How TIK misleads you with word salad

[@chrisball3778]

The 'Is Tik a Gnostic Communist?' bit at the end is hilarious. The facetious reasoning you use as a joke is as good as anything Tik manages, and he's doing it entirely seriously.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you! I thought it made the point in an accessible and memorable way.

[@Mrax_Taylor]

@@veritasetcaritas it did (∩_∩)

[@stilltoomanyhats]

"Materialism is when idealism" is certainly one of the takes ever.

[@veritasetcaritas]

It's amazing the arguments he can make by ignoring facts.

[@zandrus9191]

Materialism is quite clearly a pragmatic, dynamic but empty shell view of the world.

[@leonardooriano5794]

⁠@@zandrus9191disagree strongly.

[@Jesse-qy6ur]

​@@zandrus9191: do you have any idea what you're talking about? Or do you just go about making your own history any way you please without concern about conditions given and transmitted from the past? When you can use your Cartesian dualism to manifest a space boat into existence so you can take a summer vacation to Jupiter then we can entertain the limitation of ideas by objective reality as somehow being an "empty shell view of the world" (whatever that's supposed to mean).

[@theconqueringram5295]

You clearly put in many, many hours worth of research to debunk every single erroneous claim TIK made. No stone left unturned, this is truly remarkable!

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@chrisbarcy1972]

6:45 I have no idea how it's possible to miss the "materialism" part of historical materialism 😂

[@veritasetcaritas]

He has special gifts.

[@WhichDoctor1]

@@veritasetcaritas yo, you spelt grifts wrong ;p

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@WhichDoctor1 that was neat!

[@krulidn]

TIK's happy to take Hitler's word for it when he says he's a national SOCIALIST but not marxist's when they say they're materialists. Of course, fascists have the better track record for good faith representations of their beliefs.

[@mercurialpoirot5551]

How do you manage to miss the socialism in national socialism?

[@hallamhal]

I remember, years ago (I must have still been a teenager) TIK had the honour of being the first youtuber I unsubscribed from. I came for history, left for the weird political views. No other decision I've made has been so vindicated over the years

[@steinarvilnes3954]

I also unsubscribed when he started with the libertarian crap.

[@silentotto5099]

I followed much the same trajectory with TIK. I subscribed for his in depth analysis of important WWII battles which I knew little about. But his analysis of other subjects which I happened to know something about was so clearly loopy that I became skeptical of the quality of his battlefield analysis and unsubscribed. If you're still interested in deep dives into WWII history, I recommend another You Tube channel, WWIITV. www.youtube.com/@WW2TV That channel is putting out high quality content in granular detail presented by experts in their various areas of WWII study. I highly recommend it.

[@veritasetcaritas]

You called it early!

[@page8301]

Left? Or fled? ;-)

[@Jebediah1999]

​@@page8301same here. He's a bullet proof libertarian on the same landing as Liz Truss. Used to refer to him as THIK when I was trolling him in the comments. His fans are as bullet proof unfortunately. The devotion and infallibility seem to go hand in hand.. Reminds me of Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson simps. A dreary sad vista.

[@joeblow9657]

The real thing that's funny imo is that TIK is trying to use a random 12th century person could have anything to say on national socialism, instead of using good, modern definitions.

[@veritasetcaritas]

He's definitely not a fan of modern definitions.

[@chrisbarcy1972]

TIK once made a video on Marx where he critiques the labor theory of value by saying that if someone puts labor into making mudpies it isn't worth anything

[@manana1444]

Well, yes, putting labour into something nobody wants doesn't give it value, that is just wasting resources

[@patavinity1262]

He's wrong in (at least) three ways. First, the labour theory of value actually appears in classical economics - Marx simply developed it. Second, making mudpies requires practically no labour to produce, which partly explains its valuelessness as a commodity. Third, the real value of a commodity also incorporates use value.

[@veritasetcaritas]

TIK's videos are actually a great example of how putting a lot of effort into making something doesn't necessarily make it valuable.

[@nicjobro_4653]

'tis not like in Capital 1 Marx mentioned that it has to be a thing with use. Tik either did not read that primary source or knowingly and deliberately misrepresented it.

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@nicjobro_4653 I've lost count of the number of times people have corrected TIK's misunderstanding of Marx, even in comments made directly to him.

[@romitkumar6272]

Its crazy how similar your bit about the word salad sounds to the actual arguments TIK makes in mutliple of his videos with a completely straight face

[@veritasetcaritas]

His arguments are so wild they are difficult to parody.

[@romitkumar6272]

@@veritasetcaritas btw what are your thoughts on TIK claiming that Heraclitus was the actual origin of the "Indo-European" branch of Gnosticism, which he derived from Zoroastrianism, which TIK also called Gnosticism?

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@romitkumar6272 I have seen that video and as usual it is gibberish. He doesn't understand Heraclitus and does not understand that Gnosticism emerged with second century Christianity, not earlier. Obviously the idea that Zoroastrianism is Gnosticism, is also rubbish.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

21:30 Also, as a more tangential thing, this I guess partly explains that random wave last year of terminally online "tradcaths" and the like suddenly using the word "gnostic" as their newfound scare word.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yep, James a Lindsay is very likely to blame.

