitson.

24 October 2016

Vegan Idiots United.

23 October 2016

Breeze Harper, Wayne Hsiung, Gary Yourofsky, Gary Francione, Will Tuttle, Jill Stein, Unnatural Vegan, the Humane Society, the RSPCA, DxE, PETA, The Green Party… in Veganism, our leaders are idiots.

This video was recorded in front of a live, studio audience, via Younow: https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

Даже дождевые черви хотят увидеть небо [Vegan детская история]

22 October 2016

Want to hear it in English? Click on the link here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/YcK4Y8_d5XQ

[Russian, English & Chinese] [俄语，汉语，英语]

On Culture: Rap Music (Hip Hop) in My Life.

22 October 2016

Veganism: Mission & Mandate, Evil & Idiocy (vs. Joe Vegan & Vegan Cheetah)

21 October 2016

Would you prefer to see a focussed critique on a single issue that doesn’t use the word “idiot” a dozen times? Check out my earlier video on Joe’s plans for an animal sanctuary, and on the ethical and economic questions raised by vegan animal sanctuaries in general: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/bLqPmh05WWU

This video was recorded in front of a live, studio audience on Younow: https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

You’re looking for the comments section? Try Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Boxing Match with Jason Pizzino: Vegan Politics, Leadership & Living for the Cause.

21 October 2016

This video was recorded with (live) feedback from viewers (you may notice that I mention and respond to comments from viewers a few times), and that was possible via a website called Younow: https://www.younow.com/EiselMazard

At one point in the video, I allude to another youtube personality who lost his job due to “vegan drama”, you’ll find the video alluded to here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/WGpJ2npr1H4

You can support the creation of content of this kind (and talk to me) via a website called Patreon, for the price of $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

You can find Jason Pizzino’s new channel (“Hello Pizzino”), here: youtube.com/channel/UCHJRsK-3iWv-m62s5Soo5xg/videos

Anti-Capitalism is the Stupidest Ideology Ever.

18 October 2016

Nuclear Power: a vegan, political science perspective.

18 October 2016

If you, too, would like to endure the humiliation of sending me your questions (and then having such a reply provided via youtube), you can pay the insurmountable $1 per month and talk to me via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

On Communism (Reply to a Patreon Question)

18 October 2016

You can support this channel (and get more content, and talk to me directly) via Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

You can read an essay I wrote on the early history of the Russian Revolution (in the far, far East of Russia especially) here: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42

You can read the specific essay mentioned by Ben (that he read before sending me this question) here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.jp/2012/07/Robert-Jay-Lifton-and-the-self-directed-cult.html

Jill Stein: Fake Vegan (Green Party, U.S.A.)

16 October 2016

Vegans can be idiots, too: Barbara4u2c, “Vegan community is fu*ked up!”

16 October 2016

Meat and Human Intelligence: Science and Society.

15 October 2016

To a large extent, what we call Alzheimer’s and atherosclerosis are one and the same thing; what we call “having a stroke” is most often a consequence of atherosclerosis; and atherosclerosis is a problem (to some extent) for the vast majority of human beings because of meat, dairy and eggs in the modern diet.

On the specific issue of Woodrow Wilson’s deteriorating mental faculties, see: http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/g28.htm

If you think you’d enjoy talking to me, or want to support the creation of this sort of content (for $1 per month), HMU on Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Ecologists vs. Vegans & Why There Are No Comments on this Youtube channel

09 October 2016

If you want to skip to the answer to the question of why I disabled comments on this youtube channel, click to the 15:08 mark.

If you’d like to see the youtube channel of the fellow who sent in the comment (read aloud in this video), click here for “Sustainable Vegan” by Haruki: youtube.com/user/kaimotueka/videos

Vegan Activism I.R.L., Beyond Peter Singer & Potluck Dinners.

09 October 2016

A conversation with ModVegan, find her channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

And you can find my Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Morality is Always Inconvenient (Unnatural Vegan is STILL Right)

09 October 2016

“When you play with my money, you play with my emotions” —Big Worm.

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / activism / animal rights

Durianrider & Freelee Don’t Own Adelaide, They Don’t Own Chiang Mai, They Don’t Own Vegan Activism.

08 October 2016

Here’s the page for the vegan festival in Adelaide: http://veganfestival.info/welcome

And, yes, some of you may not believe that there already is a vegan fruit festival in Thailand that has no connection to Freelee and Durianrider whatsoever, but, here it is: fruitwinterfest.com/faq/

The shocking truth about crime statistics in Adelaide (i.e., no, it isn’t the rough town some people pretend it is): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Adelaide

纯素主义：现代问题的答案。[汉语]

08 October 2016

Veganism: A Modern Solution to Modern Problems.

A Quick Fix for Climate Change (Vegan Gains, “Goodbye World”)

07 October 2016

Storybook for my Daughter; Veganism for Kids, etc.

03 October 2016

How can you talk about veganism with young children? This video answers a question from a viewer on this issue, and, also, reads out the script for my children’s book on the topic (a picture book that is not yet illustrated, as of Oct. 2016).

This is Dehong, Sept. 2016 (云南, 德宏, 芒市)

02 October 2016

Vegan Dad, Meat Eating Child. (Patreon Supporter’s Question)

01 October 2016

Vegan Lass is Wrong: Deforestation, Palm Oil & Progress.

28 September 2016

Vegans vs. Comic Book Fans: Making Better Use of Youtube.

28 September 2016

Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

The example alluded to in the thumbnail is “ComicPop”, a youtube channel that has a more-or-less roundtable format (usually three people seated on a couch) discussing the state of the art, so to speak: youtube.com/user/TVLittleHouse/videos

Compassion and Compromise: Vegans Buying Meat.

27 September 2016

Joe Vegan vs. Me vs. Freelee: The Titanic is Sinking.

27 September 2016

My earlier video on the cost (and ethical complexity) of running an animal shelter (or “sanctuary”): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/bLqPmh05WWU

Veganism: the Politics of the Century, Not the Politics of the Day.

26 September 2016

This is an excerpt from a conversation more than two hours long, and you can hear it as a podcast (right now), but please support the creation of new content at Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

ModVegan’s youtube channel is here: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

$1 Vegan Cuisine: Keeping it Real in Kunming.

26 September 2016

The Opposite of “Vegan Drama”: Keeping it Real for a Reason.

26 September 2016

Other channels mentioned, in order of appearance.

youtube.com/channel/UC4_55ule2TziZ-gvhSURSQQ/videos

youtube.com/channel/UC_bxH_PIo7JmtK78c7incgw/videos

For those who want to know the origin of the graphic asking, “How Low Can You Go?”, cf. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ME0hUPM2Jew

The Nature of Nature: Mod Vegan in Conversation with Eisel Mazard.

21 September 2016

This is an excerpt from a two-hour podcast. Please support the creation of podcasts like this for $1 per month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Here’s the link to ModVegan’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

In the intro, you may have also noticed Dorney’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCSIxjUKxnKu7U_hrVTIwcEw/videos

And “Johnny Thai” (formerly Vegan MBA): youtube.com/channel/UC_bxH_PIo7JmtK78c7incgw/videos

Plus a very short appearance from “Everything Real”: youtube.com/channel/UCMejUVmaX7hFGNz0JalCr5A/videos

The $600 Sanctuary Delusion (Vegans / Veganism / Animal Rights)

21 September 2016

Vegans vs. Gerson Therapy (Unnatural Vegan is Still Right)

19 September 2016

DxE is a Joke: Vegans and “Disruption” as Protest.

18 September 2016

DxE = “Direct Action Everywhere”, you can find the same clips (of their protests and events) presented with sound on their own channel, here: youtube.com/channel/UC_mn5Mn952NC1WfwnOLWjew/videos

Vegans Can Be Idiots, Too: Will Tuttle’s World Peace Diet.

17 September 2016

Joe Vegan: Sincerity vs. Sensationalism, Activism vs. “Drama”.

16 September 2016

(And, yes, this video explains why comments are now disabled on this channel… or, at least, gives you a general understanding of why and how I made that decision today.)

Shout out to “the Controvertible Snitch”: youtube.com/user/thereligioussnitch/videos

Vegan Activism is Embarrassing to Vegans (in 2016)

15 September 2016

Here’s the link to the source of the protest footage: youtube.com/channel/UCc94WKn7UMQCp-m8Ko3sIZA/videos

Support the creation of content like this for $1 per month on Patreon, and, yeah, you get to ask me questions that are answered on youtube as a fringe benefit: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegan Diet and Exercise: Not an Athlete, Not on Vacation.

14 September 2016

Harassment: Vegan Activism and the Legal Definition of Harassment.

11 September 2016

Sentimental Update (Thailand, changes in the meaning of my life, etc.)

10 September 2016

Honesty, Integrity, Fact-Checking: Vegan Cheetah = Garbage Content.

10 September 2016

Vegan Cheetah, Durianrider, Me: Short-Term Scandals & the Future of Veganism.

10 September 2016

A very casual (20 min.) response to short-term and long-term concerns, discussed on Younow with “The Vegan Traveler”: https://www.younow.com/VeganTraveler

You can also download this as an audio-only podcast (MP3) from archive.org: https://archive.org/details/Vegan-Traveler-and-Eisel-Mazard-Second-Conversation

Drama, Debate, Ambition, Activism: Why Vegans Fight Vegans.

09 September 2016

Every possible trigger-warning applies to this video: sex, violence, defecation, etc. You may think I’m joking, but I’m not.

Q&A with the Vegan Traveler (a Younow broadcaster)

08 September 2016

Traveler’s “radio show”: https://www.younow.com/VeganTraveler

0:10 The future of veganism: your outlook?

3:15 “Jen Journey” and the consequences of Vegan Drama.

10:19 What’s your favorite food.

10:50 Court case with Durianrider: why?

14:03 What did you eat today?

15:42 Should we treat meat-eating as an addiction?

17:26 How cheap is the rent in China?

20:22 What is the most effective form of activism?

23:39 What kind of music do you listen to? (Hint: rap music.)

26:20 Are there any vegan rappers?

28:36 What about Edward Snowden (and that poster)?

34:24 Just one last question…

Lately, the Vegan Traveler has been putting in long hours on Younow (sometimes seven hours per day, effectively hosting a radio show on veganism): https://www.younow.com/VeganTraveler

The Vegan Mainstream Paradox: On National Geographic (by Rock Steel).

07 September 2016

As you guys know (or may have noticed), I’m always trying to promote vegans who make videos with real substance (preferably with a political edge), and I’m proud to have sent new viewers to many channels that only had a few dozen subscribers when I first discovered them. Here’s the link to Rock’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCUQgXMPjvotTc701R9GewkQ/videos

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / politics / environmentalism

Cannabis Causes Brain Damage (Controversy from My Vegan Blog, etc.).

06 September 2016

The name of the blog is Vegan Mind Tricks: http://vegan-mind-tricks.tumblr.com/

The vegan singing at the start of the video has a channel called “Best Me, Best You”, and you can find that here: youtube.com/user/waynelots/videos

Unnatural Vegan is Worse than Durianrider, IMHO.

06 September 2016

vegan / vegans / veganism / animal rights / ecology / activism / politics / Pali / Theravada Buddhism /

Shoot the Gorilla.

05 September 2016

Links to the sources juxtaposed in the video:

(1) Marine Janine = youtube.com/user/Highonfruit1/videos

(2) DJ Vlad = youtube.com/user/djvlad/videos

(3) Rehana Sara = youtube.com/channel/UCTWhL9IBHImr-_NyRpDIktA/videos

vegan / vegans / veganism / animal rights / Harambe / Brilliant Idiots / Andrew Schulz

Are We All Millionaire Shills on Steroids, or is Durianrider Just Lying?

04 September 2016

Do you like Bananas? Freelee, Durianrider & “The Death of a Dream” Revisited.

03 September 2016

It’s interesting to see Jack’s awakening, but one person who has resolutely remained sleepwalking is “Izzy D” (shown in the last few seconds here). She saw all the same things Jack saw, but still hasn’t given the slightest thought to the significance of what went down in Chiang Mai, all around her:

youtube.com/user/izzydsammies/videos

Ah, yes, and I suppose I have to recommend my earlier video that also has “The Death of a Dream” in the title (dealing with the same issues at slightly greater depth):

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/tgJMKXJadlE

vegan / vegans / veganism / chiang mai / RT4 / HCLF / TFF / Thai Bike Festival / c’mon, you know what the video is about by now.

It’s always unreasonable to expect excellence: Vegan Politics.

03 September 2016

A question of learning from the best (and their success), not from the worst (and their failures).

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / environmental activism

The Real Vegan Drama: Progress is a Matter of Perspective, Change is a Matter of Fact.

03 September 2016

[纯素主义，中国]

Here’s the link to the channel mentioned (by a guy named Dorney): youtube.com/channel/UCSIxjUKxnKu7U_hrVTIwcEw/videos

Matters of Principle: Vegan Cheetah PWNS à-bas-le-ciel on Younow.

03 September 2016

And now, an important message from the Vegan Cheetah.

02 September 2016

Book Review: Half Earth by Edward O. Wilson.

02 September 2016

Ecology / Habitat Conservation / Environmentalism / Endangered Species / Climate Change / Vegan / Vegans / Veganism

Vegans: proto-activism for a proto-political movement.

30 August 2016

These are replies to letters from my Patreon supporters; you, too, can support this channel for $1 per month:

youtube.com/user/DiscoSaladGames/videos

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / environmentalism / politics / Eisel Mazard / à-bas-le-ciel

The Ethical Omnivore Revisited (Vegan Masterpiece Theater)

30 August 2016

Shout out to Ryan Clarken, you can find his channel here:

My own contribution to this area of discourse (i.e., heaping scorn on “Ethical Omnivores”) is one of my more surreal videos, as I recall: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8a12lBXpTe0

vegan / vegans / veganism / Melanie Murphy / ecology / animal rights

For the Future of the Cause: Why Would Anyone “Do” Youtube?

30 August 2016

Quite a few vegan activists (known to me) have already quit, amidst an increasingly hostile climate of (meaningless) infighting and slander. There’s only one reason for Henya to stay on youtube; she’s already explained a hundred different reasons for her to go.

Vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / activism / politics / environmentalism / Henya Mania

Will Durianrider go to jail? The lawyers are paid, the charges are laid.

25 August 2016

Interested in prison conditions in Thailand? Have a look: http://www.thaiprisonlife.com/

vegan / vegans / veganism / update / Chiang Mai / Thai Fruit Festival / Thai Bike Festival / Durianrider / Freelee / RT4 / Thailand

Durianrider: Threats, Lies, Videotape.

25 August 2016

(1) If you don’t know where the story starts (or what the criminal charges now unfolding are all about), click through to this three-minute video that shows Durianrider’s threats-of-violence and defamatory statements against me:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CRLbgCzJHyM

(2) Here is the link to the anonymous video: “Durianrider — Who do you think is lying?” (the original video is several minutes longer than the version I’ve presented here).

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/KGydEcf1rNs

(3) Here’s a link to “the Veg Bro”, who appears for about five seconds toward the end of the video (“I love freedom of speech…”).

youtube.com/channel/UCTAY8JvB-icDcn83FI6gQ9g/videos

(4) The woman quoted as giving her expert opinion (on the couch) is apparently Kati Morton, a licensed therapist active on youtube:

youtube.com/user/KatiMorton/videos

vegan / vegans / veganism / Durianrider / Freelee / Chiang Mai

Vegan Gains: a Conversation from Kunming to Antwerp, Alaska to Attawapiskat.

24 August 2016

You can support the creation of podcasts like this one at Patreon for $1 per month, and, yes, there are… fringe benefits, I suppose. ;-)

youtube.com/channel/UCr2eKhGzPhN5RPVk5dd5o3g/videos

The link to Richard’s channel (Vegan Gains) is here:

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / politics

Zoos and/or/as the Meaning of Life: Conversation with Jae Costly

24 August 2016

Vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / politics / zoos (obviously).

Here’s the link to Jae’s Channel: youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

Veganismen: politik og fællesskab. [“On Community”, with Danish subtitles.]

23 August 2016

Translation by Simone Hansen from Denmark

Dansk / veganismen / veganer / Økologi / Vegan / Vegans / Veganism / Ecology / Animal Rights / Eisel Mazard / à-bas-le-ciel

Slavery: what did Vegans really learn from the abolition of slavery?

23 August 2016

Gary Francione is wrong, etc. #positivecoremessage

vegan / vegans / veganism / abolitionism / ecology / animal rights / animal liberation / the abolitionist approach

Racism: Coconuts, I.Q. Tests & Illusions of Progress.

21 August 2016

Here’s the link to ModVegan’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

If you want to support the existence of this channel (my producing new podcasts, videos, etc.), it would cost you $1 per month, and you could meet and speak with a few interesting people, too, over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

See you in Thailand this December? How Drama Disrupts I.R.L. Activism.

20 August 2016

The Vegan Demimonde: Sex, Slander, Politics & Potential.

20 August 2016

REAL TALK. A conversation with the artist formerly known as American Unicorn (“AmericanUnicorn”, no space), and initially known as PlantBasedHippy.

Supporting the production of podcasts like this one will not save the planet, but it’s still a wonderful thing to do, and costs only $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Dogs vs. Wolves: Vegan Ethics and the Future of Activism.

19 August 2016

Support the creation of podcasts like this one for only $1 per month (this is my only income in 2016, as I’m currently a student, living in China): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel?ty=h

Here’s the link to Jae Costly’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

Special thanks to DJ Vlad: https://www.youtube.com/user/djvlad

The fellow being interviewed in that clip is a comedian (not a vegan), and you can see more of his work here: youtube.com/user/TheAndrewSchulz/videos

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / ethics / politics / domestication / wilderness / pets / castration

Vegan Gains: Toronto Pig Save, the Police, Army and Prison.

18 August 2016

These are excerpts from an hour-and-a-half long podcast; please support the creation of podcasts like this one for $1 per month via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Special thanks to Beanie Sigel (and here’s the link to DJ Vlad’s channel): https://www.youtube.com/user/djvlad

Body Image: Vegan Gains joins the Permanent Vacation Podcast.

17 August 2016

This is part one of my first conversation with Vegan Gains (and no, he doesn’t get to do very much of the talking); to supporting the creation of podcasts like this one would cost you just $1 per month via Patreon:

youtube.com/channel/UCr2eKhGzPhN5RPVk5dd5o3g/videos

In case you’ve never heard of Vegan Gains before, (1) welcome to the internet, (2) here’s the link to his channel:

Special thanks to DJ Vlad: youtube.com/vladtv/videos

Cory McCarthy: A Racist, White Supremacist Vegan Bodybuilder. (2 of 2)

16 August 2016

NOTE: THIS IS PART 2 OF 2 (You might want to watch part 1 first).

(1) Here’s the link to my first video on Cory McCarthy, the material in that video is NOT repeated here (title: “Racism exists within veganism…): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EkSV35RhwV8

(2) Here’s the link to my earlier video on “The Golden One” (title: “Vegan Neo-Nazis Actually Exist”): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/mrmojqZQhv8

Please note that in the past Cory would disclaim that his political views were significantly different from The Golden One’s, but, more recently, he seems to present himself as sharing the latter’s views.

vegan / vegans / veganism / animal rights / racism / anti-racism / politics / negrophobia / Black Lives Matter / slavery

What I Eat in a Day (#5), Fishing for Tigers.

15 August 2016

Kunming, China, 2016. Vegan / Vegans / Veganism / Animal Rights / Ecology / Food.

Riddle of the Lion’s Roar: Animal Sanctuaries, Zoos & Wildlife Management.

13 August 2016

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights

Here’s the link to Jae Costly’s channel: youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

And here’s the link to my Patreon (the cost is $1 per month, and supports the creation of podcasts like this one): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

And, of course, a shout out to DJ Vlad: youtube.com/vladtv/videos

Racism exists within veganism; racist vegans exist; discuss. (1 of 2) Cory McCarthy.

13 August 2016

Cory McCarthy is a (racist, white-supremacist) vegan fitness instructor who provides advice on diet and exercise, here on youtube. This is part one of two, and there is no overlap between the two videos, so watch the sequel if you feel that this (relatively short) video fails to provide a full overview of his “weltanschauung”.

Part 2 is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/d157m8S3Xv8

Thailand: Permanent Vacation vs. Political Reality.

11 August 2016

Vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / environmentalism

Here’s the link to the story quoted from Euronews:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/RKiRPdPADCc

Here’s the link to “T.W.N.W.”, The World Next Week:

feeds.cfr.org/publication/twnw

The Cult of à-Bas-le-Ciel (& The Tofu Goddess, PART THREE)

08 August 2016

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / Theravada Buddhism / Durianrider / Freelee / Chiang Mai

Please support the creation of podcasts like this one for $1 per month (that is, currently, the only income I have): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel?ty=h

Shout out to Mike Tyson; shout out to D.J. Whoo Kid.

As this is part three of our converstion, I think you already know that the Tofu Goddess can be found here: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

Replies to my Patreon Supporters (Two Questions, Two Answers)

07 August 2016

(1) Cinema, Stigma & Social Acceptance. (2) Getting an Education Despite University.

In case you hadn’t guessed, you can support me (for $1 per month) on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel?ty=h

Vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / complaints about university/academia ;-)

Not a Game: Veganism in Practice. PART TWO: The Tofu Goddess.

07 August 2016

Please support the creation of podcasts like this one for $1 per month on Patreon (it is, currently, my only source of income):

https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel?ty=h

The Tofu Goddess has a youtube channel of her own, click through to take a look here:

youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

vegan / vegans / ecology / animal rights / vegan politics / Thailand / Canada

Climate Change, a Vegan Perspective, by Mady Blueberry.

05 August 2016

Here’s the link to the channel quoted and promoted: youtube.com/channel/UCQnXJUBmSUC1lgQCNln9hRA/videos

The Tofu Goddess: Education as Activism. Part One of a Vegan Politics Podcast.

05 August 2016

Join my Patreon to support podcasts like this one (at a cost of $1 per month) and, hopefully, you’ll get to hear the whole thing: we recorded three and a half hours of content together (!) in just one conversation, and I’m still not sure how I’m going to “re-format it” into a set of podcasts.

https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel?ty=h

The Tofu Goddess herself has had her channel promoted here at à-bas-le-ciel broadcasting corporation before, but this was (genuinely) the first time we’d ever spoken. Find her channel here:

youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

Autonomy vs Dignity, Wildlife in Veganism and Ecology in the 21^st century

05 August 2016

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / environmentalism / wildlife management / etc.

Militant Vegans, Real Talk: Sorsha, Freelee, Unnatural Vegan & Pewdiepie.

03 August 2016

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / activism / animal rights

Here’s the link to Jae Costly’s channel, i.e., the guy with the hat (and if he didn’t have a hat… yeah, you might get us confused): youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

Knowing vs Feeling: Effective Activism & Effective People.

02 August 2016

vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / environmentalism / animal rights

Oh, right… the link to ModVegan: youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

No, it’s not a scam: Durianrider, we’ve done this before.

01 August 2016

vegan / vegans / veganism / Durianrider / Freelee / Chiang Mai / etc.

Why nobody on youtube is dating / sleeping with anybody else.

01 August 2016

Vegan / vegans / veganism / animal rights / ecology / sex / dating / advice nobody wants to hear / etc.

Veganism will not make you happy, being vegan may make you even more miserable.

30 July 2016

I respect you enough to disrespect you (“ethical” cow-milk & watered-down veganism)

30 July 2016

Here’s the link to the channel mentioned, “ThinkAboutThis”: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4to0ojhDnczNwQPS-36Rcg

And here’s the link to Unnatural Vegan’s channel:

youtube.com/channel/UCpUnOYXPHWR47rjeQJFhTuw/videos

I support Sorsha, TBH, and Durianrider got it right on this one.

29 July 2016

As Stannis Baratheon said, a good deed does not wash out the bad: I can’t believe we’ve got vegans pretending that it’s a valid argument to say, “Yeah, well, I donate money to charity, THEREFORE…” Please. I don’t care if you donate to charity, and I don’t care if you own the charity: that doesn’t dispose of the basic premise of ethical veganism, and, in fact, it’s completely spurious to everything Sorsha had to say.

Leading by Example is Not Leading Anything at All.

28 July 2016

Vegan / Vegans / Veganism / Ecology / Animal Rights.

Equality and inequality: activism is “unequal”, political friendships are “unfair”.

28 July 2016

Vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology / animal rights / political activism

Happiness is overrated, narcissism is overrated.

28 July 2016

Vegan / vegans / veganism / ecology.

A Diet is Not a Movement. A Protest is Not a Community.

27 July 2016

Vegan / Vegans / Veganism.

Link to the Tofu Goddess: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

Link to my Patreon, as I mentioned it: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Vegsource defends Durianrider, I defend myself (my response to “Nina and Randa’s Dad”, Jeff Nelson)

25 July 2016

Do you want to pretend that credible threats of gang violence within veganism (a group of goons beating someone down in the street) are equivalent to a misunderstanding (on video) about whether or not your (vegan) daughters eat honey-from-bees? Really, my dude?

Here’s the link to the earlier video (alluded to in this one) showing screen-shots of D.R.‘s threats against me, in case you haven’t seen it before: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CRLbgCzJHyM

What I Eat in a Day (#4), the Last of the Snub-Nosed Monkeys of Yunnan.

23 July 2016

A vegan in Kunming, China, 2016.

Durianrider says I’m “pro-vivisection”: what does “anti-vivisection” really mean?

23 July 2016

There are some vegans doing more harm to the reputation of veganism than diet-gurus like Durianrider himself, and some of them are seemingly-respectable university professors (etc.). A look at what being “anti-vivisection” really means (in 2016) forces us to reflect on the recent history of animal-rights extremism, and its long-term implications for the future of the vegan movement.

-----

LINK 1: the earlier video mentioned in the first 5 minutes:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/atY1BwqPEE0

LINK 2: the article that I quote from later on in the video:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/11/06/a-little-schadenfreude-over-animal-rights-activist-steven-best/

We Can Change the Game: Freelee, Durianrider & HHV (Happy, Healthy Vegan).

21 July 2016

Castration: vegan excuses for enslaving animals. Unnatural Vegan.

21 July 2016

For those of you who haven’t seen any of the earlier videos on this topic, I actually recommend starting with the most recent: “Vegans vs. the Wildlife Management Paradigm”.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/atY1BwqPEE0

The full list of videos on the topic of domestication of pets is now fairly long. Take it or leave it, watch it or don’t, but please do not bother to write in asking me to address issues that I’ve probably/actually already addressed in the earlier videos.

The most offensive video I have ever made.

20 July 2016

Advice Nobody Wants to Hear, Ep. 004.

(1hr+) Lauren Kenzy on The Permanent Vacation Podcast.

20 July 2016

Yep. Inevitably, some discussion of Durianrider and Freelee are in the mix. But we also do manage to discuss veganism, I promise. Do you really need links to these channels? Okay, here you go:

The Vegan Lass: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_55ule2TziZ-gvhSURSQQ

Durianrider: youtube.com/user/durianriders/videos

Freelee: youtube.com/user/Freelea/videos

This is a conversation with Lauren Kenzy, formerly a.k.a. Lauryn Phoenix (formerly a.k.a. “The Vegan Lass”).

Lauren Kenzy vs. à-bas-le-ciel, the podcast nobody asked for! ;-)

17 July 2016

This is a conversation with Lauren Kenzy, formerly a.k.a. Lauryn Phoenix (formerly a.k.a. “The Vegan Lass”).

Pay the $1 per month to join my Patreon, and, uh, “save the planet”, or at least support podcasts like this one (the whole thing is 90 minutes long): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

The whole conversation is, now, available on this same youtube channel, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/q6ff_3vuv7Y

Organizing Youtube Vegans Into Real-World Activists.

17 July 2016

Eisel Mazard (of à-bas-le-ciel) speaks with S.F. (a lawyer based in Washington, D.C., with long-term ambitions for vegan and ecological activism). This is a focussed discussion on questions of how to organize the latent potential of “digital activists” into real-world activism (including conferences, foundations, lobbying, public-education, community-organization, even the question of creating small farms, etc.). Although many of the questions engaged with have a long-term or purely-theoretical element to them (reflecting the political-science background of both men in the conversation), the question of how we make use of the resources we have (immediately) is returned to again and again, with a view to practical action within the 12 months ahead.

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON, TALK TO ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Update on lawyers, Durianriders and judges riding bicycles.

16 July 2016

“And the judge shows up on a lime green Bianchi…”

Veganismo: quiero una comunidad verdadera (cuestión política)

16 July 2016

Spanish translation (of “On Community”) by Jessica.

Utilitarianism is rubbish, innit? (Philosophy & Politics, I.M.H.O.)

16 July 2016

Ha! I said, “Three noble truths”, instead of “three marks of existence”. ;-) I’m actually glad that I’m out-of-practice on that front.

On historical nihilism: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/F59Rx7uoRpo

Onision, vegan in principle, not in practice.

16 July 2016

Here’s the link to “That Vegan Mom”: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC76RjmepqqU50CsgGtscwAA

And, in case you haven’t heard of Onision, here’s the link to his channel, too: youtube.com/user/onision/videos

And, yes, I’m aware that some of my viewers take a shot of vodka every time I mention Cambodia, and/or every time I use the noun, “Homeboy”. ;-)

What I eat in a day #3: elephants in chains. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

15 July 2016

The Black and White Issue.

15 July 2016

People often presume that a problem is black and white “in theory”, but more murky in practice: in this case, I argue that some issues (that arise when putting political ambitions into motion) are actually more black and white in practice than in theory.

At one extreme, some vegans describe the cause as if it eclipsed all other moral concerns, and all other humanitarian ambitions; disillusioned with this, some vegans instead discuss veganism as if (1) it were morally equivalent to any other ambition (to make the world a better place), and (2) as if meat-eaters engaged in humanitarian work were equal to (or even superior to) vegans attempting to do the same job.

Yes, I love my daughter.

13 July 2016

Friends, strangers, activists (w. Conradical Vegan)

12 July 2016

The dorky sound effects that pop up from time to time basically exist to remind you that this is an edited podcast: the conversation lasted more than an hour, and it has been trimmed down.

Bullfighting, animal individuality and human civilization. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

12 July 2016

This podcast features Vegan Minimalist Mark, whose channel you can find here: youtube.com/c/markgardiner1976/videos

The views expressed by Mark do not reflect the opinions of à-bas-le-ciel broadcasting corporation, nor its board of directors.

The Death of a Dream: Veganism After the End of HCLF / RT4 / Durianrider / Freelee /etc.

12 July 2016

Ah, yes, I must cite my sources.

(1) Momo and I actually did meet in Thailand: youtube.com/channel/UCdVvqpG66fPkO3FL2tO8HcQ/videos

(2) Moriah (“Mo”) Kandi is here: youtube.com/channel/UCQBsYik3DuA9J_yY4-rTguA/videos

(3) The Veg Bro is here:

youtube.com/channel/UCTAY8JvB-icDcn83FI6gQ9g/videos

(4) And, finally, Izzy Davis: youtube.com/c/izzydsammies/videos

Of course, the usual caveat applies: the opinions stated in this video should not be attributed to à-bas-le-ciel broadcasting corporation, and the inclusion of the sources above should not be taken as an endorsement of any/all of their opinions, etc. ;-)

Vegans vs. the Wildlife Management Paradigm.

10 July 2016

Check out the channel of “AmericanUnicorn”: youtube.com/c/plantbasedhippy/videos

Vegans & the Very Concept of Capitalism. [+ Kunming Streets]

09 July 2016

Life isn’t fair, save the planet anyway.

09 July 2016

a.k.a., “When the revolution comes, YOU AND YOUR C-MINUS BODY CAN G.T.F.O.”

Durianrider is Innocent (Not a Joke, Not Trolling)

09 July 2016

Human rights: either everyone has them, or nobody has them. Procedural justice needs to apply to the worst people in your society, not merely the best and the brightest.

Suffering and Sympathy: Learning from Others.

09 July 2016

“Who do you think you are, don’t you know who I think I am?”

Vegans can be idiots, too. Activism is fake, stupidity is real.

08 July 2016

Vegans can also be malicious, dishonest, and even violent, in case you hadn’t noticed, lately. Bronze-age virtues, people: having a code of honor matters, treating people with dignity matters. There’s a big difference between telling someone they’re stupid (directly, in private e-mails, or in a public debate) and defaming someone on the internet.

The Dark Side of Being Vegan in Kunming, What I Eat in a Day (#2)

07 July 2016

Why Joe Best Hates Me: Wrath of the White Pariah.

07 July 2016

You can check out “the White Pariah” here: youtube.com/channel/UCjIfS0jqSlXqAsOvqdK_xQQ/videos

Your Dog Hates You: “Service Animals” and Airplane Pillows.

07 July 2016

Shout out to Jae Costly, find his channel here: youtube.com/channel/UCdV8ScPyJfgPL9mNxnCGgRw/videos

Sex, Money, Fame, Cookbooks: Vegans “Save the Planet”.

04 July 2016

Vegans, Gay Rights, and Riots.

04 July 2016

Here’s link to ModVegan’s channel:

youtube.com/channel/UCXwREs2xdJSI0Zj9nL2MzKA/videos

Tattoos, Lies & Lifestyle Activism (vegan / vegans / veganism)

04 July 2016

Abolitionism and its Implications (with Amy: “The Vegan Transition”)

03 July 2016

Link to my Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Link to Amy’s channel, “The Vegan Transition”: youtube.com/channel/UCO8x6mNtNi4647eBp6zr5IQ/videos

Bikinis & Bomb Craters (Claire Michelle & Growing Up on the Internet)

02 July 2016

The link to the particular video mentioned from Claire Michelle (plantifulsoul) is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Y8T_hxeCzRY

The particular essay I mentioned (about a massacre in 1920, written a few months ago) is here: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42

The Vegan Violence Problem (Durianrider, Gary Yourofsky & Me)

02 July 2016

Anna Scanlon is a vegan who raises difficult questions within veganism. You can find her channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAnnainWonderland

Please take the time to see my own (earlier) video, “Against Violence: Against Gary Yourofsky.” The link is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/3UKixnfBwMk

Just the Drama (Excerpt from a Patreon-Only Podcast)

30 June 2016

The full podcast is 38 minutes long; you find it (and me) on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Your Cat Hates You: Unnatural Vegan is Wrong, and it Really Matters.

30 June 2016

Stop castrating dogs and cats, stop making excuses for it.

29 June 2016

Because, like, it’s really a big deal for a vegan to be morally opposed to the domestication of animals in 2016. :-/

If you look carefully in the background, you can figure out that this was filmed on a laundry day. ;-)

Not a Me Diet, It’s a We Diet. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

28 June 2016

(1) This is the voice of Jerry V. Egan (link to his channel below). (2) It has always been interesting for me to see different vegans coming to the same conclusions along different lines of reasoning, and expressing those same conclusions in different terms: Jerry is definitely an example of this (he reminds me of many things I’ve said myself, some recently, some repeatedly, on this channel). (3) I’ve also been interested in promoting “small” vegan channels (especially if I can discover them when they’re still getting fewer than 100 viewers, etc., as I’ve done with a few different channels this year). Here’s the link:

youtube.com/channel/UC0LnFMuTYNwbAC5iImKP86w/videos

I spent $6,500 at K.F.C. (Kentucky Fried Chicken)

28 June 2016

Unnatural Vegan Hates Me, I Guess. (Vegan Civil War?)

26 June 2016

[Satire:] Anyone who disagrees with anything in this video will be pilloried and ignored as (1) under-carbed, (2) secretly working for the meat industry, (3) fat (and “therefore” wrong for reasons that are never explained), and, of course, (4) a “fake vegan” trying to destroy the “unity” of the “community”.

Sadly, in 2016, it was completely necessary to prefix that droll statement with the word “Satire”. :-/

素食主义运动（西方政治学相关 / 社群 / 纯素主义）

26 June 2016

Translation by Charlotte.

Nobody Cares: Passion & Protest Won’t Save the Planet. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

25 June 2016

“Effective Activism” has nothing to do with passion: showing people how upset you are (or how much you care) is not a winning strategy in the context of democratic pluralism --especially not when you represent a despised minority (like veganism).

Veganismi: yhteisö ja politiikka (Finnish) (vegan / vegans / veganism)

25 June 2016

Translated by Laura Viitanen.

Q&A2 (Part 5) Killing Cows to Feed Cats (Again!)

25 June 2016

Über die Vegane Gemeinschaft (Veganismus / vegan / vegans / veganism)

24 June 2016

Translated by Tanisha Keller. You can find her youtube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/misstanar

Kunming at Night, 2016.

23 June 2016

And yet nobody suspects that I’m a shill for the rap industry. :-/ The mixtape this one comes from can be download for free (legitimately) from Datpiff, but, again, I think it would be more fun to let the comments-section name the vocalist(s) for you.

Vegans Dating Meat Eaters, Advice for Day One (a Non-Chinese Perspective)

23 June 2016

Q&A2 (Part 4) Unpopular Ethical Arguments and Democratic Pluralism.

23 June 2016

You have to take a shot of vodka* every time I mention Cambodia.

* [The management at à-bas-le-ciel video network do not endorse the consumption of alcohol under any circumstances.]

Q&A2 (Part 3) Ancient Philosophy in Modern Asia & Evolutionary Theories of Veganism

21 June 2016

This is a Q&A from within my Patreon page (a social network that costs you $1 per month, and puts you in touch with myself and a few hundred other people with common interests): http://patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

What I Eat in a Day (Lately), Vegan in Kunming, China.

21 June 2016

Next is a $35 e-book: The Macrovore Diet. Eat six bagels a day, do 200 push-ups, and get great results, or else I denounce you on the internet as a “fake vegan” who is secretly eating hamburgers, or working as a shill for the milk industry, etc. Shout out to “my competition” at the microvore diet, BTW: we should, like, totally have a lawsuit together some time.*

* [If you don’t know satire when you see it, I can’t do nothing for you, man.]

In this case, I’m going to leave it up to the comments section to identify the vocalist/rapper. ;-)

Veganismo: il concetto di comunità. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

21 June 2016

Translation by Maddalena.

ビーガン: 政治とコミュニティ (ヴィーガン) (vegan / vegans / veganism)

20 June 2016

Translation by Haruki of “Sustainable Vegan”: youtube.com/user/kaimotueka/videos

Q&A2 (Part 1 of 999!) On Humanitarian Motives & “What if Your Daughter Chooses to Eat Meat?”

20 June 2016

О сообществе (и веганстве) (веган / веганы / веганство)

19 June 2016

Russian translation of my video (titled, “On Community”) provided by Anastasia Lovtskaya.

Dumbest Vegans On YouTube: The Vegan Cheetah!

18 June 2016

A lecture on tolerance. Click ahead to see reflections on Cheetah’s subsequent “descent into madness” in a video from several years later, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/0JBNjAGy2Mw Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Why are comments disabled on my youtube channel? Here’s the answer, in a relatively uplifting 5 minute video: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EHb9k30KTXM

A searchable list of all of my videos (more effective than searching within youtube, IMO) can be found here: https://aryailia.github.io/a-bas-le-ciel/all.html

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA/videos

Update & Reflections on the Success of the Fundraiser

17 June 2016

Introducing Veganism as a Political Struggle (Not a Diet, etc.)

17 June 2016

With views of the streets of Kunming, China (2016).

Put Durianrider in Prison: DONATE NOW, Legal Action Against Violence & Defamation.

16 June 2016

LET’S AIM FOR $6,500 IF POSSIBLE: MANY THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED SO FAR, REACHING $5000 IN THE FIRST 10 HOURS!!! THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO DONATE:

(1) Through “generosity.com”, run by Indiegogo:

https://www.generosity.com/fundraisers/vegans-against-violence-and-defamation-vavad

(2) Through Paypal (some donors may prefer paypal for technical reasons), making payments to my publicly-stated e-mail address:

http://www.eisel-mazard.com/email-how-to-contact-me-etc

Either Durianrider Goes to Jail, or I Do.

06 June 2016

Morality isn’t just something that you do when it’s convenient for you. Honesty isn’t just something that you do when the facts are flattering to your side. If you don’t have time to watch the whole video: if you know a lawyer (or law-firm) in Australia that would provide an initial consultation (given the basic outline of the case), please let me know.

As stated before, Patreon really is the best way to keep in touch with me: any website owned by google is blocked in China, so even my ability to use email (via gmail) may be intermittent (or nil).

With me, “keeping it real” isn’t an empty slogan: this video contains both laughter and tears. I have left it unedited quite intentionally: no makeup, no editing, no intro, no outro. Real talk.

Chiang Mai, Heaven or Hell? (Tourist Destination Review)

05 June 2016

Paradise for some. :-/ On Patreon you’ll get the full video, and a bunch of other exclusive content: I’m increasingly recording Patreon-only podcasts (due to the difficulty of uploading video in Asia/China). You’ll also get to cross paths with other vegans who are serious about getting organized for social activism. Currently (June 6, 2016), I’m taking questions (from subscribers) for a Q&A session. https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

This video is a conversation about the reality of Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2016 (in contrasts to what some tourists might be expecting).

The “I did it all for my daughter” fallacy.

04 June 2016

It’s a common trope in Hollywood movies, but I’m really not the sort of character you meet in a Hollywood movie. Odds are: neither are you.

Some reflections on parenting and its implications for the decisions we make, how we justify them, and how we explain them to the next generation.

Not quite a fist fight (Vegans in Chiang Mai)

04 June 2016

For more podcasts and updates, sign up at Patreon (much of my content is Patreon-exclusive): https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Chiang Mai, May 30, 2016

My Love Life: Freelee and Durianrider Want to Know!

04 June 2016

Durianrider has been trying to make a scandal out of nothing, drawing attention to my Couchsurfing profile, and wildly speculating about my sex life. Let’s take a look at that profile, shall we?

For more about my private life, my public life, my political life, and (frankly) about the meaning of life in general (not just veganism), HMU on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Links to sources “quoted”:

(1) THE WALRUS on “A-bas-le-ciel vs Durianrider”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2IZHZxnOv_Q

(2) HENYA talking about… well… she’s talking about me, I guess.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/qzD3-KcYqz8

(3) The jokingly-named “VIOLENT VEGAN”:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/77hHcUZabB8

(4) The guy in the outro is DOMBOWER:

youtube.com/user/dombower/videos

My Apology to Freelee (Not a Joke, Not Sarcastic).

