Big Joel
The Strange World of YouTubes Corporate Propaganda | Big Joel
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Links to mentioned articles:
Cult Hopping: rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/what-is-cult-hopping-nxivm-dos-838750
Bill Gates and Vaccines: apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-8873480039
Smoking and COVID: nature.com/articles/s41533-021-00223-1
The Great Circle Route: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-circle_navigation
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Co-edited by myself and @mothcub
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Co-edited by myself and @mothcub (But I added the tunes)
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Editing from Mothcub: @mothcub
Special thanks to Sandra
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Nerdwriter's video: youtube.com/watch?v=ZRLcZTr6Z0Q&t=407s&ab_channel=Nerdwriter1
I didn't read much about Sonnet 116, but I did check out Nerdwriter's sources. So here they are:
Roessner, Jane. “The Coherence and the Context of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 81, no. 3, 1982, pp. 331–46, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27709024.
Neely, Carol Thomas. “Detachment and Engagement in Shakespeare’s Sonnets: 94, 116, and 129.” PMLA, vol. 92, no. 1, 1977, pp. 83–95, doi.org/10.2307/461416.
Landry, Hilton, "The Marriage Of True Minds: Truth and Error in Sonnet 116"
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1297...
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Articles books and podcasts I used, in terrible order
Fiasco by Thomas Ricks
slate.com/podcasts/slow-burn/s5/road-to-the-iraq-war
humiliationstudies.org/news-old/archives/2006_11.html
washingtonpost.com/outlook/interactive/2021/911-books-american-values
aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/3/20/why-did-bush-go-to-war-in-iraq
https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1089&context=political_science_facpub#:~:text=Iraq%20had%20nationalized%20its%20oil,and%20other%20more%20sympathetic%20countries
nytimes.com/2020/07/28/books/review/to-start-a-war-robert-draper.html
slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/05/iraq-911-saddam-hussein-no-link-cia-bush-cheney-wolfowitz.html
theartnewspaper.com/2003/03/01/why-did-the-united-nations-cover-up-picassos-guernica
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Special thanks to Unlearning Economics:
youtube.com/channel/UC4V_jMdRbbTrmBVJB6FDzgw
Some More News' Video: youtube.com/watch?v=hSNWkRw53Jo
Footnote One, on the subject of universal healthcare:
A patron had this point to make, so I thought I'd address it here. They said, paraphrased, "Actually Peterson is from Canada and supports their healthcare system. Doesn't that challenge your point on his conservatism"
The answer? Not really. While Peterson is broadly a conservative, of course I recognise that universal healthcare is the status quo position in most places where it exists and that he supports it. My point here was not about particular policies he doesn't support, but about the incoherence of his claim that "shovelling money down the hierarchy" is so profoundly difficult because people are too stupid. To make that point, he has to disregard obvious solutions to this problem.
Footnote Two, on the subject of Race and IQ:
I assume some fans of Peterson will think I am straw-manning him or taking him out of context on this point. I am not. It is impossible to watch this video and think he doesn't believe certain races, including black people, are genetically different with regard to IQ: youtube.com/watch?v=h02w5E7FGlY&t=565s. And he has, on multiple occasions, lent support to the Bell Curve. I don't think my claim here is controversial at all, to be honest. Here is Shaun's incredible video on the Bell Curve, if you're interested: youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo&t=103s
Peterson clips in order of rough appearance:
youtube.com/watch?v=D7Kn5p7TP_Y&t=2870s
youtube.com/watch?v=5-Ur71ZnNVk
youtube.com/watch?v=1XCyNwZArkE
youtube.com/watch?v=iF8F7tjmy_U
youtube.com/watch?v=Nb5cBkbQpGY&t=6360s
youtube.com/watch?v=PY4sShDt9to&t=2286s
youtube.com/watch?v=GlW5A4EoWtQ&t=454s
youtube.com/watch?v=Twc6T19tap4&t=927s
youtube.com/watch?v=zHdmiAhhnvM
youtube.com/watch?v=o73pqQ9Gzt4
youtube.com/watch?v=U6gwiN_Aqg4
youtube.com/watch?v=M01XrJ7Govo
youtube.com/watch?v=hs_RG4DHtB4&t=243s
Articles I used:
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/sendhil/files/976.full_.pdf
nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-why-i-am-no-longer-a-tenured-professor-at-the-university-of-toronto
scientificamerican.com/article/darwin-was-wrong-your-facial-expressions-do-not-reveal-your-emotions
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Edited by Mothcub: twitter.com/mothcub_
ORIGINAL THREAD: twitter.com/biggestjoel/status/1499372810556346383?s=20&t=86ii06GDE8UE_6AyU7_I8A
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All music by Toshifumi Hinata
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Let's talk about the war on Christmas, Dennis Prager, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, conservatism, and a strange movie called Christmas with a Capital C.