[@AC-dk4fp]

James is just the messenger since he got fed his stick by tradcaths and their allies to start with. James is just the New Atheist vector for spreading Christian Nationalist talking points to religion iliterate rational bros like TIK. @@veritasetcaritas

[@Testimony_Of_JTF]

Most people I've interacted with in trad circles (I am one myself) prefer associating transgenderism with nominalism, mostly because it is that. Random accusations of something being gnostic (like original sin) get thrown around a lot but I never saw it being used against the trans movement specifically.

[@fuzonzord9301]

@@Testimony_Of_JTF I'd associate it with endocrine disruptors everywhere.

[@martincanela848]

laughed hard with the ending. Furthermore, this is an example of how an incredibly serious channel with a meticulous research method and care for the truth can be really funny without losing its intellectual essence at all. As a history student myself I aspire to nothing more than having your capacity for insight and fact checking

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you so much! As you can probably tell, I aim to maintain a certain tone on this channel, so when I wrote that satire I great care with it because I didn't want it descending into mere ridicule. At one point I even considered leaving it out entirely. However, I believe humor has a very effective communicative power when used well, and the responses I've seen here encourage me to believe that I was right to leave it in, and it is doing a good job.

[@bengreen171]

I recently had to explain to a TIK/James Lindsay fan that materialism wasn't the rejection of the idea that everything is physical, something he refused to accept. I also recently watched TIK chatting with one of his mates - where he hilariously announced he's been delving into philosophy at last....Ayn Rand. And that's how he knows he's right. The sheer balls of the man - you have to admire him. He proclaimed that if you looked at all the evidence then you couldn't help but be right about what it tells us. He blocked my comment pointing out that the sources he was using were flawed, and so he wasn't looking at ALL the evidence.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I watched that video and called him out for misunderstanding materialism, pointing out that he himself had espoused materialism in his own video. He replied that he didn't accept materialism, saying "Reality over materialism", so it's clear he doesn't know what it means.

[@bengreen171]

@@veritasetcaritas I just don't understand how he can be sooo wrong and not seem to have the slightest doubt. Any rational person would have opened up a dictionary, just to make sure. And he's not stupid. And it's not a difficult subject to comprehend - even the most ignorant of fundamentalist theists on the internet seem to get it. So he must be doing this on purpose. I don't know how deep James LIndsay's pockets are, but funding from a reactionary right wing source has to be the only reasonable explanation - but then again, TIK isn't reasonable. Is he Dunning Kruger patient zero? A mixture of the purest ignorance and narcissism?

[@MyTv-]

There’s something seriously wrong with TIK, and I don’t mean that as a joke! He tries to make sense of things if he refuses to understand. So he crowbar them in to his limited worldview.

[@veritasetcaritas]

The irony is the really thinks he's doing great research, when on topics such as politics and economics he's just filtering reality through his biases.

[@MyTv-]

@@veritasetcaritas Thank you for your kind reply! The problem is that his miss information and message’s are actually dangerous. Not just wrong! Likely he’s come under bad influence. Influenced only by himself and his own thoughts. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett’s novel “Men at arms”.

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@MyTv- he has definitely come under a bad influence, from videos by conservative culture warrior James Lindsay and the writings of the objectivist Ayn Rand.

[@xibalbalon8668]

I have to give TIK credit. I usually hear people denounce Marxist materialism as godless and soulless, but he tries so hard to make it into some kind of spirituality that says the exact opposite of what it means. I don't know if he's deliberately lying through his teeth, or is just this clouded by his warped ancap ideology

[@veritasetcaritas]

He seems to have special skills, that's for sure.

[@steinarvilnes3954]

@@veritasetcaritas However, some may think that Marx sounds spiritual because his writing is a time quite heavy. Some have actually claimed that some of the failures of Marxist inspired leaders were that they simply were unable to properly understand what he wrote. But into that, I would say that the libertarian concept of natural rights are kind of "spiritual"?

[@page8301]

Funny enough, I am quite happy being "godless" and "soulless". Then again, I am "dirty" heathen!

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@steinarvilnes3954 I guess libertarianism could be considered to have spiritual implications, but Marxism is definitely not spiritual itself.

[@bigwoody4704]

@@veritasetcaritas posted: He seems to have special skills, that's for sure. ------------------------------------------------------------ ya for dabbling in delusion

[@LividImp]

All debunking aside, that is some tasty looking salad in the background. Making me hungry.

[@Fr.O.G.]

As something of a religious scholar, I find the misuse of the word "gnostic" by internet know-nothings especially infuriating.

[@leontrotsky7816]

The word's useful for conspiracists because you can use it to associate things/people you don't like with a group that the average person doesn't know much about but also sounds weird, ancient and scary. You can do the same with the Illuminati or the Freemasons, but people have heard of them and will immediately know you're a conspiracy theorist.

[@cookingwithtool159]

As a gnostic I very much agree that shit sucks

[@veritasetcaritas]

Unfortunately so few people know anything about it that it's easily used as a scare word.