03 June 2016

Durianrider’s Threats & Allegations (in his own words).

03 June 2016

You will need to hit the pause button to read each slide. All of these messages were stated publicly: none of them are private correspondence.

Chiang Mai, Thailand, June 3^rd, 2016.

Shout out to some of the forgotten affiliates of the Wu-Tang: “Killarmy” is the group of recorded artists here featured as background music.

Comments are allowed on this video as a special courtesy to Erin Janus, who requested it. For the sake of friendship: request granted.

Karaoke tonight (Chiang Mai, Thailand) (vegan / vegans / veganism)

03 June 2016

Durianrider threatens arrest, violence & defamation.

02 June 2016

Ask yourself, seriously: what would we be doing if any of us were (sincerely) motivated by the common slogan, “save the planet”? Not this. This, definitely, is not what we would be doing, and is not what we should be doing.

I’d encourage you to take the opening words seriously: bad things happen when good people sit by and do nothing. Durianrider is (again) making defamatory remarks, and trying to instigate violence (as well as conjuring up rumors out of thin air). If you consider yourself a good person: act. Act now. Speak up. Draw the line, and make it clear who is crossing it.

It’s Not My Problem (Activism & Vegans in Chiang Mai)

01 June 2016

The Problem With “It’s Not My Problem.” This discussion address a range of political issues (and the difficulty activists have in addressing them, or in overcoming public indifference to them), with veganism and ecology being referred to repeatedly (but not exclusively). There’s also some discussion (en passant) of vegans here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the video was recorded.

Passion vs. Reason (Vegans & Ex-Vegans)

29 May 2016

Juxtaposition. Sources juxtaposed:

(1) JAZMIN GONZALEZ: “WHY I’M NO LONGER VEGAN” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/TB5eadctVk0

(2) GEMMA GOLD: “WORKING IN A SLAUGHTERHOUSE” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/-8vEsXem8dc

(3) TOMMY’S RECOVERY JOURNAL: “MY EXPERIENCE..."= https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/LaaUEQo2Sck

Effective Activism: The Boycott Mentality. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

28 May 2016

This video contrasts the morality of the boycott (shrinking your contribution to a “bad” social system, while the system remains the same) tot he morality of political intervention (attempting to change the system itself). As a method, the boycott has some advantages, but it also has some implications for how we think of ourselves (as citizens, if not as activists) and how we organize (or fail to organize) to bring about social change.

BTW, this is what I look like, jet-lagged as hell, with 3 hours of sleep: hashtag no makeup for real. ;-)

Nationalism & the mere concept of “Good People”. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

23 May 2016

Vegan Steez: PlantBasedHippy & Tofu Goddess.

22 May 2016

Links to the two channels mentioned:

(1) PlantBasedHippy: youtube.com/user/lockstures88/videos

(2) The Tofu Goddess: youtube.com/user/234leanna/videos

Meanwhile, in Adelaide (Podcast Excerpt)

22 May 2016

The comments section is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel?ty=h

On Historical Nihilism (历史虚无主义) and “Having a Philosophy” in General.

21 May 2016

Although this video ran long enough, I’d say there are two significant (autobiographical) omissions. (1) Thucydides is not mentioned: I could have spoken about Thucydides specifically, and several other ancient Greeks who have shaped (or re-enforced) my thinking on these issues. (2) I also did not mention the experiences in childhood that initially formed this question in my mind. When I was very small (still in grade 1, I believe) I was quite astonished to learn that there is no intrinsic difference between a plant and a weed, but that this was merely a human idea that we ascribed to (i.e., imposed onto) plants. Many, many years later, I would read a philosopher remarking, likewise, “The difference between plant and weed is up to me”, i.e., using the same example to illustrate the extent to which many cultural notions seem to have a biological reality, but, in fact, we can decide for ourselves whether or not a dandelion is truly worse than a rose. That was a very simple childhood insight (that I thought about for many hours, at that early age) that never left me. I applied it, again and again, to very simple puzzles, such as our notion that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (etc.) --and yet, of course, beauty is tremendously important to each individual beholder, and also to society as a whole.

Vegan Elitism? A Small Minority Seeking Political Change.

21 May 2016

Advocacy itself involves elitism, of a kind.

Veganism vs. “Anti-Capitalism” (vs. The Vegan Anarchist)

21 May 2016

On the matter of mass starvation under Communism (only alluded to in this video), please do have a look at an earlier video on this same channel (more formally researched and presented), “The New Literature on China’s Great Famine & the Great Leap Forward”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/0rtfadswTdw

What Nobody Says Out Loud (the Vegan Anarchist)

21 May 2016

The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the persons appearing on the program and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of à-bas-le-ciel Television Corporation.

You can find the youtube channel of The Vegan Anarchist here: youtube.com/channel/UCKoks3cxExM1dhukdjZZf4g/videos

What I Value About Chinese Culture.

18 May 2016

The account of my unexpected departure from Laos (to Yunnan, China) is alluded to in this video. One short set of reflections on this can be found here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/No-Nostalgia-for-Laos.html

Against “Leftist” Violence (On Effective Activism & Vegans / Veganism).

18 May 2016

[NOTE: this is an excerpt from a longer, patreon-only video.]

The essay alluded to, repeatedly, about the events in 1920 (revolution, violence, etc.) can be found here: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42#.zvgoq1tqb

Fake Diet, Real Politics: fads & the future of Veganism.

18 May 2016

Vegans vs. Palm Oil; Agriculture vs. Habitat. (Veganism)

18 May 2016

(This is an excerpt from a longer podcast on Patreon: I’ve been uploading quite a few Patreon-exclusives lately; sometimes, these are direct replies to messages sent in by viewers/subscribers.)

On Community (vs. Unnatural Vegan)

14 May 2016

Veganism: Don’t Debate the Details. (Vegan Artichoke Response)

13 May 2016

My own earlier video “Dealing with disrespectful questions [about veganism]” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/rtfudw6t2Mc

Vegan Artichoke, “Veganism is Emotionally Exhausting” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/5Pvf5HTJg3U

Vegan Artichoke, “Are Problematic Vegans Helping or Hurting the Vegan Movement?” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/iCzNBu2KvMY

Vivisection, an insider’s perspective [Shorter, edited version]

12 May 2016

The full text of the letter I received from this biologist (who is vegan, and yet involved with [un-vegan] animal research), can be seen on my blog, here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2016/05/vivisection-letter-to-em.html

Please do take the time to see my earlier video, “Vivisection: The Next 10 Years” (this video, and the letter from a fan, were in response to it): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/UXocDLHSZsE

As stated in the intro, the full discussion (37 min. long) is only available to subscribers via Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Gaining Weight: Freelee’s Diet Delusion. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

10 May 2016

A conversation about much more than just weight-gain with Lea P., who attended last year’s Thai Fruit Festival, and who will be in Chiang Mai again this year.

Vegan Politics: Blood & Money.

09 May 2016

Here’s one answer from the hour-and-a-half long Q&A available via Patreon. The session included questions about my personal life, the books I read, possible fundraising for future projects, etc., not just veganism.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/4ykzTPvy4_Y

Imposing on Girlfriends and Boyfriends (vegan / vegans / veganism)

07 May 2016

In many ways this continues from the earlier video with “arbitrary lines” in the title, although this deals with the most intimate level of political discourse: the people you love, and the people who love you.

Here’s the link to Mike’s channel (Mike on Raw, mentioned in the second half of the video): youtube.com/channel/UC2k3qMLqBpfk1FSqf3qR2ow/videos

Arbitrary “Lines” in Ecology, Ethics, and Animal Rights. (Vegan)

07 May 2016

To say something is arbitrary doesn’t mean that it’s evil, nor that it’s even wrong. Especially in the habitat-conservation approach to animal rights, we often deal with distinctions that are entirely arbitrary, and entirely man-made.

Two Vegan Activists from Two Generations. [1hr+]

07 May 2016

A conversation with Adriane Gilbert, covering various questions of how to organize dissent (in relation to veganism and ecology) in a democratic society --even a deeply flawed democracy such as Canada. As we’re both Canadian, there are repeated references to the fur industry, and to the situation of our indigenous peoples (First Nations / Native Canadians).

This conversation is also available as an audio-only (MP3) podcast: https://archive.org/details/Vegan-activism-Adriane-Gilbert-a-bas-le-ciel-2016

In this video I’m speaking with Adriane Gilbert, a vegan activist from Southern Ontario. At the time of the interview, she was 18 years old and had been vegan for less than a year. You can find her on instagram, here: https://www.instagram.com/adriane__gilbert/

Veganism is NOT an excuse, Gary Yourofsky & the question of pluralism

07 May 2016

Several links are mentioned in this video. First and foremost, a shout-out to “Clare is Vegan”: youtube.com/user/ClareIsVegan/videos

Secondly, here’s “Shelley 123”: youtube.com/user/Shell123ey/videos

Finally, here’s the video of Gary Yourofsky himself that I’ve quoted:

Vivisection: the next 10 years (vegan / vegans / veganism)

07 May 2016

Here’s the link to the example mentioned (and, as I warned, it may give you nightmares): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despair

Activism vs. “Digital Nomadism” (a Political Autobiography of sorts)

06 May 2016

You want to make a positive difference in the world? In many ways, it starts with having a fixed address. This video offers some reflections on my own life, and the contrast between the type of activism that was possible for me at Toronto City Hall, and the strange fate of living from one airplane ticket to the next as an expatriate (“nomad”) in Asia.

My Daughter & My Divorce: Blackmail & Lies Told in Court.

06 May 2016

If you just want to hear the dramatic “twist in the plot”, skip ahead to 20:49 …you can get the gist in just a few minutes from that point.

Here’s a link to the cutest picture of me with my daughter imaginable:

URL:http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jgsdROjD-M8/U3h7fiu-V5I/AAAAAAAAI8I/J9ComxOB1DQ/s1600/father-and-daughter.jpg

That photo, above, shows us together in France. The one below shows us together in Taiwan, during the last full day that we spent together:

URL:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nVHoh1nJyNM/U3h-DS8ILNI/AAAAAAAAI8U/H4HoVMUgwbQ/s1600/father-and-daughter-and-toothbrush.png

This is archived in audio-only format (as an MP3/podcast) here: https://archive.org/details/my-daughter-and-divorce-2016-reflections

Veganism is NOT an excuse: Gary Yourofsky & the question of pluralism.

06 May 2016

[Note: this video had to be re-uploaded due to a technical error that causes the video to stop playing at about the 6:45 mark --however, you can click past it, and get the video to continue playing.]

Several links are mentioned in this video. First and foremost, a shout-out to “Clare is Vegan”: youtube.com/user/ClareIsVegan/videos

Secondly, here’s “Shelley 123”: youtube.com/user/Shell123ey/videos

Finally, here’s the video of Gary Yourofsky himself that I’ve quoted:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/4ykzTPvy4_Y

Democracy: the Opportunity for Non-Violent Change (vegan / vegans / veganism).

06 May 2016

Tana Mongeau is Right, Freelee is Wrong, Durianrider is Wrong.

04 May 2016

Real talk: no intro, no outro, no special effects, no makeup.

Ecology: Pragmatism & Local Activism (vegan / vegans / veganism)

04 May 2016

A recurring issue on the channel is the contrast between local (community-based) activism and more “nomadic” approaches to social change. In this video I’m speaking with Adriane Gilbert, a vegan activist from Southern Ontario. At the time of the interview, she was 18 years old and had been vegan for less than a year. You can find her on instagram, here: https://www.instagram.com/adriane__gilbert/

I’m on Patreon. Surprised? Me too. (à-bas-le-ciel, 2016)

01 May 2016

Here’s the link to my Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Here are the links to the other channels “quoted” in the video (and my thanks go out to all of them, as well as the people who’ve taken the time to write in to me by e-mail during the last year).

(1) Dombower = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/WGOpMU2vysM

(2) Vegan in Japan = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGY7OMXN8N2gAJHXiyJY9Lw/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0

(3) Lea P. = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/KOC0hpIVD98

(4) The Vegan Transition = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8x6mNtNi4647eBp6zr5IQ/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0

(5) TKJT = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/zrB7qGtyy2Q

Against Violence: Against Gary Yourofsky. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

30 April 2016

The video being quoted (and refuted) is an interview with Gary Yourofsky hosted by Bite Size Vegan, and you can see the original here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/4En39iyK4DA

Gary Yourofsky is Wrong: Vegans Kill Insects.

28 April 2016

Here’s the link to the Yourofsky interview quoted: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Cl-8Xl7qrhE

Here’s my own video (from just a few days ago), with “Vegans Kill Cockroaches” in the title: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/q6-5kQJSZZE

2. What if Beauty is Irrelevant? (vegan / vegans / veganism)

28 April 2016

Here are links to two of my earlier videos on related themes:

(1) Beauty ≠ Advocacy ≠ Activism (Vegans & Animal Rights)

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/wV82bCJqsh8

(2) Beauty is Meaningless.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OkRtcb4cryM

AND here’s a shout-out to Dom Bower, who appears ever-so-briefly on-screen: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/WGOpMU2vysM

1. What if Science is Irrelevant? (vegan / vegans / veganism)

28 April 2016

Dealing with disrespectful questions (vegan / vegans / veganism)

28 April 2016

Here are the links to the (earlier) videos mentioned:

(1) Vegan vs. “What about Farm Workers?”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/4DccgvUAgUs

(2) “But have you been to a farm / factory?” (Human Rights, Veganism & Labor)

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/dF_RF6YiI6I

(3) At the start of the video I also mention my (recent) interview with Zahria, titled, “The Agony of Activism”, and you can see that here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Ne6BMFTjZ44

Vegans Kill Cockroaches (Vivisection, Agriculture & Activism)

26 April 2016

Well… the title itself is long enough to serve as the description: the video offers some real talk on vivisection, agriculture and activism, with challenging contrasts between idealism and pragmatism, as (hopefully) veganism becomes a crucial part of ecology in the 21^st century.

The Ethical Omnivore: Melanie Murphy. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

24 April 2016

Vegans on Youtube Talking About Veganism on Youtube

24 April 2016

A conversation that contrasts new media to traditional media, and asks where “we” are all going, in the digital vegan demimonde. This is a half-hour of content that DOES NOT repeat the material posted in an earlier, 10-minute video (recorded on the same day), titled, “Vegans: A Conspiracy for Social Change?”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Brtd_F9rr8s

The Vegan Cheetah’s channel is here:

youtube.com/channel/UCSDjC2eMJQBwu2QATm8bZNA/videos

The Vegan Mojo: Real Politics vs. Swimwear

23 April 2016

The Vegan Mojo’s channel is here:

youtube.com/channel/UC8AHR0py0U4-Kl6gRDcn16g/videos

Related to this conversation (in a peculiar way) is my own earlier video on Cocaine (and the changing scientific understanding of Cocaine, etc.):

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/w14YA2vyHMc

Vegans: A Conspiracy for Social Change?

22 April 2016

A conversation (about veganism and effective activism) with “The Vegan Cheetah”. You can find his channel here:

youtube.com/channel/UCSDjC2eMJQBwu2QATm8bZNA/videos

The Agony of Activism: Zahria 269 (vegan / vegans / veganism)

21 April 2016

Eisel Mazard (à-bas-le-ciel) interviews Zahria269 about veganism (and almost nothing else!) for a solid hour-and-a-half. The conversation begins with reflections on her involvement with the “Pig Save” movement (of slaughterhouse vigils) in the U.K., and covers various topics with an emphasis on the psychology of veganism itself.

Note that this video is also available as an audio-only (MP3) podcast for download: https://archive.org/details/Zahria269-interview-Eisel-Mazard-2016

About 50 minutes into the conversation, a particular photo of free-range conditions (for chickens in Europe) is mentioned. You can see that picture here: http://tinyurl.com/jmpfukq

Vegans: skepticism, dogma, democracy & paradox.

20 April 2016

The video alluded to on calcium (in a vegan diet) by Jake Eames, is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/WlHvgACxBcg

(This was à-bas-le-ciel (Eisel Mazard) in 2016, in his final month in Victoria, B.C., Canada.)

[政治學] 1920: mass-murder on the border between Russia, Japan & China.

17 April 2016

In Japanese, this event is known as the 尼港事件; in Chinese, the general location is the 阿穆爾河三角洲, in the town of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur (Николаевск-на-Амуре, Nikolayevsk-na-Amure). It is a fascinating case-study in terms of both international geopolitics, and revolutionary violence. It shows us a great deal about human nature in general, and on the aspects of human nature that come to the fore (again and again) in the context of a newly-established Communist regime.

https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/1920-the-other-russo-japanese-war-70deb2972c42

The Appeal to Nature Fallacy (vegan / vegans / veganism)

17 April 2016

This has become a popular idea (really just used as an insult), but (1) not every use of the concept of nature is a fallacy, and (2) in practice, it may not be useful at all to snub someone by telling them that they’re lapsing into “an appeal-to-nature fallacy” even if they actually are.

Ignorance, Activism & Optimism (vegan / veganism / vegans)

16 April 2016

Here’s the link to “Vegan in Japan” (the channel quoted in this video): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGY7OMXN8N2gAJHXiyJY9Lw/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0

Vegans “Being Taken Seriously”?

15 April 2016

A lot of vegans complain about “never being taken seriously”, but what level of respect (or “seriousness”) can we really expect in these interactions? Although I really do relate to vegans feeling that they’re constantly insulted and challenged by meat-eaters… but the reality is, often enough, we’re also the ones doing the challenging… and the people we’re talking to didn’t sign up to attend an animal rights conference. Discuss.

Is Ethical Veganism Reasonable? Sustainable? Oppressive?

15 April 2016

A response to an ex-vegan! David J Kelly has rejected veganism, and posed some questions for the movement that we all _should_ be able to answer… but can we? Can you?

The cartoon in the thumbnail is by “Vegan Sidekick”, who publishes books of collected cartoons on vegan themes (under that name).

Here’s the link to video I’m responding to. Really, you don’t want to click on this link. You think you do, but you don’t. Not really. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CqQ_pnLPAG4

Is Durianrider a Paranoid Schizophrenic? He says so. (Vegan / Vegans / Veganism)

13 April 2016

Shout out to “Just Another Vegan”, who is quoted in the video:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/OV_T6dr4ljs

Pet Ownership as SLAVERY (vegan / vegans / veganism)

11 April 2016

Veganism is not the moral baseline: the wilderness is the moral baseline. The only ethical “treatment of animals” is recognizing their autonomy in their own habitat --and (for practical reasons) in 2016 human beings need to adopt laws to protect that habitat (and to limit human encroachment into it). There is no moral way to reduce a wild animal to being a human plaything: neither in the case of a “pet dog”, nor “a pet monkey”, nor “a pet lion” (and arguments to the contrary, making exceptions for dogs, are, indeed, “speciesism” of the most odious kind). It does not matter if you justify a “captive animal” as a “companion animal”, and it does not matter if you (as a human) define the conditions of their captivity as “happy”: the only moral relationship with animals is with wild animals. Animals that have been crippled (neutered, etc.) so that they will conform to behaviors imposed on them by humans (training, domestication, etc.) can never provide a “moral baseline” for vegans/veganism. Never.

Talking to the Vegan Cheetah about Activism, Education, Life (& Veganism)

10 April 2016

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST (MP3), i.e., downloadable in audio-only format: https://archive.org/details/Vegan-Cheetah-and-Eisel-Mazard-April-2016

The conversation opens with questions of effective activism, and proceeds to various topics concerning both “digital veganism” and “real life” (including education, career-ambitions, and vlogging while working a day job). Inevitably, there is at least one anecdote about Cambodia included.

Here’s the link to Cheetah’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevegancheetah/?hl=en

He’s active on Youtube, but, lately, his primary platform is “Stre.am”.

Goals in Life OTHER THAN Vanity / Being Durianrider

09 April 2016

There is more to life than just the “permanent vacation” of athleticism, sport, self-indulgence, and vanity. And not everyone dreams of “cashing in” on their physical appearance on the internet. Not everyone. ;-)

BTW, I did make an earlier titled, “Riding a Bicycle is Not the Meaning of Life”, although, in fact, it largely consists of anecdotes from my experiences with long-distance cycling. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vcw2X0EyJlk

Vegans on Issues OTHER THAN Veganism

09 April 2016

Inevitably, this video actually is about veganism… but it responds to some peculiar questions I’ve gotten from my fellow vegans… starting from and ending with questions of ethics.

Why Do I Study Languages? Advice Nobody Wants to Hear [Ep. 003]

08 April 2016

This is episode #3 of, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”.

However, this is not providing advice on how to study languages: it is reflecting on why I’ve spent so much of my time studying languages, with reflections on my experience in university (past and present) that might be useful for some.

Organizing Dissent: Digital Veganism vs. Real Life Vegans

08 April 2016

“In a sentence, the problem with digital veganism in this respect, the problem with the internet view of the world is that people come to regard weakness as strength: people think that defining yourself more narrowly (and in connection to one of these political causes) makes veganism stronger, and it doesn’t, it makes it weaker.”

Vegans don’t own pets: domestication and evil.

07 April 2016

The temptation, of course, was to have the subtitle read, “domestication and/or/as evil”. :-/

Previous videos that have discussed the subject:

(1) Domestication vs. “the Wild”: Vegans & the A.R. Paradigm. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/AtP98bAejow

(2) Vegans and the Indigenous Issue: Hunting, Domestication & the Concept of Evil.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ijsSdEP9zLE

(3) This also came up in my two hour interview with V.V., available as an MP3-only podcast (because it is so long), in addition to the usual video/youtube format:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6Nkdq6T8IRE

Durianrider & Freelee: Lies & Faith-Healing. (Vegan / Vegans / Veganism)

06 April 2016

“The Ugly Truth about Durianrider” (a link mentioned in the video): http://anthonycolpo.com/the-ugly-truth-about-harley-durianrider-johnstone/

For Durianrider’s current (2016) claims that he was diagnosed with this disease (and that he miraculously cured it), see: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/nC4Of_hH9M8

For my own (earlier) video on Freelee’s credentials, alluded to here, see: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MNzElhpjgjQ

The quotation from the Rich Roll podcast follows after the 15 minute mark, and you can find that source here: http://www.richroll.com/podcast/rrp-53-durianrider-how-to-thrive-perform-athletically-on-a-high-carb-low-fat-vegan-diet/

Erin Janus vs. Freelee vs. Angie Varona.

01 April 2016

Elect Angie Varona. No, seriously: she’s a political science major, with a background in nutrition on her transcript, etc. --she’s a lot more electable than anyone we’ve currently got in the race.

Matters of principle: “Innocent until proven guilty”.

01 April 2016

In the context of reckless accusations, threats of violence, etc. (within “the vegan community” in Chiang Mai that I hear so much about), here are some reflections on the importance of skepticism, tolerance, and presuming that people are innocent until proven guilty.

Vegan vs. Noam Chomsky (on Animal Rights)

30 March 2016

I suppose this could have been titled, “Why Noam Chomsky is not Vegan”, but the range of examples primarily concern vivisection, research on primates, etc.

I can actually recommend a relatively enjoyable film on that subject (the ethics of primate research, etc.) that does not rely on gory/horrifying images of scientific experiments (i.e., it tells a story and talks about the issue without giving you nightmares), titled “Project Nim”. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1814836/

And if you’re interested in Noam Chomsky, you might be interested in the one-and-only other video I’ve made about him, reflecting on his (past) support for Communism in Cambodia (i.e., the Khmer Rouge). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/IRUIK8jq4l0

[Note: this video was uploaded a second time, because the original had a peculiar speed-error, playing somewhat too quickly.]

Henya Mania vs. Freelee & Joe Best.

27 March 2016

What I actually have to say about Joe Best is much more reasonable than you might assume (more reasonable than he might assume, too), and it always has been. This is a four-minute snippet from an interview that will soon be uploaded in full, and, yes, Henya herself appears on-screen (briefly!). ;-)

The link to the full conversation (about an hour long) between myself and Jason is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vC-TI4ZLZC0

Talking to Jason Pizzino on Thailand, Life & Politics. (Vegan / Vegans / Veganism)

27 March 2016

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST (audio-only MP3): https://archive.org/details/Eisel-Jason-and-Henya-2016

Eisel Mazard (à-bas-le-ciel) talks with vegan fitness vlogger Jason Pizzino (with a brief appearance from “Henya Mania”, a.k.a. Henya Perez). The conversation covers Thailand, life & politics, but also --inevitably-- recent controversies with Freelee and Durianrider. At the time of the recording, Jason and Henya were trying to make clear that their commitment is to veganism (“just veganism”) and not to any particular diet, and their goals are, ultimately, to help the animals, not to promote an athletic lifestyle. What, now, is the (practical) way forward for vegans after the collapse of most of the hopes that had been attached to the Chiang Mai scene? This was recorded with one party in Israel, and the other in Canada.

Vegan Protein Supplement Review (Many Brands)

26 March 2016

A review covering many different brands/options:

IronVegan / Iron Vegan.
Vega One.
Vega Sport.
Vega Proteins & Greens.
Manitoba Harvest Organic Protein.
Genuine Health (Brand), Vegan Proteins+.
Progressive Organics Brown Rice Protein.

Ethics: Vegans, Vasectomies, Flexitarians… questions of good and evil.

26 March 2016

This could have been split into two separate videos, but I tried to make a “unified” point about both (1) anti-natalism (i.e., vegans refusing to have kids, and claiming that others should follow their example, and (2) the vaguely pro-flexitarian attitude that Unnatural Vegan and Tobias Leenaert have proposed (incoherently, in my opinion). As is stated in the first few seconds of this video, I think the underlying problem is one of dealing with questions of ethics in our (21^st century) culture, and of stating subjective claims in contrast to “global” (or even cosmological) claims about right and wrong.

And, yes, this video does (INEVITABLY) digress into examples from Laos and Cambodia. I could challenge myself to go for a month without mentioning either one. A month is a long time. ;-)

Interview, à-bas-le-ciel vs. “The Violent Vegan”

24 March 2016

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST (audio-only MP3): https://archive.org/details/Eisel-Mazard-2016-Interview

Eisel Mazard (à-bas-le-ciel) has a conversation with the youtuber known as “The Violent Vegan”. The conversation returns to issues of vegan activism repeatedly, but also includes various comments on life, politics, religion (including Theravāda Buddhism), and the difficulty of trying to assemble a social movement (on even the smallest scale) out of people of contrasting personalities and political beliefs. The discussion is slightly less than two hours long, recorded on March 23^rd, 2016, with one party in England, and the other in Canada.

And here’s a link to the other guy’s channel, BTW: youtube.com/user/Jacobazariah/videos

Crohn’s Disease: the secret to Durianrider’s diet. :-(

22 March 2016

Fundamentally, “…people with Crohn disease are at risk of malnutrition, because their intestine cannot absorb all the nutrients they need from their diet.” [Source:] http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/condition/crohns-disease

Eating a diet largely consisting of bananas and other high-fiber, carbohydrate-based foods has been found by some studies to help people cope with the disease (but please note that research is still ongoing, and, e.g., the extent to which the disorder is an autoimmune dysfunction is still debated). [Source:] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/519185

On Crohn’s disease in general, and with a description of the type of steroids typically used in treatment (and their side-effects, etc.):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_of_Crohn‘s_disease

Suddenly, Durianrider’s more absurd advice (quoted in an earlier video) that a person getting zero exercise should be able to eat unlimited calories without gaining weight (etc.) “makes sense” in reference to his own, direct experience: Crohn’s disease would fundamentally change the way he perceives diet, exercise, weight-gain, and how much he needs to eat to feel energetic (etc.). His needs (and his ability to gain weight) will be radically different from those of an average/healthy person.

His experience with the disease might have given him some terrible experiences with the side-effects of cortico-steroids, and, more generally, the extent to which people suffering from the condition will have extreme changes in their (subjective) health corresponding to (sometimes minor) changes in their diet.

For someone with Crohn’s disease, switching to a vegan, high-fiber diet, could indeed come as “a revelation”, if their former diet had been aggravating their symptoms. What he says about fatigue, having enough energy, etc., suddenly “makes sense” when you know that he has Crohn’s disease (even though it is TERRIBLE advice for 99% of the population!).

In the video linked to below, D.R. sincerely says that eating A HUGE QUANTITY of carbs will “cure” chronic fatigue syndrome; from anyone else, this would just sound crazy (or stupid… certainly unscientific)… but it is actually easy to imagine how someone struggling with Crohn’s disease could perceive things this way.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/kTgozmZCHcU?t=1m5s

If he were honest and scientifically-rigorous about it, Durianrider’s experience probably could be useful for other people with Crohn’s disease to learn from (and they may be the only people who really could/should eat 30 bananas per day!)… but, instead, he has been dishonest, insulting and extremely aggressive, (1) imagining himself to be miraculously cured, and (2) dismissing anyone who doesn’t get results similar to his own as secretly eating hamburgers (etc.), claiming that gaining weight on his diet is “impossible” (etc.)… when, in reality, his perspective and experience are shaped by an extreme and incurable disease. Sad.

It already was a strange irony that a guy who had been diagnosed with anorexia (and as an ex-drug-addict, etc.) was in his position (of leading a fad diet)… but it is even more ironic that this role is being played by someone with such a serious illness, with such a conflicted attitude toward his own illness, and who projects his own experience (struggling to eat enough to feel energetic, etc.) onto people who do not share the digestive problems (malabsorption-of-nutrients, etc.) of Crohn’s disease.

80/10/10 vs 90/5/5 (Doug Graham vs. Freelee & Durianrider)

22 March 2016

Unnatural vegan on the 80/10/10 diet, and the importance of brushing your teeth: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Hg7g8...

The earlier video alluded to on Freelee’s credentials (or lack thereof): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MNzElhpjgjQ

Quote: “Well, my name is Dr. Doug Graham. I have a doctorate degree in chiropractic and a doctorate in natural health.”

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/024860_hea...

The Vegan Jerk (vs. “Being a Nice Guy”)

21 March 2016

The whole “uncompromising life-of-principle” thing has been out-of-fashion for a few centuries… and business-suits made of wool have been (tragically) in-fashion for about the same length of time.

This video offers some self-critical commentary from someone on the (unfashionable and) “uncompromising” side of that equation.

Freelee’s Credentials: Half-Truths & Pseudoscience.

20 March 2016

Beauty is Meaningless.

20 March 2016

Beauty is not virtue. Beauty is not strength, and even strength doesn’t make you a great leader, nor even a good one. These things are so simple, and we’re warned about them as children, but many people wrestle with them throughout their whole lives. Here are some reflections of mine on the subject.

Oh, yeah, and #nomakeup. ;-)

Who Are The Most Effective Vegan Activists In Modern Day History?

19 March 2016

Ecology is my generation’s struggle: we don’t have the luxury of leaving it for the next generation to address, and we don’t have the luxury of defining activism in terms of “lifestyle”, vanity, sport and self-indulgence.

Some reflections on effective activism (“effective altruism”), recorded at 4:00 AM, as an response to Durianrider’s comments:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sbt242Y7NMY

I also allude to one of my own, earlier videos (from just a few days ago), titled, “Passion vs. Organization”; the link for that is here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/7uRcs6iBXbw

Passion vs. Organization: Henya vs. Durianrider.

17 March 2016

A discussion of effective activism (for veganism and ecology) that, as always, veers into minor questions of the meaning of life. No matter how rewarding you may find it to attend a particular demonstration today, you have to ask yourself what it is leading toward, 5 years from now, when the charm of protesting at that restaurant (or even that slaughterhouse) will have worn off. Passion only takes you so far, and then we have to wonder about how organization can take you further.

The link to an earlier video is mentioned in passing (title: “Veganism: Neither Anti-Capitalist Nor ‘A Privilege’”), and you can find that video here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/QiuBSwTFD1U

Gifts for my Daughter

17 March 2016

If you’d like to see the earlier video alluded to (of my daughter playing with some of the gifts I brought her in December, under 5 minutes long), click here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2mclB...

Vegans Kill Rats. REAL TALK.

17 March 2016

Tolerance: an under-rated virtue.

Cf. my earlier video on related themes (from just two weeks ago): “Domestication vs. ‘the Wild’: Vegans & the A.R. Paradigm” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/AtP98bAejow

Technical note: in reference to the early space program, I very briefly mention the Kuiper belt… but I was actually thinking of the Van Allen Belt (sort of makes sense either way… I guess). So, F.Y.I.,

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

Permanent Vacation: Freelee & Durianrider “Save the World”.

12 March 2016

Gratitude vs. ambition: instead of feeling gratitude for the difference you don’t make (while enjoying whatever advantages you’ve got in life), you could feel some ambition to go ahead and make things change (whether it’s in Thailand or anywhere else).

For a more in-depth discussion of these issues (with many practical examples of activism, organization, and questions of “what can we do now?”), you can see my “advice” video, on “activism and ambition”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XlDRJ8SPZjM

I’m happy to cite my sources. Special thanks to Vegan Ava, who is quoted on gratitude: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/WSnTdel2wU8

Thanks, also, to “2gether Vegan”, for the outdoor footage: youtube.com/channel/UCZU91lDlDM1cjJXDWXLJseQ/videos

And, of course, a big shout-out to my #1 fan, Joe Best: youtube.com/user/BestTransformation/videos

His channel is called “the best transformation”, and he’s showing us all how to “transform” a reputation based on rape-allegations, womanizing, and being a bad landlord, into a leadership role in that vegan “community” I hear so much about… all while he continues to eat meat and dairy on the side, and to complain that he feels rejected by vegans (complaining that he never should have called himself vegan, that he now doesn’t use the word vegan, etc.). It’s quite an impressive “transformation”, on the whole. ;-)

Stupidity is REAL (vegan / vegans / veganism)

11 March 2016

Here are links to two contrasting articles (very lightweight and easy to glance over) on India’s beef ban, connected to one of the points made in the video:

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ash-murthy/i-am-a-liberal-and-india-beef-ban_b_8136760.html

2. http://www.firstpost.com/india/im-vegan-work-animal-rights-oppose-maharashtras-beef-ban-2183609.html

Oh, and by the way, to answer a common question: à bas le ciel is pronounced, “à bas le ciel”.

India’s Beef Ban & Vegans in Power (Hypothetically Speaking).

10 March 2016

Well… what happens if/when we’re the ones doing the oppressing? No, I’m not trolling: India’s “Beef Ban” is one of many events that raises the question in a meaningful way, even though it is on the distant horizon of the barely-hypothetically-plausible.

Here’s a typical American perspective on “the beef ban” in India (as described in the video):

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/10/13/448182574/indias-ban-on-beef-leads-to-murder-and-hindu-muslim-friction

Two further examples:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/world/asia/cattle-become-a-trigger-for-sectarian-violence-in-india.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/opinion/sunday/manil-suri-a-ban-on-beef-in-india-is-not-the-answer.html?_r=0

Should Meat Be Illegal? Vegans & State Power.

10 March 2016

In recent videos I reflected on the extent to which anarchism had gone out of style (as a leitmotif in Animal Rights and veganism), and, in this video, I’m instead discussing what the role of the state is (or might be presumed to be) in vegans’ vaguely-stated plans for social and ecological change.

As a society, we’d like to eliminate cigarette smoking… and yet we’ve had the maturity to attempt to pursue that goal without making tobacco illegal. Is the end-goal of veganism to make meat illegal in the same sense as heroin or cocaine? I doubt it, but there are some complex issues to be debated, from several (incompatible) perspectives.

Personal Life: Languages, Career, Education, etc.

10 March 2016

The inevitable “personal update” video.

Activism vs. Lifestyle-ism: Politics can be Ugly or Beautiful.

07 March 2016

Political activism isn’t always ugly: it can be creative, and even beautiful. We can ask questions about effective activism on a large scale, but also on a personal scale: what is effective activism for you, personally, in your circumstances, now and in the next few years?

Here’s the link to the video mentioned (Steve Best vs. Gary Francione), titled, “The Paralysis of Pacifism”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/sHDTZniuzyc

There is also a link to an earlier video of my own that appears (briefly), on-screen, reflecting on the importance of having “just 5 people” organized (and trusting one-another enough to make something positive happen, as activists or otherwise). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/7UezI3u8iXA?t=5m50s

For a more in-depth discussion of these issues (with many practical examples), 30 minutes long, you can see my “advice” video, on “activism and ambition”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XlDRJ8SPZjM

I would really encourage people to click on that link, as it provides practical details/descriptions of the type of political activism I’ve been talking about in more recently (examples as diverse as starting a magazine, opening a restaurant, launching a legal challenge or directly lobbying city hall) --and it also explains why I put so much emphasis on “organization” as such (i.e., in contrast to believing that a bunch of isolated bloggers are going to change the world by individually uploading lifestyle photos, etc.).

Durianrider: real insanity, fake cure, bad diet.

05 March 2016

A few different sources are mentioned in the video, so I here provide links to them. Durianrider’s own channel, of course, can be found here: youtube.com/user/durianriders/videos

The experience of the young woman who was formerly a model, and gained weight (but is now happy), etc., can be found on Durianrider’s channel, here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/hQtH7Roy3Cs

The reflections on the Thai Fruit Festival from the young man who had a long history of diagnosed eating disorders (anorexia and orthorexia, I believe) is found here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/aph7VGNiGgY

Powsimian’s experience is also mentioned. He deleted a number of videos that were recorded while he was in a mental-hospital of some kind (and they mentioned both his diagnosis, and the specific psychiatric medication he was taking at the time). He has since been released from in-patient care, and you can find his channel here:

youtube.com/user/powsimians/videos

Domestication vs. “the Wild”: Vegans & the A.R. Paradigm

02 March 2016

A glance back at the peculiar progress of the last 15 years, as Animal Rights has stumbled through a number of political “fashions”.

You know, there was a time when names like Henry David Thoreau were considered a really big deal in A.R./ecology/vegetarianism (and the word “vegan” hadn’t yet gained prevalence). I can’t remember seeing a single youtube video in which Thoreau was even mentioned (definitely not by DxE, etc.), nor any of the surrounding issues of “anti-domestication-ism”, generally idealizing “the wild”, etc. etc.

Things change; and I haven’t got a nostalgic bone in my body, to be honest.

Vegans and the Indigenous Issue: Hunting, Domestication & the Concept of Evil.

02 March 2016

The lesser of two evils is still evil. However, in praxis, a large part of habitat-conservation is linked to hunting, and a large part of self-determination movements for indigenous people (e.g., land-rights for First Nations) are --also-- linked to hunting.

This video reflects on the complex questions of wilderness vs. domestication (in how we conceptualize nature itself as well as our activism), and how they connect to the A.R. movement’s peculiar (and changing) attitudes toward indigenous (First Nations) politics, etc.

Vegan Purse Review: Matt & Nat, designer handbag.

29 February 2016

If you’d like to see the earlier video alluded to (of my daughter playing with some of the gifts I brought her in December --and don’t worry, the video is under 5 minutes long), click here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/2mclBtU07DE

Matt & Nat is a vegan brand of designer purses (and no, this is neither a paid endorsement, nor an unpaid endorsement, as I lack expertise in this area). You can see their shop here:

http://mattandnat.com/shop/handbags/all-handbags

Alcohol & Caffeine: Unnatural Vegan is WRONG

29 February 2016

No offense. Hey, I said: “no offense”.

Why are there NO COMMENTS below your videos?

29 February 2016

Meanwhile, for anyone who wants to talk, don’t act like it’s hard to find me: my e-mail is posted publicly (along with my real name) all over the internet: http://www.eisel-mazard.com/

I have plenty of quality interaction with my viewers (and plenty of y’all are quality people). Many of my videos refer to this (or reply directly to questions received by e-mail, etc.). The difference is that e-mail is written to me (directly), and thus rarely has the vapid and over-the-top quality of attempts to grandstand for attention (anonymously) in a comments section. To me, that’s a meaningful difference. Maybe, if you can imagine yourself in my situation, that would be a meaningful difference for you, too.

But if not, hey: on your Youtube channel, you can play by your rules.

Rachelleea is Right: “Why I Can’t Stand Vegans”

28 February 2016

Two sources are cited in the video. Rachelleea herself is here:

youtube.com/user/justsugarandspice/videos

And we have a memorable guest-appearance from “thatistheplan”, the largely-satirical side-project of a well-known (and vegan!) music critic (name Anthony Fantano); you can see more of that here: youtube.com/user/thatistheplan/videos

Veganism is not a philosophy; vegans are not a community.

28 February 2016

And this is not bad news. Really. “It’s better to be a praxis in search of a philosophy than it is to be a philosophy in search of a praxis.” (I say that around the eight-and-a-half minute mark.)

For a more in-depth discussion of these issues (with many practical examples concerning activism and organization), 30 minutes long, you can see my “advice” video, on “activism and ambition”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/XlDRJ8SPZjM

Beauty ≠ Advocacy ≠ Activism (Vegans & Animal Rights)

27 February 2016

Durianrider’s Vegan Diet Delusion

26 February 2016

Here’s a relatively brief breakdown of the main delusion that defines the (Freelee and Durianrider) diet. Eat more, even if you exercise less (or not at all!). Is it a scam, sham, or just sincere incompetence? You decide!

The other sources quoted in the video are,

(1) Supreme Banana: youtube.com/user/MsSupremeBanana/videos

(2) Unnatural Vegan: youtube.com/user/FitOnRaw/videos

Tess Begg vs. Joe Best (“Lifestyle Veganism” vs. Real Politics)

24 February 2016

“London Vegan Actions” (one of the youtube channels mentioned as an example) is here: youtube.com/user/veganactivistsisters/videos

Tess Begg (who inexplicably has more viewers than the link above) is here: youtube.com/channel/UCBCiDM0WrCAvTHmdVz_GDzQ/videos

Check out my earlier video on Freelee’s clones (mostly discussing the extent to which Thailand itself is misrepresented by this vegan sub-culture), here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ziD7SUGI7QI

Joe Best’s channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/BestTransformation

And, in the distant past, I wrote a letter to Joe Best, when he was going through his very-public sex scandal in “the vegan community”, and I discuss it here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/faonFwL0lOE

筆ペン, Learning Japanese (or Chinese) with “Paintbrush-Pens”.

24 February 2016

Practical advice for learning/studying/practicing Japanese (although the advice would be the same for Chinese).