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Article about the Supreme Court and nativity scenes: freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/are-religious-holiday-displays-on-public-property-constitutional
Article about contraception and nuns: npr.org/2020/05/06/848848145/religious-objectors-v-birth-control-back-at-supreme-court
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Articles
One about UBI in Finland: https://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/results-of-the-basic-income-experiment-small-employment-effects-better-perceived-economic-security-and-mental-wellbeing
One about Payday loans: pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2012/07/19/who-borrows-where-they-borrow-and-why
Alux videos used:
15 Reasons Why Finland is the Happiest Country
15 Things Rich People Do That The Poor Don’t
15 Things Poor People Do That The Rich Don’t
15 Things Poor People Don't Know About Making Money
15 Things Poor People Waste Money On
15 Rules of Poverty
Purpose of Wealth
15 Reasons Staying Poor is a Choice
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Answering a possible question: Why didn't you talk about the last tweet more? Doesn't it seem like that person is pro bestiality? I didn't talk about it because I'd just be repeating myself. It's wildly to uncharitable to think that that tweet is saying "you need an argument for why bestiality is bad" and not "you need an argument that differentiates animal sex from animal eating beyond 'one of those is gross'" But I already made this point so I wanted to move on.
Shoe0nhead on fat-phobia (this video is unlisted so I guess she must feel some kind of way about it. I just used my memory of shoe's content to write this part of the video. May have not used this had I known she unlisted it, but I still think it stands since it doesn't seem like she's said anything about it lol.): youtube.com/watch?v=wfh0WifoTVQ&t=1s
Shoe0nhead on women being less funny than are men: youtube.com/watch?v=owV1AOpUpto&t=3s&pp=sAQA
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Edited with help from Ryan A! Thanks Ryan!!
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Edited by Ryan A! Thanks Ryan!!!!
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Edited by Ryan A! Thanks Ryan!!!!
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Footnote: So, here are a few bits of information you might find interesting about this episode but that didn't have any weight on the video itself. First, Bailey returned to the show. She came back and met Jasmine. It's pretty boring. Second, Phil forcing Bailey off the show might not be the end of her presence on the episode. Talking to Bailey's mother, Phil says he might bring her back on. Not really sure what happens after that.
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One Art
BY ELIZABETH BISHOP
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
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School of Life videos (in order of use):
youtube.com/watch?v=rD1qKMgTnAE
youtube.com/watch?v=Y9zThcMJzQU
youtube.com/watch?v=BYKxrjYY77c&t=174s
youtube.com/watch?v=srnSa8QHtzM&t=12s
youtube.com/watch?v=z2tlif59E1E&t=49s
I'm not sure how to link the community post, but you can find it in their community posts!!
youtube.com/watch?v=qqIHTeBfmCE&t=229s
Articles about workplace productivity:
npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-says-4-day-workweek-boosted-workers-productivity-by-40
bustle.com/p/high-functioning-anxiety-can-help-you-be-more-productive-according-to-experts-8823793
webmd.com/depression/news/20030617/depression-affects-work-productivity
hbr.org/2016/07/the-data-driven-case-for-vacation
Articles about self help (NOTE: I am not not trying to suggest that these articles prove out the case against self help, just that they're a reasonable survey of criticisms for the genre):
forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2019/07/05/why-self-help-books-dont-work-and-how-to-nevertheless-benefit-from-them/?sh=4a02d1bb5f91
raybwilliams.medium.com/the-problem-with-the-self-help-movement-ab972ef58728
markmanson.net/self-help
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Edited by Ben from Canada!
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The CNN video: youtu.be/f22A8PWpGY8
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Footnote: So, at no point in the video does Dave Rubin or Mike Knowles ever say "my entire explanation for the degeneracy of modern society is cancel culture." That said, the two do sure talk about it for at least six minutes, and genuinely offer no explanation for society that is distinct from PC and cancel culture making everything worse. Just wanted to say, I did read between the lines here a bit.
Today we're gonna talk about the Pureflix Propaganda film Unplanned! woo
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Article on abortion in Texas: vice.com/en_ca/article/7kz9wz/what-its-like-to-get-an-abortion-in-texas
Footnote 1: I just wanted to add a footnote here to clarify: I’m not trying to imply here that all chemical abortions go off without a hitch. A friend talked to me about it and had a bad experience, so if you had one of those, I’m not here to tell you that it’s an easy or fun thing in all cases. The amount of pain and bleeding it causes seems to vary a lot. I’m just saying, Planned Parenthood doesn’t lie about the side effects of their medication or treat the suffering of its clients as unimportant. At least, I’ve found no evidence to suggest that is the case.