[@veritasetcaritas]

That's exactly what James Lindsay does. Anything he doesn't like, he associates with Gnosticism or Marxism or both, and now he's trying to argue they're both part of the same religious belief, which is utterly absurd.

[@TheGhostofCarlSchmitt]

same here@@cookingwithtool159

[@Wallyworld30]

22:26 I love how you created a TIK style argument it's bang on and hilarious! Sure, it's a little more on the nose than TIK but it's literally no different than some of the silly arguments he makes. You've convinced me KZbin is a religion and I don't even need to leave my house to go to church.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you! I enjoyed writing that section.

[@August-p9g]

Great vid! I'm binging your whole channel, I think you're great. We need more anarchists like you

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks!

[@Susie_Legion_DBD]

Thank you for your intellectual honesty in the face of such delusion. As a Marxist it's refreshing to see a non Marxist approach our theory and engage with it on its own merits.

[@veritasetcaritas]

You're welcome. I'm a non-Marxist anarchist, but I would never intentionally misrepresent Marxism.

[@r.w.bottorff7735]

Thank you for another instructive and streamlined rebuttal, your channel is awesome! PS, that bit on KZbin at the end cracked me up. Algorithmic demiurge.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you! I thought the gentle parody at the end would help illustrate the point and make it more memorable.

[@castillogrande8926]

Seeing this hack get dressed down made my day! Keep up the good work!

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@richardvlasek2445]

the best thing about tik's fall from grace is that it exposed a lot of critical people to his older videos and it was shown that he's also just not a very good historian, oftentimes misquoting or straight up making up quotes and citations that are not present in the literature he draws from and doing things like replacing banned symbols with EU flags he is truly a wonderful twit

[@veritasetcaritas]

He has experienced a rise in subscribers though, which I believe is a result of him connecting with the right wing and right wing adjacent viewership of James Lindsay.

[@SirBolsón]

I'd just like to say that I'm pleasantly surprised that you're an Anarchist as I'm subbed to the Anarchist channel Anark! I'll make sure to binge some of your other more political videos! 🏴🫡

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks! I love Anark. I have a dedicated anarchist channel too. www.youtube.com/@AcademicAnarchist

[@SirBolsón]

@@veritasetcaritas Cheers!

[@star_punk-zero8049]

I don’t think we should call tik a history channel. We should call him a his-fanfiction channel

[@veritasetcaritas]

History on TIK's channel sometimes does become merely his-story.

[@joes8244]

His military history videos are legit, regardless of your opinion of his poli-sci content.

[@Wallyworld30]

@@joes8244 TIK's Battlestorm series are legit Top Tier content. The contrast between those and his Quasi Political Conspiracy stuff could knock you on your ass though. If I could force a single creator to make a second channel it would be TIK for his Conspiratorial Rabbit Hole video's. He should create that second channel and bring in other right wing conspiracy guys. Sadly, it would probably outgrow his History channel in no time.

[@patrickholt2270]

They'd only encourage him. He certainly doesn't need any more facilitating with his political psychosis. @@Wallyworld30

[@samuelglover7685]

@@joes8244 I dunno, way back when I used to look at his military history vids, it didn't seem to be anything more than him quite openly rehashing the work of *real* historians. Why would anyone bother with him, when you can just go the sources he relies on?

[@RealCodreX]

I used to follow TIK for years until I came across his videos that claim that the Nazis were socialists. As a german myself it was, let us say, an experience.

[@veritasetcaritas]

It seems for many people that was the moment of their disillusionment with TIK, and I'm not surprised.

[@page8301]

@@veritasetcaritas That and his continuous double and tripling down on his conceit that the body of knowledge historians have build up over the past century is wrong and that he is right. Nauseating to say the least and I can be quite bull headed at times as well. I remember that in my mid teens I was sceptical of man made climate change as cringe as that may sound now that I am two decades older. What changed me? I went to university and realized how little I knew in my chosen field of study let alone in fields which I was only passingly interested. I bet TIK has never attended any course program. I would not even be surprised if he would admit to never having seen a university from the inside.

[@mercurialpoirot5551]

They are socialists. The nazis took control or attempted to control all aspects of german society. Isn't that socialism?

[@RealMephres]

​@@mercurialpoirot5551Socialism is an economic system, not a form of governing.

[@aleksasimovic2985]

That last part is hilarious!

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you! I thought some gentle parody might be a useful illustration and make the point easier to remember.

[@dawn4383]

I'm NGL, if TIK actually believes his own BS at this point, I think he's a lost cause, intellectually speaking. The guy is willing to throw his assessment of anyone who's disagreeing with him so far away from their own points that he's just absurdly stagnant, the only change being slowly expanding the conspiratorial thinking.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Now he is so deep into conspiratorial thinking, I fear he's too distant from reality to return.

[@star_punk-zero8049]

I’m not done with the video but I’m hoping to the lord that tik somehow get the Orphic mysteries involved in his nonsense fanfic. “Orpheus’ journey to the underworld is a symbolic myth of proletariat gaining gaining class consciousness!!!”