A Privileged Vegan is a Coward and a Hypocrite.

23 February 2016

Sources mentioned in the video:

(1) Karl Popper (philosopher of science, etc.): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

(2) “Bite Size Vegan” defending her character against accusations of racism: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CxyK8p7WfVE

(3) Unnatural Vegan explaining that she’s not a racist: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/ULXwiR3DKrI

(4) Unnatural Vegan explaining that she’s anti-Eugenics: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/HHfxoUpgwgo

(5) Yeah, I guess I have to provide a link to the “A Privileged Vegan” channel, too: youtube.com/user/Highonfruit1/videos

Any Idiot Can Go Vegan (Taxstone, Russell Simmons, John Salley)

22 February 2016

…and Styles P, too.

You can see my earlier video, “Styles P is Vegan (Elon Musk is NOT, Sam Harris is NOT, Richard Dawkins is NOT)”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/zRrc7HXQuzA

Taxstone interviewing Russell Simmons (about veganism) is here: https://soundcloud.com/taxseason/the-russell-simmons-episode

Vegan Neo-Nazis Actually Exist (Beneath Contempt).

20 February 2016

CFAT Preparation/Analysis (Canadian Forces Aptitude Test)

19 February 2016

DISCLAIMER: this video is NOT based on classified information, and reflects only an analysis of the data that the military makes publicly available so that you can prepare yourself (and it is, also, to some extent, a critique of some of the “promotional” information about the test, but, again, none of this stuff is classified, none of it is data from “within” the testing procedure). Basically, the level of advice offered here is possible because the “practice test” (publicly available) tells you everything you need to know, if you take an analytical view of it, and see how it pertains both to yourself and to the hiring/evaluation process (again: none of this being classified information).

It should be obvious, also, that the video reflects my personal opinion, and what I consider to be useful advice: please do not bother to send me hate-mail if you happen to have a different analysis of the bureaucratic process involved. You’re entitled to your own opinion: make your own video.

Herbivore Man (草食男子) Does Not Mean Vegan (in Japanese).

18 February 2016

Vegan Gains is WRONG about “Canada Goose”.

17 February 2016

“What a tangled web we weave…”

You would expect to see a clear statement from Canada Goose boasting that their products are 100% goose down from geese raised in Canada, etc., in the same way that wool companies boast about being 100% wool, from a particular breed of sheep, in a particular location. Instead, the company makes a vague claim about being created from, “poultry by-products”, and to me that suggests chicken-feathers… or, at least, a mix of chicken feathers, and whatever the cheapest by-products of the poultry industry may be that month (down on the factory-room floor).

A viewer wrote in with further information, suggesting that Canada Goose is using the term “poultry by-product” in an even more peculiar way than my video supposes. Although “down” isn’t supposed to include “poultry”, the word “poultry” can (in fact) be used to include ducks and geese; and this viewer reports, “[Canada Goose specifies that] their sole supplier of down is Feather Industries Canada. If you go to the Feather Industries Web site, you can see a list of their feather products, and none of them are from chickens…”. The link to that website is here, although I still would not regard this as a clear (legally-binding) indication that they aren’t using chicken-feathers (i.e., I think the Canada Goose company would be clearer about this, if it were in their interest to be so, and for all I know Feather Industries Corp. could be shipping chicken-feathers via their Toronto warehouses, despite what’s stated here): http://www.featherind.com/Product.htm

Although they may sound like a heartless corporation, the even-more-bizarre fact is that “Feather Industries” is religious foundation, operated by-and-for a Hutterite colony: http://www.featherind.com/hutterite-gallery.html

Some websites claim that the down is… uh… “more ethical” because of the religious nature of the people plucking the ducks and geese. The opposite point-of-view is easy to imagine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite

So… have we been deceived, or have we been doubly-deceived? And does the phrase “poultry by-product” legitimately (and legally) mean “duck down”, or does it mean chicken-feathers from the killing room floor?

Cf. the industry’s (standard?) use of these terms, here: “Down and feathers are normally obtained from goose and duck farms as a by-product of the poultry industry. Birds are not raised for their down, but rather for their meat — just as leather is a by-product of the beef industry.” (*Ahem*… right… just like the leather industry.) http://downmark.com/consumer_information/down_feather_quality.htm

Peculiar. The matter seems to be intentionally unclear, in claiming to both be “down” and “a poultry by-product”.

What is the Future of Buddhism? (ex-Pali scholar)

17 February 2016

But have you been to a farm / factory? (Human Rights, Veganism & Labor)

17 February 2016

Activism & Ambition: Advice Nobody Wants to Hear [Ep. 002]

14 February 2016

This is episode #2 of, “Advice Nobody Wants to Hear”.

For a list of earlier videos (on this channel) discussing the methods of DxE (“Direct Action Everywhere”), click here: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=DxE

At the start of the video, I encourage you to take a look at my (recent) comments on Gandhi, non-violence, and methods-of-activism, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EXk1qv5Sfto

The video also alludes to some earlier comments made on practical action/methods possible for vegans currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand (following after a number of videos on related themes). The emphasis is considerably different from this video, but you may be interested to have a glance at, “Veganism as Digital Activism: Moving Beyond Bikinis & Bicycles”, here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/uCzPmf96pAk

Eisel Mazard, Feb. of 2016.

Freelee is Wrong, Unnatural Vegan is Right (and it’s a problem)

13 February 2016

It’s a problem because people really do get burnt out and drop out of the fad-diets that attract them to veganism… and people start to confuse the fad diet with the basic principle of veganism.

Vegan “activism”: Gandhi & DxE (Direct Action Everywhere)

12 February 2016

Is it really “effective activism” to break down weeping in a restaurant? Why does DxE claim that these “methods” are derived from historical examples such as Mohandas Gandhi, the abolition of slavery (in the U.S.), and so on?

This link will show you a listing of my prior videos on Direct Action Everywhere (at this point they add up to a considerable critique, cumulatively): https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=DxE

The article mentioned on Gandhi is here: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-gandhi-nobody-knows/

Noam Chomsky Supported the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot, etc.)

10 February 2016

The article I encourage you to read on this subject is by Ear Sophal, available here: http://jim.com/canon.htm

On the specific issue of U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge (in Cambodia, via Thailand) I can provide a relatively entertaining link here, starting at the 27 minute mark of John Pilger’s documentary “Cambodia: The Betrayal”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/k2oTl51a3HM?t=25m35s

You can also google around to find my article (published in two parts), titled “American wars, French borders: Thailand’s acrimonious adjacency to Cambodia.” That article deals with the question of when precisely the U.S. started supporting the Khmer Rouge.

If you were trying to get a better look at what the thumbnail for this video shows (and says), the full image is posted on my blog, here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2016/02/noam-chomsky-supported-khmer-rouge-deal.html

I commented (at some length) on the implications of U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge in an earlier youtube video, roughly the second half of the one titled, “Cold War Consequences…”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Z5LyxuKy-GU?t=20m1s

The two other names mentioned (for those wanting to google them) are (i) Judy L. Ledgerwood, and (ii) Michael Vickery.

Applying for Jobs… Moving to Japan?

07 February 2016

Talking about my life (at a crossroads) in 2016, and, yes, inexorably, this involves anecdotes about war, poverty, atrocities, and political history.

Why Kevin Smith is not Vegan.

06 February 2016

Yeah, it’s the same reason why Noam Chomsky is not vegan.

Vegan vs. “What about Farm Workers?”

03 February 2016

If you’re vegan you’ve probably heard the question, “Well, what about the human rights of farm workers?”, and the question is --more often than not-- just an excuse for eating meat. But it’s still a legitimate question: what about labor conditions on the farms that produce vegetables, fruit and so on?

However, it is a false assumption that workers on fruit-farms are in a condition of exploitation equivalent to cows awaiting slaughter, and, “therefore” that you should eliminate strawberries from your diet by the same logic that you would eliminate beef and dairy:

http://vegan-mind-tricks.tumblr.com/post/55548055982/picking-strawberries-is-an-honest-living-cutting

The documentary film mentioned here is, “China Blue”: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478116/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

No Utopia, No Vegan Revolution.

03 February 2016

Vegan vs. Michael Shermer’s Moral Philosophy

02 February 2016

Michael Shermer is not vegan, but he wouldn’t eat a dolphin… y’know… for philosophical reasons.

Sources quoted:

(1) http://www.michaelshermer.com/2005/06/why-i-am-an-atheist/

(2) http://www.michaelshermer.com/2014/01/confessions-of-a-speciesist/

Why I Am Not French

01 February 2016

Politics: Israel, Ignorance and Activism.

29 January 2016

When you’re talking about politics, try to be honest about the limits of your knowledge; you can’t be an expert about everything, and you can’t be an activist “about everything”. Conversely, I do start to wonder if some of these voices (within the vegan “intellectual ghetto”) have expertise on anything… or if they have real experience with activism on/with/about anything.

#socraticmethodisdead

Sam Harris, “Waking Up”, Book Review.

28 January 2016

“Someone on the internet called this Cargo Cult Science, but I can’t really get behind that term, because Cargo Cults get results… Cargo Cults are based on empirical experience… Cargo Cults… compared to this, are not that bad!”

This is not the first video on my channel discussing Sam Harris. It may not be the last. You can click through to a list of the other videos here: https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/search?query=sam+harris

Below is a reply to some questions I received, and I recognize that other people had the same (or similar) questions, so I post my comments here, for those who are interested:

Yeah, I could say more about it, but I tried to keep that video RELATIVELY short, given that my prior video on Sam Harris & Buddhism ran to a full hour. The short answer is: no. No, you can’t “move the goalposts” and say, e.g., “Well this method of ancient birth-control doesn’t actually prevent pregnancy… but it has this great effect for your hair, so we’re going to endorse it as medicine anyway”. Even that example, however, would be more honest than what Sam Harris does (assuming you’re labeling the medicine as a hair-tonic, and not as a birth-control pill). What Harris is doing is more like simultaneously claiming all of the contradictory benefits (birth-control and shiny hair) for a number of contradictory reasons: he characterizes orthodoxy as if he had authoritative opinions on what it is (and means) --e.g., just making up his own definitions of nirvana & the philosophy-of-self out of thin air-- and he uses orthodoxy to stamp legitimacy on “modern” methods (from Vipassana meditation to getting high on party drugs, etc.). In short: it’s a complete mess. It’s worse than the blind leading the blind. It’s a flaky, true-believer, cult-member pretending to be a skeptic and an atheist, and pretending to be an expert on Buddhism at the same time. It’s really that bad. It’s as bad as a skeptic/atheist claiming to have informed opinions on the spiritual significance of Santa Claus based on his interpretation of the Bible (i.e., Santa Claus does not appear in the Bible) --really, his work contains errors of chronology that crude, along with all the absurd redefinitions of terms he indulges in, etc. Finally, what S.H. is doing DOES NOT have legitimacy as a secular/skeptical exercise: he has been writing about Buddhism, as a true-believer in Buddhism (even if it is very much an ersatz, California-based Buddhism); he makes dogmatic claims, as in that short quotation about Buddhist scripture providing a completely scientific (and “empirical”) description of consciousness and what to do with it (not a “myth”); he isn’t skeptical even in establishing what the scriptures say in the first place, much less is he ever skeptical in establishing their scientific validity. As I’ve reflected in other videos, I don’t think that Buddhist philosophy should be dismissed as mythology any more than Shakespeare should be dismissed as mythology; however, IT IS MYTHOLOGY. What the scriptures (suttanta) say about meditation really is a sort of mythology, heavily magical, and reflecting an ancient world-view (e.g., meditation can cause earthquakes, and this is explained because the world is believed to be a flat mass floating in a rather unstable situation, cosmologically speaking… any comment on how empirical and scientific this is, S.H.?). In his book, S.H. does not even show a familiarity with the range of already-existing attempts to “scientize” Buddhism, and their critics; he seems to be genuinely writing out of complete ignorance of Buddhist scholarship of any kind --even of scholarship in exactly the niche he’s trying to occupy. If you find this interesting, you might take a look at my earlier video, “Buddhist Meditation is NOT a Science of the Mind” = https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/EZZZFk3pYa0.

Gary Francione is Wrong (Vegan / Vegans / Veganism)

26 January 2016

Communism, Mass Starvation and Agriculture.

22 January 2016

When you have a chance, please take the time to watch my more formal video on mass starvation in China (under Mao Zedong), this is a tremendously important chapter of the world’s history: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/0rtfadswTdw

Why I don’t have a PhD [Pt. 2 of 2]

20 January 2016

Watch part 1 first (if you’re going to watch part 2 at all), here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/t59W4mgg2gM

The U.N. on Meat, Ecology and Veganism

17 January 2016

Many vegans would be surprised to see this U.N. report that gives a voice to so many of their own ecological concerns… and yet, in its conclusions, recommends the very opposite course of action. And here are the links to the sources mentioned (in order):

“Livestock’s Long Shadow”, the U.N. F.A.O. report: http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM

The F.A.O.‘s “nutritional guideline” that you should “increase” your meat-consumption to 20 g of protein per day:

http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/themes/...

Here’s Wikipedia’s list of countries by meat-consumption:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

And here’s a webpage showing you what 20 g of protein actually looks like, from various animal (and non-animal) sources:

http://www.fitnesstreats.com/2012/04/...

Oh, and the famous book mentioned on the way the U.N. is organized (and operates) is titled “The Lords of Poverty”, by Graham Hancock.

Is Veganism a Cult? Not Yet.

10 January 2016

Veganism is not a cult, but, TBH, it is inevitable that we’re going to see cults come and go within Veganism. If we’re really being honest about it, most of the fundamental requirements are already there (ready to spin out of control, one way or another, sooner or later).

If you’d like to see an example of my writing about cult-theory (e.g., how do we define the concept of “cult” and apply it to diverse political and religious situations… Buddhism, Communism, etc.) you can click through to my blog, here:

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2012/07/Robert-Jay-Lifton-and-the-self-directed-cult.html

Cocaine & the Philosophy of Science

10 January 2016

Anecdotes about Buddhist Monks, Pythons, Wild Monkeys, Veganism, etc.

09 January 2016

As the last of the jungle is cut down, and old traditions are dying out… a viewer wrote in to “fact check” my anecdote about the monk having his hand devoured by a python (and other anecdotes ensue). Incidentally, you might want to check out my video, “Why I am not a Buddhist”, as I openly identify as an ex-Buddhist:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/aOx95uYACuk

For a long article about the status of vegetarianism within Theravāda Buddhism, you can find my thoughts either on my blog, or as re-formatted (with a few more illustrations) on medium.com:

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2012/06/vegetarianism-and-theravada-orthodoxy.html

https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/vegetarianism-and-theravada-orthodoxy-c636fa4f37dd

Just about everyone (within Buddhism) found that article dis-satisfactory, because it neither tells them what they want to hear, nor tells them what they ought to believe, but instead sets out the nature of the problem, and allows you to draw your own conclusions.

Riding a Bicycle is Not the Meaning of Life.

08 January 2016

No, not even if you’re riding up a mountain in Thailand (Doi Suthep, etc.). Riding a Bicycle is Not the Meaning of Life.

If you’re wondering about the image in the thumbnail, click on the links below to see it with Lao and Chinese vocabulary (respectively):

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/lao-pali-french-english-vocabulary-01.html

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/Catalan-Chinese-French-English-Vocabulary-01.html

I can remember struggling to pronounce the Lao words for bicycle parts (partly to request repairs, etc.) as one of my first challenges in the language.

Freelee: Attack of the Clones.

06 January 2016

In this video, I may have coined the phrase, “A bimbocentric world view”, although google shows a few precedents for “bimbo-centric”.

Advice Nobody Wants to Hear [Ep. 001]

04 January 2016

“On Youtube, everyone’s a protagonist and everyone’s a fan: the audience is the artform.” —Eisel Mazard, 2016. ;-)

“Advice Nobody Wants to Hear” is filmed before a live studio audience. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of à-bas-le-ciel, its board of directors, or affiliated holding companies.

Veganism: Compassion, Contempt and Loathing.

30 December 2015

Real Talk. Veganism isn’t just a doctrine of compassion; it involves some of the ugly aspects of human nature (including a great deal of contempt and loathing for “our fellow man”). @ Zahria 269

“There’s a struggle to determine what the culture of the 21^st century is going to be. And veganism is one ideology in that struggle.”

Is Youtube a Waste of My Time? (Hint: No.)

30 December 2015

The answer is “no”, and this video provides 10 minutes of reflections on the relative meaningfulness of the digital monologue (in my life and, perhaps, in yours?).

What does it mean when people say, “I love Thailand” or “I love Japan”?

28 December 2015

It often means, “I don’t want to know”; but for me (for many years) the first place I visited would be the archives and national libraries, everywhere from Bangkok to Kunming, with Vientiane and Phnom Penh in-between, and --as the video reflects-- I was often seeking out the aspects of history that tend to be omitted from “national history” (sensu stricto).

And, yeah, this is the world’s most indirect swipe at my fellow vegans in Chiang Mai. It’s a bit strange for me to reflect that Thailand was a huge part of my life from 2004 to 2011… and today I have no contact with it at all (whereas Japanese is, now, presumed to be my language-of-scholarship for the future).

[政治学] Crime and Punishment in Japan [日本での罪と罰]

27 December 2015

The Japanese government uses torture against its own citizens, as a routine part of its criminal justice system. Discuss.

Sources mentioned:

(1) http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21679489-overreliance-confessions-undermining-faith-courts-extractor-few-fans

(2) http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.de/2015/05/the-acquittal-rate-in-japan-china-and-canada.html

(3) http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.de/2015/06/in-japan-almost-nobody-is-ever-not.html

One footnote: the reason why some sources say 99.8% and others say 99.9% (etc.) is simply that the data being cited represents different years (2013 vs. 2014, etc.).

Why I don’t have a PhD

26 December 2015

Universities are by no means universal: you can’t expect them to create all kinds of opportunities for all kinds of people… they create some opportunities for some people, and what they can offer changes over time, in response to a variety of arbitrary and shifting factors (including the success, fundraising-ability and charisma of particular professors, as well as broader institutional considerations).

This video does have a sequel (“Part 2 of 2”) that you can get to from the end of the first video, or by following this link, here:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/KbaZvTPeHDI

From Göttingen to Nice, Côte d’Azur, France.

24 December 2015

14 hours on a train; 4 minutes on video-tape. And, yeah, if you’re vegan: pack food. They’ve got a specialized foie-gras restaurant at Paris’s main train station, but you ain’t gonna find a damn thing to eat: this is a country where they even put cheese in sushi. I wish I was joking: I’ve now seen “vegetarian sushi” that has CHEESE in it.

And, once again, shout out to Lil B. #TYBG

Water Scarcity, White Guilt & You (Vegans)

24 December 2015

People talk a lot about water scarcity. They don’t like to talk so much about development economics. I can understand why: the simple, symbolic image of absolute water-scarcity (in a desert) is emotionally moving. The detailed study of how local governments cope with collecting rain-water, purifying ground-water, plan for population-growth, etc., just doesn’t capture the imagination in the same way.

Visiting my two-year-old daughter in France.

23 December 2015

December of 2015.

Sanity, Insanity & Political Isolation

21 December 2015

“Human nature is flexible; frighteningly flexible even. The same people who, in Cambodia, would go to watch two men kill each-other in a public battle to the death, on another day of the week would go to a Buddhist monastery… and chant a sutra about how you shouldn’t even kill a mosquito… human nature is malleable. And that is probably what makes us so uncomfortable when we’re confronted with the reality of personality disorders and compulsive behavior, because that is exactly an exhibition of an aspect of human nature that is not malleable, that people are powerless over, that refuses to change, and refuses to be changed, even when the person is aware of it, and even when they’re sincerely trying to improve.”

This video manages to cover the full remit of “related” (viz., unrelated) issues, from Cambodian history to Canadian politics, in responding to a specific issue on mental illness; and, yeah, I think I manage to paraphrase both Marcus Aurelius and Francis Bacon. #unscripted #nomakeup #notsellingdietbooks #notsellingyogaDVDs

Political Action, Guanxi & Vegan Social Networks

18 December 2015

This video is not about the meaning of life, but about friendship as the smallest unit of social organization, and as crucially important to political action of any kind. It offers some reflections on how my background in political philosophy actually shapes my (current and ongoing) engagement with the world --in everything from academic publications to vegan-activism (and even with reference to business prospects).

Buddhist Meditation, Pseudoscience & Sam Harris

18 December 2015

I can’t noticing (in “the lab report”) that the meditating students (in contrast to the control group) took considerably more time to answer the questions: their “processing speed” is stated as 130.03 seconds, in contrast to 104.71 seconds for the non-meditators. This suggests the very real possibility that the meditating students got SLIGHTLY better scores in the cognitive tests simply because they were taking SIGNIFICANTLY more time, i.e., perhaps because they were motivated to make a greater effort (i.e., as they knew they were engaged in a test to prove the efficacy of meditation, and they were selected as students who were already “interested in” meditation, i.e., quite likely motivated to make the effort). This difference in “processing speed” (ca. 130 vs. 104 seconds) is a large gap, in contrast to the tiny difference of 10.88 vs. 10.84 in the “forward digit span”, i.e., the measure of how well the student could remember and recite a sequence of (up to) 16 numbers. Even this tiny difference in “cognitive measures” is confounded by the fact that the same test in reverse (the “backward digit span”) had the opposite results: the meditators did worse than the non-meditators (6.58 vs. 6.72). Although this is not a thorough critique of the report, I’ve already stated several good reasons as to why we might expect someone like Sam Harris to treat such findings WITH SKEPTICISM, instead of citing the article (uncritically) as evidence that “Cultivating this quality of mind has been shown to […] improve cognitive function.”

I’m quoting Sam from here:

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-meditate

(Title, “How to Meditate”, by Sam Harris.)

And the article that he’s citing (and that I’m skeptical about) has its abstract here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20363650

Title: “Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: evidence of brief mental training.”

The implications of the other numbers seem baffling, if they have any validity at all. The score assigned for “anger” (using the “Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory”) dropped from 4.0 to 1.91 for the meditating students; however, for the non-meditators (the control group) it dropped from 3.8 to 1.2. What, really, does this prove, indicate, or even insinuate? Is meditation actually less effective at reducing anger than listening to J.R.R. Tolkein as an audiobook? (That’s not a joke: the control group listened to The Hobbit, instead of meditating.)

The score assigned for “confusion” (another interesting thing to quantify) dropped from 6.92 to 5.46 for the meditators, but for the non-meditators the change was from 6.6 to only 4.88! Again, if these numbers prove anything, should we take these as indications of the value of NOT meditating?

For the meditators, “tension” (however that may be quantified) dropped from 8.5 to 2.91. For the non-meditators? The change was from 6.28 to only 2.6. The implications would be baffling, if we really wanted to take this seriously as evidence of… well… anything at all. And why would we?

I do not have unrealistic expectations here: not everyone can be an expert on everything, and Sam Harris is legitimately NOT an expert on Buddhism. However, everything I’ve seen from Sam on this subject (in writing and in podcasts) is really very shameful, and just reflects an extremely low standard of scrutiny (on Sam’s part) even relative to what’s readily available (via google) in terms of English-language academic scholarship on Buddhism (and/or Theravada meditation specifically).

FAKE VEGANS (Andy Warski & Tobias Leenaert)

17 December 2015

Why do vegans hate those who eat less meat, rather than none at all? (“Reducetarian” and “Fake Vegans”) Well… uh… lack of time and the meaning of life both have something to do with it (watch the video, antics ensue).

This video has a sequel (responding further to Tobias and expanding on some of the key concepts), here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/7UezI3u8iXA

I start talking about Tobias Leenaert @5:00, for those who want to jump to that point in the tape (but, really, it isn’t so long to wait).

The TPP is Good for Vegans (Trans-Pacific Partnership)

16 December 2015

Admittedly, this is a bit of a simplified treatment of the issue, within a ten-minute limit. Currently (at the dawn of 2016), diverse voices are making directly-contradictory claims about the same facts; for example, I saw a pro-meat-industry report claiming that that Canadian beef exports to Southeast Asia will increase so dramatically that they’ll offset other losses. To discuss this sort of claim, you’d then have to ask yourself a set of (surreal but serious) questions, as to whether or not you believe that the future of Canadian agriculture is in producing meat cheaply enough to sell it to Cambodians (whereas, I note, Cambodia produces rice cheaply enough to export it to Africa, etc.). There are also arguements circulating that attempt to “reassure” the industry that dairy supply-management will remain fundamentally unchanged. There will be genuinely contradictory indicators in both projections and actual economic changes, as with any sudden reduction in trade barriers. There are also seemingly-contradictory contrasts within government policy that can distract from fundamental changes in direction (e.g., providing subsidies to tobacco-agriculture, while at the same time heavily taxing it, and directing the public to quit smoking). However, the simplest and most serious point is probably what I mention near the start of the video: that supposedly-ecological advocacy groups (like the Green Party itself) see their role as supporting the meat and dairy industries in opposing the TPP agreement.

From Victoria to Göttingen (Airplane, Boat, Bus, & Train)

15 December 2015

In terms of the reasons for the trip, there’s a five-minute monologue (honest… just five minutes long this time) that I uploaded a few days earlier, just before getting on the airplane:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/VWQuZ...

Spoilers: there is only one vegan restaurant in Göttingen.

Shout out to Lil B (#TYBG). I remember listening to a stack of his (free) music while we were all together in the hospital (for the birth of my daughter), and in the weeks of cooking, cleaning and washing dishes that followed thereafter. Of course, at the same time, I was gradually deleting all of the tracks I disliked from the same stack… but that seems to be his method (i.e., releasing everything he records, and letting the listener be the editor).

Going to Germany and France (Tomorrow!)

12 December 2015

En route to Göttingen, France & Nice on the Côte d’Azur.

This is the second time I’ve made a video immediately after writing a Japanese exam. I look exhausted in both videos… because I AM exhausted in both videos.

Sam Harris is Wrong: Theravada Buddhism

08 December 2015

Nature vs. Culture vs. Nutrition

03 December 2015

12 action-packed minutes: commenting on a simple point concerning nutritional deficiencies (on a “natural” diet) I then dig into the deeper question of the arbitrary and imperfect relationship between (i) nature, (ii) culture and (iii) nutrition.

Fake Vegan Statistics: Water, Drought, Cowspiracy, etc.

28 November 2015

Statistics can be misleading in many ways, and, I think, many vegans are quoting statistics on water-use, land-use and even the cost of food, without realizing how misleading the stats may be. Spoilers: kilogram-to-kilogram comparisons don’t make sense, whereas other units can make sense… but end up showing us some unexpected facts (perhaps not the overly-familiar story from headlines and sources like Cowspiracy).

Talking to a slaughterhouse worker (vegan steez)

26 November 2015

Warning: this video contains the word “peripatetic”, and I can’t imagine how the computer-generated subtitles will misinterpret it in transcription.*

* Footnote: apparently for this word alone, the transcript is perfectly accurate.

And, yes, there’s some implicit criticism of DxE / Direct Action Everywhere in this video (although I wouldn’t claim that Socratic Method is the cure for all ills by contrast).

The Death of the Buddha, Historical Facts vs. Mythology

21 November 2015

The events surrounding the death of the Buddha (and the question of who would control/lead the religion immediately after his death) are discussed in the context of a skeptical questioning of how we interpret overtly-mythological texts as historical evidence (in Theravada Buddhism).

If you want to skip ahead to the material on the death of the Buddha directly, you can try starting at the 33:00 mark.

Link to the article: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/dissent-from-the-top-reading-ancient-buddhist-texts-as-historical-evidence-9cabf2ad32bf

The Profit Motive, Vegans vs. McDonald’s, etc.

20 November 2015

A seemingly-simple headline about McDonald’s declining profits leads to a reflections on the profit motive, the meatpacking industry, China, Cambodia, social science research… and, yeah, my own (brief!) experience as an employee at a grocery store.

Japan = Vegan Hell? ビーガンにとって日本は地獄ですか?

15 November 2015

Here’s the link to Haruki’s channel (mentioned in the video), “Sustainable Vegan”: youtube.com/user/kaimotueka/videos

Here’s the link to the article by Tim Rogers, 2010, that I quote at length: http://kotaku.com/5484581/japan-its-not-funny-anymore

Don’t Drop Out of University (to move to Thailand… because you’re vegan)

14 November 2015

The painting in the thumbnail is Gauguin’s “Green Christ”, implying, perhaps, that Essena Oneill died for your sins, or, at least, that she dropped out of university so that you don’t have to.

University is hell, but dropping out of university (so you can be “happy and healthy”, etc.) may just lead to hell of another kind… and, yeah, it is a strange fact that the Chiang Mai vegan scene has been cited so many times as an inspiration (or excuse) for vegans dropping out of university. Admittedly, most of us don’t need much inspiration (or much of an excuse).

日本はラオスに似ている (Japanese writing assignment)

10 November 2015

Please note: I am a student with less than one year of instruction/experience in the Japanese language (and zero experience living in Japan). This was written as an in-class composition assignment. It may contain errors. The use of some odd sentence-structure is intentional (as I was supposed to demonstrate comprehension of a variety of grammatical forms, etc.).

How I Became Vegan (My Vegan Story)

09 November 2015

Knowing the right thing to do, and then doing it: the first is a matter of information, the second is a matter of motivation. This video reflects on my motivations for becoming vegan in the first place, and, also, on the aspects of my character that held me back (i.e., why I didn’t become vegan earlier in life).

This is, in fact, my second attempt at a video of this kind. The first version presents a different set of anecdotes about what a jerk I was growing up, and how being a jerk (in some peculiar ways) led inevitably to my becoming vegan. If you’re interested, you can still see that video here (unlisted): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/C2f6jiWLpjg

Oh, and, BTW, I actually grew that beard so I’d look appropriately-exhausted (and ill-shaven) in my passport photos.

Cattle Rancher’s Perspective on Vegan & Animal Rights News

07 November 2015

“Meanwhile livestock producers are kept busy devising welfare plans, environmental farm plans, codes of practice, best management practices to show they do deal with their animals humanely. But we know it will never be enough.” No, it will never be enough, will it? ;-)

Link to the full article: http://www.canadiancattlemen.ca/2015/10/19/dropping-in-on-the-animal-rights-movement/

The image in the thumbnail for this video was, in fact, a rare case of animal cruelty (on a farm) that led to real jail-sentences. Warning, this link contains disturbing images: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101693/Pig-farmer-slammed-RSPCA-horrific-cruelty-animals-dead-suspected-suicide.html

Cenk Uygur is Not Vegan (Not Yet…)

07 November 2015

Cenk Uygur is not stupid, and he cares a great deal about ethics, politics and ecology, but in this video you’ll hear him trace out nine tenths of the rationale for being vegan, without taking the next step. And, yeah, at age 45, he learns where dairy comes from… where it really comes from.

The link to the original (unedited) conversation (quoted from in this video) is here, Episode 43, Nov. 6^th of 2015: http://oldschooltyt.libsyn.com/rss

Being Offended: A Political Behavior.

05 November 2015

Vegan Cheetah: Fresh Out of Rehab

03 November 2015

Best wishes from a bunch of vegans on Youtube.

Links in order of appearance:

1. Ali the Friendly Activist = https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFriendlyActivist

2. John from Vegan Health Fitness = https://www.youtube.com/user/VeganHealthFitness

3. Abdullah from The Glucose Network: https://www.youtube.com/user/abdullahzeinab1

4. Immy “That Thai Vegan” = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3gql886jiycHU297-xtVg

5. Sorsha Morava = https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSorshaOfficial

6. Joey Carbstrong = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG6usHVNuRbexyisxE27nDw

7. Brett Rawlings = https://www.youtube.com/user/brett2961

8. The Vegan Activist = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE0yGL4Bgs2QNomOrslyLtw

9. Andy Vegan = https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAndyLoraProgram

10. The Vegan Brunette = https://www.youtube.com/user/laurenmichelle102

11. Matt from Powsimian = https://www.youtube.com/user/powsimians

12. The “quit everything” guy = https://www.youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi

And, for reasons that will soon be obvious, I’d like to shout out the obscure (Wu-Tang affiliated) rap group formerly known as “Division”, who (so far as I know) never did sign a record deal.

Don’t Move to Thailand.

31 October 2015

In 2015–2016, Thailand is a military dictatorship. And you should care about that. And if you don’t care, then, really, you shouldn’t move to Thailand. Discuss.

Pali vs. Sanskrit (Theravāda Buddhism in Academia)

28 October 2015

Are Milk & Cheese Prices Fixed by a Conspiracy? Well… Sort Of.

27 October 2015

No matter where you’re living in the world, you may have heard that the dairy industry is supported by the government, and the prices are artificially low… or artificially high… or you may have heard both. What’s going on here? Is there a government conspiracy to make pizza cheaper? Well… sort of.

The first example in the video deals with dairy prices under “special class 3(d)”, so if you want to see the fine print on that, here are two links:

(1) http://www.betterfarming.com/online-news/restaurants-must-register-obtain-lower-mozzarella-cheese-price-12015

(2) https://application.cdc-ccl.gc.ca/milkingredients/ui/pizzeriaForm_eng.php

In terms of an easy-to-read overview of how the subsidy systems work (in Canada, England and the U.S., if not quite “everywhere”) see the following:

(On the Canadian system:) http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2011/11/20/is_the_price_of_milk_too_high.html

(A whole website devoted to the critique of the U.S. system:) http://www.americanboondoggle.com/american-boondoggle-fixing-the-2012-farm-bill/milking-consumers-and-taxpayers/

(Overview of the British system:) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/dairy-farming-and-schemes

(On the changes to the British system that have, increasingly, made it resemble the other systems above:) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/milk-marketing-board-dairies-alarmed-by-free-market-for-their-product-abolition-of-an-institution-1385383.html

(An overview of the state of the industry from the F.A.O., including mention of the W.T.O. rulings against Canada:) http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/008/J2089e.htm

(Yet more details on the Canadian system:) http://www.cdc-ccl.gc.ca/CDC/userfiles/file/CDC_AR_2012-2013_EN.pdf

I tried to keep this video short, and I used up 20 minutes in just covering a few salacious points here. I do not get into (e.g.) the way that “support prices” basically result in taxpayers forcing the production of dairy products that nobody wants to consume… and this is both “overproduction” (in the strictest sense of the term) and has really strange knock-on effects (of governments buying up and trying to get rid of excess dairy products and by-products, etc. etc.).

Veganism as Cultural Imperialism, Neocolonialism, etc.

26 October 2015

Is it neocolonialism to impose vegan ideals onto a foreign culture? Is it cultural imperialism to preach veganism within your own culture? This is on the list of questions that you’ll have to answer, again and again, and it is asked in myriad ways (both by meat-eaters, and by critics within the vegan movement).

Socratic method is dead, BTW: this is a response to a video that was a response to a video that was a response to one of my videos. However, you can indeed watch this video in isolation without needing to see any of that “back story”. In fact, I recommend it. ;-)

Being Vegan in Victoria, B.C. (Green Cuisine, etc.)

22 October 2015

The vegan restaurants of downtown Victoria, B.C., Canada (as of the last few months of 2015).

Green Cuisine.
Lotus Pond.
Be Love (not 100% vegan).
John’s Place (just one vegan option).
Kissako Sushi/Café (vegan options).

Activism & Outcomes: Unnatural Vegan vs. DxE (Direct Action Everywhere)

05 October 2015

For an example of the type of activism (of “disruption”) being debated here, take a glance at Priya screaming at strangers in a restaurant, presented on DxE’s own channel: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/wCpIGoDYsyU

Another example, in which she’s a bit more openly upset and emotional (in front of yet another crowd of indifferent diners) is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/5yL2Y54xCNo?t=1m10s

Not at all incidentally, Priya is the girlfriend of Wayne Hsiung (and her description of herself as the “proud ‘Mama Bear’” of the organization has to be seen in this light). http://directactioneverywhere.com/organizers/

Here are links to the other persons/groups mentioned in the video:

Unnatural Vegan’s channel is here: youtube.com/user/FitOnRaw/videos

“Toronto Pig Save” is also mentioned in the video (they are sometimes referred to as “The Save Movement”). youtube.com/user/TorontoPigSave/videos

Incidentally, Vegan Gains has participated in both DxE events and Toronto Pig Save protests/vigils, and the commentary by Unnatural Vegan was in part a response to a video he posted of the same tactics linked to above from DxE (following the same script, basically, of demanding dog-meat, and then screaming at random people in a restaurant). https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/WJzw7SeVnHI

My own (earlier) video offering a critique of DxE at some length is here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/W6YAomSw09E

Eisel Mazard, 2015, Canada.

[景色] Sunset on the Coast & 2015 Election Debates [カナダの都市部]

05 October 2015

A glance at the harbor as the sun sets on Victoria, B.C., after attending a debate (for Federal Candidates) contesting the 2015 election.

Veganism vs. Human Rights (the Politics of Putting Humanitarianism “First”)

11 September 2015

The question comes, “Why do you preach veganism when there’s a civil war going on?” If human rights are always a higher priority than animal rights, does that mean (in effect) that animal rights never get addressed?

This video has anecdotes from my own experience (“in the field”) with humanitarian work in Laos, and addresses the misconception that vegans should/must address human political problems “first” (as if we’re then going to address animal agriculture after we’ve run out problems to solve in the human realm).

I recorded this in response to a recent video by Cory McCarthy (“The Middle East Crisis Vs Veganism”). You can find it here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Se4lUo6x_jE

[経済学] Economics in 2015: Recovery vs. “There will be no recovery!”

03 September 2015

The headline screams, “There Will Be No Economic Recovery!”, and we have another case of economic factoids being presented out-of-context to manipulate the audience. Japan, Taiwan, Canada, the United States, Greece, Spain and Ireland are all (briefly) covered in this video (thus, “the world economy”, or a large part of it, toward the end of 2015).

The source that I’m offering a rebuttal to is here (although you don’t need to watch it to understand the video above): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/aZJyXbSnde4

[景色] A Baby Seal! 海豹 / あざらし [カナダの都市部]

28 August 2015

Seals in Victoria, B.C. (okay, fine, technically it’s in Oak Bay). ビクトリア、ブリティッシュコロンビア州. 維多利亞，不列顛哥倫比亞省.

[景色] My Life in Canada: UVic Campus [カナダの都市部]

22 August 2015

The University of Victoria, B.C., Canada.

The Case of the Mistranslated Tattoo

21 August 2015

Here’s the link to the blog (mentioned) that collects examples of mistranslated Chinese tattoos: http://hanzismatter.blogspot.ca/

What Language am I Learning Next? (Japanese, not Ojibwe, nor Cree, apparently)

20 August 2015

This one is a cliffhanger: I don’t know what happens next myself. ;-) #nomakeup, #nolighting, #noscript, #nojumpcuts.

Eisel Mazard, 2015.

Vegan Critique of DxE: Direct Action Everywhere

05 August 2015

DxE defines itself in terms of complex claims about (i) slavery, (ii) civil rights, (iii) the politics of outrage, (iv) the nature of social networks, and (v) community-building. This video is primarily a response to the definition of Direct Action Everywhere provided by Wayne Hsiung in the first half hour of the video linked to below (“What If Everything We Think We Know about Social Change Is... Wrong?”, but also made use of the web-pages that DxE provides in defining its own methods and mandate.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/soRhWzrPGPo

[経済学] China’s Economy in 2015: Sovereign Debt is NOT the Problem

29 July 2015

China has some remarkable economic problems, but rapidly rising public spending isn’t their root cause. This video shows how a single statistic in isolation can be very misleading, and how some opinion-makers may be trying to mislead us with factoids of this kind.

Stefan Molyneux is a charlatan at the best of times, but he recently made an exceptionally absurd pronouncement under the title, “The Fall of China. There Will Be No Economic Recovery.” It’s easy to imagine that he’d have some interesting facts to present under that title, but no: he is lazily supposing that the economic crisis in Greece somehow resembles the crisis in China… and he’s wrong. China has many serious economic problems, but a sovereign debt crisis isn’t one of them.

Meanwhile, BTW, there are profound problems in the Chinese economy that are outside of the expertise of most journalists; to hear about a few of them (from someone who knows the horror of what they look like firsthand), try CSIS: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/C2SStFt-k_A?t=3m5s

[政治学] In Japan, Everyone is Guilty, Nobody is Innocent (99.9%?)

29 July 2015

Very nearly nobody gets a “not guilty” verdict in China or Japan, and while some might appeal to “Cultural Determinism” to explain this institutional behavior, Taiwan reportedly has an acquittal rate of about 12%, by contrast --and Taiwan is a country with strong cultural links to both China and Japan.

If you’d like to click through to the sources used, the two (very brief) blog-posts this video is based on can be found here:

(1) http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-acquittal-rate-in-japan-china-and-canada.html

(2) http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2015/06/in-japan-almost-nobody-is-ever-not.html

Veganism: Neither Anti-Capitalist Nor “A Privilege”

27 July 2015

Is veganism “revolutionary”? No, and wishful thinking that it should be (or “must be”) leads to an impasse: veganism shouldn’t be held to the standard of resolving every possible form of oppression just because it proposes the solution to _some_ social problems (ecological, ethical and otherwise). The fact is that it won’t solve all your problems, but don’t let that diminish the significance of the problems it can solve… even if they are less than “revolutionary”.

This video discusses a set of political issues within veganism that will probably be with us for many years to come, posed partly in response to the video linked below (although you don’t need to see one to understand the other).

Link:

“Why it DOES matter HOW we spread the vegan message”

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/D_8FLG6OhQA

Veganism as Digital Activism: Moving Beyond Bikinis & Bicycles.

14 July 2015

“We’ve got a lot of talented people talking about veganism on Youtube right now. We can talk about something a lot more meaningful than bikinis and bicycles.”

Digital veganism presents some unique opportunities but has become disconnected from “real world” politics to some extent. This video follows up with some positive suggestions for change (and constructive criticism of the status quo in 2015).