Footnote 2: So, I’m well aware that both these guys probably know full well that the argument they’re making *won’t* convince pro lifers. Cody no doubt doesn’t actually think he’s going to get Ben Shapiro, and an extremely important point in Ian’s videos is that this argument would NEVER convince pro lifers, because conservatives are broadly more concerned with punishing evil than actually doing something about the problem. But here, I want to make a distinction. A distinction between an argument that is likely to persuade people and an intellectually persuasive argument. We all intuitively understand that this is a meaningful distinction, right. We know that there’s no way to convince a flat earther that the earth is round, but we also know that the arguments we can provide for the roundness of the earth are very good. That if the flat earther was thinking rationally and cared about the evidence, he would accept that he was wrong. The problem I have with these arguments is not that they wouldn’t actually persuade real pro lifers. I know that I probably haven’t done that myself. Rather, my problem is that they aren’t intellectually persuasive. They accept the terms of pro lifers insofar as that they assume, for the sake of argument, that abortion is something people might rationally want to reduce. But they ignore the actual problem pro lifers have with them, that they think, on some level at least, that fetuses are people and that ending their lives is murder. If you really accept that, then your argument to ban abortion is as simple as the words “I believe murder should be socially prohibited, outlawed in some way.” And that’s just not a particularly hard claim to defend. Most people would agree with it. In other words, pro lifers don’t think abortions are like driving your car too fast or shoplifting, they think it’s a very important problem. And so, saying “well if we did this social thing, we’d at least reduce them somewhat.” it’s just not a good enough case. It’s not just that it wouldn’t persuade pro lifers, it’s that it shouldn’t persuade them because it’s not persuasive. It’s for this reason, by the way, that I make the case here that our argument for abortion needs to be as simple as “abortions are fine. They’re not a Big Moral Problem that needs solving. The core assumption of the pro life argument is wrong.”
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Footnote on architecture: So, I want to be a bit specific here. I’m not claiming that modernism had NO impact on architecture, that would be silly. But this video makes a far more ambitious point: That modernism’s effect on architecture was SPECIFICALLY that it inspired architects to build less expensive and aesthetically appealing buildings. And I’m totally unsure of why we’d think that. These capitalists weren’t planning on building small, stone or wood buildings in the first place, that was never their plan. They were going to build large skyscrapers and factories, whether the modernists liked it or not. And sure, aesthetic concerns were relevant, but are we really claiming that the budget for these buildings would have been way higher had modernism never become a movement? If people hadn't "decided" that art was subjective? Seems unbelievably ridiculous to me, and I’d like to see at least SOME proof of it. I have looked into it for this video and found nothing, but feel free to send me sources showing that I’m wrong here. The weirdest example of this in the video, that I didn't call out specifically, is that theorists saying taste is subjective produced conditions under which NOBODY was ALLOWED to call buildings ugly anymore, giving capitalists a free pass. Like, that's not how history works. Another problem here, that I didn't get into enough in the video, is that there's a constant conflation of "buildings that were made mostly to serve a purpose" and "elegantly designed modernist buildings that were trying to accomplish a pleasing aesthetic goal and did so well" But like, the Guggenheim was also "inspired by modernism" as were many buildings that were obviously extremely ambitious and attractive to many people. Of course, that conflation is useful to school of life (which simply wants us to reject modernism and embrace tradition, architecturally speaking) but it leads to a problem where, literally all modern buildings can be understood only as a capitalist trick, using modernism as a cudgel. If I ever make a sequel video, I'll clarify this stuff more.
Videos I talked about:
Why Love Is Never as Nice as It Should Be: youtube.com/watch?v=X7hKC01e-NQ&t=35s
Why Truly Sociable People Hate Parties: youtube.com/watch?v=IQpQVOPokhk
The Advantages of Being Just Good Friends: youtube.com/watch?v=yP88kT6ZvwA&t=8s
Why Nice People Are Scary: youtube.com/watch?v=IBsOu44Tj2E&t=71s
5 Reasons the Modern World Is so Ugly: youtube.com/watch?v=qgNxLiuwFDY&t=1s
The Importance of an Unhappy Adolescence: youtube.com/watch?v=zcUI1Hk0GRU
The Secret to Leaving Comments Online: youtube.com/watch?v=OI1pufK0zOg&t=121s
Let's talk about Adam and Eve wooo!
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Footnote: So, in the video, I say that we can’t know if God suffers or not for sure, and that seems true. Were I religious, I wouldn’t feel like I had absolute knowledge of the nature of God, and that’s certainly the prevailing belief of most religious people, particularly Jews. That said, writing this video, I imagined I’d get two responses that I do want to talk about here. First, “You say that God doesn’t seem like he suffers, but perhaps he suffers when people suffer, feels the pain people do.” Second, “I’m a Christian and I certainly believe that God suffers. He took the form of Christ and suffered and died for our sins.”
The reason I put both these potential comments together is that my response to them is the same. In these situations, God NEEDS humans in order to suffer. Either because the pain of human existence brings God pain, or because God took a human form in order to suffer. Thus, suffering is still known uniquely to humans, an experience God may not innately have. In fact, I would say this response only strengthens the argument of this video. Perhaps people are uniquely able to experience morality because they suffer, and God requires the assumption of human suffering in order to have that sense. Interesting stuff.
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Edited by Ben from Canada!
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