[@Jesse-qy6ur]

"How Vladimir Lenin Is Persephone In Disguise" That sounds like the title of a Jordan Peterson lecture.

[@randomguy-tg7ok]

Is this the right moment to say that perhaps he should have stuck to tanks?

[@veritasetcaritas]

Too right he should have!

[@epicninjali3640]

I don’t know what’s funnier, that he identified Hegel as not believing in the existence of objects, or that he used Hegel as a representative case for “dialectical materialism”. That damned Marxist Hegel XD

[@veritasetcaritas]

Oh I want to make a whole video on his ignorance of Hegel.

[@Nick-o-time]

​@@veritasetcaritasI just want to point out that everyone is ignorant of Hegel and the people who claim to know are in a conspiracy to convince everyone that you can understand Hegel!😉

[@epicninjali3640]

@@Nick-o-time i know you’re just getting at the classic joke but I do sometimes get irritated when people make “word salad” accusations towards Hegel or fixate incessantly on the difficulty of his works. 1. Phenomenology of Spirit is often considered his “must read” even tho imo, Science of Logic is not only easier, but more deserving of that title in my personal opinion. 2. He’s often approached without an understanding of the jargon and general conceptual schema involved with German idealist philosophy. He is in many respects, a sorta evolution of Kant and Schelling, gone Aristotelian. He’s really imo pretty approachable if you’re already familiar with like, even just Kant tbh. 3. He’s a German native speaker writing in a highly technical style meant for people who were professors at the time, translated hundreds of years later into English… of course it’s not going to be easy to read lol, and people shouldn’t expect it to be. It’s a bit nonsensical to judge syntactical format of a text that for them, doesn’t even exist in its original form. If you read his encyclopedias, you’d be shocked how easy and approachable they are. If we really wanna fuss over philosophers of writing with a lack of clarity, rather than pointing at Hegel, we should be identifying all those pretentious mfs who just casually insert Latin or Ancient Greek into the middle of their paragraph with no explanation/translation expecting normal people to understand 😭.

[@mathewkelly9968]

Lol as soon as St Augustine was brought up I knew this was going to turn hilarious . Wasn't disappointed

[@veritasetcaritas]

It's a great example of the importance of checking secondary sources to see if their presentation of primary sources is correct.

[@mathewkelly9968]

@@veritasetcaritas never read St Augustine but I've seen him mentioned in enough books especially about the Reformation to have a fair idea of what St Augustine's ideas where about . That TIK would have a laughable take as you went on to outline hardly shocked me

[@bengreen171]

very well made video - shame none of TIK's fans will see it, as he tends to block comments that attempt to enlighten his fans that there are good critics out there.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yeah I even tackled him directly on his misunderstanding of materialism in a comment on one of his most recent videos, and he just disagreed while ignoring what I had written.

[@MyTomServo]

The closest I can think of to a gnostic text suggesting people should be transgender is this (it's not a very great one though lol): Gospel of Thomas 114: Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." I am not an expert on gnosticism

[@MakingAUsername]

This reminds me of the Telephone game. Words like Nippon can turn into Japan if enough small mishearings occur. That is why you must always translate directly from the original text to get an accurate translation

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yeah it's a lot like that.

[@SirBolsón]

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[@SirBolsón]

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[@FerdarPleaseSubscribe]

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[@Corvinuswargaming1444]

sadly TiK's style of argumentation is used even by professional academic historians in a number of fields currently substituting evidence and academic argument for the same kind of specious reasoning TiK employs

[@veritasetcaritas]

I'd say they're fortunately in the minority.

[@mathewkelly9968]

Woke up to this in the morning put it on , my Mrs who was hardly even listening and fully isn't into politics and religion like me was like how can someone have such muddled thinking in reference to TIK and your tearing him to shreds .

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@ravenknight4876]

4:40 that's Psychohistory from Isaac Asimov's foundation. People keep mixing this up with marxism, because it is somewhat similar.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yeah TIK has some very weird ideas about historical materialism and I agree he thinks of it as more like Seldon's psychohistory.

[@D.S.handle]

The exercise in the connecting the dots at the second part of the video was just excellent.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you! It seems that was people's favorite part of the video.

[@D.S.handle]

@@veritasetcaritas this exercise is just a good piece of creative writing, that is especially poignant at demonstrating how absurd some of these KZbin history extrapolations often are.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

Of all the bits of this that highlight his abject lack of credibility, I think the way he's found a way to...transitively ascribe unto the gnostics ( famously a dualist faith that believed spirit was good and the tangible was bad, and who at best earn the loose reputation of an alternative conception of gender and bodies through the popular perception of "cathars") both materialism (it's not like the material world is intrinsically evil and made by the demiurge in gnosticism or whatever) AND... some kind of "I've met god she's trans" dogma is... just too good. It's scary he gets taken seriously like, at all, given the depth of his knowledge seems to be, as you noted, word association. One almost marvels that he hasn't called the banning of trans-saturated fats in food a victory against the woke agenda. At this point his content is no different from unhinged ravings, but with the illusion of citation.

[@veritasetcaritas]

His thinking on this subject is such a mess; it says a great deal about his audience that he has people who really enjoy these types of videos from him.