FOOTNOTE: I now realize that the Chinese news-network alluded to (in my discussion) really isn’t very easy to google if you can’t type in Chinese, so here’s a link that gives you an idea of the stuff they produce: youtube.com/user/ntdchinainsight/videos

Vegans, Leaders & Followers (Freelee, Durianrider, Gary Yourofsky & Ecology)

07 July 2015

Leadership is created by followership: vegans tends to select certain types of charismatic leaders, in the absence of any “institutional” structure for their ecological and ethical interests (that could have, hypothetically, been shaped by the Green Party, Greenpeace or other institutions, that have thus far failed to take on any such leadership role). This video raises broad questions of who our leaders are (how and why we select them), examining the type of leadership that results from internet-centered activism in the 21^st century.

The Thai Fruit Festival, Ego-Trips & the Future of Veganism

04 July 2015

What is the future of Veganism? What is the new vegan social movement emerging from Northern Thailand? What does the recent scandal have to tell us (or what does it lead us to ask ourselves) about these larger issues?

“The future of veganism is not going to be 10 million Instagram models running 10 million blogs about hair and make-up. The future of Thailand is not going to be 10 million colonies of self-obsessed vegan athletes photographing themselves on bicycles and posing with plates of fresh-cut fruit.”

Styles P is Vegan (Elon Musk is NOT, Sam Harris is NOT, Richard Dawkins is NOT)

30 June 2015

The title sums it up: Styles P is Vegan (Elon Musk is NOT, Sam Harris is NOT, Richard Dawkins is NOT). LINKS TO SOURCES mentioned in the video below:

(1) Sam Harris admitting that meat-eating is immoral, but saying that he just couldn’t manage to be vegetarian (let alone vegan): https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/vLFnJ8pWh8g

(2) On Richard Dawkins NOT being vegan, quotations and further links: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2014/05/richard-dawkins-eats-meat-and-makes-excuses-for-it.html

(3) Video of Elon Musk admitting that he tried being vegetarian, but just “couldn’t do it”, in response to a question from a vegan child (who hints at the ecological significance of the choice), apparently. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Qi1_gtwWZuM?t=25m18s

(4) Styles P talking about his past “legal troubles”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGy8YijzRes

How I learned Pali (Theravada Buddhism) and my Positive Experiences in the Field

26 June 2015

I taught myself Pali and lived for years in Theravada Countries in Asia. Learning the language is hard work, and this video may motivate you by discussing some of the positive outcomes of learning the language; I had a lot of positive experiences in both monastic and academic settings (and archives, museums, etc.) and most of my writing (on the internet) about learning Pali instead provides pretty “dry” advice (and, sometimes, some grave warnings). So, this is a relatively upbeat video, for people interested in the human reality of what it means to be a Pali scholar in the 21^st century --an era when every Pali scholar is an autodidact.

As is mentioned in the video, you can find the resources I created to help people learn Pali in various places, including Google Books (for free, of course):

https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=eisel+mazard

For some much more depressing, practical advice (on learning the Pali language), you can take a look at some of my written work, e.g.,

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2012/06/on-learning-pali-fascicle-1.html

A useful essay for any beginner (both providing useful information, and warnings about misinformation in the field) can be found in both English and Chinese translation through the following links: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.ca/2014/03/canon-and-reason-complete-chinese.html

You might also be interested in my more recent video (over 20 minutes long), on the question of, “What is the future of Buddhism?”: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/QbvtUrVhPwg

[政治学] Cold War Consequences: is Okinawa an American Colony? Is Thailand?

20 June 2015

The Cold War was a mess of short-term strategies with long-term consequences. Looking at Okinawa in the context of (disastrous) examples such as Cambodia and Chagos… well, you come to some, strangely pragmatic conclusions about U.S. foreign policy, and the Asian states that were eager to get under “the nuclear umbrella”.

On the specific issue of U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge (in Cambodia, via Thailand) here’s a link to the film mentioned @27:15, John Pilger’s “Cambodia: The Betrayal”:

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/k2oTl51a3HM?t=25m35s

On the day this video was recorded I woke up at 5:30 AM to study Japanese before writing a test at 8:30. So, I look a bit “dead on the inside”, but I assure you, that’s merely because I’m dead on the outside.

KOKANG 2015 (Crowdfunding for Conflict Coverage?)

22 March 2015

I checked with Google: apparently, I’m only the second person to use the phrase “The Ecology of Foreign Policy” on the internet.

Vegan Politics (Real Talk)

19 March 2015

大同書: Kang Youwei’s Utopia & Mao’s Revolution (康有為 & 毛澤東)

15 December 2014

What was the philosophy of Datong (大同) anyway? Kang Youwei (康有為) was both an important influence on Communists and anti-Communists in China’s 20^th Century. Read more if you want to know more: a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2014/12/Kang-Youwei-Saneatsu-Mushanokoji-Mao-Zedong.html

[大躍進] Mao Zedong’s “Smoking Gun” Quotation [黑金政治學03]

28 October 2014

“…the emperors the Chinese people most reviled —Qin Shihuangdi, Emperor Zhou, and Sui Yangdi— were the ones Mao most admired…” (Li Zhisui, 1994, p. 296)

Some further discussion of the great leap forward [大躍進] and great famine [大飢荒]. In a controversy between two current historians, a famous quotation (used to attribute blame to Mao) turns out to be spurious. The controversy reveals more of interest than just the question of how to lay the blame.

Thunderf00t vs Richard Carrier (Devil’s Advocate Amongst Atheists?)

27 October 2014

Atheist vs. atheist; here’s my response to a long-simmering dispute between two public intellectuals from opposite ends of the academic spectrum… but, wait, who are you calling an academic anyway?

Link to Richard Carrier videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgTHJb93koSgIXieStJD-Kw

Link to Thunderf00t videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t/playlists

Link to the specific quotation from Thunderf00t mentioned: http://youtu.be/inqcLXNlEes?t=18m27s

The New Literature on China’s Great Famine & the Great Leap Forward [黑金政治學02]

14 October 2014

An overview of new publications including Tombstone [墓碑] by Yang Jisheng [楊繼繩], Mao’s Great Famine by Frank Dikötter, and The Xinyang Incident [信阳事件] by Qiao Peihua [喬培華], with a rapid introduction to the general subject of the Great Famine & the Great Leap Forward.

Eisel Mazard, 2014.

How to Get Yourself Killed in Cambodia

01 October 2014

No description necessary. Want to comment, ask questions and chat with other viewers? Join the channel’s Discord server (a discussion forum, better than a youtube comment section). https://discord.gg/exYtJT

Support the creation of new content on the channel (and speak to me, directly, if you want to) via Patreon, for $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_bas_le_ciel/?hl=en

You may not know that I have several youtube channels, one of them is AR&IO (Active Research & Informed Opinion) found here: youtube.com/channel/UCP3fLeOekX2yBegj9-XwDhA/videos

Another is à-bas-le-ciel, found here: youtube.com/user/HeiJinZhengZhi/videos

And there is, in fact, a youtube channel that has my own legal name, Eisel Mazard: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxp5G-XFGcH4lmgejZddqA

Chinese Politics Now: the Mass Line & Document Number Nine [黑金政治學01]

14 September 2014

The most important political change that nobody’s talking about: the principles of Document Number Nine (中辦發9號 / 中办发9号) and the New Mass Line Movement (群眾路線 / 群众路线) adopted by China’s president Xí Jìnpíng (習近平 / 习近平).

For those who want to find more information, note that Document No. 9 is also referred to as, “關於當前意識形態領域情況的通報” / “关于当前意识形态领域情况的通报” (“Briefing on the current ideological situation”, or “The situation in the ideological sphere”).

Eisel Mazard, 2014.

Being Vegan in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand & China [純素的生活瑣事02]

02 September 2014

I’m vegan, and I have experience living in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan. This video discusses some of the issues surrounding veganism (in those cultural contexts) in response to questions I’ve received over the years.

Incidentally, the charts that (very rapidly) appear on-screen are all graphics I made myself (illustrating data available from U.N. and government websites).

Cowspiracy, Vegan Review (a Pol. Sci. Perspective?)

29 August 2014

This is a ten minute discussion made with an awareness that most of the people who see it will (i) already be vegan, and (ii) already have seen the film being reviewed. This is probably not what anyone is expecting to hear from “a political science perspective”, nor from a vegan perspective, but I do reflect on what I feel is the core tension of the film; and, for me, it raises familiar questions about the NGO/Charity sector...

...although I’ve edited-out some long and bone-chilling anecdotes from my experience in Cambodia, Laos and elsewhere in Asia.

For a quick example of just how bone-chilling it gets (and a hint at how many bad experiences I’ve avoided mentioning this video) take a glance at the latest crack of light to fall on Cambodia’s humanitarian sector:

(1) http://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/secrets-and-lies-44964/

(2) www.cambodiadaily.com/news/somaly-mam-steps-down-after-expose-60019/

I met many, many people who were in positions of executive power (in the charity sector) moments after stepping off an just airplane, with zero expertise that pertained to the issues they were intervening in, and zero interest in the culture/country concerned. And, on the other hand, there are local players in the game who can be even more suspect (while being much more specialized!) as in the articles I’ve just provided a link to, above.

[佛教的政治學] Brand New Ancient Buddhist Philosophy, Part 1

28 August 2014

Ancient philosophy, post-war reality, and the question of what now remains of Buddhism for us to work with, in the 21^st century, after the scramble to survive the 20^th.

Part 1 opens a broad discussion of how the last hundred years of technological and political change have made some cultural changes inevitable for Buddhism, to be continued in part 2.

[Link to part 2:] http://youtu.be/3uclOwPspYg

[關於康熙部首06] Chinese Etymology: 世/枼/葉/叶.

27 August 2014

Chinese Etymology: A Fallen Leaf Marks an Era.

[純素的生活瑣事01] Vegan Steez, the Banana Rack.

19 August 2014

[宗教與政治] Gods with a Lower-Case G (& Douglas MacArthur)

14 August 2014

Douglas MacArthur was formally deified in Chinese Daoism [道教], an interesting footnote in history, reflecting the asymmetrical attitudes toward religion-as-politics in the modern West and East. The video is only 5 minutes long; why summarize?

The Solar System vs. the Bible vs. Skepticism

06 July 2014

It’s a clear case of the Solar System vs. the Bible... and it isn’t hard to guess which side is going to win (in terms of making sense of the world outside your window), but, in this case, the Bible has something important to teach us about the history of the English language, at least.

When atheists get into debating these issues with Christians (as both Jaclyn Glenn and The Amazing Atheist have recently done) they seem to be willing to allow their opponents to misrepresent Biblical cosmology as compatible with the modern solar system (or as being identical to modern physics, aside from the added presence of a divinity at the top) --and nothing could be further from the truth. In most cases, the vagueness of Bible translations allows both sides to remain unaware of what it is that they’re really debating, when they contrast ancient and modern preconceptions about the world.

Endangered Languages (閩南語 & 克里語的美洲原住民語)

05 July 2014

When you talk to people about endangered languages, quite often the first reaction you get is a denial that the language could ever disappear. Then, after just a few minutes of discussion, they tend to reflect on just how soon the language might be entirely extinct.

The video mentions my past work on Hokkien (閩南語, 台語, 廈門話), posted to my blog; you can find some examples of that, here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.tw/search/label/H%C5%8D-l%C3%B3

In the video I mention an informal article that was published in Ogmios; it discusses some of the same issues using very different examples. You can find that online here: https://medium.com/@eiselmazard/endangered-languages-in-and-around-laos-an-overview-of-opportunities-1e7232a1e3a4

[關於康熙部首05] Chinese simplification, ancient and modern.

22 June 2014

In the Chinese written language, the radicals [部首] can obscure both the meaning and the etymology. Here’s a rapid look at how that’s happened, leaving us with so many puzzles in how components are assembled into complete characters.

[關於康熙部首04] Chinese isn’t vegan (the many strange uses of the meat radical)

15 June 2014

If 國 can be reduced to 国, will we one day see 有 reduced to 厷? Although everything in this video seems like a bit of a joke, I have actually seen the word 蛋糕 changed to 旦糕... and this is an understandable “reformation” when you consider that vegans need to confirm that the 蛋糕 is made without 蛋.

[佛教中的貪腐] Corruption in Contemporary Buddhism

07 May 2014

Three anecdotes in ten minutes, involving Japan [日本], Thailand [泰國], and Laos [老窩/遼國].

[關於康熙部首03] The “atoms” of the Chinese written language

03 May 2014

“...we can’t always understand the character better by breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces; sometimes, instead, we have to put the atoms together into molecules, and figure out what the relationships between them might be.”

Buddhism, Apotheosis and the History of Religion

18 April 2014

“...we tend to let ourselves imagine that a skeptical reading of mythology reveals something other than a myth... conversely, one interesting side-effect of this attitude toward mythology, is that we’re always producing new mythology, through new interpretations that fasten onto one aspect or another of the story as ‘real’ and ‘original’...”

This subject here is hard to guess from the title: “Atheism and Apotheosis: Regarding Religion as History”. The video can serve as either an intro or an outro for the other skeptical discussions of the history of Buddhism on this channel; it does wrap up several of the recurring themes and questions.

Fan Mail or Hate Mail? (Q&A 01)

05 April 2014

Your questions answered! Including questions that are so misguided that they might as well be hate-mail! From problems of pious ignorance to academic fraud, linguistics, history, humantiarian work and ancient philosophy... this video isn’t about anything that I’d want to talk about, no... instead, here are the answers demanded by readers like you!

Goodbye, My Daughter

03 April 2014

Divorce and consequences.

There is a more detailed account posted to my blog, for the few who are interested:

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.tw/2014/05/how-i-ended-up-learning-chinese-part-three.html

Why I started learning Cree (Nêhiyawêwin)

01 April 2014

I look really exhausted in this video, but, hey, this isn’t a beauty contest.

These comments come closer to autobiography than my other videos: I reflect on my own motivations to learn Cree (Nêhiyawêwin) and the type of ethical engagement that unites my interest in First Nations with the (unrelated) languages, histories and politics I’ve studied on in Asia.

Why I stopped learning Cree (Nêhiyawêwin)

01 April 2014

My battery is my editor: the tape stops when the camera ran out of power (in mid-sentence!).

Although I had more to say (and did, indeed, keep talking after the camera shut down) I decided it wasn’t an entirely bad thing to have this information in a nine minute segment. And I can’t negotiate with my editor.

The article mentioned in the first twenty seconds is here:

https://medium.com/native-american-eya/9429fc06b9d9

Buddhism, Scholar vs Practitioner

30 March 2014

There’s a presumed antipathy between the scholar and the practitioner; while this video opens with an example of that contrast being all-too-real, I argue that the more common conflict is one that sets scholar against scholar, and practitioner against practitioner.

[關於康熙部首02] Chinese is not a system of symbols

29 March 2014

Yeah, I said it. We use the word “system” in the vaguest possible sense when we say, “the system of Kangxi radicals”, because there’s almost nothing systematic about it.

Part two in a series, looking at how to learn Chinese characters by breaking them down into their component parts, and understanding their etymologies.

Atheism as an ideology (agnostic vs. nihilist)

27 March 2014

Ideology is everywhere used and everywhere deplored, like the disposable plastic bag; and, all the same, we dispense with one just to replace it with another --even if we struggle to keep up the illusion that we could live without them.

If you’re honest enough about anything, it starts to sound like a joke; that’s why reality TV turns private tragedy into public comedy. Here’s my first direct commentary on nihilism: no make-up, no music, no mood-lighting, no editing... and, yeah, my blender is my co-host.

Brand New Ancient Buddhist Philosophy, Part 3

26 March 2014

“How far do the implications go, of this conflict between what’s ancient, and what’s only apparently ancient?”

“Culture is not static. Culture doesn’t exist as a statue in a museum... culture only exists and persists when people actively reproduce it, when people are making it new, again and again.”

Link to the first article mentioned in the video: https://medium.com/p/eaed2e5fbe40

Link to the second article mentioned: https://medium.com/p/46091f5da69

Link to the third article mentioned: https://medium.com/p/1c31959b2e56

Link to the earlier video mentioned on the closing screen:

http://youtu.be/GzOcSpxKVoA

Sexual abuse (within modern Buddhism) is mentioned very briefly toward the end of the video. For a quick study of an instructive example (involving both “East” and “West”) see: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.tw/2014/02/sangharakshita-and-scandal-that-never.html

Brand New Ancient Buddhist Philosophy, Part 2

22 March 2014

In the last 70 years, (1) changes in the structure of political authority entailed changes in how religious legitimacy is projected and perceived, and (2) changes in technology created new challenges to religious authority, as inaccessible canons of ancient texts became more and more accessible.

The Problem of “the Exotic” in Philosophy & Religion

18 March 2014

This opens with an anecdote from the bad old days about monks, magic and faith-healing, then proceeds to (briefly) run through the problem of “the exotic” (as I’ve encountered it) in both Eastern and Western philosophy.

The drink in the blender was a combination of banana, kiwi and soymilk, for the record.

[關於康熙部首01] Why Learn the Kangxi Radicals?

16 March 2014

Your textbooks have probably told you two things about the Kangxi Radicals: (1) you absolutely must study this system if you’re ever going to make progress with the written language, and (2) don’t worry, nobody actually does it, so forgive yourself now for your inevitable failure, and just muddle along in ignorance.

This is a mixed message that reflects the mixed emotions the Chinese often have toward the “roots” and etymologies of their written language: your teachers will simultanously tell you that this stuff is crucial to understanding anything at all, yet, also, they will complain that any questions you may have on the subject are just a waste of time.

I have met many foreigners who have become fluent in Chinese without learning the radicals (and etymologies) of the written language, but they look back on this subject wistfully as part of their education that was missing. They tend to think of it as something that still impairs their work in the language (from day to day), and, for at least some people I’ve met, it genuinely does.

In this first video, I look at a set of examples to rapidly answer the question, “Why Learn the Kangxi Radicals?”

Buddhist Meditation is NOT a Science of the Mind

14 March 2014

In one important aspect, the problem with Buddhist Meditation is strangely similar to Christian Creationism. (Recorded while sick with a bad fever [發燒], BTW, so my voice is a bit creaky.)

If you’ve got the patience to read more:

“...we must not forget that the English word meditation denotes a European concept, not a Buddhist one. We find the term in the popular translation of the “Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius ([馬爾庫斯·奧列里烏斯] 121--180 A.D.) —scil., a title that is also translated as “private thoughts” or simply as “notes to myself”. This shows the range of meanings that the English term has encompassed in recent centuries: it has been used to denote everything from Christian prayer to solipsistic thinking, and includes autobiographical reflections in-between.”

From a long article: https://medium.com/p/1c31959b2e56

Buddhism, when “Interpretation” Means Fiction

24 February 2014

Some comments and examples following up on my earlier video “Reading Mythology but Seeing History”. In modern Buddhism, to a shocking extent, “interpretation” has become a genre of fiction.

Reading Mythology but Seeing History: the Historical Buddha and the Historical Hercules.

24 February 2014

Why is “the historical Buddha” so controversial? As the title suggests, part of the problem is that we’re reading mythology, but selectively treating it as history. An unscripted discussion of some of the issues.

Buddhist Philosophy, Known or Unknown?

20 February 2014

Is Buddhist philosophy something we can know (the same way that we know the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, etc.) or is there some kind of special exception to the rules involved? (Organized religions always seem to make themselves an exception to the rules, hm?)

Circa six minutes into the tape, “...[in modern Buddhism,] anyone who reads the text is a threat to the authority of the monk in charge. It’s a lot more convenient to organize your religion around silence [and] subservience to authority [than to allow] asking questions [and] debating the philosophy.”

Want to know more about the textual basis of Buddhist Philosophy, and what’s known (vs. unknown) today? Here’s an article that’s half as long as it looks, presented in both Chinese and English: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.tw/2014/03/canon-and-reason-complete-chinese.html

Why I am not a Buddhist

17 February 2014

Some unscripted reflections from a former scholar of Buddhism, and an ex-Buddhist. I opted for a very raw format with this clip, including an odd moment of silence. The video is unedited, and it stops at the unplanned moment when the camera ran out of battery, shutting itself down.

Here’s the link to the magazine interview mentioned in the video: https://medium.com/p/9df3f5f826e4

Eisel Mazard, 2014.

Atheism, Empirical Attitudes, and Buddhism

16 February 2014

A discussion of Atheism, Empiricism, and one religion’s claim to be scientific. Why do so many Buddhists argue that this religion is merely “a science of the mind”, or “a rational philosophy not requiring faith”, etc.? Given its history, what is the future of Buddhism?

[Author’s blog:] a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com

Buddhism, Ancient vs Rational

12 February 2014

Why would the most ancient texts be the most rational? Here’s a quick answer to the question of why so many Buddhists (and scholars of Buddhism) look at the history of the religion in these terms. There’s a cultural connection between the 20^th century’s construction of a rationalized “historical Buddha”, and the 19^th century construction of “the historical Jesus”; the sequence of how the ancient texts became known in the modern West re-enforced this tendency.

Read more if you wanna: “The Opposite of Buddhism: European Colonialism and Interpretation”.

https://medium.com/p/a192b6880f30

http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.tw/2013/10/the-opposite-of-buddhism-article.html

The other essay mentioned as “Canon and Reason”, starts here:

https://medium.com/p/b5947081e0d7

If you’re wondering about the black-and-white photo in the intro:

https://medium.com/p/ce01eadb1aff

Video links

Sorted by Date

a-bas-le-ciel

Note: This list of videos goes from somewhere around 2023 to the beginning of the channel.

- [[https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8BEpOSh_r_c][Why Soycrates Hates Me <verbatim>

</verbatim><verbatim>

</verbatim> Chantelle Robin <verbatim>

</verbatim><verbatim>

</verbatim> Vegan vs. Vegan Drama!]]

- [[https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/X3SBTQtGo8s][Greece is Hopeless. <verbatim>

</verbatim><verbatim>

</verbatim> Daughter — Divorce — Custody <verbatim>

</verbatim><verbatim>

</verbatim>]]

Active Research & Informed Opinion

From Ink to Inc.

Eisel Mazard

Veganvania

Source: <web.archive.org/web/20240717152350/https://www.youtube.com/@VEGANVANIA>

Zel from Ashdod

Not archived.

Sorted by Topic

Table of Contents

Nutrition & Health

Diet
Weight
Exercise
Supplementing
Lifestyle vs Medication

Lifestyle

Domestication (A Vegan Perspective AGAINST Pet Ownership, etc.)
Minimalism
Pest Control
Recreational Drugs
Vegan living around the world
Family, Friends & Partners
Children

Advocacy, approaches and critique

Approaches – Positive about
- THE SHORT LIST: my approach to veganism IN BRIEF.
- Veganism: the Wildlife Management Paradigm
- Veganism as a political movement
- Brass Tacks (Vegan Political Organization NOW)
- On community building
- “On Community” (a Vegan Manifesto) in Many Languages
- Permanent Vacation and/or/as/vs. Vegan Activism
- THE SHORT LIST: my approach to veganism IN BRIEF.
Approaches – Negative about

Activism

Ethics

Historical Nihilism, 历史虚无主义, “My Own” Philosophy.
Buddhism (A Pali Scholar’s Perspective)
Utilitarianism, critique of
Consequentialism
Virtue Ethics
Deontology
The Meaning of Life. Not Clickbait.

Ethical issues

Economics
Guilt
Human Rights
Ecology
Vivisection
Second-hand leather (critique of excuses for)
Fur
Culture/ Tradition
Anti-Anti-Natalism (Ecology & Having Kids)
Palm Oil (Vegan Idiocy About)
Racism and/in Vegan Politics

Other

Autobiographical (Eisel Mazard / à-bas-le-ciel)
- Divorce (My First Wife)
Learning Languages
- Learning Chinese (Written Language + Spoken Language)
Modern Greek, learning the language
Fiction
- ASOIAF (“A Song of Ice and Fire” & “Game of Thrones”)
Feminism
- Stop Treating Women Like Infants
Music
- Rap Music / Hip Hop (Commentary)
Atheism
- Replace Christmas
Academia
- University Education, Critique Of
- On Peer Review (Critique of Academia)
Career Advice
- [ESL中国] Advice on Teaching English in China
- The State of Youtube (Analysis of)
International & Historical Politics
Policy
Ideology
Depression
- Anti-AntiDepressants (Depression, etc.)
Recreation
- Drugs #QuitEverything
- Quit Video Games.
Satire is not comedy
(Comedic) Vegan Masterpiece Theater
True Love / True Romance (Advice?)

Conversations & Responses to

Vegan
- Conversations With Vegan Gains
- Responses To Vegan Gains
- Earthling Ed, Critique of
- Nina-and-Randa: Most Offensive Playlist Ever?
- Claire Michelle (Responses to)
- Unnatural Vegan (On critique, consequentialism and pet domestication)
- Criticism of Mic. the Vegan
- Durianrider (on the defamation lawsuit, permanent vacation philosophy and diet pseudoscience)
- “Ask Yourself” (Criticism of the Youtuber known as…)
- Peter Singer, Critique Of
- A Critique of the Permanent Vacation Philosophy: Ted Carr.
- Gary Yourofsky
- Gary Francione
- Plant Based News (Critique of)
- Mayim Bialik, critique of
- Norvegan is Lying to You
- Gary Yourofsky, Critique Of
- Erin Janus, Critique Of
- Supreme Banana (Cammy), Critique Of
- Ted Carr, A Critique of the Permanent Vacation Philosophy.
- Aaron Yarmel, replies to
- Mod Vegan
- Tofu Godess
- AmericanUnicorn (formerly PlantBasedHippy)
- Dumb Vegan
- Vegan Lass
- Vegan Revolution
- Dexter Deveau (formerly Lance Carbstrong)
- Reg Flowers
- Onision
- Earthling Ed
- Cory McCarthy
- Vegetable Police
- The Golden One
- Tobias Leenart
- Andy Warski
- The Vegan Anarchist
- Wengie
- Kiwi Banana
- Zahria
- Conradical Vegan
- Vegan Minimalist Mark
- Lea P
- Anonymous
- The Vegan Activist
Ex-Vegan
- Bonny Rebecca (ex-vegan icon?)
- Kalel Kitten / Kalel Cullen, Critique of
- Ex-Vegan Jacko Wacko Vegano
- Vegan Cheetah, Conversations With
- Responses to Vegan Cheetah
- Izzy Davis, Replies To.
- Joe Vegan
Anti-Vegan
- Sv3rige, Critique Of
- Jordan Peterson (Critiques Of)
Politics
Athiesm
Other
- ProJared
- Onision, Critique Of
- Jaclyn Glenn, critique of
- Faith Goldy, Critique Of
- Critique of John St Julien Baba Wanyama
- Based Zeus vs. Based Pawn
- Celebrities
Viewer Questions

Nutrition and Health

Diet

Weight

Exercise

Supplementing

Feeling Like Garbage on a Vegan Diet.

Lifestyle vs Medication

Anti-Depressants: Euphoria, Sorrow & Science.

Lifestyle

Domestication (A Vegan Perspective AGAINST Pet Ownership, etc.)https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/CHTNMYBiTic][

Minimalism

Pest Control

Recreational Drugs

Vegan Living around the world

Family, Friends & Partners

Children

Advocacy, Approaches & Critique

“On Community” (a Vegan Manifesto) in Many Languageshttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/wT864jYQT8I][

On community building

Veganism as a political movement

Veganism: the Wildlife Management Paradigmhttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/atY1BwqPEE0][

Brass Tacks (Vegan Political Organization NOW)

Book Reviews (Politics / Vegan Politics)

Social Justice: Veganism is NOT a Social Justice Movement.

Anarchism

Communism

DxE: Critique of Direct Action Everywhere (Activism in Theory & Practice)

A Critique of the Permanent Vacation Philosophy: Ted Carr.

HCLF / RT4 Critique

Gary Yourofsky

Gary Francione

Celebrities

Idiocy! Vegans Can Be Idiots, Too.

Advice nobody wants to hear.https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/5xmbk9-M3Do][

Misc Advocacy:

Misc Bad Vegan Advocacy:

Activism

Vegan Storybook (For Children), “Even Earthworms Want to See the Sky”https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/YcK4Y8_d5XQ][

Interviews with journalists / press / media

Vegan Mind Tricks: Talking to Meat Eaters.

Running a YouTube Channel

Ethics

Historical Nihilism, 历史虚无主义, “My Own” Philosophy.https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/F59Rx7uoRpo][

.
https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/VQnL1QCSPyA][

Buddhism (A Pali Scholar’s Perspective)

Utilitarianism

Consequentialism

Virtue ethics

Deontology

Ethical issues

Economics

Guilt

Human Rights

Ecology

Vivisection

Palm Oil

Leather

Kat Napiorkowska is against “vegan terrorists” & “black-and-white” morality.

Fur

Culture/Tradition

Ex-Vegans

Other

Autobiographical (Eisel Mazard / à-bas-le-ciel)

Learning Languages

Learning Chinese (Written Language + Spoken Language)

ASOIAF (“A Song of Ice and Fire” & “Game of Thrones”)https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7oK5ShvyvAswb-3lSWjlQe6][

Stop Treating Women Like Infants

Music

Atheism

International Politics

Careers Advice

Conversations with

Vegan Gains

Responses to

Vegan Gains

Earthling Ed, Critique of

Claire Michelle (Responses to)

Criticism of Mic. the Vegan

Durianrider (on the defamation lawsuit, permanent vacation philosophy and diet pseudoscience)

Peter Singer, Critique Of

Gary Yourofsky

Gary Francione

Plant Based News (Critique of)

Mayim Bialik, critique of

Norvegan is Lying to You

Gary Yourofsky, Critique Of

Erin Janus, Critique Of

Supreme Banana (Cammy), Critique Of

Unnatural Vegan (On critique, consequentialism and pet domestication)

Durianrider controversy (on defamation lawsuit, permanent vacation philosophy and diet pseudoscience)

Nina-and-Randa: Most Offensive Playlist Ever?

“Ask Yourself” (Criticism of the Youtuber known as…)

Debating the “I Don’t Care” Mentality (Vegan Gains vs. Bearing)
Theatricality vs Dishonesty on Youtube feat Ask Yourself, Ted Carr, Cory & Tara McCarthy
Vegan vs. Vegan: “Ask Yourself” Boxing Match in Chiang Mai or GTFO
[2 min.] The resolution of the dispute with “Ask Yourself”?
À-Bas-Le-Ciel vs. Ask Yourself! Racism, Veganism & the Meaning of Life!
New Values: Politics, Personhood, Meaning of Life.
Colonialism & Genocide (vs. “Ask Yourself”)

ModVegan

Tofu Godess

American Unicorn (formerly PlantBasedHippy)

Dumb Vegan

Vegan Lass

Vegan Revolution

Dexter Deveau (formerly Lance Carbstrong)

Reg Flowers

Kiwi Banana

Zahria

Steven Feithttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/O--8pvs-vGg][

Conradical Vegan

Friends, strangers, activists (w. Conradical Vegan)

Lea P

Gaining Weight: Freelee’s Diet Delusion. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

Jake Eames

Chiang Mai: Paradise for Some?

The Violent Veganhttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/6Nkdq6T8IRE][

Interview, à-bas-le-ciel vs. “The Violent Vegan”

Lauren Kenzyhttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/7V5PndEkt2k][

Lauren Kenzy vs. à-bas-le-ciel, the podcast nobody asked for! 😉
(1hr+) Lauren Kenzy on The Permanent Vacation Podcast.

Jason Pizzino

Henya Maniahttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Q6DUExtkzh4][

Henya Mania vs. Freelee & Joe Best.

The Vegan Transition

“Abolitionism” and its Implications (with Amy: “The Vegan Transition”)

The Light Twinshttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/0YRqefTqVRQ][

Angry Veganhttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/I6A2DlbzTr0][

Earthling Ed

Critique of Earthling Ed: Vegans can’t offer “Social Justice” for animals.

Cory McCarthy

Vegetable Police

Tobias Leenaerthttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/wGXSCyinYgY][

Andy Warski

FAKE VEGANS (Andy Warski & Tobias Leenaert)

The Vegan Anarchist

Wengie

Vegan Minimalist Mark

Bullfighting, animal individuality and human civilization. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

The Vegan Activist

IMHO, the Political Approach to Veganism is Less Depressing than the Alternatives.

Erin Janus, Freelee & Angie Varonahttps://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/-5kuVbVDNcE][

Erin Janus vs. Freelee vs. Angie Varona.

Aaron Yarmel, replies to

Mod Vegan

AmericanUnicorn (formerly PlantBasedHippy)

Tobias Leenart

Anonymous

Pro-Vegans

The Golden One

Vegan Neo-Nazis Actually Exist (Beneath Contempt).

Ex-Vegan

Melanie Murphy

The Ethical Omnivore: Melanie Murphy. (vegan / vegans / veganism)

Tori Sterling

Tori Sterling: Chasing a Feeling.

Conversations With Vegan Cheetah

Responses to Vegan Cheetah

Joe Vegan

Bonny Rebecca (ex-vegan icon?)

Kalel Kitten / Kalel Cullen, Critique of

Ex-Vegan Jacko Wacko Vegano

Vegan Cheetah, Conversations With

Izzy Davis, Replies To.

Anti-Vegan

Sv3rige, Critique Of

Jordan Peterson (Critiques Of)

Politics

Vaush, critique of

Richard Wolff, Critique Of

Rachel Oates, critique of

NonCompete, critique of

Mexie (Responses to / Criticisms Of)

Athiesm

Sam Harris is Wrong: Theravada Buddhism

Rationality Rules, critique of

KanadaJin3 (Japan, Islam & Canada)

Atheist ❝Activists❞, critique of

Other

ProJared

Onision, Critique Of

Jaclyn Glenn, critique of

Faith Goldy, Critique Of

Critique of John St Julien Baba Wanyama

Based Zeus vs. Based Pawn

Celebrities

Viewer Questions

Unsorted

Misc:

Unsorted

Blogspot

Patreon

I’m getting pretty fast at spreadsheeting website code and turning it into lists for hobby research. Creating this list is related to my Deleted Vegan Video Archive where I’m attempting to preserve some of the recent history of vegans and legal animal rights advocates digital presence.

Listed below are all the patreon posts for the youtube channel a-bas-le-ciel. This means you can hit Ctrl+F and search for a topic that interests you. The further back you go, the more likely you are to find productive discussions. Also you can always sign up for a few days and cancel before midnight at the end of the month to avoid getting charged.

Obviously beware the echo-chamber effect of clones dogmatically agreeing with all his views and the absense of strong critique due to people having to pay to engage in the space and knowing they might have their comments deleted or be banned anyway.

Finally, here’s a few other spaces where fans and critics can discuss his content and any related subjects:

2023

September

Food Truck: Sam Bankman-Fried v. Caroline Ellison.

Canadian government comes to the defence of Nazi SS and Nazi collaborators but why?

2 days ago at 9:42 AM

And now: a very important rap song…

In late April more than 50 members of the U.S. Congress condemned the government of Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to glorify “Nazi collaborators.”

ottawacitizen

[Back in 2018:] “It’s particularly troubling that much of the Nazi glorification in Ukraine is government-supported…”

Poland’s education minister says he’s ‘taken steps’ to extradite Yaroslav Hunka — CBC News

2 days ago at 4:24 AM

[2018:] “Contrast that to how the Canadian government handled a related issue last year when the Russian Embassy in Ottawa tweeted out that, ‘There are monumets (sic) to Nazi collaborators in Canada and nobody is doing anything about it.’”

The article is worth reading, but if you don’t have time, it is also worth clicking on just to take a glance at the photographs.

Poland’s education minister says he has “taken steps” to effect the extradition of Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian Canadian, to Poland after it emerged that the veteran served in the Nazi SS Galizien formation during the Second World War.

CBC

[Meanwhile:] Will Canada’s 98 year old Nazi end up in jail for WW2 era atrocities?

2 days ago at 4:18 AM

Poland has politely proposed an extradition so that the elderly man can be put on trial…

Ed Hawkins

Death to Nazis and not in Minecraft.

[Meanwhile:] The question of Neo-Nazi military units in Ukraine re-emerges from obscurity.

2 days ago at 4:10 AM

Quote, “Liberal MP Anthony Rota is stepping down as Speaker of the House after inviting a Ukrainian who fought in a Nazi division to Parliament.” This is a 30 minute long video, but the story is told within the first sixty seconds or so.

Quoting Al Jazeera: “[He] invited Yaroslav Hunka to Friday’s special parliamentary session in the House of Commons, where he recognised the 98-year-old as a “Ukrainian hero”. Hunka served in the 14^th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Nazi’s SS military unit…” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/26/canada-parliament-speaker-faces-calls-to-step-down-after-honouring-nazi

[Other voices:] “Norway’s Muslim immigrants attend classes on western attitudes to women.”

2 days ago at 3:57 AM

Seven years later, here’s a surreal glimpse at the (left wing) Guardian Newspaper’s attempt to articulate western Europe’s equivalent to Xinjiang re-education camps, eleven minutes long. Note that many (all?) of the classes are conducted in English, as the “lingua Franca” in Norway.

Wesley Potts

So the drugs don’t work, but the camps…?

Buying one console per game: makes sense. @MyArcaderetro

4 days ago at 9:07 PM

The My Arcade Pocket Player (with or without the “Pro”) line of products encompasses Galaga, Galaxian, Xevious, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac Man, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Street Fighter 2, Dig Dug and several others —now, also, including a collection of eighty Atari 2600 games. BTW, I do now have a separate youtube channel for just this kind of thing: https://www.youtube.com/@VEGANVANIA

The gamer’s video game console is his gun, his game—its mag.

The Danziger Bridge Massacre: Police Brutality in New Orleans.

September 22 at 11:03 PM

Eleven minutes long.

“Everything I learned is from the way I see it:/ You can’t trust your fellow man, the government, or even Jesus”

Kalel Cullen will never be young and beautiful again.

September 22 at 8:28 PM

I thought the main discourse, at least several years ago was about changing cultural beauty standards or at least accepting the differences between people and not about complaining about how hard my life is because i’m not fitting into those beauty standards.

This is the same Sam who reviewed my book, No More Manifestos , many months ago.

Body-positivity?

Sam exits, stage left.

Sam exits, stage left.

September 21 at 5:42 AM

This is the same Sam who reviewed my book, No More Manifestos, many months ago.

Body count number 4080. The unexamined life is not worth living.

Yes, but you can see he’s self-loathing about it: he wants to be someone (and something) other than what he is.

Zaigham Nisar

“I’ve paid university professors thousands (per course per semester) and I’ve gotten much less.” Bruh 😄🥲

Dude, the vast majority of university professors I’ve known (1) do not do “Q&A” during office hours (even though they’re paid to and contractually required to) and (2) will not provide a substantive reply to a question by email —they certainly won’t record a video/livestream for an hour in reply to an email. My viewers get a lot more value out of their connection with me than I’ve ever gotten out of a connection to a professor.

True that. I had a language professor once who never answered any of my emails asking for help with basic grammatical concepts over a six-month period. She also didn’t grade a single assignment until months after the course was over.

I express sympathy.

Sorry to see that.

A desperate cry for help revisited.

September 21 at 4:38 AM

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Gail,

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the situation we are in.

I think this is because you never watched my video, “Desperate Cry for Help”, although we both repeatedly urged you to do so.

(1) Insofar as people here know me, they hate me.

(2) This is not a surface level hatred: the more that they know (and understand) who I am, the more they hate me.

This is an anti-intellectual culture.

I am an intellectual.

I was trapped here by (1) Coronavirus and (2) a desperate need to complete a university degree at UVic (in something, anything). It is a serious error for us to behave as if we’re trapped here again, now, for no reason at all. It is a serious error to think that we can remain here for even three more months.

We need to leave Victoria immediately. You spent your time here, Gail, ignoring and dismissing the seriousness of the problem.

The fact that I do not have a solution does not diminish the seriousness of the problem: (1) I must leave, (2) there is nowhere (that I know of) that I can go.

There is no contradiction between point 1 and point 2. This is the problem we must address.

E.M.

—————

That line is as long as my gastrointestinal tract.

5,400 views in its first day: my 20 second video on the Danziger Bridge Massacre.

September 19 at 4:56 PM

Perhaps “Shorts” are a loophole out of the shadow ban. The way youtube is pushing Shorts, trying to become TikTok... it wouldn’t surprise me.

Sounds like you’ve seen some shit.

NOLA 2023 #2

The wonder that was New Orleans.

September 18 at 8:51 PM

[Meanwhile:] A rare example of actually “defunding the police”: town of 250 persons w. 50 police officers.

Typical healthy American snacks in the last picture 😄

September 18 at 5:26 PM

Annoyingly, this first posted with the autocorrect error “defend” for “defund”.

Error, Error on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All?

MEANWHILE…

September 18 at 6:22 AM

Silence. No, literally, watch (or listen to) their video on this: “CBS News poll has Trump with a 1-point edge over Biden in potential rematch” https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/DTodjFB3tAA

[Dept. of Difficult Subjects to Satirize:] “Send Them Back!” — AOC migrant press conference...

September 16 at 7:07 PM

5 min. long, but the first 30 seconds will do...

Lost my girlfriend to gaming

I wonder why the migrants wear slick clothing from brands such as Nike, Adidas, Champion.

3 weeks ago my 3.5 year relationship came to an end over an MMO. My girlfriend (28f) and I (24m) were in a LDR and she would spend most the day...

reddit

[Other voices:] “We came to a compromise that she would only play [video games] for around 8 hours a day…”

Duxpeer: the legacy of the pale, red shirt is coming to an end (on my channel).

September 16 at 6:27 AM

I will have you know, parenthetically, that the only video game I have played this week was Xevious, and I never once reached level two. I’m sure my Xevious habit has exceeded 15 minutes this week, but when you’re in the position of asking someone to reduce their habit to eight hours a day…

When I was living in Yunnan many (many!) years ago, I bought just two shirts manufactured by Duxpeer -a brand name so obscure that you can h...

Duxpeer: the epoch of the pale, red shirt is coming to an end (on my channel).

September 14 at 9:07 PM

Neil Degrasse Tyson is right, vegans are wrong.

September 14 at 6:38 PM

Touché

This reminds me of how the US supported the Taliban/Mujahideen against the Soviet Union. Today in Ukraine the US is supporting the Azov Battalion. Working with people/groups with opposing ideologies to try to achieve a common outcome. With the result that those you supported end up being your enemies in the future.

It applies to problems big and small. What if you want to open a stand up comedy club: what kind of guys are you willing to employ as security?