[@vrpansy]

You... Tu Be!!! Good video, especially the last section which was incredibly funny

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you! I did enjoy writing that last part.

[@MandyMoorehol]

Love the ending bit! I used to do this when trolling conspiracy loving libertarians, if you apply their conspiracy logic to Ayn Rand it’s very clear she was a Soviet spy. But they don’t apply that logic to her because reasons.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I would never accuse Randroids of logical consistency.

[@MandyMoorehol]

@@veritasetcaritas Calling her a Soviet spy was a very fun joke for awhile. It actually turns out to be pretty plausible. Lol

[@Nick-o-time]

​@@MandyMooreholit's kind of funny because there is a joke among MLs that the only thing Stalin did wrong was educate Ayn Rand.

[@MandyMoorehol]

@@Nick-o-time Lenin knew what he was doing. Her degree was in pedagogy, she was trained to confuse right wingers. It was very effective you can tell by all of the confused right wingers. Not to mention all of the other Soviet spies that came out of the school she went to, that’s probably just a coincidence.

[@michaelkelly1267]

I was under the impression that Augustine was a Manichean rather than a Gnostic?

[@veritasetcaritas]

I gave TIK a pass on that since the scholarship on this period of Gnosticism and its relationship with Manicheanism is pretty varied, with some scholars classifying early Manicheanism as a subset of Gnosticism since it was founded by an ex-Valentinian, but Manicheanism did become something of its own, distinct from Gnosticism. So it's complicated, but even being generous to TIK it's clear he still misrepresents Augustine.

[@dbass4973]

Augustine was raised as Manichean then converted to Christianity if my memory serves me right

[@veraxiana9993]

17:06 ironically enough, tik is making trans folk sound even more totally awesome actually lmao. Certainly counterintuitive to his intent I imagine, like yes tik I totally transitioned to resemble literally God itself, thanks for making me sound way more badass than I actually am lmfao.

[@veritasetcaritas]

He is a foot shooting expert.

[@electricVGC]

Brilliant video by our creator among the heavens.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you, from here within the cloud.

[@nananou1687]

Tik needed to be called out. He is very disingenuous

[@veritasetcaritas]

And now he's pushing James Lindsay's rhetoric he's even more dangerous.

[@page8301]

You are very kind towards TIK. I would have added a few choice expletives to underscore my intense disdain for TIK and his ilk.

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@page8301 thank you. I aim to be charitable.

[@Hart501]

What fascinates me is I bought a book TIK recommended: "The Occult roots of Nazism" which if you read through partially disproves his narrative on it's own. (Half the book is explaining how Austrian Nationalists in the 1800s used Occult ritual to justify Pro German and Anti-Jewish sentiment. They made up "lore" or their group that went back to the knights Templar to make their racism "cool". About as far as you can get from a Gnostic cult written about by an Italian to say the least.

[@Hart501]

TLDR: TIK is inventing pre-Nazi Wizards because the actual pre-Nazi Wizards did not fit his narrative.

[@veritasetcaritas]

You're not wrong.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yes many people don't seem to understand that a lot of the Nazi occult stuff was just simply made up by them to suit their ethno-nationalist narrative.

[@Hart501]

@@veritasetcaritas absolutely I’m doing the book a serious disservice as it’s extremely well written and sourced (I’d HIGHLY recommend it for anyone interested in the field) it’s just a shame he can have information that accurate and decides to do THIS with it.

[@AlextheRed1917]

Underrated, needs more views.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks!

[@AlextheRed1917]

@@veritasetcaritas No problem. I think your videos are excellently put together and interesting to think about despite our ideological disagreements. (I am a Marxist-Leninist and I remember you saying you're an anarchist, correct me if I'm mistaken)

[@veritasetcaritas]

That's correct, I'm an anarchist. I really appreciate your good faith support. 😊

[@Jesse-qy6ur]

To be pedantic about it, "idealism" isn't merely "rejecting materialism" out of passive stupidity, but it's actively positing that objective reality does not exist separate from human cognition. There are many ways to do this, they are not interchangeable with each other -- take postmodernism and the simulation hypothesis as just one pair of examples --, but what they have in common is that they are all wrong. Each of them suits reactionary purposes because they say that to change the world we must do nothing more and nothing less than to change everyone's ideas about the world at the same time.

[@craigstephenson7676]

Man this does not have me excited for when TOK history comes out

[@veritasetcaritas]

I think TIK belongs on TikTok at this point.

[@craigstephenson7676]

@@veritasetcaritas if he made these claims on TikTok they’d be low tier misinformation

[@Splattle101]

He's a rather good example of an amateur historian lacking academic training. Even his military history is always grinding an ax. Grinding an ax isn't always bad, but his lack of education means he's not able to research in ways that might lead to information he doesn't like. It's a failure more common in STEM people who leap into the social sciences thinking they've got all the answers.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Another commenter said he started a history degree which he didn't finish, and he dropped our off university subsequently, and if that's true it would explain a lot, especially his disdain for academia and his view of himself as a third party crusader for historical truth against "establishment narratives".