Guys with the highest number of likes on Linkedin

“bifurcation of people’s reaction” Neil The Great Observer.

[Other voices:] The “Canada is Hell” discourse in 2023.

September 14 at 4:35 PM

It’s really hilarious how shallow these people are… the more profound (political and cultural) problems never get mentioned… cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_Is_Too_Damn_High_Party

[Meanwhile:] Chicago, also, is struggling with the absurd implications of “a world without borders”, infinite immigration and refugee arrivals, etc.

September 14 at 4:09 PM

Two minutes long.

[Other voices:] Should transgender prisoners be allowed to switch between prisons?

NYC rushes to enroll migrant students ahead of first day of school on Sept. 7

September 11 at 10:29 PM

Seven minutes long.

New York City schools are preparing to educate about 19,000 temporary housing residents this year — most of them asylum seekers.

New York Post

[Meanwhile:] 110,000 asylum seekers, of whom 19,000 are students…

September 11 at 3:19 PM

The article is, in fact, relatively sympathetic toward the students (and their parents) rather than merely ringing the alarm that an already bad education system is about to get worse (due to the burden of having so many students who don’t speak English, and who are reliant on government handouts to a massive extent).

————
“I came here from Venezuela because the situation is so unstable. There is no work, no education for my kids, no food, nothing,” said Silva.

“I’m really excited for him to be able to go to school here. The education for him before was so bad.”

Silva and other shelter residents talked to The Post in Spanish as National Guard members were on hand at the hotel handing out supplies and registering people for various social services.

“The process has been really easy so far. The paperwork has been no problem. People show us what do do. We have gotten a ton of help from people for the process,” she said.

“My son doesn’t speak English, but I’m not worried about it. They will give him English lessons at school.”

—————

[Meanwhile:] Drastic change in the propaganda message about “asylum seekers” and “sanctuary cities” from New York’s Mayor Adams.

September 11 at 3:05 PM

Quote, “this issue will destroy New York City… 110,000 migrants that we have to feed, clothe, house, educate the children…”. The video is only six minutes long.

The End of Philosophy: Kristen Leo is Ex-Vegan.

September 11 at 2:00 AM

Kristen Leo ALSO blocked me on Instagram.

September 10 at 11:16 PM

Being an intellectual in an anti-intellectual culture: banned by Kristen Leo.

September 10 at 10:22 PM

Shout out to Kristen Leo for Banning me: https://www.twitch.tv/kristenleotv @KristenLeo #nihilism

[Footnote to a footnote:] Brian Turner blocked me on Instagram.

September 6 at 7:09 PM

Alas, Brian Turner has now blocked me on Instagram.

So a collab will not be forthcoming.

I wonder if he showed the video (”Bomb Cyclone”) to a friend, having a laugh, and the friend wrote back saying, “Do you have any idea who that is?”

[Other voices:] An especially depressing dialogue on transgender surgery, hormones, etc.

Comedy in Las Vegas: where old ideas come to die.

September 6 at 7:40 AM

Las Vegas is both a victim and a canny exploiter of cultural inertia. Everything here is about 30 years behind the present day: ...

Comedy in Las Vegas: where old ideas come to die.

September 5 at 9:15 PM

Untitled excerpt from a conversation with a fan.

September 5 at 7:44 PM

——————————

Re: “I still value your content and I hope to be able to contribute more again, sometime in the future.”

^ I don’t value my own content any more…

The impossibility of anything positive coming from it

entails that I don’t value the content I create myself.

I pointed out to my mother a few days ago:

I have seven million views (on ABLC)…

even if you say, “it’s one in a million”

I should have seven colleagues, or seven friends, by now, as a result (of so many years put into making so much content).

And I don’t.

I don’t even have one.

And I live with the grim expectation that I never will have even one.

So, in this sense, there’s nothing for me to value about content creation anymore:

I did this to meet talented, passionate, highly motivated people.

I did this to meet intelligent people who had some kind of common ground with me (not necessarily veganism, not necessarily anything else in particular).

And I’ve met zero.

Absolutely zero.

So, now, I have to ask: what is the point in content creation? For me, how/why am I supposed to value it?

(Obviously, I’m not doing this for the money, and the money is vastly less than a minimum wage job, etc.)

And I could say the same thing about studying Chinese:

I had to quit studying Chinese, because I was living with the grim expectation that nothing positive would ever come from it.

——————————

I don’t know if this is any consolation, but while you may not have found a colleague, I do think that you often positively inspire some few people to a great extent.

I don’t think being inspired by you and sharing some values and working on oneself will ever enable people to be your colleagues.

At least that’s not all that’s necessary, I think.

But still, some people will do good things on their own (or at least try to) because of your videos, I believe.

It may not be what you wanted. But it’s a good thing that you achieved, nonetheless. And I see value in that, even if you don’t

——————————

I should know people I can record podcasts with.

I should know people I can record TYT-style discussions of politics with (i.e., three people sitting around a desk).

I should know seven people I can record a book review with.

I know zero.

I don’t know one.

——————————

Department of Minor Ironies.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8sYPxgGCxOQ

September 4 at 7:40 PM

There’s no future in comedy, just go into Latin.

September 4 at 5:47 PM

Logoguy

Roma delenda est!

Department of Minor Ironies.

September 3 at 9:29 PM

The only trace of Brian Turner’s scam is (now) the critique of it on my channel.

September 3 at 8:52 PM

BRIAN TURNER DELETED EVERY TRACE OF HIS STOCK MARKET (AND CRYPTO) INVESTMENT CHANNEL:
IF YOU SEARCH FOR “BRIAN TURNER INVESTS”, GUESS WHAT YOU’LL NOW SEE?

[Other voices:] A cinematic edit of the (anti-)Burning Man climate protest… and its malcontents.

Mushroom pickers urged to avoid foraging books on Amazon that appear to be written by AI

September 2 at 7:44 AM

Sample of books scored 100% on AI detection test as experts warn they contain dangerous advice

the Guardian

[Meanwhile:] Completely normal news.

Denouement to “I rarely use the n-word, BUT WHEN I DO...”

September 2 at 5:08 AM

No description necessary.

If you haven’t seen the correspondence this is a sequel to, here it is: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-rarely-use-n-word-but-w...

Are you writing to me, offering to help me… or are you begging me to help you?

September 1 at 6:00 PM

[This is the denouement to an earlier post titled, “I rarely use the n-word, BUT WHEN I DO...”]

Let me ask you a really simple question: are you writing to me, offering to help me…

or are you begging me to help you?

In your mind, the two are one and the same; in reality, they’re two diametrically different things.

The purpose of this conversation cannot possibly be to make you feel better about yourself: you’ve known about my youtube channel for five years, and you’ve never yet lifted a single finger to help me.

You should re-read this correspondence from beginning to end: there is something important for you to learn from it.

And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, for me to learn from it.

Re: “But I doubt I would continue to work with someone who was cursing and using slurs.”

(a) We have not begun to work together: therefore you can’t continue.

(b) And you never once ask yourself why it is that I would want to work with you: why do you imagine I’d have some kind of respect for your opinion, in this “creative dialogue” that you’re fantasizing about?

Quote: “Please let me know if some kind of dialogue interests you. A creative dialogue.”

In the last five years, what has your relationship to me been? You take and take and take; you give me nothing in return. What do you think is going to change in the next five years? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Here is your rather surreal offer of assistance, in your original words:

“As I have been quietly watching your channel for more than 5 years, I am surprised that you do not have a massive following. I would be willing to dialogue with you on how to solve this.”

That is not the problem I’m complaining of in my “desperate cry for help” videos. And that is not a solution I could possibly expect you to provide: I am not asking you or anyone to provide me with “a massive following”, but it is especially bizarre to imagine how you (you of all people!) would actually be able to provide that —especially through “dialogue”. It is a surreal offer that I am eager to refuse.

The problem that I am asking for help with (in my “desperate cry for help” videos) is stated very clearly there, and it has been briefly restated here, along with a few examples.

The difference you can make is what matters more than the difference you can’t. You have —presumably— heard me say that many times.

You write to me telling me that my philosophy has given you so much (that it’s so meaningful, that it’s transformed your life in so many ways). That is what my philosophy means to you, that is what my words mean to you (that is what my books are to you, that is what my videos and podcasts are to you, etc.). And what does your philosophy mean to me? And what is it, now, that you’re supposed to give?

Re: “You began this conversation by admitting that you’re not even willing to risk revealing your real name. Dig deep. Look in the mirror. Figure out what the fuck you are willing to do.”

You have not answered this question: it is a question you must demand of yourself —and without cowardice.

E.M.

Genevieve

Typical spam advice.

JFK Assassinology in the 21^st Century: Not Just a Book Reivew.

September 1 at 8:35 AM

August

[JFK:] A partial confession from a sharpshooter on the sixth floor.

August 31 at 4:17 AM

Just a few weeks before he died, Loy Factor spoke on camera, wistfully identifying Mac Wallace as the man who had recruited and paid him to be part of the team that would shoot J.F.K. from the sixth floor, and admitting that he held a rifle (although he claimed he did not shoot, while the other two men did). In general, the testimony from Loy Factor has been massively inconvenient for everyone, overturning many longstanding theories and seemingly factual assumptions.

[Other voices:] Richard Dawkins eats meat… but not when he’s home… because it’s immoral.

Going to Burning Man? Climate, anti-capitalist activists block traffic into festival

August 30 at 9:02 PM

Start at the ten minute mark (10:00).

Climate and anti-capitalist activists blocked a road leading to Burning Man, creating gridlock and leading to clashes with motorists and tribal rangers.

Los Angeles Times

[Department of Minor Ironies:] Protesting against “Burning Man” for all the wrong reasons.

August 30 at 6:15 AM

You might think that SOBRIETY protestors would be trying to shut down the burning man festival… but no…

[Block quote:] _Video and photos posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, show a trailer blocking the road that leads to Black Rock City, along with about half a dozen protesters, some of whom locked themselves to the trailer, and banners with signs including “BURNERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!,” “ABOLISH CAPITALISM,” and “GENERAL STRIKE FOR CLIMATE,” also blocked the road. A sign reading “Ban Private Jets” was draped across the asphalt._

[Meanwhile:] The Wild Boars of Haifa.

August 29 at 9:02 AM

NO, LITERALLY. In case the link doesn’t work: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/soTyjFlyaTE

[Other voices:] Aristocracy: another scandal drawing attention to the extent to which universities are built on fraud.

August 29 at 2:45 AM

Left Wing Atheists (Should) Oppose the Transgender Agenda.

August 29 at 12:17 AM

[Other voices:] Anti-vegan propaganda from the BBC.

August 28 at 9:27 PM

Five minutes long. Reminder: the BBC is a government agency.

[Other voices:] Hitomi talks about prostituting herself, attempting suicide five times in a week.

August 27 at 8:53 PM

The link should take you to 16:20 (and you might want to fast forward to that point if the link doesn’t work). And this is Hitomi Mochizuki, not Hitomi Tanaka, we’re talking about.

On evidence: reasoning through nihilism vs. religion in the absence of evidence.

Just to get by man, just to keep living in the outside, mane

Stuart, [a.k.a. “The Unrepentant Atheist” on youtube] I’ve made a few comments on your channel raising the question of, “To what extent do w...

On evidence: reasoning through nihilism vs. religion in the absence of evidence.

August 27 at 5:10 PM

On Ye Olde Blog.

evidence (n.) c. 1300, “appearance from which inferences may be drawn,” from Old French evidence, from Late Latin evidentia “proof,” in classical Latin “distinction, vivid presentation, clearness” in rhetoric, from stem of Latin evidens “obvious, apparent” from ex “out, out of, fully” + videntem (nominative videns), present participle of videre “to see” (from PIE root *weid- “to see”).

Chess is Transphobic. @BotezLive

August 27 at 12:22 AM

Fucking genius. I often say a version of “Nothing can get me to care enough about sports, to think about trans people in sports”, and this just made a shallow thing way deeper. 10/10. The subtle stuff is brilliantly placed, in only a way that Mr. Clean could’ve done. Love it. Studying it.

Thanks for taking the time to write in, Manan.

Michael Favata

It is absolutely not true that any significant percentage of tournament chess games are repeats of other recorded games. There’s an often cited factoid that there are more possible games of chess than atoms in the universe. The number of reasonable moves (or reasonable looking moves to human eyes) in any given position is not constrained in the way you describe. Repeat games do occur but they’re unusual. The biggest exception is that at the lower levels something could go terribly wrong in the opening. There are also known drawing variations where the players may draw by threefold repetition, perpetual check or agreement. This would require one or both players to be motivated to bring about a quick draw. Over a genuinely competitive game of any real length, one player will nearly always zig where another zags. I’ve seen top level games where a unique position was reached before move 10. I would guess most top level games reach a unique position between moves 15–20. For lower level chess this is even earlier because people know less theory. The average game goes to about move 40.

(1) Bullshit. “Repeat games do occur but they’re unusual.” At Cambridge (when I was there, briefly) they were checking a database for all of the competitive matches, and they’d all happened before: I just think the vast majority of games aren’t compared to a database, and were never recorded in a database to begin with, because nobody cares. (2) I discussed this with a computer programmer who had made “A.I.” (footnote: not really A.I.) for computer chess. He talked to me in detail about how finite the number of possible moves was at each stage, and how crucial this was for programming a machine to appear to play chess intelligently —and he was interested when I presented him with a contrasting board game that had too many possible moves per turn (in his opinion) to program A.I. in this same way for. (3) I would ask you whether or not the type of uniqueness you’re asserting is actually unique in a meaningful sense: in the endgame, you can chase around the last pawn in a zigzag several different ways, but the differences really are meaningless. (4) Finally, it’s a comedy video, not a thesis on chess. Although I admit: it’s both, to some extent.

Michael Favata

It is true that the number of moves in any given position is far more constrained than in a game like, for example, Go. (It’s worth noting that even in that game, the best humans are inferior to a Google Deepmind program). The observation that the number of legal moves is countable enough for either a brute force calculating machine like Stockfish or a neural network system like DeepMind to be successful at chess cannot lead you to deduce that human beings are playing identical games. Each individual position might lead many people will make the same decision when confronted with it. However, when you scale this up to many moves, there are so many paths that uniqueness is almost inevitable. I would be very curious to know what level these matches were and how long these games were at Cambridge. Again, this is only conceivable in a world where people were playing for tricks in the opening and winning in less than 20 moves. I completely reject the idea that many games go “out of book” when the king takes a trivially different route to mop up a pawn. It is the middlegame where the complexity scales up. I have played dozens of tournament games. If one of them was identical to another game up to move 25, I would be very surprised (the one exception being a game I lost in the opening that lasted far less than 25 moves). If another game was identical to mine up till move 40 I would fall off my chair. This does have the problem that most games, especially at my level of class B player, haven’t been put into the database, but I would be surprised if I don’t have access to a database at least as large as one at Cambridge. I could test this by uploading them since I already have the digital game files. Do you think this is happening at top level chess? (where people do check databases and top players do have their games recorded). Or is your contention that it mainly happens at lower levels where there are far more competitors? You often admonish people for speaking about things they know little about. You’re stepping into one topic where it’s obvious that you’ve formed incorrect conclusions from surface level engagement. And I completely accept point four that it’s a comedy video and that this particular point is not even central to the point that chess is ultimately pointless. I would add that chess is no longer a significant part of my life in large part because of your influence. I don’t dispute that broader conclusion. In this case I simply have to ask you to relinquish the title bestowed upon you in recent fan mail of “always right about everything” ;)

Labrador chess master blindsided by ruling banning transgender women from competing in events — CBC News

Alas, I will take off the crown of being right about everything, and replace it with a baseball cap symbolizing my ability to bully my audience as misperceiving me as right about everything: which is the more important skill. ;-) I do still think chess is a very repetitious game lacking meaningful variation from one match to the next, and that one game played will closely resemble another, even if the moves taken are not identical, as you argue, when checked against a database.

Chess player Morgen Mills, a transgender woman who has competed internationally, says a ruling by the World Chess Federation that bans transgender men and women from competing in the official events without proof of their gender could hurt young chess players looking to make a name for themselves.

CBC

Chess is transphobic: transwomen expected to compete with… men?

August 26 at 7:33 PM

I would also recommend a quick google search of where the hell Goose Bay is.

——————

Most chess tournaments are split into two categories — an open category and a women’s category. Women can enter both categories, Mills said.

…

“There’s no reason to believe that men would be better chess players than women. It’s more to do with the importance of having female spaces, because it’s been a long male-dominated sport and community,” she said.

“Having female-only competitions provides, you know, a welcoming, comfortable, safe space to grow the game among women and girls.”

——————

SBF: no vegan options in New York city jail.

Source: https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/sam-bankman-frieds-lawyers-renew-claim-that-the-ftx-founder-cant-prepare-for-trial-behind-bars

August 26 at 12:55 AM

A significant footnote:

“His lawyers appealed the ruling to jail him to the 2^nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And earlier this week, they complained at a hearing that he has had to survive at a Brooklyn lockup on bread, water and peanut butter because they won’t provide him with vegan food.”

“Department’s Bureau of Prisons, which runs the jail, to address the issues with Mr Bankman-Fried’s medication. She was “reasonably confident” the facility offered vegetarian food, but was not sure whether vegan food was available, Judge Netburn added.”

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66589797

I do not believe you’re autistic, but…

August 25 at 11:44 PM

[Arright, one more comment on the same video:] You ask, “Why would I care what men think?” If you’re an architect, you care about what other architects think; if you play guitar, you care what other guitarists think, male or female. Your problem is that you haven’t developed intellectually in any one field —let alone an array of many different fields. I do not believe you’re autistic: you’ve just made the wrong choices. You’re still trying to figure out how to be a teenager when you need to be figuring out how to be a man of substance in your mid thirties.

[I’ve already made a video questioning the extent to which non-autistic people end up cultivating stereotypically autistic behaviors. Probably an important area of social science research, TBH.]

[Addressed to Decline:] “You can’t choose whether to be loved or hated: you choose whether you’re going to be known or unknown.”

August 25 at 11:32 PM

You can’t choose whether to be loved or hated: you choose whether you’re going to be known or unknown. We do not get to choose whether other people love or hate us, we ONLY choose whether to be known or unknown. What you’ve been doing in the last two years, it’s a strat: there is more than one possible strat, and you are extremely hostile toward anyone telling you (1) what strategy has worked for them, and (2) what strategy they think would work for you (and what wouldn’t work). I’ve seen you being extremely hostile toward guys just talking through with you their own experience with doing a ton of hard work but getting only mediocre results. I’ve been encouraging you to think in terms of the life of the mind, and I’ve really explained how that would improve your life in every way (including your relationships with women). That’s not advice you want to hear, so you perceive what I’m doing as “negative” rather than “positive”.

——————————

^ Posted as a comment below the following video: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/eTNJfko_Jc0

The instructions on this cardboard box clearly say, “recycle”.

August 25 at 8:41 AM

Ladies and gentlemen: I have invented THE SEIMITSU SHOEBOX.

What actually happened with Jordan Peterson’s day in court (in just six screen shots).

I rarely use the n-word, BUT WHEN I DO...

August 25 at 6:14 AM

This is everything you need to know (directly quoted from the judge’s decision)… and it’s a significant contrast to what he’s saying about it.

Well, look: I didn’t meet ONE good person via my research in Buddhism (Buddhist Studies, Buddhist Philosophy, etc.). I didn’t meet ONE good ...

I rarely use the n-word, BUT WHEN I DO...

I am always 100% right about everything: fan mail... of a kind.

August 25 at 1:27 AM

The title may be a bit of a joke, but this is as important and serious as any of these posts on Patreon get. Each and every one of you is in an “act now or act never” situation, whether you realize it or not.

Hello Eisel, I have been watching your channel for a long time. I am writing to you about videos you made earlier this year. In them, you ha...

I am always 100% right about everything: fan mail… of a kind.

August 24 at 10:01 PM

An interesting read from a five-year-long fan of the channel.

Refuting “Gender is a Social Construct”: God is a Social Construct.

August 24 at 9:02 PM

$4 million settlement for family of man who died covered in bug bites at Georgia jail

Conservatives: “you are your biological sex.” Progressives: “you are whatever you choose to identify as.” Eisel: “you are an idiot.”

Officials approved a $4 million settlement for the family of LaShawn Thompson, who died from “severe neglect” at a Georgia jail, an autopsy found.

USA TODAY

Mr. Thompson was found dead in a filthy jail cell after being eaten alive by insects and bed bugs.

August 24 at 4:17 AM

Ah, yes, I can remember the days of yore, in 2020, when people wanted to reform the criminal justice system…

The report listed Thompson’s cause of death as undetermined. The report said there were no obvious signs of trauma on Thompson’s body, but his entire body was covered in bed bugs and his cell had a “severe bed bug infestation.”

From a separate article, linked below:

The Fulton County Jail, also known as the Rice Street Jail, is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for potential civil rights violations.

Seven people [!] have died in custody there since the start of this year.

Labat, the Fulton County sheriff, has pledged to cooperate with the federal investigation and says it reinforces his calls for a new jail.

“I have publicly, privately and repeatedly raised concerns about the dangerous overcrowding, dilapidated infrastructure and critical staffing shortages of the jail,” he said in July.

This month, the county reached a settlement with the family of Lashawn Thompson, who died in the jail’s psychiatric wing last year and was found covered in bedbugs. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family found he died from neglect.

…

Eighty-seven percent of the jail population is Black and the vast majority have not been convicted, according to the Justice Department. Most are waiting for bail hearings or competency evaluations or are denied release awaiting trial because they cannot post bail.

LINK: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/21/1195080489/donald-trump-georgia-booking

When you say people wanted to reform the criminal justice system, did they really want to improve prison conditions, the thing that you care about? Because criminal justice system may mean several things: Law enforcement agencies, usually the police Courts and accompanying prosecution and defence lawyers Agencies for detaining and supervising offenders, such as prisons and probation agencies.

Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV by Joe Toplyn, a book review.

August 22 at 5:48 AM

“For me, the most discouraging part is facing up to the reality of what it means to write jokes for an audience of people that I despise, and jokes that don’t mean anything, jokes that don’t go anywhere, that aren’t part of a plot or a story, as opposed to the pursuit of, what I consider, comedy that matters.” Seems like you’ve made a grammatical error, IMHO: you seemingly intend to make the viewer ask themselves “What does it mean to write jokes for despicables?”, but then you immediately answer with saying “In reality, it means to write meaningless jokes”.

That is not a grammatical error.

Then tell me, what is the reality of what it means to write these meaningless jokes? It means you’re perpetually stuck at pleasing people you despise. We could write those two sentences in the reverse order. There’s a grammatical relation that your original paragraph fails to address.

You do realize this guy is the author of five highly successful books, right?

August 22 at 1:42 AM

Yes, you can see what an expert stylist he is, just from the quality of his composition here... and in the midst of his reproaches directed against my own writing.

Hah, the hero always seems to arrive just in time, right before the brink of destruction, right as you are about to give up all hope… In other words: it’s about time! I’m tired of your humble bragging, feigning lament, that you “have no rivals or equals”. Hah! I hope you weren’t getting too complacent there, Eisel, old boy, because you have clearly met your GRINDSTONE.

You know, there should be a separate font for this kind of intentionally voiced irony: we have italics, we have bold… y’know?

It’s about time you get destroyed.

The increasingly surreal situation of open borders and sanctuary cities in 2023.

August 22 at 1:14 AM

BTW, if you missed it, compare today’s post (above) to this one from New York City, a few months ago: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/bY-DQwqf3zE

“I want to go to London with my family.” Yeah, London is nice, there’s fish and chips and double-decker buses...

I’d turn off my email account if I could.

August 21 at 11:45 PM

I would close down this Patreon if I could, too.

It’s not 95 percent of you who are idiots: it’s 99.999 percent. And I’ve had enough. And I’m quitting. And I’m moving on. And nobody is going to help. Not even with advice. Not even with Google searches, frankly.

Gendergeddon 4: Two Gender Two Geddon. @rationalityrules

August 21 at 5:48 AM

Rationality rules is wrong. About Gender. Again. #skepticism #atheism #rationalityrules

I understand the new title better “Too Gender To Geddon”.

Venice is sinking; Yellowknife is burning… and completely depopulated.

August 19 at 6:55 PM

“Bangkok underwater and my name in lights…”

Lights in the sense of “the lungs of a slaughtered animal”?

You have freedom of speech so long as you limit your discussions TO MATTERS OF NO SIGNIFICANCE.

August 18 at 12:04 AM

Imagine if they applied this policy to all wars equally (that you were neither allowed to dismiss nor condone it… not any given war) instead of just this one war, just in these special circumstances, supposedly.

Logoguy

This has been going on for a lot longer than you realize (and it’s not just youtube). I remember back when the Syrian Civil War was unfolding, there were numerous pro-Assad channels dedicated to exposing the crimes and staged attacks committed by “moderate” rebels. Around the time of the Ghouta chemical attack, most (if not all) of those channels were deleted. I don’t know to what extent you’re allowed to discuss the Syrian Civil War today, but it doesn’t matter now, as that conflict has already more-or-less concluded. One thing you are allowed to discuss (if you’re a mainstream news channel, though it hardly receives any attention) is that Israel has/still routinely launches airstrikes into Syria to this day. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-jets-allegedly-bomb-damascus-triggering-syrian-air-defenses/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_conflict_during_the_Syrian_civil_war There’s a lot I could say about the other wars too, but it’s beyond the scope of this format to be able to effectively convey here (and likely to incur the wrath of the censors here as well).

dismiss (v.) sense 3a: to reject serious consideration of (something or someone) condone (v.) : to regard or treat (something bad or blameworthy) as acceptable, forgivable, or harmless If so, then there’s no fault with this policy. The implementation of it is what’s cancerous.

Youtube dictatorship is real.

[Other voices:] J.J. McCullough with the shallowest angle on Afghanistan imaginable…

August 16 at 3:16 AM

but… I mean… nevertheless… HE’S GOT A POINT…

[Other voices:] Remember the economic hype about China’s “Belt & Road” strategy?

August 16 at 12:44 AM

This was —believe it or not— an important reason for why we set foot in Athens in the first place.

[Other voices:] The caliber of climate change discussions in American government.

August 15 at 9:10 AM

“50 trillion dollars?” Circa five minutes long.

Mexie is now EX-VEGAN and anti-vegan... but is still an insane Communist.

Sad.

Here’s Mexie herself speaking: Mexie speaking: Footnote: she also identifies as ...

Mexie is now EX-VEGAN and anti-vegan... but is still an insane Communist.

August 15 at 7:47 AM

Alex O’Connor: the Ethics of Rape and/or/as Veganism. @CosmicSkeptic

On quitting the vegan movement: my final act of vegan activism is already in the past tense.

August 14 at 10:10 PM

My elegy to the vegan movement is more than two years old... https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/GueIxWi7vOE My book, Veganism: Future of an Illus...

On quitting the vegan movement: my final act of vegan activism is already in the past tense.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/GueIxWi7vOE

August 13 at 7:45 PM

My elegy to the vegan movement is more than two years old...

My book, Veganism: Future of an Illusion, was written in response to ONE request from ONE viewer (i.e., a supporter on Patreon) as my final act of vegan activism, looking back on the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the movement in retrospect. I understand that people who read the book are excited by it, as if it’s the beginning of a new period in which I become some kind of guiding voice for the cause, but the exact opposite is the case.

Talent is scarce: the Cree and Ojibwe (language and politics) need all the talented people they can get, but they (i.e., anyone who cares in that field, not necessarily a person with power in an institution) squandered the opportunity to work with me (or to help me or encourage me) while it lasted, and they’ll never have that opportunity again.

You might want to read that single sentence paragraph twice: I can say the same about research in Laos and Cambodia, or about Pali and Buddhist studies, or several other fields that I lost years of my life to without meeting a single person of any brilliance, ambition or even moral fiber (this includes the politics and language of modern China: supposedly significant to over a billion of us on planet earth, but paradoxically a smaller field than the other examples mentioned). I’m not going to be a one man political movement: I’m not going to be a one man academic discipline. I have to work with people, I have to work for people, and I have to work toward real outcomes: none of that is possible in veganism (nor in Chinese, etc.) so I’m moving on —and many members of my audience have disregarded the extent to which I already have moved on. I’m not suck in 2016: they are.

I still have people writing to me saying that I’m this uniquely important voice for the future of the vegan movement. They’re wrong: in 2023, I’m a uniquely important voice FROM THE PAST. I’m part of the history of the vegan movement that’s already over.

My book may be the most brilliant thing that’s ever been written about vegan politics, and it may remain the most brilliant thing for many years to come. Yeah, guess what? Not a lot of people are writing brilliant essays about the politics of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar or even (shockingly) China. You wanna take a look at how much talent is on the bench for Hobbema, Alberta, as the Cree language slowly goes extinct?

By sheer dint of the stupidity and self-indulgent fatuousness of my contemporaries, I could have been (and/or briefly was) the most brilliant writer in any number of fields (even if I was only involved for a short time, as with Cree and Ojibwe). As an intellectual, I can’t work FOR NOTHING and FOR NOBODY: being talented isn’t rewarding for the person who has the talent, it’s only rewarding for the people who lack it. Being the most brilliant author in veganism is an utterly thankless task: it would be just as miserable to be turning out one essay after another on the politics of Laos, or the misinterpretation of ancient Buddhist texts, I assure you.

The audience has power over the fate of the author: if everyone within Buddhism is genuinely too stupid to appreciate what I have to offer (and they were, and presumably still are) then I’m not going to remain a Buddhist intellectual. It absolutely never occurred to me that a field as enormous as Modern Chinese could be WORSE (in all these respects) than the rare and recondite areas of study I’d been in before, but it was (and is). Most of you can’t imagine the kind of sacrifice (and permanent brain damage) you endure in learning Chinese as a second language over so many years; it is easier for you to visualize the permanent harm done to my life by my involvement in veganism (i.e., very few career options are open to me now, etc.). You tell me what’s harder: walking away from Chinese, or walking away from the vegan movement?

They’re both easy, because I’m walking away from you: from you utterly untalented people, who were neither worthwhile to work with, nor worthwhile to work for. I’m leaving nothing of value behind, because I’m leaving nobody of value behind. I will never wake up and wish I was back in Cambodia, but, likewise, I’ll never wake up and wish I was (once again) eating lunch with my professors of Chinese studies, etc.

[Other voices:] SOMEONE ELSE (bothered to) CRITICIZE DECLINE!

August 13 at 3:31 AM

My comment on the video:

———

I thought I was literally the only channel on youtube criticizing Decline over the last several years. I mean… perhaps I WAS, but I’m happy to see at least one other channel putting some effort into it. You can learn a lot through the examination of other people’s mistakes (AND MORAL ERRORS)… whereas you can learn nothing by ignoring them.

———

I found this short documentary thingy(not worth watching) about incels that briefly features him https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/YWeKsNPdhMw

[A semi-satirical fundraiser:] Veganvania: Castlevania… without the meat.

August 12 at 8:43 AM

SAVE THE WORLD!!! DONATE NOW!!!

Watch this man Cinemassacre make fun of the meat: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/Hfo6hoN0PUw?t=262

Emuparadise for some, feasting on flesh for others.

[Other voices:] Memories of the “wild west” years on youtube.

August 11 at 5:31 PM

This contains comparative reference to WorldStarHipHop, and the culture of capturing moments of crime and police violence on camera, etc., that has (now) long since disappeared.

[My comment, left below the video:] During those years —when there was _a real opportunity_ on youtube— I totally ignored the platform, and I ignored social media, broadly defined. I wanted to reach the public through the written word: articles, books, magazines, journals, newspapers. I figured out (too late) that people are only going to read my book (in the 21^st century) after they’ve become interested in hearing what I have to say, because they’ve heard my voice on youtube —or via some competitor to youtube (past, present or future). At an early phase, youtube was a “can’t fail” proposition (i.e., anyone making content would find an audience, i.e., the audience would find them); but in 2023, it’s a “can’t win” proposition (even the most talented and assiduous uploader _WILL NOT_ find an audience here).

[Other voices:] “Senator, I am not a Communist.” An especially surreal moment.

August 11 at 8:53 AM

A professor from Cornell Law School is questioned about the extent to which she may be a Marxist. It’s only five minutes long, I’d encourage you to watch all the way to the end.

Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saule_Omarova#OCC_nomination

[Other voices:] U.S. Congress gets into the details of the lab leak origin hypothesis: was there “a cover up” on the American side?

August 11 at 1:37 AM

False facts endure long: Neo-Nazi “statistics” that still pollute political discourse.

August 10 at 11:29 PM

My own words are in italics, the (anonymous) commenter’s words are in bold.

———

2:51 — are there still people who don’t think replacement is happening...

———

The real statistics are presented here (around the four minute mark, although I recommend watching the whole thing from start to end). Mysteriously, you’ll never see Lauren or Faith presenting (or being honest about) these statistics: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/_xJp2mEwyeY?t=247

———

@a-bas-le-ciel so your argument is it’s happening in USA but not in Canada?

———

No, on the contrary: the per capita rate of real immigration to the United States _IS MUCH LOWER_ than Canada, you’re just someone who has chosen to imbibe (and utterly unconvincing and statistically falsifiable) fictional narrative that makes you feel morally superior to other people (who don’t believe in the same fables that you do). Note the series of charts on screen here starting at the one minute mark: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/kRhZdmtw3Wg?t=63

———

The doomed planet: what can we actually do about climate change?

August 10 at 9:05 PM

Great video, I sent it to several friends.

Thanks: all my stuff is greylisted (if not blacklisted)… and if you just glance at the front page of my channel, it’s obvious that the big exception is videos about Jordan Peterson… apparently because people who love him (and/or hate him) share the link. ;-)

I am guilty of sharing links to your JP videos :)

The Doomed Hobby: Arcade Stick “Modding” (Retro Gaming Lore)

August 10 at 9:02 PM

What is the best version of Puyo Puyo? Retro Gaming Lore.

August 10 at 9:02 PM

My critique of “the great replacement theory” from more than five years ago: the spirit of season one.

August 10 at 5:59 PM

Season two started when you were repatriated to Canada (not Melissa, she’s from Detroit), am I correct?

No quick fix to reverse Antarctic sea ice loss as warming intensifies — scientists

No: season two basically starts with the new livestream format, and the white (anti-Communist) flag (with a dragon on it) hanging in the background, etc. There was a formal announcement for season two, that you’ve probably seen a dozen times: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/M-7NNaLl67s

Sea ice in the Antarctic region has fallen to a record low this year as a result of rising global temperatures and there is no quick fix to reverse the damage done, scientists said on Tuesday in a new study of the impact of climate change on the continent.

Reuters

Global warming in the news: the masses (briefly) pretend to care about antarctic sea ice.

August 10 at 9:15 AM

I like this use of the word “loss”: sea ice loss. Perhaps we should start saying brain loss instead of brain damage.

Brain decapitation [di-ˌka-pə-ˈtā-shən]. Sea ice transportation to hell.

Jordan Peterson used to be left wing.

Thomas Jefferson: it’s possible to be racist (and a white supremacist) and nevertheless have mixed race babies.

August 10 at 9:11 AM

The NDP is further to the left than Canada’s liberal party: especially in the context of Alberta politics at that time, it’s fair to refer to this as “left wing” and not merely “left”.

Directly quoting Wikipedia:

In junior high school, Peterson became friends with Rachel Notley and her family. Notley became leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party and the 17^th premier of Alberta. Peterson was a member of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from ages 13 to 18. As a teenager, Peterson decided that “religion was for the ignorant, weak and superstitious” and hoped for a left-wing revolution, a hope that lasted until he met left-wing activists in college.

Context:

Thomas Jefferson: it’s possible to be racist (and a white supremacist) and nevertheless have mixed race babies.

August 10 at 6:54 AM

My message to AronRa. He won’t read it, he won’t reply, but...

What was the holy trinity, again? Stupidity, malignancy, and insanity?

Aaron, you’re a scientist, but you never studied _political science..._ and you never developed any (“scientific”) background in the study of...

My message to AronRa. He won’t read it, he won’t reply, but…

August 10 at 3:36 AM

If anyone knows a better way to get a message to the guy, by all means share the link with him, etc.

—————

Aaron, you’re a scientist, but you never studied _political science…_ and you never developed any (“scientific”) background in the study of religion. I would not lecture on the evolutionary links between “clades” of dinosaurs; but you have to be willing to recognize that you’re far, _far_ outside of your area of expertise (and competence) when you talk about politics —and, to be blunt, when you talk about religion. And you’ve never been willing to talk to anyone who could have helped you in these areas because (in my opinion) it would require a kind of humility from you that’s unfamiliar; I am not saying you’re incapable of it, just that it’s unfamiliar (whereas, e.g., I have to be prepared to humble myself every time I start learning a new language (like Chinese) and I struggle to speak at a child-like level, or when I start working on the history and politics of a heretofore unknown country and culture).

—————

Lauren Southern is Still a Nazi.

August 9 at 10:28 PM

vagina (n.) “sexual passage of the female from the vulva to the uterus,” 1680s, medical Latin, from specialized use of Latin vagina “sheath, scabbard, covering; sheath of an ear of grain, hull, husk” (plural vaginae), a word of uncertain origin. Perhaps cognate with Lithuanian vožiu, vožti “to cover with a hollow thing” and Latvian vāzt “to open or to close”.

Blackpilled Incels: Refugees from the Toxic Optimism of Christianity.

August 9 at 4:54 AM

“When I used to go to the gym in my twenties [..] I never went to the gym to draw no hoes, because I don’t believe that working out will draw any hoes to you” Man’s been lonely since his twenties. EDIT: He says he’s 34, less than I thought, I thought he was 44 or something.

No, seriously: I refuse to pander to the stupidest 80% of the audience.

August 8 at 11:13 PM

If you didn’t see the first half of the conversation, here it is: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/08/unsubscribe-now-you-may-not-be-smart.html

Intelligence is a gradient; there’s the smartest 20% of the audience, the stupidest 80%, and then this guy who can’t even be the member of the audience.

Converting to Mormonism so I can attend the only university in America with a decent language program IN CHINESE.

August 8 at 7:27 PM

“America” can mean a lot of things.

[The Spirit of Season Two:] Coronavirus and Direct Democracy.

August 8 at 7:17 PM

We have Coronavirus symptoms again RIGHT NOW… although with much milder symptoms than before… let’s take a look back at what I said about government restrictions (on personal freedom, etc.) on April 11^th, 2020… I admit, it hasn’t been quite long enough to have “nostalgia” for this issue, but… this is an instructive contrast to demagogues like Jimmy Dore… and, indeed, a contrast to Peter Breggin…

Gendergeddon: the Gender Politics Apocalypse

August 8 at 7:05 PM

You know, I have a long history of coming up with snappy titles for things…

I COULD HAVE gone with Transnarok…

Youse mean ze myth of Ragnarök?

The Taliban’s long shadow: you will learn nothing by ignoring Pakistan, you will learn something by paying attention...

Unsubscribe now: you may not be smart enough to watch these videos.

August 8 at 8:20 AM

Unsubscribe now: you may not be smart enough to wa...

Unsubscribe now: you may not be smart enough to watch this video...

August 8 at 6:04 AM

It’s shallow and it’s deep AT THE SAME TIME.

Haha “intro-digression”

Gendergeddon 3: Richard Dawkins vs Rationality Rules.

August 8 at 1:12 AM

Optimism is Dangerous: Against Steve Kaufmann… AGAIN.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/IMOXHnviCH4

August 7 at 8:21 PM

———

Steve, 99.9% of people will NEVER have these opportunities offered to them: not in Paris, not in Hong Kong and certainly not in Canada (and I have experience living in all three). You really seem to have lost touch with the extent to which life is a tragedy for the vast majority of people, the vast majority of the time: you’re encouraging people in the audience to make sacrifices (devoting themselves to study languages) with the expectation that (magically) fate will reward their hard work. That isn’t true: the vast majority of people who devote themselves to learning Chinese end up regretting it for the rest of their lives, and even the vast majority of people who start off studying at Cambridge and Oxford end up regretting the sacrifices they’ve made for the rest of their lives.

———

Quote, “we’re surrounded by opportunities” —no, Steve, that is just not true. Really think about how few illegal immigrants (in Paris!) get to study at Univ. Sciences Po, as you did. Think about how few political science majors get handed a position in Hong Kong, as you did. The failure rate is worse than 99%. The vast majority of people who take up E.S.L. work in Asia really have their lives ruined by it —and it just isn’t convenient for you (and your youtube hustle) to face up to this.

———

^ I have, also, read the salient parts of his PDF autobiography, describing the same trip to Paris, etc.

The only time the Federal government pretends to have an education policy is when it is bemoaning the failure of education policy.

2012-12-04 AMEG Strategic Plan This strategic plan was prepared by the independent policy group, AMEG (the Arctic Methane Emergency Gr...

August 7 at 5:41 AM

AMEG Strategic Plan

A-m-e-g

Catching up with 2012: the arctic-centric view of climate change.

August 7 at 5:24 AM

The retreat of sea ice is causing a non-linear rise in Arctic temperature, so that it is now rising at about 1 degree per decade, which is about 6x faster than global warming, reckoned to be rising at between 0.16 and 0.17 degree per decade. The temperature gradient between the tropics and the Arctic has reduced significantly over the past decade, as a result of this so-called ‘Arctic amplification of global warming’.

[…]

A further feedback loop is ominous: as the Arctic warms, the thawing of land and subsea permafrost allows the discharge of growing quantities of the potent greenhouse gas, methane, which in turn causes further warming in a vicious cycle. This cycle is not yet noticeable. However there is over a trillion tons of carbon stored in permafrost in the form of organic material, which is liable to decompose anaerobically to form methane. And the permafrost forms the cap on an even larger carbon store already in the form of methane. Most scientists now accept that Northern Hemisphere land permafrost will thaw entirely this century. There is the potential for the release of enough methane into the atmosphere to cause runaway global warming, with temperatures rising well over ten degrees C.

Interesting. I’d like to boast that my phone is nine years old. Okay, thanks.

[The spirit of season one:] Everyone is Lying About Climate Change: the Phony Politics of Crisis Management.

August 7 at 3:17 AM

Again, I would never make a video like this today: I would never make a video with this (positive, hopeful) tone reaching out to the audience. Now, what I do is both (i) more purely creative and (ii) more purely destructive.