[@Splattle101]

@@veritasetcaritas It would indeed. One of the features of a tertiary education in any discipline is that they make you study shit you wouldn't choose to. But one of the points of this torture is to give you the skills and background to understand the stuff you ARE actually interested in. Skills like how to situate & interrogate sources, or developing and applying an framework to guide your research. Stuff that TIK is conspicuously missing.

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@Splattle101 even if TIK has these skills, he certainly isn't using them consistently.

[@1973HST]

Loved the channeling of Glenn Beck in the Is TIK a gnostic communist? segment. Hilarious.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I let myself go a bit with that part.

[@1973HST]

@@veritasetcaritas it was good. It reminded me of several bits that John Stewart did back in the day where he mockingly pretended to be Glenn Beck, drawing more and more ridiculous conclusions the more he vomited words out of his mouth.

[@zaidahmedkhan4103]

last part is the best 🤣.great video

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@dangin8811]

The last part was hilarious and on-point.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I did enjoy writing that.

[@ShadowDragon1848]

"If you think God is trans, you will be too?" What? If TIK is an atheist I want to apologize in his behalf.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yes he's an atheist, but don't worry, I know most atheists are clearer thinkers than this.

[@ShadowDragon1848]

@@veritasetcaritas To be fair, that is not a high bar. I mean !? What!? God is above gender, therefore trans!? Therefore you will be too!? What!? We all know word salad from some people. But sometimes it´s just too ridiculous to be legal. :P

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@ShadowDragon1848 yeah on reflection that wasn't much of a compliment!

[@ShadowDragon1848]

@@veritasetcaritas I guess it doesn't happen all that often that theists compliment atheists. Sooo 😅

[@page8301]

@@veritasetcaritasWe have our fair share of "geniuses" in our ranks, just like any other group of likeminded individuals. Non-belief says very little about your intellectual capabilities, or any other trait for that matter.

[@bigwoody4704]

Great take he is a leader in passing off bombast as fact.Always says he's even handed then procedes to suggest allied failures were the fault of the USA and any conquest was because of Britsh bravery or brilliance

[@veritasetcaritas]

I haven't seen enough of his military videos to know his biases in that area, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[@bigwoody4704]

@@veritasetcaritas Well he does, like Gen.MacArthur for instance who deserves to be panned and should have been removed. Almost parallel to Montgomery both egotistical blowholes.But if Monty's woes are brought to light the knives come out.Britain had great officers he wasn't amongst them but he got the press because he was a narcissist.TIK states he's even handed then starts in on the USA faults and basically proves he isn't. Good site BTW

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@bigwoody4704 wow, that's pretty poor. Thanks for the information and thanks for the support!

[@Wallyworld30]

Veritas et Caritas just pulled a Katt Williams on TIK. Well done sir!

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@toomuchadam875]

Great video, at times TIK comes very close to sounding like something from Spirit Science 😆

[@veritasetcaritas]

That's an excellent comparison! 🤣

[@toomuchadam875]

@@veritasetcaritas I've got flashbacks during your ending bit 😀

[@drakmatheism]

I cannot stop laughing while watching your videos about Lewis (He revealed that's his real name in a Q&A). When you watch Lewis' videos, he seems to be an absolute genius who outsmarts everyone. However, when you fact check what he says, you become aware of his stupid and illiterate manipulations.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed it! We have very similar views on Lewis.

[@drakmatheism]

@@veritasetcaritas I started watching his channel 1 year ago and I watched it until recently. I always stood somewhat sceptical and with the last video he uploaded about socialist leaders describing a pattern that doesn't necessarily apply (My grandfather was raised religious and then became atheist, but he's clearly independent and his ideology is alt-right) I was attracted to watch Fredda's video about Lewis (Which I had previously refused to watch). His video mentions your channel and I couldn't resist the curiosity to watch your videos about Lewis too (especially this one, but first I needed to watch your video that talks about gnosticism for better context). Anyways: You're brave because daring to know is already bravery.

[@organobot]

the youtube = gnosticism bit at the end is incredible lol

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks!

[@comedy_goblin6378]

Great takedown, love how you integrated your Christian background into critiquing TIK’s fallacious understanding of the faith. The lack of intellectual depth and eagerness to draw flimsy lines of reasoning in his Gnosticism videos reminds me of those “ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED” memes that used to be popular.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you! Totally agree with you about the Illuminati trend, and of course TIK has them in his conspiracy theory too.

[@Mrax_Taylor]

amazing

[@kalinmir]

12:33 with the "book of John" he might be confusing the 2 canonical text with the "Secret book of John" aka the Apocryphon of John which is today understood as a product of one of the branches of what we call gnosticism (I write it like that since there is no evidence these people actually called themselves "gnostics" and it might very well be an insult, basically calling them "know-it-alls") edit: nvm he's just too 3Head or a ridiculous manipulator

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yeah I will mention the Secret Book of John in a later video.

[@ganjaericco]

3:55 Marx absolutely used Hegel's 'Absolute Knowledge' (which Magee states is why Hegel is a Hermetic thinker and not a philosopher) to predict, "communism is the riddle of History solved". "Hitherto philosophers have had the solution of all riddles lying in their writing-desks, and the stupid, exoteric world had only to open its mouth for the roast pigeons of Absolute Knowledge (Hegel) to fly into it. Now philosophy has become mundane, and the most striking proof of this is that philosophical consciousness itself has been drawn into the torment of the struggle, not only externally but also internally. But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be. Therefore I am not in favour of raising any dogmatic banner. On the contrary, we must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their propositions for themselves. Thus, communism, in particular, is a dogmatic abstraction; in which connection, however, I am not thinking of some imaginary and possible communism, but actually existing communism as taught by Cabet, Dézamy, Weitling, etc. This communism is itself only a special expression of the humanistic principle, an expression which is still infected by its antithesis - the private system. Hence the abolition of private property and communism are by no means identical, and it is not accidental but inevitable that communism has seen other socialist doctrines - such as those of Fourier, Proudhon, etc. - arising to confront it because it is itself only a special, one-sided realisation of the socialist principle." - Marx to Ruge, Kreuznach, September 1843 Also Marx a year later: "Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being (Hegelian species being) - a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man - the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

[@Jesse-qy6ur]

It's amazing to me how you vomit up these quotes without any ability to understand their context, or even to care about what they mean. You puke things through the keyboard and imagine you're making some point. Also, who the fuck is Magee?

[@MarcosElMalo2]

After he was strongly recommended, I watched a few tick history videos. I found him to be a lightweight, shallow, and puerile. That was my overall impression from viewing a limited number of videos. Glad to learn I wasn’t wrong. For what it’s worth, at least he isn’t plagiarizing. He’s just lazy in other ways.

[@veritasetcaritas]

It's frustrating because he really has the skills to do better.

[@mistyhaney5565]

I was under the impression that gnosticism was based on special knowledge, not faith. Christianity typically has the argument regarding if grace is achieved through works or faith, while gnosticism is a means of returning to the divine from where we originated by gaining special knowledge, am I wrong?

[@veritasetcaritas]

Most forms of Gnosticism are based on special knowledge, but Gnosticism doesn't at all preclude faith. In some traditions its a means of returning to the original divine, but not necessarily always.

[@MrSporkster]

Absolutely brutal. You love to see it! ^_^

[@veritasetcaritas]

It had to be done.

[@karoliinalehtinen6701]

excellent video as always!! this is kinda off topic, but you going through some political history game me a thought. I remember you saying you're anarchist (I hope I'm not misremembering), and I have been interested in reading about anarchist history, but it's kinda daunting, especially trying to find sources that are not super biased against anarchism or in some cases too uncritical of it, so I haven't had yet time to get into it. if you're ever interested, I would very much love to see a video about anarchist history by someone who actually understands anarchism, is rigorous about sourcing and critical about things they broadly agree with like you!

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you so much! Yes I'm an anarchist. On one of my other channels I have a playlist with three minute explainer videos describing various forms of anarchism in an accessible way. kzbin.info/aero/PLFFRTcvp5ceuzLdgAWnOisSsVo7kJhEM3&si=W5epV-BVGAh06kJg

[@Medve9213]

That salad image is appetizing, thanks veritas for both the video and giving me a lunch idea :D

[@veritasetcaritas]

It's better than TIK's word salad!

[@StevenPenas]

To quote Lenin; "I am the walrus"

[@404no57]

00:30 lol you mean equivocation, by far the most common fallacy? "TIK's Word Substitution Game™" 😅😅

[@veritasetcaritas]

The fallacy of equivocation involves using a term in an argument (typically a syllogism), with two different meanings of those within its lexical range. In that case there is one word, used in two different senses, by the proponent of the argument. For example, someone will say "The theory of evolution hasn't been proved, or it wouldn't still be a theory", where the one word "theory" is being used twice, with two different meanings of those within its lexical range, by the argument's proponent. TIK isn't doing that. He's replacing a word in his source with a different word he chooses, which isn't within the lexical range of the word in his source, and is often only tangentially lexically related. So there are two words being used, not one. Sometimes the two words aren't even in the same semantic domain. This is actual word substitution.

[@404no57]

@@veritasetcaritas well yeah, but that's predicated on equivocation.. in order to "bridge the gap" between word P and word Q one will use word P in multiple senses, one of which will be sufficiently close to being synonymous with one sense of the word Q. If not, one would just be asserting semantic overlap or equivalence between two words that in established usage have no other connection at all beyond "appearing similar", or sharing etymology, like saying "I am Russian" really, or equally, means "I am Swedish" since the word Rus refers back to an old word for "the people of Roslagen"

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@404no57 the point is exactly that TIK does NOT use word P in multiple senses, one of which will be sufficiently close to being synonymous with one sense of the word Q, so there's no equovcation. He cites the source using word P and then totally replaces it with a different word of his own choice, Q. So yes, he is asserting semantic overlap or equivalence between two words that in established usage have no other connection at all beyond "appearing similar", or sharing etymology. This is substitution, but not equivocation.