I wonder what you mean by “destructive”. You used it in No More Manifestos in relation to your philosophy of art, where you said: “This book contains new answers to the question of how we live, how we create, how we destroy”. I don’t think this is in the department of art. You can’t just trash somebody’s artwork. Or can you? That’s unsportsmanlike.

Our one friend in Israel has convinced me NOT to consider moving to Israel as an option.

August 6 at 10:10 PM

That’s pretty much the whole message:

Danny (our one friend in Israel) convinced me to NOT consider Israel as an option.

Perhaps I should add the word “finally”:

Danny (our one friend in Israel) FINALLY convinced me to NOT consider Israel as an option.

E.M.

—————

[Marta:]

and his reasons (in short)?

Israel seems particularly difficult at the moment, but I wonder if he meant the political situation...

—————

Yeah, it’s everything.

He is (like myself) genetically half-Jewish (and it is his father, not his mother, who is non-Jewish [and for purely supernatural reasons, this matters in Israel])…

he’s an atheist

he’s a vegan

he’s NOT left wing

but (obviously) left wing people are the only people who eat lunch with him,

etc.

Allegorically;

in Japan, I would be an outsider, but not a hated and despised outsider.

In Israel, I would really be a hated and despised insider: the majority of Jews would hate me (my mere existence challenges their presuppositions about the universe in a way that makes them uncomfortable) and they would really prefer that I not exist.

A minority of Japanese people would be willing to work with me, and in a city of 30 million people, that minority is a significant number —even if the majority of Japanese would NOT want to work with me.

In Israel, basically, the math is much worse —and the depth of invidious hatred much worse, too.

I would just add:

for me, at this moment, Japan is not “Plan A”, nor is it “option 1”.

At this moment, I have to say: Latin seems like the most appealing option.

It is humanly possible that I’ll reconsider one of the “agenting” options (going into filmmaking and comedy (etc.) via being a talent agent and a booking agent).

I would say Japan is in third place, out of those three. However, if Melissa now visits Japan, she might love it.

If Melissa were to visit Italy (and Latin programs in Italy)… who knows? [Note that Melissa already went on a long and expensive “exploratory mission” in Spain!] My opinion of Italy and Italian academia, I must admit, is very low: of all the post-fascist countries, Italy has done poorly in its… transition. Certainly, the comparison between Italy and Japan (as post-fascist states, making a transition to democracy after WW2) is extremely unflattering for Italians to behold.

E.M.

Jules Deret

I can talk about the situation of the Latin language in France. It’s bad. It’s teaching has been on the decline in high schools for the last decades both in volume and quality. Eighty years ago, most students who got into university to study the classics used to be able to read Latin before taking their first class. But academia did not adapt to the fact that they now had to actually teach Latin and Greek, for both economical and ideological reasons. This, combined with very low motivation from the students’ part (good students do not go on to study the classics anymore, as there are no prospects of employment, besides becoming a high school teacher), is causing the collapse of the discipline. So basically, my only hope, as someone who wants to devote my life to it, is to found a Latin school, as there are a few people all over the world disenchanted with the way academia is going, which I hopefully will be able to do in a few years. Just to say that you risk to be disappointed with Latin. I don’t think the situation is much better if at all in Italy. Event outside of academia people really committed to the language tend to have religious and or dubious ideological motives. I’m sure that what I’m saying mirrors what you encountered in the field of Buddhist studies, at least to some extant.

“But academia did not adapt to the fact that they now had to actually teach Latin and Greek” How does this manifest itself?

Jules Deret

You get a 90min long low quality language class a week, when 900min would barely be enough...

Kristen Leo is moving to New York: I am not.

August 5 at 9:06 PM

Here’s my comment, left below the video:

Kristen, I understand that you don’t have any bad intentions in saying this stuff (and I don’t even think you’re making excuses) but at age 31 you can’t just think in terms of the creative arts as a kind of person that you want to be: you need to have specific ambitions and specific methods that you’re committed to building up your ability in for many years. At age 31, you’re not saying that you want to be a sculptor (or a filmmaker or anything else) you’re just saying that you want to be _the creative artist type. I think that’s a red flag, and I think that you’ll think that, too.

Here’s my comment, left below the video: Kristen, I understand that you don’t have any bad intentions in saying this stuff (and I don’t even think you’re making excuses) but at age 31 you can’t just think in terms of the creative arts as a kind of person that you want to be: you need to have specific ambitions and specific methods that you’re committed to building up your ability in for many years. At age 31, you’re not saying that you want to be a sculptor (or a filmmaker or anything else) you’re just saying that you want to be _the creative artist type. I think that’s a red flag, and I think that you’ll think that, too.

You say that you are an intellectual.

August 5 at 5:23 PM

[The person I’m writing to here speaks English as a second language: my own style of writing —in reply— is thus significantly different than it would be in writing to a native English speaker.]

You say that you are an intellectual.

Maybe so.

You say that you are studying to get a PhD.

Maybe so.

Most of the people I have known who have PhDs are stupid, crazy and malign.

Sometimes they are just stupid and crazy, sometimes just stupid and malign, etc., but very often they are all three: stupid AND crazy AND malign.

I have known many, many people with PhDs who are genuinely insane. I have known many PhD students (whether or not they completed their PhDs) who were insane.

How many people with PhDs were NOT STUPID? (Very few.) How many PhD students were NOT STUPID? (Very few.)

I have known these people all over the world, in many walks of life.

Do you actually believe that you are intelligent enough to sit at a wooden table with me for two hours and talk about politics, to record that as a podcast, and upload it for the world to hear?

IN NINE YEARS nobody has ever been willing to do that with me, including people with PhDs, and the most frequently given reason is: “I would feel stupid sitting next to you.” [Footnote: many, many people have actually said this to me, directly, this is not an indirect inference on my part.]

Many, many times people with PhDs (including my professors) have said to me (sometimes in words that are polite, sometimes in words that are impolite), “you make me feel stupid”, or “I feel stupid talking about politics / history / religion / etc. with you”.

It isn’t subtle. This isn’t a matter of my interpretation. This isn’t a matter of my psychological “projection”. People openly tell me, again and again, that they feel I’m too smart (or too knowledgable) to work with —or, reciprocally, they say that they are too stupid (or too ignorant). [Footnote: and this has been in many different fields of study, including fields I had only recently switched to, such as when I’d first started on Chinese.]

Why do you think it is that after nine years I am still broadcasting TOTALLY ALONE? Why do you think I’ve never had a news and politics “show” with just one other person collaborating with me, as an equal? Why not two people or five people? Why was it impossible for a-bas-le-ciel to expand in any area?

(Note: I could have expanded in atheist news, in Chinese news, just reviewing new books on political history, ecology… I could have hosted “a show” in so many different areas unrelated to veganism… do not presume I’m talking about veganism primarily or only.)

Why?

And now, simply, I have to ask you to calibrate your claim: yes, perhaps you are tremendously intelligent, perhaps you are an intellectual who can talk to me on an equal level, and perhaps my new friendship with you will transform my life —forever— for the better (and I should fly off to Germany just to meet you!).

But this seems incredibly improbable.

Where is your “proof of genius”? Where is your Toulon?

I have been extremely positive and encouraging to people (like Tofu Goddess, etc.) who had no more “proof of genius” than a modest youtube channel where they expressed their frustrations. But you, like 99.9% of the people writing to me, do not even have that.

Again: I do not say this to insult you. I do not say any of this to insinuate that you have bad motivations.

Instagram

Among the dead and dying.

August 5 at 5:10 PM

The same link again, in case you didn’t figure out how to click on it, above: https://www.instagram.com/p/CvkbBIeLjXk/?hl=en

[The spirit of season one:] “I stand with people of all species”, etc.

August 4 at 10:13 PM

I wouldn’t make a video like this today. It’s still salient, it’s still meaningful, it’s still “contemporary”. But, for me, never again.

Hmm… “Video like this”… It’s not like it’s hard for you to make it: you observe things, you tell about your associations with the topic at hand, and then wrap it up, no moral of the story even required. You still do this now, and additionally you hone your skill at outrhyming. Outrhyming Oscar, that is.

No: videos like this (in season one) were made with the expectation of a positive outcome from the audience. Look at my most recent livestream, by contrast, “Veganism is Doomed, Episode 998 of 999.”, and you’ll see that I now relate to the audience with the expectation that they will perpetually disappoint me: there’s no hope anymore, what I do is (1) entirely despairing, and (2) entirely punitive.

The Red Queen of Climate Change: Jordan Peterson vs Greta Thunberg.

August 3 at 9:36 AM

Satire is not comedy.

This is the first time I heard the word “Geniuses”.

The revolution will not be… nude.

https://www.victoriabuzz.com/2023/03/topless-junos-protester-has-bared-her-chest-for-trees-in-victoria-before-this-latest-scandal/

August 3 at 2:12 AM

Mysteriously, nudity doesn’t actually result in lower level of carbon dioxide emissions, nor some sort of drastic shift in the politics of ecology, no matter how many times the tactic is used…

BLOCK QUOTE

“My dangerous areolas are a threat to some,” said 37-year-old Ever, acknowledging societal discomfort with women baring their breasts.

“I’m attracting attention to raise an alarm for our world in crisis — a place where ancient trees that give all of us the oxygen we breathe are clear cut for profit.”

Ever remained on top of the visitor centre for over two hours. VicPD arrived on site but did not attempt to remove or arrest her.

Prior to this incident in Victoria Ever had also ran topless onto the pitch of a soccer game happening at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver in June, 2022.

She bared her breasts that time as well and glued herself to the goalpost, which caused the game to be delayed.

END QUOTE

Wesley Potts

Meanwhile, Avril Lavigne: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/L9mUefSjz60

I don’t understand people who eat ice cream when it’s not hot or warm weather. I understand Eisel when he ate cuz he was in S.E.A., although I once heard him say he was buying some when the cashier reproached him for being vegan, sounds more like cold Canada.

The way she’s dressed… she needs some kind of award for, “Worst sartorial choices made by someone who employs a professional stylist”.

Meanwhile…

August 2 at 9:11 PM

https://www.youtube.com/@zel-from-ashdod/videos

Good video. But now that I rewatch it, a confusion cleared up where I thought the doctor mentioned (I think he’s called “HealthyGamerGG”) was the voice of reason as opposed to the mentioned presumable virgin. He’s actually a conformist.

Yeah, I’m a pretty harsh critic of HealthyGamerGG. https://www.youtube.com/@a-bas-le-ciel/search?query=HealthyGamerGG

[The spirit of season three:] I am more attractive than you: it’s the only thing that matters.

August 2 at 7:35 PM

Or, “Why season two must die”.

Ten minutes long.

Salient to yesterday evening’s podcast, and to the post before it, etc.

[The spirit of season two:] I’m still too ugly to lead the vegan movement.

August 2 at 7:32 PM

Only eight minutes long. AND SEASON TWO AIN’T OVER YET!

Veganism is Doomed, Episode 998 of 999.

The sun also rises; I also get fan mail. ;-)

August 2 at 4:22 AM

I’m 21 years old and from _____________. I discovered your channel about 10 months ago via the video “Ashley Elise: it’s shallow and it’s de...

The sun also rises; I also get fan mail. ;-)

August 2 at 1:23 AM

An anonymized message from a viewer (and reader!) in support of the channel, and or “the team” behind it. ;-)

A supernatural appendix to my conversation with Anna Scanlon.

Anna Scanlon is a Scumbag and a Hypocrite.

August 1 at 10:40 PM

Things turned toward mortal sins and immortal verities toward the end of that conversation: it got a bit supernatural, if not quite occult. ;-)

About twelve of you clicked on my collected email correspondence with Anna Scanlon as soon as it was posted, and thus didn’t see the final two messages in the sequence (containing the Yiddish verb “DAVEN”, that I have never once seen or heard before in my life). These were added to the blog-entry later simply because those messages didn’t yet exist at the time of its first posting. So… here are the FINAL THREE emails in the correspondence… all three may be new to you, or just two of the three, or you may have seen them all, etc., depending on when you clicked on my earlier link.

———

[Title:] Breadcrumbs

You see what I mean, now, about the need for a little bit of self-examination on your side following the trail of breadcrumbs?

And tell me, if our positions were reversed: do you think that I would have been speaking to your ex-husband (in parallel circumstances) without mentioning it to you (“behind your back”) in the way that you did to me?

And do you think I would have been talking to Norvegan and Hannah Chloe, as my “good friends”, if they had been doing to you what they’d done to me —i.e., something far worse than what Cheetah did to you?

Breadcrumbs, Anna.

You’re an utterly despicable person. You’re worse than Cheetah, and you’re worse than Durianrider (and I know both of those men well enough to say so!).

I assume this is the last time I’ll ever hear from you, or that you’ll ever hear from me, given (1) that you have this indescribably awful disease that’s killing you, and (2) given that you’re a coward and an imbecile. I want to reassure you: there is no afterlife, however, in the same sense that each of us lives with an unequal amount of light, each of us —in death— goes into a different degree of darkness. And you, Anna, have been dim in this life, and shall be abyssal in that darkness.

E.M.

———

I’m sorry you’re in so much pain in your life that this is how you choose to speak to people you don’t even really know and/or feel they owe everything to you because you briefly supported them. I didn’t realize our relationship was so serious and that you were so loyal to me and that I owed so much loyalty to you. I really do feel badly for you, and it must be sad and lonely to lash out at people you don’t really know so horribly. I will daven for you and hope you find some inner peace.

PS- you gave me advice in 2017, I dropped the case in 2019.

———

I’m gleaming in the darkness, Anna.

The light I bring to the world is something that creatures like you and Mireille and Hannah will never understand.

This “daven” you speak of won’t help you, and it won’t help me, either: you’re preparing for a transition from being a nonentity in this life to being something blacker still —a darker shade of nonentity.

People like you are trying to pray your way out of hell, while I’m trying to kick down the gates and fight my way in.

Oh, and the irony is that you’re proud of yourself: that you sat in the audience cheering Hannah and Norvegan on, while they defamed me, without feeling the slightest sense of hypocrisy as you’d heaped so much scorn on Cheetah’s audience when they gossiped and lied about you —when they enjoyed the lies being told about you as a kind of sport —as an exhibition. But that’s why you were in Cheetah’s audience in the first place, wasn’t it? You were one of them: you dined on gossip, you regarded it as entertainment to see other people’s reputations being destroyed —and so too you were thoroughly entertained to see Norvegan and Hannah doing it to me (and you were delighted to see Hannah conspire with me ex-wife against me, etc.). You must have been smiling from ear to ear as you saw this little conspiracy with my ex-father-in-law unfold: it never occurred to you that you ought to stand up for the same principle you supposedly stood up for in your own case. It never occurred to you that you were —now— guilty of the same evil you’d reproached others for in the past.

Hell is real, Anna: there are neither gods nor souls, and yet here I am, trying to lead an army, to break down the gates of hell.

E.M.

The first two messages, below, date from March 31^st, 2017, and then we leap forward to the present day (the last day of July and the first ...

Anna Scanlon is a Scumbag and a Hypocrite.

August 1 at 8:26 PM

The whole conversation, 2017 — 2023.

Extinction Rebellion founder served carrots as vegan option

Squeaky rat.

Roger Hallam, 56, posted a photo of an almost empty plate from his bed which had just a portion of carrots on it, writing 391 words on the environmental benefits of going vegan.

Mail Online

After many years of being ANTI-VEGAN, is Roger Hallam now… ?

Violence: Peace is the Shadow of War, etc.

August 1 at 7:29 PM

If you don’t know who Hallam is… https://www.youtube.com/@a-bas-le-ciel/search?query=hallam

Re: “At the time, Charles was living with Will and had access to guns and neither my partner or I felt safe being near him as it was obviou...

Violence: Peace is the Shadow of War, etc.

August 1 at 8:05 AM

It’s Only a Theory: Jimmy Dore vs. Greta Thunberg and “THE VEGANS”.

August 1 at 12:07 AM

Just the other day I watched your video entitled Jimmy Dore: Professional Hypocrite. Hmm, I’ll maybe watch some of your other videos about this man. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/BGTgANw4WJ8

July

Footnote.

July 31 at 5:52 PM

And the irony is, I REALLY DO WANT TO LEARN LATIN…

July 31 at 4:41 PM

Two emails in a row here. Another contrast is to Hebrew and Arabic: I would MUCH RATHER learn Latin than modern Hebrew and/or modern Arabic. Chinese isn’t really a fair comparison because I’ve already sunk so many years into it.

—————

Gail,

You know, if there were anything positive I could do within Canada, I would do it:

I bought a huge stack of books on Latin (i.e., the ancient language, literature, history and politics) because it seemed like the only positive thing I could do if I continued to be trapped here in Victoria (i.e., there is a classics department at UVic, etc.).

If I believed there were a program in Cinematography worth doing, if I believed there were a program in “agenting” worth doing, etc. etc.

Anything…

If there were anything positive I could do under any heading (learning Chinese, learning how to bake bread, anything) I would do it.

But there isn’t.

I don’t know what you expect me to do from here: we could (both of us) literally enroll to get university degrees in Latin at UVic…

but that would then create a new crisis at the end of the program / degree (several years from now) when we’d have to ask all the same questions again (we’d still have no home, no possible way of earning an income, etc.).

—————

The thing is…

I have a much more sincere interest in Latin than I ever had in Chinese or Japanese…

it is REALLY interesting to me, and it would be REALLY rewarding for me…

(in terms of history, philosophy, politics, etc.)

but it’s impossible to be optimistic about (1) the Canadian university system, and (2) any kind of employment ensuing thereafter.

Melissa asked me once (within the last few months) what I’d do (with my life and career) if we broke up and I was living here (in Victoria) alone and my answer was that I’d probably re-activate my student status at UVic and study Latin (and again: the huge pile of books on the subject is visible in the middle of our one room apartment at all times).

What’s a worse use of my time, at age 44: studying Latin vs. studying cinematography, given that the university system is garbage either way?

And given that the film industry is (now) dying, in the same sense that book publishing (and magazine and newspaper publishing, etc.) died within my lifetime.

E.M.

BTW, I assume you guys have already noticed the huge stack of Latin-related books in the background… but the truth is that ABOUT HALF OF THEM are usually UNDERNEATH the microphone (the one place you can’t see during my videos and livestreams). ;-)

[The Spirit of Season One:] USE SOAP, YOU IDIOTS: Why I Hate Vegans.

July 31 at 4:52 AM

Not a smash hit, but a video that very gradually climbed its way up to 5,000 views. And it’s still worth seeing to this day.

This does, also, relate to the recurring theme of why I don’t have any vegan friends, and/or why it is that the majority of vegans hate me. ;-)

Crisis Q&A with… my mom, for a change.

July 31 at 1:59 AM

Gail,

Looking back at your prior emails, I tried to copy and paste your questions together into a summary.

I’m using bold italics just to differentiate your words from mine (what happened to colored text in emails?).

What is the cost of “sending Melissa to Israel”

☞ We’ve googled airplane tickets and we know nothing else.

Does Melissa want to go?

☞ We don’t want to live in Israel. We don’t want to live in Japan. I do not want ANY of the available options. Out of total desperation, I’m talking about Israel and Japan. I would remind you that Melissa spent several thousand dollars of her own money (and she has zero income) to travel to Spain: she did that when we both thought the U.S.A. would be open to us (and, thus, the Spanish language would be of significance, even if Spain itself proved to be impossible). If I could live in Spain, Greece, France… or even the U.K.… these would be options I’d seriously consider. Years of research has proven all of them to be impossible, so what remains to be discussed? Japan and Israel. Both are —so far as I know— indescribably horrible. (I REALLY MEAN THAT!) But maybe if Melissa visits Israel, she’ll actually like it.

I think that you are saying that you still need to explore different locations.

☞ Yep, but the list of theoretically possible options is now dismally few.

How long can Melissa stay in Canada. When and for how long can she return to you after being out of the country (e.g. Israel)?
☞ I don’t know.

Then, If it is an exploratory visit, why don’t you both go?

☞ This is entirely possible for Israel, and it’s entirely possible for Japan, also… however, if I’m going to continue to pay rent on this apartment, presumably I’d be away for a relatively short period of time, whereas Melissa could be away for a longer period of time (and this is what happened with Spain: she was there for two and a half months… in theory I could have joined her for two weeks, but I didn’t —both due to illness and poverty).

Summary: Japan is bad, Israel is bad… I wish I had a better alternative, with or without a credential attached to it.

There are absolutely zero viable university (or college) programs anywhere in the world for me.

E.M.

An especially surreal example of “Mascotismo” (Petism).

On the inevitability of the current crisis (IF YOU ONLY READ ONE THING FROM THIS BLOG...)

July 30 at 2:23 AM

@2:51 “How would you feel if you had to live in a bathtub for your whole life?” Seemingly nobody is interested in questioning how a wolf feels when it is castrated and forced to live in their suburban home’s back yard —or, worse, on their apartment’s living room floor.

Gail, Re: “You need to do some actions to help yourself” I’ve already done everything I can do: I’ve already researched everything I can res...

On the inevitability of the current crisis (IF YOU ONLY READ ONE THING FROM THIS BLOG…)

July 29 at 5:54 PM

Please take the time to read this one: it’s the most important email I’ll write this month (or last month, or next month) and it’s the most important update I’ve ever posted to Patreon, or ever will. RIGHT NOW is the time when someone (anyone) can make a difference. And soon enough it will be too late.

There’s a student group called “Lettonia”, but now that I read their website, they’re conformists, just look at this: “A member of Lettonia cannot at the same time be a member of organisations that cultivate an anti-governmental, anti-national or anti-religious spirit and whose activities run counter to the spirit and traditions of Lettonia”. But for you it’s out of question in the first place because they don’t speak English.

Meanwhile…

July 29 at 7:07 AM

There was a time when this was exactly the kind of political news I wanted to cover and discuss on my own youtube channel… and that time is now over.

Why not?

Notice the word “discuss”.

Conspiratorial Political Censorship in the English-Speaking World: 5 Minutes of Your Time…

July 28 at 7:47 AM

5 minutes on the SEEMINGLY boring story of Hunter Biden’s laptop computer…

Zero out of 2,700. So far.

July 27 at 9:03 AM

Another email to my mother.

—————

Gail,

I am asking for help.

I am asking everyone for help.

I am asking anyone for help.

I am asking complete strangers on the internet for help.

Anyone, anyone, anywhere, please please please help me.

That’s what I’m saying again and again and again.

And nobody helps.

And nobody tries.

And nobody cares.

And when I asked you and Melissa for help, more than eight months ago now, neither one of you helped, and neither one of you even wanted to listen: neither one of you replied to my “desperate cry for help” video, and you both (at first) refused to watch it.

So: that is something very interesting that you and Melissa have in common.

2,700 people saw that video. More than eight months ago.

I am still asking for help. I am still begging and pleading with complete strangers for help on the internet.

If there were anyone I could ask for help here —face to face— in Canada, I would do that, too.

Nobody is going to help.

E.M.

—————

2700.png

“Can you stop giving me irrelevant advice? No, I can’t help it. Can you stop being a bystander? I can’t help it. Can you stop being so easygoing? Can’t help it. Can you help me? No, I can’t help you.”

I hate you, unsubscribe now, revisited.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvLDw-lvarj/?hl=en

July 26 at 8:47 PM

This was/is posted publicly on Instagram with a photograph of a haggard man with a beard staring off into the future (link at the end).

When I had a newborn baby in my arms (approx. ten years ago) I sent photographs to a long list of brothers and colleagues and “so-called friends”. The people who didn’t reply at all: I never forgave them, and I never spoke to them again —aside from informing them (when they asked) that this is why I’d never speak to them again. Mme J. Filliozat of the EFEO sent me a baby-sized cotton sweater: not a single one of my brothers or sisters sent me a gift or toy, and not a single one gave me a Skype call. This is what you have to understand: I now hate my audience and Patreon supporters in the same way, because not a single one of you cared when I posted the “Desperate cry for help” videos. Guess what? If you’re trying to rent an apartment in Los Angeles, or if you’re trying to rent an apartment in Athens, or if you’re trying to rent an apartment in Tokyo, JUST ONE PERSON who takes the time to provide you with advice can really help: it can mean SO MUCH to have just one person provide advice (no, not a sweater) and to talk the problem through with you… and there are SO MANY people in my audience who I’ve directly helped in that same way (talking to them about their career choices, education choices, deeply personal life choices involving family, death, breakups with bfs/gfs)… and not a single one of them gave a damn when I was the one asking for help (not even the specific people I’ve helped: and over a ten year period that adds up to a significant number of people). I can get a new audience: you’d be surprised how many new people subscribe even now, and I don’t have the same attitude toward new subscribers as the old. But yes, “you people” need to know: if you’ve been following me since 2016 and you didn’t lift a finger when I posted “desperate cry for help” over 8 months ago, I am never going to forgive you. I was never asking for money: I was asking for every kind of help aside from money… and nobody could even be bothered to try (not even the specific people who have thanked me for profoundly influencing their lives, etc. etc.).

I can read four negative hyperboles in this text. 😐 wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerology

Still.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/_CL6n0FJZpk

July 25 at 7:40 AM

Can’t sell shit with the Fandar attitude. Wouldn’t last a day in sales if he said the shit that he says online.

Fandar is just a genuinely stupid and malign: I assume he’s been diagnosed with a mental disability (based on what he’s said to me directly) but if not... he is simply an example of an extremely stupid person.

If he weren’t stupid he would structure his comment above more like this: “I agree on this point, she really let herself go”.

[Other voices:] I don’t normally share links to edutainment videos, but… this one is an exception to all the rules.

July 24 at 8:30 AM

Primarily about North Korea.

Secondarily makes you reflect on the extent to which Hank Green is a no talent bum.

Revolution, yes, but buy my book on Amazon first: learning languages to change the world.

July 23 at 9:46 AM

An interview (or conversation) with thehyperpolyglotactivist.

The blue robe seems to be now your signature. It gives the coziness of the trope where the narrator is sitting by the fireplace, reading a book, and says to the viewer “Hello! I didn’t see you come in!”. Wouldn’t be too bad if you appeared in my nightmares, if I had any. Before, I was hesitant to work hard, they say you should take breaks so as to prevent mental exhaustion/burnout, and even you play your video games a little bit. As for you playing video games, I don’t know, it’s hypocritical of you to be doing that, but it bears no meaning on who you are.

Re: “As for you playing video games, I don’t know, it’s hypocritical of you to be doing that…” (1) I don’t practice what I preach because I’m not the kind of person I preach to —J.R. “Bob” Dobbs. (2) I play video games for FIVE MINUTES, not five hours, and not even one hour: the main example I recommend is (the NES version of) Pac Man Championship Edition: there’s a clock at the top of the screen, and the maximum duration of a game is about 3 minutes, etc.

I like that the fictional character you quote has “worked weekends doing Evangelical Christian preaching “strictly for the money””.

Quitting YouTube: “This has become a company that creators hate.”

July 21 at 5:16 AM

[Here it is posted on ye olde blog, in case you’d want to share this “on the outside”:] http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/07/quitting-youtube-this-has-become.html

Humans make mistakes:

I have a video that was first banned for being racist...

I appealed, explaining that the video is NOT racist...

that appeal was accepted

but suddenly

after the video was uncensored for NOT being racist

a reviewer decided it contains nudity.

So the video was banned again.

Then I received an email from YouTube admitting that the video contains zero nudity, admitting that a mistake had been made.

Then (just as suddenly) I received an email that the video will be restricted to viewers over 18 because of nudity.

The video contains ZERO nudity: it does not have women in bikinis. It is just a lecture against racism (with quotations from the racist people I’m criticizing).

I’m told the same thing you’re telling me now: “all decisions are final, no appeal is possible.”

Why?

Anyone who is not blind would agree: the video does not contain nudity.

I’ve brought more than seven million views to YouTube with the work of my hands.

Why should I be treated this way?

People like me now deeply hate and resent YouTube: we are all waiting for a competitive website to give us an alternative. The people who should feel gratitude toward YouTube instead feel hatred.

Your website now has advertisements on my video with over 18,000 views: you make money out of it, but I don’t. You say the video is too provocative to monetize: but you’ve monetized it for yourself, while refusing to share the advertising revenue with me --while falsely claiming that the video is violent, racist or excessively sexy (and that the arbitrary decisions of your staff in India are final no matter how obviously false).

It is not possible to get a human being to look at a video and agree, “this does not contain nudity”. It is not possible to get a human being to look at a video and agree, “Okay, I can see that you’re quoting a Nazi while condemning Nazism, and that this video shouldn’t be banned as if it were racist/pro-Nazi.”

I had a video banned for being racist against the French, and I wrote in to explain that my own daughter is French (and living in France, etc.). I had a video talking about anti-Semitism with my daughter, in which I’m explaining to her that we’re Jewish, and that we’ll both have to cope with antisemitism our whole lives long, and this video was censored as if it were antisemitic.

In the past, appealing to human review was possible: now it is impossible. And YouTube is incentivized to steal from its creators by running ads on demonetized videos. It is not possible to get a human answer from a human being any more; and most of the employees are in India, and do not understand the English language (and American political subtleties) well enough to determine what is racist and what isn’t (nor what is nudity and what isn’t, what is educational and what isn’t, etc.).

You have made your supporters into your enemies: this has become a company that creators hate.

E.M.

Here it is posted on ye olde blog, in case you’d want to share this “on the outside”: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/07/quitting-youtube-this-has-become.html

There’s no end to this, it’ll get worse and worse. Curiously, this music video from a successful rapper has a butt naked woman in it. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/MrJhGGmyOuc

YouTube still has nonsensical exceptions built into their own rules: nudity can be allowed for educational or artistic purposes... who defines what is and is not a sufficiently artistic purpose? I have a permanent warning (“strike”) on my channel because of the appearance of violence that was judged to be “not” for educational or political commentary purposes... and, of course, the video was both educational and political (and the violence = animals in a slaughterhouse). So, yeah, the system is designed to fail, and it is failing.

In the past I could watch something on YT without ad block on, but now one or more ads are visible before each video. For Google it is profitable for sure: https://www.statista.com/statistics/289659/youtube-share-of-google-total-ad-revenues/ but for content creators like you it would mean more and more control is given to advertisers.

Control over what?

In 2023, what is the alternative to YouTube? VIMEO?

Control over what is censored and what is not. If your video would contain something that may influence advertisers sales then it could be silently censored beforehand. In the end platform goes into direction which goal is to satifsy the most and in the same time minimize controversy.

If Vimeo is less restrictive then maybe you could upload video to yt and wait for feedback. If it would be censored you could upload instead some dummy video to yt and give link to your video on Vimeo in the description (if it is allowed). Stupid I know but what is the alternative currently? Maybe mixture of patreon and yt would be good idea but I think there is no such a platform yet.

Post on as many video platforms as possible that way the video stays up and new people are likely to find your channel. This is just a theory I have not done this before. Another option is give everybody the download link and let them post it on other platforms.

The hardest option will be make a website to post everything on once it’s been uploaded to YouTube.

None of this helps with monetizing your videos.

Another sad thing is that many of the alternatives that have cool tech behind them (like peertube) are a haven for nutjob conspiracy theorists or neo nazis. Sort of a typical social media situation where the nuts flock to the alternatives after being deplatformed from the mainstream ones. So then these alternatives, which are sometimes better in many ways on a technological level, become places you want to avoid. No one wants to be associated with the wackos that use the alternatives.

I think you gave good clue why there is no alternative. Maybe solving censorship is the hardest problem on those platforms. If you would leave it to operate as “free market” of ideas it will deteriorate over time because of weird groups already censored somewhere else publishing their dicks everywhere. If on the contrary the platform would be overly censored then it will become boring and meaningless.

I was really excited about bittube. It randomly disappeared off the face of the earth with absolutely no explanation to be found of why it failed/was abandoned.

Don’t quit Youtube, please. @TridiverParanormal 2 days ago Well Bye @a-bas-le-ciel 2 days ago http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/07/quitting-youtube-this-has-become.html

Ecology and Veganism: the Lost Cause. [An important video to watch again and also an example of youtube censorship.]

How Youtube Censorship Works in 2023.

July 20 at 8:36 PM

The stated reason for this (genuinely important, genuinely interesting) video being censored is: “Raw footage focused on violent law enforcement; graphic dead bodies in a non-educational video; edited video gameplay that primarily focuses on graphic violence; domestic violence.”

I uploaded exactly the same video twice: one “version” was censored, whereas the other was not censored -even though the two versions are ...

How Youtube Censorship Works in 2023.

July 20 at 8:09 PM

[I uploaded exactly the same video twice: one “version” was censored, whereas the other was not censored —even though the two versions are identical. Nevertheless, it was (and is) completely impossible (in 2023) to get Youtube to re-examine the decision made by (human) censors, and to correct the error by either censoring both of them, or censoring neither.]

[The spirit of season one:] My very first video condemning Utilitarianism.

July 20 at 6:07 PM

This is very different from the spirit of my current videos in many ways: note the way in which I ask the audience (and particular people in the audience) to understand and sympathize with my own concerns (e.g. “How do you think this makes me feel in relation to the extinction of the Cree and Ojibwe languages?”). I don’t do that anymore: all of my videos, now, are built on the assumption that the audience is entirely hostile and uncomprehending —an assumption that proves to be true, again and again.

The Philosophy of Prostitution: Mixing Money & Sex Can Ruin Your Life.

July 20 at 8:11 AM

What if someone would record porn video without selling it and without cheating on his/her partner and then video will become public? Would you expect similar or some social consequences like losing job or ostracism? I would say yes, possibly because public sex and money goes together. But even if connection would be broken would it make a public sex video socially acceptable? I think not just because the cultural assumption sex is private otherwise something is wrong with you.

I think the more interesting scenario are the consequences of the recording of sex videos and distributing them regardless of financial reward. Would it not be the same if they had more or less the same dialogue and scenes but for free? Like an amateur or volunteer thing. Then again realistically i doubt attractive, young women would be less attracted to such a proposition. Which might be an important point there. Then also a point which Eisel has brought up before, what if the money from sex work was used for productive reasons? What if the person came from a poor family and they used the money to pay for college and had like the top grades in the class? Instead of working a dead end job they became the highest rated surgeon in the area. What if the money was used to start a chain of successful restaurants?

@Ivan We can talk about fanciful conceptions, but at the end of the day, you’re the one gambling with your daughter’s/son’s life, when you resign him to sex work. Pragmatism.

@Ivan What you’re contemplating on is not far removed from the reality—Eisel has written/talked about prostitutes in South East Asia building hotels from their earnings.

There are, nevertheless, important differences: in your hypothetical scenario, it was a husband and wife (or a boyfriend and girlfriend) together (recording the video for themselves to see) rather than an act of prostitution (and a performance) between two people who otherwise would not have had sex. Am I dismissing everything else you have to say here? No: I am just pointing out that there are some important differences. Quick comparison: a politician is caught (on camera) having sex with his own wife in the back seat of his car (via a security camera, let’s say) and the public have a laugh at him, but understand that they were a busy couple trying to meet up and have sex under difficult circumstances. This is different from the same politician being caught having sex with a prostitute (on camera, in a car). Thus, as I say, there are some differences worth thinking about.

@Artus That’s what i was alluding to but yeah thanks for pointing it out (non sarcastic).

“Then again realistically i doubt attractive, young women would be less attracted to such a proposition.” Yes it is possible for example as an ego trip or as the way to “sell” yourself. However I think it may give a mixed results depending who’s your target audience. But it points to the fact that even if sex and money link would loosen still public sexuality would be something to think about. “Quick comparison: a politician is caught (on camera) having sex with his own wife (...)” I can see the difference — the first case could be seen as part of intimate relationship caught public. The second case could be seen and coercion or bribery using money to satisfy own urges. The first would make the public smile, but the second will make the public disgusted. Still I think more blame would go to prostitute for depriving honorable man (also potentially through video) as is the case with those women in the video. I have no doubts cheating on someone who trust you is bad and you have all the rights to leave the relationship, but in the same time the social consequences are way to far reaching. It’s looks like scapegoating or witch hunt. Still all too Christian.

Lakshan

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/porn-star-professor-goddard-quits-11036444 In this story, there is a university professor who was secretly making pornographic films. In the article it says this started after his divorce, and he did not make much money in his porn career (at least in comparison with the salary of a university professor). Thus, it could be the case that some people record and publish sexual videos of themselves because they enjoy the voyeur and/or humiliation. The “cultural assumption” (as you say) that sex is private creates a taboo/stigma which acts as further fuel for such a fetish. By the way, I think the assumption that sex ought to be private is not necessarily religious. It is rational that most people do not expect or want to witness people having sex on their front lawn or at a public bus stop. Thus, people who want to have sex in the public eye (which includes the internet) are viewed as degenerate and/or lacking “modesty” (which is a religious concept).

Nice example. I’m not sure why he did it, maybe it was some fetish, maybe he just likes sex, I don’t care. The question is why it was such a fuss in the first place. If indeed there would be something rational (which i’m not denying there is) we would have some form of public discussion about it instead of easy answers. In human history sexuality was both public and private, monogamous and not. It would be good to answer what we’re gaining and what we’re losing chosing any of those options.

“[T]hey ought to be able to have [from the women’s perspective] all the advantages of exploiting their beauty in order to achieve both FAME [Emphasis added] and money, without the disadvantages—that side of the moral equation, I think makes everyone in the audience feel uncomfortable to think about”, this makes me think that even women, who do pursue and achieve fame, porn stardom, also end up bad. Before, I thought of porn filmed in studios as “clean”, everyone’s responsible, they also ascribe names to actors (although, I concede, they could be just adopted pseudonyms), and I can list seven major porn studios off the top of my head. There’s a parallel between transgenderism chopping off sexual organs, and pornography circumscribing parenthood among other things. Now I condemn porn as such.

I think that what makes the problem interesting is the inevitability of some tolerance: you can have a society with zero gambling, but never a society with zero prostitution —and never a society with zero pornography. It is very easy for me to say “I condemn gambling as such”, but not pornography. And, as you know, I like to deal with political questions that are NOT EASY on my channel.

I remember seeing a tweet around 2019/2020 from some rando saying that dating was going to be impossible because “every young woman will be on OnlyFans” Obviously it hasn’t gotten that bad, and the time I dismissed him as being paranoid. But I have to say, the amount of people I know, who I’ve met and spoken to, who tried a side hustle on OnlyFans/Twitter, has floored me. In the years since that tweet, I could name about a dozen people from my state school alone who do/done it, and those are just the ones I know about! The real kicker is, you don’t make any money being a nobody posting your nude body for the audience of like 20 people on Twitter

I knew people doing this stuff straight out of high school, circa 1996. I assume the cameras were running at 240 pixels back then. Re: “The real kicker is, you don’t make any money being a nobody posting your nude body for the audience of like 20 people on Twitter.” To be fair: they make more money than I do (for example) on via this very Patreon group, or via my own youtube channel (with seven million views).

Why I’m not moving to Taiwan. Why I’m not learning Chinese.

July 20 at 5:06 AM

An interview with a university professor. And not the first to appear on my youtube channel, I might add.

Wow I’m sorry Eisel it was clear how frustrating the conversarion was. It was not just a no, it was a “no matter what you say” kind of no. Without clear and reasonable reasoning or pathways to make the differrence.

You fucked up. You let me down. I don’t forgive you. I never will.

July 19 at 11:48 PM

[Writing to Sam:]

I’m not your university professor: you’ve seen me give lectures about Aristotle (in a surreal sense “I’ve given lectures to you”) and I’ve seen you read and discuss Aristotle (“I’ve received lectures from you”).

University professors get paid $100,000 a year to give lectures on Aristotle.

Students pay at least $5000 per year in tuition, but more likely $50,000 (and I’ve seen $100,000 tuition programs… wish I was joking).

Yeah, guess what?

I do this shit for ten years, and I expect something in return: when I made “a desperate cry for help” I expected people (at least a few people) to really care, and to really try.

Nobody did.

Yeah, I expected something better from you than, “Well, why not devote your life to anti-antidepressant activism”, etc.

———

[And now here’s a message within a message quoted from a Patreon supporter:]

I guess the only reason I care about you is that I feel stuck and unsure about how to turn my life around and what you told in your videos felt relatable. I liked your book and I think some of your ideas are inspiring. I felt compelled to offer some support and I’m sorry I can offer none.

———

[And my reply:]

Re: “I liked your book and I think some of your ideas are inspiring. I felt compelled to offer some support and I’m sorry I can offer none.”

I’m sorry, too.

Imagine if I had just one fan who could have helped me to publish the illustrated children’s storybook I wrote so many years ago.

I don’t. I don’t have one fan who is a useful or intelligent person in any way.

Producing a children’s storybook is a very low-pressure, flexible example: no deadline, and there are many “right” ways to do it (not just one way to succeed with many ways to fail).

My desperate cry for help is a high pressure, inflexible example, with a deadline.

You fucked up. You let me down. I don’t forgive you. I never will.

And that’s how I feel about everyone in my audience now.

—————

Sam Schneider

Everything turned out better than expected. 👍

Kita Ikki [北一輝] and the Origins of Democracy in Japan.

That’s my steez, bro: I tell people how I really feel, I tell people the whole truth, and then I find out what happens next... as opposed to telling half of the truth and living with doubt as to what would have happened if I’d been entirely sincere. And I’m not saying everyone should live this way: that’s just my steez.

The 1936 uprising in historical photographs. The 1936 uprising in cinema: 1962’s 二・二六事件脱出 & 1989’s 226 . §1. At a time when Art...

[My own writing in 2015:] Kita Ikki [北一輝] and the Origins of Democracy in Japan.

July 19 at 7:01 AM

----- Kita has no sense that the benefits of democracy emerge from debate within a given society, nor that the functions of democratic institutions are linked to ongoing negotiations between different social forces. Instead, from his perspective, new institutions (and a new society) could simply be set up by the military, and so it didn’t much matter if it were the Japanese military, the Korean military or the Chinese military. This is, again, the quintessentially Japanese assumption that democracy itself arises as a form of “military preparedness in civilian garb”. [文裝的武備] -----

I think I found a typo in the essay: “The notion that democratic reform arises a military strengthening against foreign threats is ineluctably (and uniquely) Japanese”, because “arise” is exclusively an intransitive verb. If, presumably, the meaning of the sentence is parallel to the matter talked about in your comment above (i.e., military intervention gives birth to new institutions), it should be formulated differently, IMHO. Although I haven’t read it full, I’ll go to sleep now. I think the issue would be resolved if there were “s” in front of “a”, as in “reform arises a[s] military strengthening against…”. I’m so fucking dumb, you already have it correctly enunciated in your comment at the end, ad finem. Let this idiocy of mine be known to the public eye so they beware.

There are typos in the essays: they were each written in about one day / “one sitting”.

You are everywhere and you are nowhere at the same damn time.

What was the context for writing this? Was it for a university course when you were studying Japanese?

How I learned (or failed to learn) Cambodian (ft. Eisel Mazard)

July 18 at 4:20 AM

Only six minutes long.

Interview feels to short.

The real thing is over an hour long.

Is the full version going to be released?

It’s not worth it for me to watch it anyways if there was a full version. I’m trying to stay away from youtube.

Yes, soon enough, you’ll get the whole interview as one (long) unedited file (on à-bas-le-ciel).

You mentioned “the stress you were under, actually in learning Cambodian in just a few weeks before you got on the airplane, you were absolutely cracking up”: was that self-induced? More likely I think that was the dread of living in a destitute, free-for-all, literal minefield of a country.

English is your second language, so I just say: self-induced is not precisely the right term... but the stress was 100 percent the result of a kind of rigor that was self-imposed, and an educational program that was self-created. Nobody was teaching me anything, nobody was testing me, nobody was punishing me: nobody created any deadlines for me (or goals for me) other than the ones I created for myself. It was purely a matter of, “be all you can be” —and, also, “be prepared for the worst case scenario”.

Moving to Tokyo, Japan… unless you’ve got a better idea?

July 18 at 3:24 AM

Matt vs Japan, who follows you on Instagram*, has seemingly relocated to Japan for a few months now. You and him are about as different as can be but if you wanted a biased opinion about moving to Japan he may be the one to start with

AFAIK, I’ve never communicated with the YouTuber known as Matt vs. Japan. I do not (currently) know any vegan YouTubers in Japan. There is nobody speaking to me of any description that is now living in Tokyo.

You’ve mentioned some intellectuals in Japan. I’m wondering now what are your criterion to regard someone as intellectual. Do you have anyone specific in mind? Also Japan doesn’t seem like safe haven for any dissident. But well it is easy to judge such a things from outside. From other perspective Japan is developed country with low crime rates and rich history.

I have made videos discussing what it means to be an intellectual (and who is an intellectual, who is not) at great legnth and in great depth, in the past. Re: “Also Japan doesn’t seem like [a] safe haven for any dissent...” —take a look at what happens to you if you dare to criticize the government in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar or Communist China. Hell, take a look at what happened TO ME. Even when I was a professor in Yunnan, every single one of my emails within the university was read and censored by the Communist Party: a professor asked me to send him an article I’d written about the history of Buddhism (that we’d discussed face to face) and then he was astonished to find that all my replies were blocked by the authorities. That article was not even criticizing the government of China. He was kidding himself about the extent to which we were watched and censored.

I will check the video again. From the description in one of your videos I see some nice definition: “An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about society and proposes solutions for its normative problems. Some gain authority as public intellectuals.” Of course if you compare Japan to China or any other autocratic government, Japan is way better choice. In my first question I was pointing to the second one, so have you found someone worthy of your attention in Tokyo, because I have no doubts finding anyone from outside is not an easy task.

I see i can understand why you would choose Japan. Certainly, if you want to collaborate in these many platforms and mediums then Japan is a great place. It amazes me the amount of things i see get published in their media. If you need an artist to work with it might be the place. i could had suggested Japan for that but you had already stated why you wouldn’t be interested in Japan or Taiwan and i figured you wanted somewhere closer to France. I see that you both had made signifcant effort to explore Spain and Greece as possibilities. I write this anticipating that you’ve already discussed Korea, but i would ask why Japan is more attractive than Korea. I guess I could name the reasons i mentioned above and those you had mentioned in the video. Particilarly are there any politics in Japan you find more interesting than in Korea?

The return of the 16 star mindset: one month later, it’s back on youtube.

July 17 at 7:49 PM

I am now dealing with censorship problems on a daily basis. Sadly, at least one of my video has disappeared permanently for this reason, and I cannot find a copy of it on my own hard drives (etc.) so it seems to be “gone forever” (i.e., I would re-upload it if I could).

Caz VanDevere

Which video?

Caz VanDevere

I ask because I watch YouTube videos after they’re cached on my computer, so I may have a copy of it

I’ll send this to you as a DM, also: the video should be about 19 minutes long and titled something like, “Mixing Money and Sex: It Ruined My Life”, but (for example) the title is also given as “‘It Ruined My Life...’” --and other variations in the title are possible.

When incels turn 30 they don’t become wizards: “Decline” turns 30.

July 17 at 8:13 AM

Instead they turn into Übermensch looking with pity onto earthly pleasures

Moving to Japan: you got a better idea?

July 17 at 2:02 AM

Gail,

Absolutely nothing is possible in Spain: Melissa spent many thousands of dollars (of her own money) going there, living there, and studying there to investigate.

The only option in Spain is retirement:

zero employment options, zero education options, zero career options.

This idea of having “a digital nomad visa” is something you read about in a newspaper or something you made up in your own head: that’s never what I was presenting to you.

It is not the case that we ever had the option to work in Spain under a digital nomad visa: that is just not true.

As with France or Greece, the only way we could live in Spain would be having enough money to start up our own business, but even so, the Spanish system really just wants you to retire, whereas France and Greece are more open to you working (I could tell you the legal details, but I think there’s no point).

It is not the case that there are education, employment or career options for us in New York.

It is not the case that Melissa could possibly earn enough money to provide an apartment for herself in New York and travel back and forth to see me in Montreal. Nor vice versa, that I could do so in Montreal.

The idea of living in Montreal relied on the existence of institutions. Those institutions do not exist.

I could say the same about many other places: “if there were a university teaching subject x in place y then we’d have opportunity z.”

x, y, z.

But we’ve got nothing: zero.

Melissa found nothing in Spain. I found nothing in Taiwan. There’s nothing in Victoria, Vancouver, Montreal... it’s a long list, and I could go on.

A lot of zeroes.

So: we’ve got to start a new life in Tokyo, Japan.

There’s some hope there. 30 million people. Zero unemployment. Zero crime. Some intellectuals. Some democracy. Some freedom of speech.

(Thailand has less of these things: you really are in danger talking about politics in Thailand.)

Melissa can earn more money teaching English (or teaching at a kindergarten) in Tokyo than she can earn in New York City. And she can more easily afford rent in Tokyo than in New York, too.

Economically, Tokyo is sustainable. New York is not. Montreal is not. Spain is not.

E.M.

Also impossible in Spain: collaboration with Tkyosam 😉

“Collaboration” is an interesting choice of verb... ;-)

So fucking happy to see at least one possibile country that’s not a complete non option.

Martin

Good luck in Japan, your knowledge of Chinese will come in hand when memorizing the japanese kanjis. Phonetically I doesn´t have tones like Chinese though the grammar is more complex.

If you had been watching the channel more than seven years ago, believe it or not, you would have seen me (briefly) studying Japanese.

At worst, you’ll no longer have drug addicts in your proximity that insidiously sit there, waiting for the moment to catch you off guard and hop on you. At best, “there is a better life you’re going to live in the next five years if you go to Japan, better person [..] and you could know people of real substance—colleagues, even if those are colleagues who work on comedy videos with you or record comedy songs with you, colleagues that you can work in any capacity as a creative artist, as a filmmaker, politically or otherwise” as you said in “A desperate cry for help”. https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/BOQ44SHF-OE?t=955

Now now now now now now now.

July 16 at 8:43 PM

[Under ten minutes long & under 1,000 views:] Against Utilitarianism: in Ethics & Politics, Net Happiness is Irrelevant.

July 16 at 11:39 AM

Sadly, a lot more than 1,000 people need to see this video: this deals with the most fundamental presuppositions of the utilitarian (and “consequentialist”) worldview in just 8 minutes —utterly laughable presuppositions that come up again and again in 21^st century politics (on and off the internet).

[Still important, still relevant:] Torture & War: Ethics vs. Excuses vs. Idiocy.

July 16 at 11:28 AM

Relevant to today’s upload, and relevant to today’s politics, generally (the war in Ukraine, etc.).

Vs. Rationality Rules (Gendergeddon 2: This Time, It’s Personal)

July 16 at 8:32 AM

If you can help, help; if you don’t know how to help, ask how.

How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now.

July 14 at 10:20 PM

[Also known as: From zero to a hundred, real quick.]

Gail, again, these are good questions.

You may be disappointed at how depressing are the answers.

Re: “The concept of cinema I thought is so you could improve the attractiveness of your already successful presence on YouTube and other media to earn more money on it.”

With cinematography, keep in mind: we’re not talking about an abstract concept.

We’re talking about particular institutions, particular people (instructors), and a sacrifice of a particular number of years of your life (and many thousands of dollars) for a particular outcome.

These university programs CAN be worse than nothing, and THEY ARE worse than nothing: I know it’s easy for you to agree with me about that in an offhand way during a casual conversation, but it is NOT EASY to really live with the implications. It is not easy to think through “what now?” and “what next?” while really remaining rigorously aware of how bad these university options are.

It is possible to learn absolutely nothing in an M.B.A. program: I directly asked the professors of at least two different M.B.A. programs, “What would I learn salient to the stock market in this program?” and the answer was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. They said that to me: they admitted it. That wasn’t my analysis of the program: it was their confession.

Likewise, a program that purports to teach you Chinese can be worse than nothing. A program that purports to teach you baking can be worse than nothing. It is really (seriously) fair to say, of these university programs, “I would be better off just renting an apartment in China (or Taiwan, or Hong Kong, etc.) and learning the language on my own than enrolling in this university program” —even if the total cost were the same for all options. Options like baking and language instruction are unusually pragmatic: they have measurable outcomes and deal with “hands on” (real world) skills. If you’re talking about courses in political philosophy, everything gets worse.

What we found with cinematography was basically a mix of what we’d found with baking and political philosophy: these university programs are scams, and they’re scams attached to a dying industry.

The other factor here is: WHO IS IN THE CLASSROOM WITH YOU? Whether you’re looking at Lansing, Michigan, or Ottawa, Ontario, the actual people you’re sharing the classroom with (both professors and students) are losers: you’re better off hanging around a strip club in Los Angeles or an open mic comedy club in New York to make contacts who could actually collaborate on a youtube video with you —let alone take on a filmmaking project more ambitious than that (fiction or nonfiction, documentary, comedy, action or otherwise).

I am not joking when I say that: there are strippers who would be interested in getting on camera and acting, and there are aspiring comedians who’d be interested in playing any number of roles —perhaps even flying to Libya to make a documentary about Khalifa Haftar (etc.). The college and university cinematography programs are a dead end within a dead end: you’re spending your time with people who are struggling to reach the intellectual level necessary to film a shampoo commercial.

Most of what we’d need to know about Cinematography is contained in one book that we have on our desk right now: you can pretty much read that one book (it’s a long book!) and then get out and learn from experience (what angles work with what kind of lighting, etc. etc.). The crucial variable is knowing the right people to work with: that’s why I was so interested in “agenting” (being a talent agent, being a booking agent, etc.). This would lead to knowing a network of people (“who to call”) who can take on all the other roles in a filmmaking project (again: fiction or nonfiction, documentary, comedy or otherwise).

This, also, presumes a locus: if we’re not living in New York or Los Angeles, it’s all impossible anyway. Is Tokyo an option? Maybe. Maybe Tokyo is the last place on earth where there are actually enough talented people around for us to make something positive happen. In absolute numbers: there are definitely more people who speak English in Tokyo than there are in Montreal.

However, we do not have a single friend in Tokyo (nor anywhere in Japan). And my knowledge of the Japanese language is the result of just two semesters of education (and education of an extremely poor quality, although I worked very hard at it).

Re: “Please remember that you are resilient, strong and brilliant.”

I’m not: I was brilliant ten years ago. Now, I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier.

I say again: there is nothing left in me to give. I have given and given and given for all these years, and nothing positive has come from it. Today is the day I crossed seven million views on youtube (and that is just counting my main channel, not adding up the smaller ones); even if people who were worth talking to were one in a million, I’d have seven of them by now. I don’t. I need help and nobody is going to help me.

Re: “This strategy could also work for Greece.”

Okay: how many intellectuals are there in Greece?

How many of them speak English, or would have anything to do with us?

If we move to Greece, we’ll be living TOTALLY ALONE, FOREVER. There won’t be a single stand up comedy event for me to ever participate in (or perform at). There won’t be a single person who ever collaborates on a youtube video with me. There won’t be any political movement we’re a part of in any sense. Nobody will publish my books there, nobody will illustrate the children’s storybooks I’ve written, etc. etc.

The problem with Greece is, in brief, that it’s worse than Thailand: we’re better off living like millionaires in Thailand (i.e., my implicit point being that $1000 is worth much more in Thailand) than living like paupers in Athens —and Thailand would have all the same disadvantages (we’d live in an oubliette).

I’d just like to state again, briefly: we’re anti-Communist and anti-Anarchist. Politically, we’re close to the mainstream center in Greece today, and in most of the western world today; this does not make us any friends. We’d probably have more friends if we were part of the lunatic fringe in one political ideology or another. Within veganism, obviously, many people hate me precisely because I’m not a Communist (within Chinese language studies, too, I might add!). Politically, you can be isolated in the middle, and you can have a ton of colleagues and contemporaries on the extreme fringe (and this is one reason why people become extremists).

The unabomber had more friends than I do: his pathetic imitators (like John Zerzan) have more friends and followers than I do. I’m further to the right than Bernie Sanders (and, thus, closer to the center) but I’m completely alone “here”.

Re: “I understand that The impossibility of the US option has been devastating for you both because you counted on that for so many years.”

Indeed.

Re: “I fear that it has thrown you into a depression…”

No, Gail, I’m not depressed, I am simply running out of time, and running out of options: WE LITERALLY NEED TO DECIDE IF WE’RE BUYING AIRPLANE TICKETS TO JAPAN OR NOT THIS MONTH. And, yes, one of the reasons why I’m talking to you is that I do not remotely have enough money in my bank account to buy those airplane tickets outright (out of my youtube earnings, etc.). This is not a period of depression; this is a period of decisive action.

Re: ”…and that this depression is preventing you from having the confidence to move and start again…”

Nope, you’re thinking of some other guy: I have the confidence to move to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Japan, Israel OR ANYWHERE ELSE ON EARTH. Self-confidence is not the problem. OTHER PEOPLE are the problem: the reason why I couldn’t get a university degree in Chinese (for example) is OTHER PEOPLE. The reason why I couldn’t get a college degree in baking is OTHER PEOPLE. How many more items should I add to this list? It wasn’t a lack of confidence, talent, brilliance or anything else that stood in my way in these (numerous!) fields (including political philosophy, Buddhism, Cree-and-Ojibwe, etc. etc.) it was —simply— OTHER PEOPLE.

Guess what? Opening a comedy club involves OTHER PEOPLE. Comedy itself involves OTHER PEOPLE. Filmmaking involves OTHER PEOPLE.

You heard me say this many years ago, Gail: there is nothing more terrible than relying on something that cannot be relied upon. OTHER PEOPLE: that’s what I cannot rely upon.

Just think about what happened at UVic: I had such low expectations, but the reality of that institution (and the people within it, comprising it) was SO MUCH WORSE than I possibly could have imagined. I could now repeat this for a list of other institutions, including the baking school.

No, Gail, my problem isn’t a lack of confidence: I taught myself the Laotian language (NO TEACHER, NO HELP FROM ANYONE) while sleeping under a mosquito net and chopping my own firewood (to boil non-potable water) every morning. Getting on stage and doing comedy: my problem isn’t a lack of confidence. Writing, researching, etc. —my problem is not a lack of confidence. My problem is other people —and, sometimes, the concatenation of cabals of other people in institutions.

It absolutely never occurred to me, ten years ago, that I wouldn’t know a single person (in the whole world) with even a shred of talent or brilliance, but here I am: I have no contemporaries, I have no colleagues, I have no rivals, I have no equals.

There is no talent in Canada. There is no talent in Montreal. Canada is a dead end. Montreal is a dead end within a dead end.

Is Tokyo a dead end? Are there dissident intellectuals in Tokyo? If it’s not gonna be Tokyo, then where?

E.M.

When did you stop considering the US as an option?

When we found out the paperwork will be impossible to proceed any further with.

It would be such a sad story if such a vivid figure like you would languish in the precincts of a university that rhymes with “eunuch”.

Tunic?

Zero Options: Trying to Make Something Out of Nothing.

July 14 at 8:13 PM

[Original title:] There are no intellectuals in Quebec; there is no stand up comedy scene in Montreal; there is no filmmaking opportunity in Canada.

There are no intellectuals in Quebec.

There is no stand up comedy scene in Montreal.

There is no filmmaking opportunity in Canada.

There are no universities in Canada where I could study
cinematography, baking, Chinese, OR ANYTHING ELSE. (It’s a long
list.)

I am now 44. I’ve done twenty years of research into SO MANY THINGS.
I have absolutely nothing positive to show for it: we’ve only
confirmed (again and again) what is impossible.

[And, I will add, I live by this very simple religious principle: everything impossible is forbidden.]

Just to get between our apartment and the nearest bakery (which is
quite close by!) we walk past/over about 15 drug addicts —very often
they are smoking methamphetamine, crack cocaine and/or fentanyl out of
a glass pipe while we walk past them (openly). To get to the nearest
bank increases the number of drug addicts, we walk past even though we
plan our route (street by street) to avoid them. THIS IS NOW LEGAL IN
B.C.

There was a time when Melissa wanted to start playing basketball
(ALONE: WE HAVE NO FRIENDS IN CANADA) but I told her this was
impossible because she wouldn’t be able to walk to the park (and back)
without me as a bodyguard —and there are drug addicts in the park,
also, where she would in theory be using the basketball.

I do not have a single friend in Victoria. I do not have a single
friend in Vancouver. I do not have a single friend in Montreal. I do
not have a single friend anywhere in Canada (AFTER ALL THESE YEARS AS
A PUBLIC FIGURE). Neither Melissa nor I talk with a single person in
all of Canada aside from you, Gail.

E.M.

—————

You have a good understanding of your situation... It very limiting. The logical conclusion is that you need to move.

Where you move represents a new beginning

If it is less than perfect, It would be an improvement over where you are now.

I love you as your mother

I can support your education

And some basic living expenses

Only you two can choose your destination and only you two can make friends

On the education side, you are both great a self-learning —

Are there learning programmes at great universities that can provide certificates if not degrees?

Would the various “nomad visas” in countries like Spain work for you?? You seem to have friends there to build on?

You often talked about returning to Taiwan — what has changed your mind about that?

It is a good time for you to make choices that get you out of the situation you are in... and take you toward some of your goals which I understood to be marriage and a child.

Taking steps — even if halting and imperfect — can take you in a positive direction.

You are both talented and you have love

I understand your disappointments — but I hope that your strength of character and love will take you toward a happier life... There was a time about a year ago when you were more hopeful. I think that staying in Victoria has been bad for you — I think it is time to make a move that can bring positive change even if you cannot see it now.

Love — gail

—————

Gail,

You’re asking the right questions.

(1) “Would the various “nomad visas” in countries like Spain work for you??”

The problem with Spain is that we cannot earn money there: moving to
Spain basically means “retirement”, and we will never be “normal
people” there. Whether you call that being a nomad or a retired
person makes no difference, really: different icing on the same cake.

There are no other options for Spain: zero.

We can take language classes there (i.e., learning Spanish) but that
would really just be a transition to living somewhere else that the
Spanish language is spoken (Cuba?).

In the past, when we thought California and Florida were options,
there could have been strategic significance to being in Spain for six
months (to learn to speak Spanish and then return to the United
States). Now, nothing in the U.S.A. is an option anymore, so Spain
and Spanish have disappeared from consideration.

(1.5) Greece is different: we could eventually become citizens in
Greece, and we could work and earn money in Greece (legally) if we buy
a house there and go through a series of stages. I am just mentioning
this to say, “Not every country in Europe plays by the same rules as
Spain”. Each country has its own rules. We do not know of a single
positive example or opportunity anywhere.

(2) “Where you move represents a new beginning”

Correct.

(3) “Are there learning programmes at great universities that can
provide certificates if not degrees?”

I have searched for any opportunity for twenty years: I have not found
a single one under any heading, anywhere in the world.

I have never said to you, “Gail, there’s this great university
program, but I can’t go there for some logistical reason” —I have been
saying to you again and again, “there is absolutely nothing”.

And I do not know if I can even type out a list of the options I have
investigated (it has included so many different subjects, many dozens,
even just within the last four years) but the areas I’ve discussed
most recently are (a) “Agenting” (being a talent agent), (b)
cinematography / filmmaking, (c) Chinese as a language, (d) Latin
(Ancient Latin) as a language.

None of these four would be “my first choice”. I never even wanted to
study Chinese: I was forced to do so because of the impossibility of
studying other things (including Cree and Ojibwe!) that I actually did
study (in some cases for many years, e.g., the overlapping languages
(and history and politics) of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Sri Lanka,
Burma and Pali —a huge amount of work that very few people alive can
imagine).

Let me just repeat your question: “Are there learning programmes at
great universities that can provide certificates if not degrees?”

You’ve talked to us for so many hours about this over so many years:
you should already know the answer.

No, Gail, we haven’t even found a program in baking bread (!) in all
these years, let alone a single program related to something I
actually want to do / something I’m actually talented and experienced
in.

There is nowhere in the world that we can even study Chinese. That is
about as mainstream a subject as I could possibly name (with over one
billion speakers). Keep in mind that —until recently— Melissa had
assumed we had the option of living in the U.S.A., and she looked at
universities across the United States for all these things (Chinese,
Cinematography, etc. etc.).

(4) Re: “You often talked about returning to Taiwan — what has
changed your mind about that?”

I sent you an email about this recently: THE ONLY OPTION that exists
in Taiwan is taking short term language courses (as a holiday). We
can do that, and we could do that in Kunming, also, if you would pay
for it, but all of our belongings would remain here (in this
apartment) and we’d return to the same situation afterward, but better
able to speak Chinese. Both Taiwan and Communist China offer this
kind of short term language education program, but it is a vacation,
nothing more. And we would have zero positive options thereafter:
we’d be facing the same crisis again after the course is over that
we’re facing now.

(5) “…but I hope that your strength of character and love will take
you toward a happier life...”

I DO NOT HAVE ANY STRENGTH OF CHARACTER LEFT.

I AM NOW 44 YEARS OLD: I HAVE ALREADY DONE EVERYTHING I CAN DO.

I NEED HELP. I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO GIVE.

(6) “There was a time about a year ago when you were more hopeful.”

That was when we assumed we could live in the United States of America
once the paperwork was completed: that assumption turned out to be
false. The whole of the U.S.A. is no longer an option for us.

I was more hopeful when I assumed Israel was an option for us, even
though Israel is hell on earth (it nevertheless has more intellectuals
than Canada!).

E.M.

Coincidentally, this was posted on the day my most popular youtube channel (ABLC) crossed SEVEN MILLION views, in total (according to the statistics I get out of youtube’s own interface, directly). So… if people worth talking to were one in a million, I should have seven of them by now… AND I DON’T.

A desperate cry for help revisited.

July 13 at 11:05 PM

If you can help, offer. If you don’t know how to help, ask.

Hello Eisel, what can I do to help? I am a 21 year old resident of Manitoba. PS: I am sadly not in the position to upgrade my membership to the $142 / month fee...

So I just re-watched two of your videos: “You are too stupid to watch this video (you’re too stupid to help me)” and “A desperate cry for help.”, and the conclusion that I have come to is that I am likely too ignorant and too stupid to help you, and for that I am sorry.

That’s just a snapshot of time you’re seeing in yourself: if you put the work in, you will get just as apt as Eisel, he has said it could take two years. He needs hundreds, thousands of intellectually redeemable comrades/opponents. He’s basically idle at the moment.

A fundamentally optimisic statement from Arturs, for a change.

Oregon decriminalized drugs 2 years ago; British Columbia decriminalized drugs 6 months ago; it isn’t working.

July 13 at 6:59 PM

Note that in the first few minutes of the video we’re shown the police issuing a $100 fine to a drug addict, and instructing the addict that the fine will be waived if he calls a number to (hypothetically) arrange for therapy. Here in Western Canada, decriminalization entails nothing of the kind: the use of these drugs (including cocaine, heroin, meth, etc.) is now simply legal.

The Long Shadow of the French Revolution (in 2023)

They give people free drugs in Boston. https://t.co/x1CiPJVsB9

griffmccoy5607:] Centrists/Libs enjoy the “White Man’s Burden” and “White Savior” narrative because it reifies their view that they are sti...

The Long Shadow of the French Revolution (in 2023)

July 13 at 2:11 PM

If we draw a dotted line with Voltaire on the left and Louis XVI on the right, my own position is far to the left of Voltaire, far further down the road indicated by the French Revolution, and my attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, religion and “tradition” as such (even Buddhist tradition, etc.) tend to reflect this.

Death Grows Green: Hank Green’s Cure for Cancer.

July 13 at 2:27 AM

As we say here “Dots devējam atdodas”: the giver receiveth back what he has given. The bass hits straight up like crunk.

Modern Latvian is shockingly similar to ancient Pali (and, thus, not so different from Sanskrit and Latin).

[One year later:] Compassion is a culturally inculcated lie.

Atheism vs Agnosticism vs Nihilism: “How do you prove god doesn’t exist?”

July 12 at 9:19 PM

A more “relaxed” (although not relaxing) discussion of the philosophical issues covered more briefly (and powerfully) in my upload of just a few days ago (and chapter three of the book).

All literature is just literature, behind all authority is mere authorship. To quote NWA, “an AK-47 is a tool”; a book, also, is a tool. 君...

Atheism vs Agnosticism vs Nihilism: “How do you prove god doesn’t exist?”

July 12 at 8:57 PM

I genuinely think that this is a necessary shift in perspective for the whole atheist movement, skeptic movement, etc.

“Prove god exists” vs. “prove god doesn’t exist” is (IMHO) beginning on a false footing —it misrepresents the problem and prefigures the only possible solution.

If these people (leading the movement) had more experience with significantly different religions (Daoism, Buddhism, Anthropology of tribal religions, etc., not just Abrahamic religion) it would help.

J.J. Mccullough is Wrong About Everything: American Exceptionalism.

The problem with hating your audience (is different from the problem of your audience hating you).

July 12 at 5:58 AM

This was a public comment on one of Stuart’s videos (over at “the Unrepentant Atheist” youtube channel... but, really, you don’t need to know...

The problem with hating your audience (is different from the problem of your audience hating you).

July 12 at 3:11 AM

Debating (& Debunking) Steve Kaufmann: HE REPLIED!!!

July 11 at 9:35 AM

Also, incidentally, this video contains the secret to the meaning of life.

I see, the secret to the meaning of life is to be able to talk to you as equals about history, politics and study of languages, in that order. 💥🦠🧽🪱🐟🦎🐀🐇🦧🦍🐒👪

[Meanwhile:] Not just Quebec, the West Coast is Burning.

July 11 at 6:00 AM

A record setting year for forest fires out here, too, although it hasn’t been reported nearly so often as the fires in Quebec that have blacked out the New York skyline.

Banning campfires is a hard measure. My country who’s main export product is wood just says that they “urge everyone to be very careful using an open flame. Spark from a cigarette, barbecue, campfire or vehicle could cause a devastating fire”. Vegans will continue to be despised, and the only thing they can do is to try to make their raw intelligence shine.

[Meanwhile:] Everything is completely normal. There is nothing to worry about.

July 10 at 2:17 AM

The chart I’m trying to link to is on the right hand side here, but you may need to scroll down for a moment to see it: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

Aye, yo, these peeps call me El Niño When I hit the vapey they’re like where’s my burrito Your wifey Monsoon be breezing my d*** So you know you ain’t gon’ be having no sh** This took me surprisingly long to cook up.

How much money did Canada spend on search for that Titanic-bound submarine?

July 9 at 7:06 AM

(1) This is less than two minutes long, (2) yes, it’s more money than you could have possibly imagined.

Steve Kaufmann backs the fuck down.

The victim shown at right-hand side made me look up if he’s Spongebob’s creator, and although they share some facial features, Stephen Hillenburg passed away long ago.

Truly, a milestone in the annals of polyglot pissing contests. “You are proving that your own methods do not get results with the langauges...

Steve Kaufmann backs the fuck down.

July 9 at 3:22 AM

Truly, a milestone in the annals of polyglot pissing contests.

“You are proving that your own methods do not get results with the langauges you’ve studied more recently, e.g., Arabic and Polish. Your failure with Chinese is an important, empirically real example: you need to re-examine the deepest assumptions built into your language learning advice. They are falsifiable and they are false.”

And BTW, no: I did not respond to his earlier challenge by providing a list of all the languages I’ve studied, just three examples from three different language families. Apparently that was enough to get him to cut out the bullshit.

You can’t expect a full-on apology arguing in the comment section, but this is a significant step in destroying this person.

The critique of pure compassion: la critique de la compassion pure.

The Wrath of Steve Kaufmann: LingQ Strikes Back

July 8 at 9:26 AM

File under: Dept. of Minor Ironies.

[Dept. of Minor Ironies:] The Wrath of Steve Kaufmann: LingQ Strikes Back

July 7 at 10:14 AM

Hypocrite. 🙄

I now have a “threads” account.

July 6 at 11:13 PM

An alternative to Twitter.

Were you censored before or after Elon took over twitter?

Before. Long before.

Threads’ terms of service (the same as Instagram’s) have more details generally, so it doesn’t just be like Twitter “We take action against the use of insults or profanity to target others”, but from what I found “All private minors, private adults (who must self-report), and minor involuntary public figures are protected from [..] content that ranks them based on physical appearance or character traits, [..] Negative character or ability claims”. Rules about hate speech are pretty much the same.

I nevertheless continue to believe Dr. Greger is a bimbo.

[Meanwhile:] Valladolid, 1550 A.D.

July 6 at 7:22 AM

Judge evaluates the sculpture. He says: “What a tasteless slab of rock! Where’s the Gothic sculpture I ordered?!”

[Other voices:] Homeless Drug Addicts: Sewage, Turf Wars & Organized Crime.

July 6 at 6:41 AM

Perhaps I should have put SEWAGE in all caps.

[Meanwhile:] White powder that appeared to be cocaine is indeed cocaine.

July 5 at 6:57 PM

The part of the story I do not understand is that the white house was evacuated when this “dime sized bag” was discovered.

[The Spirit of Season Two:] I learned Chinese in Six Months! But You Can’t!

July 4 at 9:09 PM

13 minutes long… but the longest 13 minutes of your whole entire life!!!!

Woman pressured into breast removal at 13 under ‘erroneous belief’ she was transgender: lawsuit

Impressive. It amuses me that there are like 20 chapters generated in the video (the ones that break up the video, like in your “This is the End of the World: the Failure of the Vegan Movement” video).

Kayla Lovdahl, 18, whose breasts were removed when she was 13 years old because she thought she was transgender is now suing the doctors and hospital that oversaw the procedure.

New York Post

[Other Voices:] And then there are lawsuits…

July 4 at 5:37 AM

Kayla Lovdahl, now 18, says she was pushed to “entertain the erroneous belief that she was transgender” at age 11, after being exposed to online influencers, according to the lawsuit she filed in California State Court against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and four doctors.

One thing that comes up repeatedly in these type of stories is that the parents are told that their child is under the threat of suicide if they don’t medically intervene, which I don’t really find convincing, although I knew a transgender girl, who was looking forward to surgery, and she did tell me she used to slit her arms, but I guess it wasn’t of suicidal character, as she said it wouldn’t bleed that much. Sick children.

MEANWHILE....

July 3 at 10:44 PM

Link to the original video: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/lXnyXvFTUSg

[Other voices:] RFK Jr. is not especially well informed about the assassination of JFK or RFK.

July 3 at 10:27 PM

It’s interesting to hear his perspective, but most of what he knows is based on reading mainstream books (some of which he mentions by name in this interview) just like any other member of the hoi polloi.

However, in brief: ballistics evidence doesn’t lie. That aspect of the story is indisputable (whether we’re talking about RFK, JFK, or both).

I do not identify as an egomaniac, but…

July 3 at 9:22 PM

[Many years ago I stopped giving advice that nobody wants to hear; now, instead, here is some advice that somebody wants to hear.]

The only thing that is surprising (to me) about this story [that you’ve sent in to me] is the question that comes at the end of it:

“What would you recommend so I stop obsessing over this person?”

It is surprising to me that this is the question, that this is the problem you’re struggling with.

Note that I do not identify as an egomaniac, but my own lack-of-egoic-weakness (shall we say) is part of the equation here, and will need to be mentioned.

Do you actually feel that you’re better than him? Do you actually feel that you’re “too good” for him?

Maybe the answer is no: maybe you feel that he isn’t inferior to you, that he isn’t contemptible to you, that (really) you wish he would love you (and that you could love him), etc., because you do not regard him as inferior at all.

I think you would admit that if you regarded him as entirely inferior and contemptible you would not be struggling with these feelings.

What do you need to do —in your own life— so that you can feel that you really are (starkly, absolutely) “too good” for this man?

Let me use Hitomi Mochizuki as an example here (a quick “google images” search with that name will familiarize you with why I’m using the example).

What if Hitomi Mochizuki wanted to fuck me? How would I feel? I would feel contempt toward her: I would feel that I’m too good for her. Again: I do not identify as an egomaniac. The basis for this feeling of contempt is not my physical appearance, nor hers: as far I know, Hitomi has worked as a professional model to some extent, and she is regarded as extremely beautiful by a huge percentage of people (she’s not everybody’s type, she isn’t sexually appealing to everyone, but nevertheless… she’s the object of desire for many, perhaps millions, of men and women).

If I went through a similar scenario (as you went through with this German guy) with Hitomi lying to me, or with some other attractive woman with similar attitudes (at a similar level of ignorance and stupidity, etc.) lying to me, how do you suppose I would feel if the lies were revealed (after we’d been arranging to meet but) before we’d met?

I would feel contempt for her, right? I would regard her as despicable. I would feel that she wasn’t worth missing: she wasn’t worth having regrets about, she wasn’t worth worrying about. Even if I actually had met and fucked her, I would feel that she wasn’t worth fucking: I would regard her as someone who wasn’t worth falling in love with, I would feel that she wasn’t worth having any kind of “reasonably profound” relationship with.

If I had never lived the life of the mind, in the same scenario with Hitomi, how would I feel? If I hadn’t read a single book since the end of high school, how would I feel about a flirtation with such a woman, or a relationship with such a woman: if we’re both merely living “the life of the body” and not “the life of the mind”? Comparing body to body, I’m her inferior; comparing the whole person to the whole person, she’s utterly contemptible to me —she’s beneath me.

Now ask yourself: why is it that you do not feel this way in relation to this German guy?

He’s a bad person in various ways that you’ve described, but that’s not how you feel about him: you don’t feel contempt toward him, you don’t feel disgust, you don’t feel that you’re too good for him (that you’re too good “for this”, in general).

Why?

What would you need to do (with your life, with “the life of the mind”, etc.) to feel this way?

Having a big ego can be an incredibly positive and constructive thing..

Keep in mind “Men may be bad in many ways, But good in one alone.”

Q&A for a change.

July 3 at 8:55 PM

—————

[Q:] Would you agree that non-negative health outcomes of a vegan diet are also non-falsifiable? I am still vegan due to the morality aspect, but I don’t know how I would feel advocating a plant-based diet if I knew there were detrimental impacts to long-term health from not including small amounts of animal products? I am currently still fine eating bivalves, which don’t “experience” pain, having no CNS.

—————

[A:] In general, I would say that the health benefits of a vegan diet are wildly exaggerated, but (1) admittedly, each and every other diet that veganism competes with has advocates wildly exaggerating the given diet’s advantages, so this is “culturally normal”, even if evil, and (2) some health benefits are nevertheless very real, and are very important, e.g., ingesting absolutely zero cholesterol (something easily attainable on a vegan diet, and almost impossible on a non-vegan diet). I would point out that the health advantages of drinking zero alcohol are obvious and indisputable, but this is insufficient to motivate the vast majority of people to quit drinking alcohol (and as with everything vegan: compare what I say on the matter in Future of an Illusion, my bookthat costs $1 digitally, and $4 on paper). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7rE69S2fdmcRGJg2u4COrdr

—————

Not all learning is book learning, but, today, book learning is the only type of learning available to most people, most of the time.

Aside from cholesterol in the free form, there’s also saturated fat which raises cholesterol levels in the blood, and it, annoyingly, can be found in the vegan diet, too, but fortunately it’s only if you’d eat really junky, I mean french fries, mock meat and cheese, etc. that you’d be comparable to the standard American diet. Bivalves? Eww, what an urge to have.

A member of the audience wrote in stating that they appreciate my discussion of autism (and stereotypically autistic behavior) in relation t...

Not all learning is book learning, but, today, book learning is the only type of learning available to most people, most of the time.

July 3 at 8:34 PM

Alternatives to quitting video games: the chronological approach.

July 3 at 7:52 PM

“Don’t play anything more recently made than the year 2000; if that doesn’t work, don’t play anything more recent than 1995; if you’re still losing too much time to the hobby, play nothing more recent than 1990. Seriously: you aren’t gonna lose that much time playing Star Soldier on the Famicom. But you can ruin your life with current gen games of any genre: the waste of time is off the meat rack.”

^ The problem with this advice is that some people (some people) will become obsessive and addicted to even the simplest games imaginable (Pac Man, etc.) in the same way that they can become addicted to gambling, despite the utterly boring simplicity of the particular games involved (roulette, rolling dice, etc.).

However, yes, for the vast majority of people, an 8-bit game like Star Soldier would be a fifteen minute experience at most. With the exception of menu-driven RPGs, playing for 5 minutes feels like a very long time with that generation of games. 5 minutes of Ms. Pac Man is enjoyable; 15 minutes is misery.

I used to play Game Boy emulated Pokémon but I got bored, because even fighting the gym leaders was a breeze, I think the only way to make the game more challenging would be to deprive your Pokémon of medical care, so their health bar is 10 percent full at most.

The whole category of menu-driven RPGs (JRPGs, etc., including Pokemon) = purgatory. You’re being trained to regard filling out a bureaucratic form as entertainment, with hours and hours of senseless repetition.

Gendergeddon: Matt Dillahunty’s Transgender Crusade.

July 3 at 5:47 AM

This might also apply to other body modifications like piercing, tattoos, but obviously not hair, nobody cares about hair because it grows back.

Torn from the Comment Section.

July 1 at 9:57 PM

Sorry, I’m extremely confused about the last clause you said about Islam “—nor even that it’s not tremendously dangerous”: can you paraphrase it? I think it’s due to the double negative.

I’ll suppose you mean “—nor even that it’s safe”.

Zaigham Nisar

It could help to separate that part and look at “it’s [Islam is] not tremendously dangerous”. He is saying that that is not the case either (in addition to “Islam isn’t a good religion”). But I think you probably got it already.

Is Religion “a Mental Health Problem”? Nihilism and/or/as/vs Insanity.

July 1 at 6:39 PM

[Meanwhile:] The meaning of “science” is remarkably close to “magic” around here…

July 1 at 4:25 PM

The meaning of “science” is remarkably close to “magic” around here: I’d propose the definition, whatever bizarre hypothetical scenario I need to believe to win this argument IS SCIENCE.

The video is only two minutes long. Original title: “Matt Dillahunty In Womb Transplant To Biological Male Claim Plus Man Pregnancy Desire Is Fine.”

I’m pretty sure the memory in his brain from which this imagery leached is the comedy film “Junior” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I mentioned that to Melissa: that Arnold Schwarzenegger had made a comedy with this “scientific” premise. In parallel, I note: Elon Musk seems to be influenced by the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall, and regards wildly implausible aspects of that movie as scientifically attainable.

Scams and Pseudoscience: Steve Kaufmann’s LingQ is a New Religion. @Thelinguist

July 1 at 2:31 AM

June

The inevitable return of the Speedrun to Hell.

The misleading legend of Steve Kaufmann: LingQ and consequences.

June 30 at 10:57 PM

Sometimes you have to fight for your right to party; sometimes you have to party for your right to fight. The quasi-legal battle over this comedy video has —now— taken up more time than the creation of the video itself.

Re: Actually a Scam: Steve Kaufmann https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/GRBKFkglSKg

The misleading legend of Steve Kaufmann: LingQ and consequences.

June 30 at 8:22 PM

I took a listen to him speaking just now and yeah I guess I never realized how bad his pronunciation is. Any consonant sounds unique to Arabic he blows right pass and seemingly doesn’t even try to pronounce it accurately lol. Specifically ain ع and qaf ق which are pronounced deeper in the throat

For the record I’m nowhere close to fluent but I did pay for lessons all last summer, studied on and off for about 2 years

If you check the link again, you’ll see that I anonymized your comment and added it to the post / image.

Why the study of religion (and “cult phenomena”) still matters.

June 30 at 4:43 PM

Most of you (now on Patreon) did not know me during the period in which I was actively “pitching” my C.V. to start an M.A. (and PhD) in the critique of religion —and, specifically, cult studies. It has come up in both my written work and my youtube channel from time to time.

—————

I have read a detailed account of a person being executed in a small (Buddhist) village in modern Laos because someone else in the village had a dream revealing something they had “magically” done wrong (not quite witchcraft) and the other villagers found the interpretation of the dream convincing. If you have a background in the anthropology of religion, if you have a background in real religious studies, let alone the discipline of cult studies more-or-less created by R.J. Lifton, you will know examples of insanity and its social consequences. People have hallucinations: those hallucination can be _the founding moment_ for a new religious movement —and they can also result in terrible consequences in an already established religious context (in which people have been trained to take those hallucinations seriously). I heard a detailed account of a whole extended family treating a child like garbage (from birth) because they believed she was the reincarnation of someone they all disliked (with the evidence for this being magical) and they treated her as if she were responsible for the things they resented that had been done by this deceased relative. Yeah, guess what: insanity is real, it is common, and it is far more dangerous in a religious context (than in a secular, skeptical one).

—————

No, Shannon, people who claim they can remember their prior incarnations ARE INDEED treated as if they have “a mental illness”; people who hear voices when they pray, people who see the ghosts of their dead ancestors, and so on —along with social phenomena (such as cult behavior) within religious groups. Dealing with insanity is a serious aspect of the “driest” of academic discourse on religion. The self-righteous attitude of S.Q. and M.D. is rooted in the most baleful ignorance imaginable: they are both people with zero awareness of the formal, academic study of religion and cult phenomena, trying to front as if they know what’s in the literature and the caller does not. @3:54 Why do you suppose Shannon Q is so uncomfortable with one person being “intellectually superior” to another? Why do you suppose Matt Dillahunty has a problem with recognizing the extent and nature of insanity in modern society? Could it be that they struggle with “intellectual inferiority” and “mental health” respectively?

—————

The context for these comments, above: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/NwFuTM3Mih0

—————

An example of my writing about R.J. Lifton: https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-psychohistory-of-the-cultural-revolution.html

Just read the article at the bottom, regarding the Protean Man: “(3) he responds to this anomie and absurdity with “the very antithesis of Maoist rectitude”, namely, a willingness to switch between various beliefs and identities (in constant “flux”)”. Couldn’t help but think or Orwellian double-think.

[The spirit of season one:] How to learn any language and bench press 270 pounds in just a few months, weeks, days hours.

June 29 at 10:37 PM

That image and slogan (“THERE ARE NO MIRACLES”) really could be a t-shirt. :-/

Actually a Scam: Steve Kaufmann — lingosteve #polyglot #languagelearning

June 29 at 6:27 PM

Augustus Sol Invictus — a goat-slaughtering, warmongering, repeat Senate candidate from Florida — is trying to reinvent himself as a leading voice in the alt right.

“Just take it easy, just enjoy yourself, just spend 15 minutes every day, don’t obsess over it”. I’ve been learning how to draw, and ALL of this “advice” is repeated on “#ArtTube”, it’s terrible.

Augustus Sol Invictus

Southern Poverty Law Center

The problem with (ancient) Latin in 2023.

June 28 at 4:55 PM

As a bizarre footnote: parallel to Lauren Southern, despite his career as an overt Neo-Nazi, he is the biological father of non-white children. https://angloamerica101.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/1566736667737-1.png

[Meanwhile:] Sammy-Marie Grimm admits I was right… without directly saying, “He was right”.

June 27 at 6:39 AM

I deal with a lot of “high stakes” political and moral questions on my youtube channel, but this was one of the most disturbing controversies I’ve analyzed on the channel… AND… if you listen to just what she says (e.g., about Haldol) and the way that she says it… it would seem reasonable to suppose that she has seen the videos I made discussing the (scientifically proven) effects and side effects of the drugs she was on (and the excuses she made for them at the time).

No, I don’t think I’m gonna get a “thank you” card in the mail.

Alternatives to Being Autistic: Learning Languages in an Autism-Encouraging Society.

June 26 at 10:41 PM

I’m only halfway but I had to comment after you spoke about how a job can make you seem autistic I worked for the student billing office my first two years of college which meant I had to handle dozens of calls per day from dumb students and their angry parents with their billing statements. Oh god I became so socially withdrawn and was so people adverse within months of that job (mind you I wasn’t the most social butterfly before college) that I thought I must be autistic I was actually tested as an adult and I don’t have autism. Also, its been years since I’ve worked there and its amazing how more social I’ve become, in part due to not have to deal with fucking idiots every day lol

Re: “A disturbingly high percentage of my audience has autism.” (Paraphrasing, I watched the video yesterday). I feel like, stereotypically, autistic people are perceived as being very blunt. I once knew an autistic guy who straight up said he had a “disease.” I remember thinking that was a striking contrast to the way other people in the room were describing the issues (disability) at hand. I wonder if people with autistic behaviors are less likely to be offended. It seems many of your “haters” are reacting to an initial feeling of being offended. It could be the reason many of your fans have or have been perceived as having autism is that some of the attitudes associated with autism are the attitudes that would lead someone to actually consider your message in a more detached manner. That said, autism is a very broad concept, and I can also see the opposite argument being made with a totally different set of stereotypes that people could still perceive as being under the “autistic” umbrella.

Re: “I wonder if people with autistic behaviors are less likely to be offended.” I would say the exact opposite: my experience with autistic people is that they quickly become overwhelmed with inconsolable rage (in response to a very minor challenge to their sense of ego equilibrium, so to speak).

Interesting. Maybe that just further goes to prove how broad/varied the category of what people culturally perceive as autism is. (Or maybe I’m just wrong.)

[Other voices:] Atheists vs. Christmas: Nihilists vs. Copium.

June 26 at 8:55 PM

Six years after the first Socmas… this is the first glimmer of my “modest proposal” even being heard by atheist youtubers.

On the absurdities of youtube censorship: Bomb Cyclone.

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/8sYPxgGCxOQ

June 26 at 7:12 PM

In case it wasn’t abundantly obvious: I DO NOT SAY THE N-WORD but there is a clip of an African American rapper using it (en passant) in the video in question.

—————

Hello E.M,

I hope you had a great weekend.

I hear back from our team and as per checking, there is heavy profanity present in the video at 0.04 seconds.

I hope this helps. If you have other concerns, please let me know.

—————

So your claim is that a black person cannot say “the n-word” in the context of a rap song?

(The rapper being quoted is indeed African American: that is a clip of a black man using the n-word.)

So your claim is that there are not any videos on youtube of black people (in rap songs) using this same word that are not demonetized and censored (“restricted”)?

Are you saying that the same video that I’ve quoted (at 0.04) is demonetized and censored, where it was originally uploaded on youtube?

E.M.

—————

Department of Minor Ironies.

June 26 at 6:44 PM

.....

June 26 at 7:29 AM

.....

....

June 26 at 2:32 AM

....

Three images, this time

Lauren Southern pretty much says about herself the same thing I said about her in Future of an Illusion.

June 26 at 1:41 AM

She uses the term “alternative conservative party” rather than “alt right” or “neo-nazi”, but… if you recall what I said about her (i.e., as a sort of condemnation) in Future of an Illusion, what she says about herself (in retrospect) here comes fairly close to it…

...

June 25 at 12:22 AM

...

Being Wrong is an Important Part of Being Right.

Note that there are two images in the sequence.

People like Dillahunty SHOULD have the strength to say, “I know this is stupid and bad and wrong and I’m doing it anyway out of weakness”. T...

Being Wrong is an Important Part of Being Right.

June 24 at 10:18 PM

Sympathy is an analytical tool; self-righteousness is merely a fashion statement.

[The spirit of Season One:] Some reflections on my career(s), or the ways in which I did and did not specialize.

June 24 at 9:48 PM

Although my reason for directing your attention to it now has nothing to do with the title of the video, I’d encourage you to take seriously what I’m saying in the first five minutes here and directly salient to what I’m still struggling with in 2023.

Youtube is getting worse: there still is NO ALTERNATIVE platform to me to switch to.

June 24 at 8:56 PM

What am I supposed to do, upload to Vimeo?

—————

(1) The policy (erroneously) applied to this video is “Nudity and sexual content” @1:25. At that time there is a fully clothed adult male on screen, and he is not saying or doing anything sexual. (2) Most likely, the reason for censoring the video (at 1:25) is the use of coarse language (and an error has been made). However, (3) this a satirical (parody) rap music video, and the use of language must be evaluated relative to that standard. The person being quoted at 1:25 is the rapper Kanye West: he has similarly vulgar language in every one of his songs, and in innumerable youtube videos THAT ARE NOT restricted (to viewers 18+) on youtube. The video that moment was quoted from was not restricted to viewers 18+. You are applying a deeply incoherent policy in an incoherent way.

—————

Martin

E. Michael Jones was banned from both amazon and youtube and he´s now uploading his videos in bitchute

If you search for me on Bitchute you’ll see that I already tried it, years ago.

[Meanwhile:] Hey, even a broken watch is right twice a day…

June 24 at 8:25 PM

The atheists are incapable of seeing that they’re doing something wrong when the monotheists are right.

The left is incapable of seeing that they’re doing something wrong when the right wing is right.

[Other voices:] The gathering cloud of transgender surgery skepticism.

June 24 at 8:09 PM

Note that this is one trans-trans person interviewing another (i.e., both women had been born as women but had transitioned to male, and then transitioned back again).

What’s your estimate on this issue? Another 20 years? 200?

[Meanwhile:] Eliminating Fentanyl at its source: Mexico.

Lao activist who was shot over weekend still alive, Human Rights Watch says

June 24 at 4:48 AM

I have no idea how this became a “left vs. right” issue. And even so, I have no idea how Joe Biden (of all people!) ended up on the left wing side of the equation.

‘Jack’ Anousa had been reported dead, but family and others tell HRW that he is alive

Radio Free Asia

[Meanwhile:] In Laos, you can still get shot for criticizing the government.

Palestinian leader supports China’s Uyghur policies in joint statement

June 24 at 1:04 AM

“Anousa was among the few people in Laos who regularly and openly expressed views that were critical of the Lao government,” HRW said, urging Laos authorities to “urgently conduct a credible and impartial investigation” into the shooting.

[…]

Anousa, 24, was the administrator of the Kub Kluen Duay Keyboard, or “Driven By Keyboard,” Facebook group that uncovered and denounced human rights abuses and called for the end of one-party rule in Laos.

In security camera footage that was later posted on the Facebook group page, Anousa was shot at 10:26 p.m. on Saturday in the After School Chocolate & Bar shop in Vientiane.

In the footage, an unidentified gunman wearing a cap and beige jacket came to the door and apparently asked a question. He then closed the door briefly and reopened it, stepped into the shop and fired what sounded like two shots at Anousa, who was seated on or near the floor, before fleeing.

——————————

Whether or not I’ve ever done a decent job telling the tale on the internet, and I suspect that I have not, as it was a story I was already bored of telling before my youtube channel began, I do have my own tale to tell about members of the government of Laos threatening to kill me (etc.). I did both literally and figuratively laugh in the face of danger at the time, and I had difficulty believing that I would be “worth killing” from the perspective of the Lao Communist Party, but nevertheless, Lao politics remains a game that is played with bullets and body bags on all sides.

“The Uyghur issue does not align with Palestine’s interests,” an expert says.

Radio Free Asia

Department of Minor Ironies.

June 24 at 12:41 AM

“Xinjiang-related issues are not human rights issues at all, but anti-violent terrorism, de-radicalization and anti-separatism.”

[The Spirit of Season One:] How to Get High Grades in University/College.

June 23 at 7:30 PM

This is salient to current and ongoing problems (just posted about) in my life (and visible on my youtube channel).

..

June 23 at 7:12 PM

[Other voices:] Punch the ceiling

June 23 at 7:28 AM

“Retweeting does not indicate agreement or endorsement” —isn’t that what people always say these days? ;-)

Cross examination before the Senate has become indistinguishable from parody.

June 23 at 4:40 AM

It’s not just what she says, it’s THE WAY THAT SHE SAYS IT. This could never be captured in a transcript.

.

June 23 at 4:13 AM

[The spirit of season one:] The Nihilistic Approach to Humanitarian & Political Engagement.

June 22 at 9:23 PM

Apr 24, 2017

How many hours per year do I spend fighting Youtube’s censorship and copyright system?

Fan:] Can you comment on Neil deGrasse Tyson supposed cosmic perspective about veganism from his book “cosmic perspectives” including rele...

June 22 at 8:03 AM

I probably spent two hours doing this TODAY (both censorship AND copyright, entailing separate pseudo-legal processes). How many hours does it add up to in a year?

—————

This concerns my parody video found on YouTube: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/HNTN4cROt2o

This is a parody presenting original lyrics over a familiar melody for purposes of comedy and social criticism: there is absolutely zero ambiguity as to how American law and YouTube policy apply in this case.

Representatives of your organization have filed an erroneous takedown notice that will remove this video (from public view) within seven days.

Quoting Cornell University’s Legal Information website:

“In the United States, parody is protected by the First Amendment as a form of expression. However, since parodies rely heavily on the original work, parodists rely on the fair use exception to combat claims of copyright infringement. The fair use exception is governed by the factors enumerated in section 107 of the Copyright Act: (1) the purpose and character of the use; (2) the nature of the original work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the original work used; and (4) the effect on the market value of the original work. Generally, courts are more likely to find that a parody qualifies as fair use if its purpose is to serve as a social commentary and not for purely commercial gain.”

Quoting Wikipedia:

“Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994), was a United States Supreme Court copyright law case that established that a commercial parody can qualify as fair use.[1] This case established that the fact that money is made by a work does not make it impossible for fair use to apply; it is merely one of the components of a fair use analysis.”

Note that this court precedent (510 U.S. 569 (1994)) directly concerns a parody song (original lyrics over a beat/music owned by someone else).

This is the most clearly protected form of freedom of speech under (1) Youtube’s own policies, (2) U.S. law and also (3) Canadian law. Youtube has its own guideline videos on “fair use” and “transformative content” that explicitly protect this form of free expression —and it is even more expressly protected when the purpose is political commentary social criticism.

If it were not legal to create original lyrics over an established melody (or beat) that would have a chilling effect on both comedy and political discourse: it would create two classes of speech, one that can be criticized, and one that cannot (indeed, the latter class could not even be quoted without violating copyright). Fair use is not a trivial concept, ethically, legally or politically; parody itself may seem trivial, but the suppression of parody through the misuse of copyright claims on youtube is a substantial violation of civil rights.

MONEY.

Money: dialogue with a fan… with a plot twist at the end.

June 21 at 7:53 AM

The ending is actually LESS DEPRESSING than you think it’s gonna be. ;-)

“You don’t need to read the book, just watch this 50 MINUTE video” lol

I said to another youtuber (MANY years ago), “Look, you can’t be better than Freelee without ACTUALLY BEING BETTER than Freelee: you have to do the research she doesn’t do, you have to go to school and get the scientific credentials she doesn’t have, etc.” —and there’s something similar to be said here. I’m better than the other youtubers partly because I WOULD ACTUALLY READ THE BOOK before criticizing it!

Nihilism vs. Jordan Peterson: the nihilists are right and you know it.

June 21 at 2:24 AM

Carly Hammond and Jordan Chariton: Open Relationship Office Politics.

June 20 at 8:11 PM

[Other voices:] Why I think atheism failed

June 20 at 5:22 PM

[Dept. of Uncritical Endorsements:] “LOOK AT THAT FAT” Super Mario 64 Remix

June 20 at 6:44 AM

Atheists: Stop Making Excuses for Buddhism.

June 20 at 6:06 AM

Merely 48 minutes long.

The wonder that was Fandar: a very different “speedrunning” video from years ago.

June 20 at 1:38 AM

I thought about re-posting this to Patreon for obvious but unrelated reasons. I assume that today’s video on “the 16 Star Mentality” was the first time most of you could remember me mentioning the speedrunning subculture… but… in fact… it’s not the first time it has come up on the channel… and now I might as well share this as the idiocy of Fandar has been “brought up” in such a dramatic fashion.

Ghosts of Fandar: Martin Exists Stage Left.

June 20 at 1:25 AM

How old do you think this guy is? I would have to imagine he’s very callow indeed. But, yes, the other possibility is that he’s just as mentally disabled as Fandar.

————————————

Martin

First. I was typing from a fucking cellphone.

Second I don´t accept impositions of morally inferior people (Yes, coincidentally, just so happened that I came across Fandar3 videos exposing you. You are, mentally and morally, fucked up).

If you took that long to write a book then you are not that smart as you pretend to be in your videos. ( Yes, I took my time to investigate further about you after your childish 5 year old angry reply).

20 years of research, C´mon! that´s part of the character you created all this time to justify your lifestyle and mistakes of your own past. As fake as the body language of many of your videos.

What do you for a living? Do you even have a job (any job)? Oh no that would be to low for Mr. Intelectual ooops don´t forget he´s vegan. Holy Shit the next Buddha right here ladies and gentlemen.

Who the fuck are you demand stuff from me (or anyone else)?. I live on my own and don´t depend from daddy and mommy funding me and I am younger than you. Already with that I am “I.R.L” miles ahead of you.

Since, you wanna interrogate me, someone told me about a video in which you (ex-buddhist and morally superior because... vegan!) claimed that your deserved more financial support than your brother who has a disability. How is that (Mr. intelectual and of course vegan!) something, morally superior?

By the way where´s the video in which you talk about your brother in such demeaning way?. I wanna show it to some people to warn them about these new breed of pseudo-intellectuals and morally bankrupt. (We had your type back in the days of rise of tibetan buddhism in the west, years ago).

Haven´t you thought about why I prefer an electronic version (which I am willing to PAY BTW), let me give you a hint, Ok let´s go: books require ----->paper ------->requires chopping down trees (are you following me Mr. Intellectual).

Maybe there´s a more eco-friendly solution. Could that be an electronic version? (I put some arrows (----->) in case the train of thought is too hard to follow for you, just for you ;-) )

Now Replying:

———
“You ain’t writing to me about your youtube channel, your podcast, your book —nor about your “I.R.L.” politics, ventures, or other achievements.

You want respect? Push respect”
———

I should thank you for your rude reply. Made me do a quick research which uncovered who you are really (thanks to that youtuber that exposed you). No I am not gonna share with you my politics, ventures, nothing! You are not worthy of any of them.

You want my respect, you just lost it for good.

P.S. Don´t write to me with UPPERCASE mother fucker I am neither your employee nor your submissive (and sadly manipulated) girlfriend, which I hope, for her mental health, breaks up with you ASAP.

I saw you were satisfied to see a college professor in the hospital... and you speak about moral superiority. You want anyone´s respect? Fuck you!

You want respect? Earn it! (getting a job, ANY JOB should be a good start).

And have a nice a wonderful day :)

————————————

Eisel Mazard

Oh yeah, bro, Fandar = 110% legit source of information.

哈哈哈哈哈哈

You could learn more about me from a casual reading of my own blog, or even my own Instagram.

Re: “You want my respect, you just lost it for good.”

No, I don’t want your respect: you’ve quite hilariously misinterpreted my message (and I can’t even say that you’ve misinterpreted it in a self-serving way, so it is a peculiar error on your part).

I have never once been asking you to respect me: I have been asking you to provide evidence of who you are, of what you do, etc., so that I can respect you. That was very clear throughout.

You want me to send you a free copy of my book as a TXT file? I can do that, and I have done that (as mentioned) for one person who really was in a circumstance in which he found it impossible to buy my book on paper. Look at how wildly unreasonable and malicious your responses have been: I am saying to you, “look, if your own behavior were ‘on the level’, and I had some sense of who you were, etc., then I would be willing to do you this favor” —it is not a tremendously high level of respect we’re talking about. However, doing such a favor for a faceless, nameless account on the internet (and, in your case, an account that has ONLY been an asshole toward me) is really a tall order.

Homie: talent is scarce.

When you look back on this five years from now, you’re gonna have to ask yourself what opportunity was lost: what opportunity you’d squandered just to indulge your own ego and throw this little tantrum in front of me.

No Context Necessary.

June 19 at 7:21 AM

Re: “If you knew (by some means) you would see the world’s intellectuals continually referencing your work and you winning a posthumous nobel prize — say in 100 years — would you take any satisfaction from that?”

No, I am not trying to make myself into a statue. My defiance is not the stuff monuments are made of: I am trying to change this world in this decade. My impatience is both shallow and profound.

The 16 Star Mindset: Greensuigi’s Speedrun from Hell.

June 19 at 6:08 AM

Some of you… SOME OF YOU in my audience… know EXACTLY where to share the link to this video… and some of you HAVE NO IDEA… but trust me… there’s A WHOLE SUBCULTURE that wants to hear it… ;-)

[Original title: The 16 Star Mentality.]

Everything is rap music.

June 19 at 2:53 AM

Push respect.

https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/03/miss-me-with-that-catch-me-with-this.html

[Meanwhile:] The mainstream media can’t deal with what’s wrong with the University system (BUT I CAN).

June 17 at 6:43 PM

A significant percentage of my book, No More Manifestos, advances a new philosophy of education, and a significant number of my youtube videos have presented a critique of the university of system. Some of the problems have become impossible to ignore… although the mainstream media remains incapable of really dealing with them.

Joining the Republican Party in 2023: AN OPTION.

June 17 at 8:55 AM

[Other voices:] Who is (or was) Louis Farrakhan?

June 16 at 10:21 PM

————

Within a few years, Gene Walcott [who would later adopt the name Louis Farrakhan] had dropped out of college and taken up a career as a calypso singer, styling himself the Charmer. Among those charmed, he would recount years later, were many women: “I wouldn’t go to bed with them. They wanted to give me money.... I told them, ‘You’re out of your damn mind.’ They said, ‘I think you’re a faggot.’ And I said, ‘I know what I am. You’ll never find out.’ ”

⋯

Before long, her son emerged as Minister Louis X, of the Boston Temple. He had been trained well by Malcolm in public speaking, and he also brought his own particular gifts to the task. He recorded a song entitled “A White Man’s Heaven Is a Black Man’s Hell,” which was a hit in Black Muslim circles, and he swiftly established himself as one of the most promising members of the ministry. He wrote—and performed in—a play entitled “Orgena” (“A Negro” spelled backward), a satire about assimilated blacks. He also wrote “The Trial,” in which a black prosecutor (usually played by Louis) tries the White Man for his myriad sins, and at the conclusion a black jury finds the defendant guilty and sentences him to death. Audiences responded with clamorous ovations.

——————

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/04/29/the-charmer

A video that contains the words, “Thanks, Eisel”.

June 16 at 4:03 AM

[Meanwhile:] Vegan Gains is STILL deleting his old videos to avoid getting banned from youtube… AGAIN.

June 15 at 6:42 AM

Less than one minute long.

[Meanwhile:] San Francisco: cotidienne consequences of decriminalizing drugs.

June 15 at 4:17 AM

People who can abandon the city do abandon the city; businesses close down; large complexes of businesses close down.

[Other voices:] When do we admit decriminalizing drugs DOESN’T WORK exactly?

June 15 at 12:36 AM

Original title: Portland’s Meltdown: A Progressive Experiment That ‘Has Gone Colossally Bad’

I live in Portland... My girlfriend asked me an ethical question the other day: “Should I call 911 if I walk past a homeless-looking man passed out on the sidewalk? Maybe they are dying and they need help.” I didn’t have a good answer for her. Obviously they are in a drug induced stupor, but on the off chance they really are dying maybe it is worth it to take the time to call for help? On the other hand, would it actually help to call 911? Likely it would just result in the police showing up, and the “call for help” would be resented (no one likes dealing with the police).

[Other voices:] Vice Magazine, Vice Television… Vice BANKRUPTCY.

June 14 at 9:50 PM

To say that I am six degrees of separation removed from vice would be an overstatement: I have known —directly— a few people whose lives were impacted by this “media empire” that formerly had a foothold both in Toronto and Montreal. One fellow spoke to me at great length about the factional politics that were ongoing within Vice at that time —although I wouldn’t suppose those conflicts had much to do with the problems the company had before or since.

The simultaneously overrated and yet unknown podcast “Canadaland” has also attempted to make a sort of documentary about the early history of Vice (in Montreal and Toronto, etc.) including the recollections of people who were involved at the time.

Short term, quitting veganism has been “good for business” over at Cosmic Skeptic’s channel.

June 14 at 6:55 PM

[Meanwhile:] The failed plot to murder Luna, explained by one of the co-conspirators.

June 14 at 5:50 AM

[Meanwhile:] Trying to make sense of the criminal allegations surrounding Sv3rige.

June 14 at 5:28 AM

Footnote: Sv3rige is now primarily known as Goatis on YouTube.

The Blue Bathrobe Interview: life with and without video games.

June 13 at 4:41 PM

This is an interview (from 2023) with a youtube channel that no longer exists, for a podcast that no longer exists, so I’ve uploaded it to my own channel, because this is —now— the only place you can see or hear it.

Do you know what happened to that channel? I remember when this came out

What are the odds that he finally quit video games?

He talked about it pretty openly: he moved to a new country, his wife gave birth to a new baby, etc.

MX2

The channel and original video still exist, he’s just rebranded to “Cartridge and Disk Podcast” (@cartridgeanddiskpodcast). It’s mostly the same content, though he did post a short video yesterday talking about retiring from his current career and going back to college.

Based on what he told me, I’d expect the rebranded channel to disappear, too... but we’ll see, I guess.

[Meanwhile:] An insane, immoral and inaccurate endorsement of the Unabomber…

SEC Seeks to Slash $22M Fine on Crypto Firm LBRY to $111K

June 13 at 4:51 AM

…from Krystal Ball of all people!

If you want to know the extent to which she’s misrepresenting her source material here, the most efficient way to catch up with what the hell the Unabomber was supposed to represent is to look up the one star reviews of his books (including his most recent books) on Goodreads. Yeah, there are a lot of five star reviews from people even crazier than Krystal Ball, but you’ll find the one star reviews actually contain quotations to prove their point…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to revise a $22 million penalty set on crypto startup LBRY to $111,614, according to court documents from Friday. The regulator cited LBRY’s “lack of funds and near-defunct status,” as reasons for withdrawing its previous request for fine.

Coindesk

[Other voices:] An already forgotten precedent in Cryptocurrency history: LBRY.

The Black Hole Problem: Give, Give, Give, Take, Take, Take.

June 12 at 5:32 PM

———
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to revise [!] a $22 million penalty set on crypto startup LBRY to [only] $111,614…

The regulator cited LBRY’s “lack of funds and near-defunct status,” as reasons for [the reduction in the fine].
———

You really cannot imagine how much “reaching out” to help others I’ve done: the mention of talking viewers out of suicide may seem maudlin (it may seem like an exaggeration) but it is (1) literally true, and (2) figuratively gives a sense of innumerable situations in which I did indeed have to be very “giving” to help people -about whom I knew little more than that they needed the help.

The Black Hole Problem: Give, Give, Give, Take, Take, Take.

“It” wasn’t worth it because “you” weren’t worth it.

June 12 at 2:33 AM

You really cannot imagine how much “reaching out” to help others I’ve done: the mention of talking viewers out of suicide may seem maudlin (it may seem like an exaggeration) but it is (1) literally true, and (2) figuratively gives a sense of innumerable situations in which I did indeed have to be very “giving” to help people —about whom I knew little more than that they needed the help.

Compare the reflections on my experience with Buddhism circa page 103 to 107 of Future of an Illusion: I quit that religion not because of the badness of its principles, its abstractions, its theories or even its rituals, but because of the badness of the people within it -I rejected Buddhists, as they really are, not Buddhism as it could be or should be.

It wasn’t worth it because “you” weren’t worth it.

June 12 at 12:35 AM

The most serious allegations against Trump never went to court.

June 11 at 7:57 AM

The spirit of season one.

100% typical conversation with a longtime fan and supporter of the channel.

June 9 at 7:03 AM

Also to be found on ye olde blog: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/06/100-typical-conversation-with-longtime.html

The image within an image that he’s replying to at the very top of the first screenshot (before the words, “it’s a shame, man) can be found here: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2023/06/on-attracting-audience-of-intellectuals.html And in case you’re interested in the link in the first image (to a playlist titled, asking the audience for help), here it is: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pJMWgCbzGti-z-5DvaIa3Y

[Other voices:] Sam reading from (and reflecting on) Aristotle’s Politics.

June 9 at 5:32 AM

Yes, just a little bit of commentary has been intrusively added by Eisel Mazard, throughout. ;-)

[Other voices:] Living surrounded by drug addicts in Canada: a siege “of all against all”.

June 9 at 5:05 AM

Note that this video is indeed government propaganda: everything the C.B.C. does is propaganda —even when it is presented as a critique of propaganda. And the most frequent implicit message is one of boosterism, sensu stricto. Even in this intensely dishonest context, however, some sense of the bleakness of our lives (yes, including my life) in the Pacific North West is connoted.

[Total runtime = 9:56.]

Intellectuals: far fewer than one in ten thousand.

June 8 at 5:38 PM

Differences of degree, differences in kind.

June 8 at 5:09 PM

Meeting Jason Momoa: He’s Ugly In Real Life.

June 8 at 8:34 AM

An extract from a much longer philosophical (and political) discussion, found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/TGdVEjyKdpA

What percentage of youtubers are on drugs?

June 8 at 12:06 AM

[Other voices:] Oh, hey, remember democracy in Hong Kong? What ever happened TO THAT?

June 7 at 6:30 PM

Original title: “China clamps down on Hong Kong’s annual vigil of Tiananmen massacre”

When atoms get the right to vote...

June 7 at 3:12 AM

[Department of Minor Ironies:] Meanwhile, IN ISRAEL…

June 6 at 9:57 PM

Original title: “Anti-Zionist Jewish community flying Palestinian flags in Jerusalem”.

[Department of Minor Ironies:] “Well, let’s not politicize the raising of FLAGS…”

June 6 at 9:55 PM

Raising flags is political. Banning flags is political. Flying flags at half mast is political. Burning flags is political. This is the most inevitable political conflict imaginable, just now starting to unfold.

Nothing else for either side to say.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7pJMWgCbzGti-z-5DvaIa3Y

June 6 at 5:59 PM

[Other voices:] The long term legacy of looting in 2020: strongarm shoplifting “is normal” now.

Russia says it thwarts another major Ukrainian offensive in Donetsk

June 6 at 5:43 PM

^ The title is my own “thesis”, and is not stated in the video.

June 6 (Reuters) — Russia’s defence ministry said early on Tuesday that it had thwarted another major offensive by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk, inflicting huge personnel losses and destroying eight main battle Leopard tanks as Kyiv forces pressed on.

Reuters

[Other voices:] War Hasn’t Changed.

On the unusual popularity of, “Why I’m forcing you to read Aristotle”.

June 6 at 5:36 PM

“Russia, Ukraine blame each other for collapse of dam.”

I received a question about this video, or about its unusual popularity, or about the unusual quantity of fan mail I receive about it. What is it, exactly, that people like so much about the video?] People like the idea that they can change.

On the unusual popularity of, “Why I’m forcing you to read Aristotle”.

June 6 at 9:11 AM

Don Juan

Like a new years resolution huh

“Want to understand history and politics? READ THESE 10 BOOKS!”

On attracting an audience of intellectuals.

June 6 at 8:40 AM

Creating videos of lean, fit people showing off their bodies does not attract an audience of lean, fit, healthy people —quite the contrary, it attracts an audience of people who see in that performance something they lack.

They only yearn for what they lack: so it is that highly intellectual content attracts an audience even more mindless than mindless entertainment.

I realize how difficult this is to believe.

You cannot raise the intellectual or moral caliber of your audience by raising yourself up: you can only attract an even lower audience that enjoys gawking at you from a greater distance. Their very inferiority will make you seem exotic in their eyes.

E.M.

Fear of a Woke Planet: the WOKE MOB Anthem.

June 5 at 10:54 AM

AND WHO IS “THE WOKE MOB” EXACTLY?

It’s hard to accept that people are really this stupid. They are.

June 5 at 6:09 AM

People really are this stupid.

REALLY.

90% of people are really this stupid, really this crazy, and really this malign —even at Cambridge University…

ESPECIALLY at Cambridge University.

Here’s the link if you want it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZEkgohG7k7piTjOcK4iA4RP6TlLj6-ss

People who are stupid don’t see that they are or accept that they are. Those are the stupidest among us. The ones that see how stupid they are can either except it or decide that they will do better. (Like me)

But in the way that I haven’t reached my full potential because of myself. No other person to blame.

The good news is it’s not over and we can turn our stupidity around and truly change.

The Dhammapada: Inasmuch as a fool is aware of his own foolishness, he is, to that extent, a wise man, but he who is a fool while considering himself wise is truly and utterly a fool.

Bruno Brunner

I think you are very generous with this 90%. That would mean that there are ~800.000.000 smart people in the world. Even 1% seems too much. Are there 80 million of them? Where are they hiding?

I’ve lived in repressive regimes: I think that in many cultures around the world, intelligent people are indeed LIVING IN HIDING. If I had been born a citizen of Saudi Arabia, or even Pakistan, what would I be doing right now? Living my whole life under a mask —a masquerade.

[Other voices:] Meanwhile, in Iran… 2023: the revolution that never was.

June 4 at 12:47 AM

Oh, hey… FOR SOME STRANGE REASON… Americans and Western Europeans are ONLY interested in the early “promising” stages of these rebellions (Iran, Hong Kong and Myanmar much the same, not to mention the “Arab Spring” phenomenon) and then have NO INTEREST AT ALL in the real outcomes that ensue. One of the shops here in Victoria was literally selling flags supporting the democracy-and-women’s-rights (feminism) revolution in Iran… well…

[Other Voices:] First Nations (Native Americans) in video games: a rare discussion.

June 2 at 6:35 AM

Dynamic Eye Studios

I recall my brother playing RDR https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/RVoq0hLdGmo

[Other voices:] What happens to “migrants” after they arrive in New York City?

Emotion is not the opposite of reason.

June 1 at 5:55 PM

The use of the word “migrant” in 2023 is slightly surreal: this video apparently concerns refugees throwing themselves on the mercy of the social services system and claiming a status (and benefits) totally different from the usual path through getting a green card, etc. (qua immigration, the meaning usually associated with “being a migrant”, etc.).

Hi Eisel. I want to share what I’ve been thinking lately. Each person’s purpose is to become a mature human being, with the potency in their nature actualized. It’s easy to see that the potency of intelligence is to grow and develop, but what is the potency of emotion?

Emotion is not the opposite of reason.

June 1 at 5:37 PM

[The right wing can’t be wrong about everything:] “Canada Is Dying” by Aaron Gunn.

June 1 at 5:21 PM

Only the far right wing cares about drug addiction and the rampant (misc.) criminal activity (and “mental health problems”) linked to having a standing army of drug addicts on the streets at all times, so… however risible they may be on other issues, inevitably… the right wing becomes the only credible voice in politics.

May

Stendhal: the #1 book on Jordan Peterson’s reading list.

May 31 at 8:06 PM

La Chartreuse de Parme, a.k.a. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle)… inexplibaly the number one book on Jordan Peterson’s “100 Great Books” reading list.

James Newman

Interesting video. I read it six or seven years ago, but It’s probably time for a reread. Any thoughts on his book The Red and the Black?

Do you think Water Margin also requires a certain level of knowledge about the historical period to appreciate? Or could you read it without knowing much about China? I remember you once recommended reading Water Margin to learn about Ancient China.

Overall, I would say that you can read Water Margin in English without any prior preparation... but I read something like four volumes out of ten (different editions divide the book into different numbers of volumes). I have not read the whole thing.

[Other voices:] Richard describes himself as teetering on the edge of suicide all day, every day, and thus “needs” Nicotine.

May 30 at 9:43 PM

The link should bring you to the 4:30 mark, but if it doesn’t work, you might want to click to jump to that point.

You know… more than five years ago I was asking Richard directly, “who do you want to be five years from now?”

What do you want to be doing five years from now? What kind of person are you going to be?

[3 minutes:] Are any of these people going to be alive 5 years from now?

May 30 at 9:35 PM

Seroquel, Wellbutrin, and (yes, yes y’all) nicotine… this is the man who was formerly the most influential voice in the Vegan movement, Richard Burgess, a.k.a. “Vegan Gains”.

Extinction Rebellion: is anyone else asking where all the money went?

May 30 at 7:46 PM

Over one million dollars per year for how many years? And they’re NOT operating as a registered charity for some mysterious reason, you notice that? Nobody else is asking questions? Just me? Right.

[The spirit of season one:] Your mental health problems are who you really are.

The case of the Incel Anthem: how censorship at youtube works (and how it doesn’t work)

May 30 at 6:59 PM

Only 8 minutes long (one of the shortest monologues on the channel).

4:56:28 PM Eisel Mazard: Hello Juvia. 4:56:38 PM Eisel Mazard: I am writing to you about the censorship status of THIS VIDEO: 4:56:39 PM Juvia: Hi there! 4:56:40 PM Eisel Mazard: https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/M18KxgvWPts 4:56:45 PM Juvia: I hope you are doing great 4:56:55 PM Juvia: thank you for the video URL 4:56:57 PM Eisel Mazard: ^ This video is categorized as “hate speech”.

The case of the Incel Anthem: how censorship at youtube works (and how it doesn’t work)

May 29 at 1:36 AM

The controversy here is the categorization (and blacklisting) of a comedy video “as hate speech” —and youtube’s own implicit definition of hate speech (or a series of examples illustrating it) is quoted in the ensuing conversation below (and my video does not deserve to be censored by this definition!).

[Other voices:] Admitting that video games really are the problem: “Hiding in My Room” comes clean.

May 29 at 1:08 AM

I am surprised to hear that his problem began with the Game Boy and Sega Mega Drive… I am not surprised that his problems became dramatically worse with PC gaming (and World of Warcraft, specifically.)

[Meanwhile:] The decline and fall of “Decline”.

The challenges of going vegan in meat-crazy Pakistan

May 29 at 12:52 AM

My comment:

[Me:] “If you work out at the gym, you can get a 20% improvement in your appearance, but don’t kid yourself, you’ve got to focus on being a good person under several other headings, like, intellectually…”

[Decline:] “Only 20%? No way man! You’re just a troll! I can do way better than that!”

[30^th birthday deadline:] “Gee, in retrospect, 20% improvement seems pretty good about now, hunh?”

Intellectually and ethically, you can improve far more than 20% —but you’ve now found out (the hard way) just how difficult it would be for you to reach a higher level athletically, just 20% above your prior (personal) best.

RAWALPINDI: Digital rights activist Usama Khilji has been vegan since 2013, joining a global movement of people who eat a diet that is entirely plant based, eschewing even the eggs and milk of traditional vegetarianism.

Arab News PK

[Other voices:] The challenges of going vegan in meat-crazy Pakistan

May 28 at 7:08 PM

“Pakistan’s per capita meat consumption in 2000 was 11.7 kg, which rose to over 47 kg by 2020.”

Does this summer have a name yet?

May 28 at 6:24 AM

I realize “white boy summer” is over, but... ?

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/hHtZ4Kbo8R0

(Still a great video, BTW, with an explicitly political conclusion... maybe some of you never watched it until the end?)

[Other voices:] The beginning of the end of left wing drug policy, and left wing mental health policy.

What 2,000 views means to me: a look back at the lost avant garde of season one

May 28 at 5:35 AM

It’s two minutes long: you don’t get a summary.

This video just came up in an unrelated conversation: it is an utterly boring video with an utterly boring title, “Veganism 2.0”. It is just 24 minutes of me speaking into the camera (intensely) talking about the theory and practice of veganism -and, again, there’s nothing entertaining about the title, the thumbnail or anything else.

What 2,000 views means to me: a look back at the lost avant garde of season one

https://web.archive.org/web/2oe_/http://wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/GF_wyl07YKQ

May 28 at 1:53 AM

[From my email correspondence with a viewer.]

This video just came up in an unrelated conversation: it is an utterly boring video with an utterly boring title, “Veganism 2.0”.

It is just 24 minutes of me speaking into the camera (intensely) talking about the theory and practice of veganism —and, again, there’s nothing entertaining about the title, the thumbnail or anything else. 2,300 people clicked on a video titled “Veganism 2.0” just to hear me give this utterly boring lecture on the ethical implications of killing bears that break into your house, etc.

Now my point is this: the video can’t be any more successful. It can’t be.

That is really the upper limit of the tiny audience anyone can hope to reach (with “serious” vegan content of this kind).

Many of the people who watched that video will be the same people who listened to even more boring lectures by Gary Francione. And those people have a limited appetite for listening to morality lectures, as you can imagine.

The hardcore vegan activists are a very small audience in the English language, and it is an audience I know very well —and I had already exhausted the patience of that audience (with my even more puritanical message, reproaching them for being not pure enough, etc.) circa 4 or 5 years ago, when that video was made.

Again, I am not upset about this, and, on the contrary, it’s something I’m entirely comfortable joking around about.

I do realize that it’s implicitly hilarious that my role has been to reproach other vegans for not being vegan enough. And that is something I’ve been quite willing to make comedy videos about, i.e., ridiculing myself for.

It is not the case that there’s a larger audience that I’m failing to reach: the metrics of what is possible if you want to be “the next Gary Francione” are very clear (and please note that Francione had millions of dollars at his disposal, a position of institutional privilege as a law professor, and he was willing to spend more decades doing this than I ever will, etc.).

Just a few thousand people on the whole globe (speaking English) are interested in this stuff (e.g., “Who is more vegan, Peter Singer or Gary Francione?”). And I had already saturated that small market circa 4 or 5 years ago.

So, again, I am not boasting: this is a very small subculture in which everyone knows everyone else.

I was much more surprised when people in the polyglot subculture told me that everyone there knew my work, but apparently that is an even smaller subculture, that is even more tightly knit (again: everyone knows everyone else, etc.).

[The Spirit of Season One:] “Veganism 2.0” more than four years later!

May 28 at 1:31 AM

Hank Green Gets Cancelled by Cancer: the Vegan Perspective.

May 26 at 9:42 PM

Has anyone ever told you that you can save the world for the cost of a can of Coca Cola? For the cost of a cup of coffee per day? Have you ever seen anyone argue back that _THAT IS NOT TRUE_ —or even that it’s a dangerous delusion?

Lakshan

For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, I subscribed to this Patreon, so that I can leave comments :)

Presumably you do not have the delusion that you’re saving the lives of children starving in Africa. ;-)

[Other voices:] Can Portland admit drug addiction is the problem? No, of course not!

May 26 at 6:54 AM

Long story short: the local government has given in to pressure from physically disabled people to remove homeless people “camping” on the sidewalks… because their presence there is unfair to people with “mobility challenges”. And the implicit absurdity of the situation is that everyone can carry on pretending that drug addiction isn’t the problem —and, I suppose, for a short while they can pretend that this pro-disabled-people policy is the solution!

[Other voices:] An ode to the Chinese cinderblock utopia.

May 25 at 8:45 PM

Or dystopia. Or both.

An interesting twist from Oscar Jenkins (i.e., this is a satirical song, but quite different from his others, thus far).

[Other voices:] There are so many drug addicts, Starbucks is removing all the chairs.