[@MarcPagan]

Thanks for putting together such a well researched video ..Very fair constructive criticisms.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@rook9714]

I have known some transgemder Christians draw inspiration from God as a being who transcends the gender bunary as justification for their transness and/or non-binary gender identity (as well as from Galatians 3:28 and interpretations of Matthew 19:12), but I suspect Tik is not actually familiar with or even aware of these people.

[@Duragizer8775]

TIK is a nimrod who doesn't even know the distinction between trans and non-binary. God encompassing/transcending the masculine/feminine isn't trans, unless the Ground of Being experiences gender dysphoria.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yeah I can understand that argument. But even then they wouldn't say they CHOSE to "become trans" just because they felt God is. TIK just doesn't know what he's talking about.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Well it does depend on the definition of "trans" being used. There are non-binary people who would identify as trans, and there are people who identify as trans without experiencing gender dysphoria, so the definition has been expanding.

[@rook9714]

@@veritasetcaritas absolutely, though if anything this is a partial return to the definition as coined by Feinberg (1994), where it applied transhistorically (heh) to all forms of gender noncomformity, before it became adopted as a more polite term for the meaning previously held by transsexual (or transvestite, which was used for and by trans women as well as what we would now call cis crossdressers)

[@rook9714]

@@veritasetcaritas correction - 1992. My understanding was that it was coined in her book "Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman" (actually 1996, not 1994, lol), but apparently that just popularised it - her earliest known usage was actually a 1992 pamphlet called "Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come," which defined and coined in writing but did not invent the word (it's clear from the pamphlet it was one among several used without distinction within the proto-movement at the time)

[@AC-dk4fp]

Its not accurate to call St Augustine a Gnostic, he was a Manichaen which was lumped in with Gnosticism by Eric Voegelin's main source (Hans Jonas) but isn't treated as such by a lot of up to date scholarship. It doesn't help that the term 'Manichaenism' was more common in the middle ages to refer to heretics in the general sense than 'gnostic' was and groups like the Albigensian heretics were called Manichaen in medieval sources and gnostics in modern times. Hans Jonas doesn't actually equate Manichaenism with the other sects he discusses, instead he divides gnosticism into 'Syrian-Egyptian' and 'Iranian' types. Mani is typical of the 'Iranian' and does not believe in an evil demiurge, only the 'Syrian-Egyptian' form typified by Valentinus does. Jonas includes Marcion and Hermes Trismegistus as 'Syrian-Egyptian' but also interprets them as not believing in an evil demiurge either. Amelia R Brown's work on the depiction of Angels in Byzantine art does slightly overlap with TIK's nonsense culture war bait so you're not correct that Christians have never believed in become closer to the divine through surgury. Obviously the Byzantines didn't believe that most Christians should inspire to be Eunuchs. There are transgender elements in a lot of forms of initiation for ritual specialists so there's nothing anthropologically implausible with his rant. The texts in the Nag Hamadi library are actually very divided on whether or not god is beyond gender. The Apocryphon of John has a divine androgyne while Valentinianism tends to enforce strict gender binaries in the spiritual Aeons and considered hermaphroditism to be one of the deformities of the material archons. 'On the Origin of the World' splits the difference and has both good and evil hermaphrodite spirits including Sabaoth the redeemed Archon of the 7th Heaven. Gnostics are more likely to believe in a strictly male original principle than other Christians but also in no way predictable in any of their beliefs. Ideas about trancending gender and union with god can be found in gnostic and non-gnostic forms of Christianity and can't be used to define either of them. The only real definitively difference is that Orthodox mystics don't consider their speculations to be literal exact truth and are able to play with others to some extent while Gnostics consider everyone except for themselves to be an idiot, expecially other gnostics and don't get on with anyone. While I haven't read enough transhumanism to have any reason to doubt your characterisation there are connected movements like Singularitarianism that are eschatological and could have been used to steel man TIK's point and try and work out what his nonsense was trying to mean.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks for the very detailed response. 1. I gave TIK a pass on calling Augustine a Gnostic since he joined Manichaeism at a reasonably early stage, at which point it was a lot closer to Gnosticism. Mani was inspired by several sources, including Valentinian texts, and current scholarship using broader definitions of Gnosticism still identifies early Manichaeism as Gnosticism and Augustine as a Gnostic. Given it's entirely possible to find mainstream academic commentators saying Augustine was a Gnostic, I thought it wasn't contesting the point, because it only takes someone saying "See, this recent scholar says Augustine WAS a Gnostic", and then you're wasting time on the meta-debate. For example, Wilson in 2018 writes of "Manichaeism /Gnosticism", Augustine’s Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to “Non-Free Free Will”: A Comprehensive Methodology (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 262. Egmond von Bart in 2019 says Manichaeism was a "Gnostic form of Christianity". "The great obstacle that held Augustine back from returning to the religion of his youth was a Gnostic form of Christianity: Manichaeism.", Bart van Egmond, Augustine’s Early Thought on the Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford University Press, 2019), 43. Similarly Frick in 2011 identifies Manichaeism as a form of Gnosticism. "Manichaeism is indeed a ‘gnosis’-religious knowledge to which access is gained by way of the revelation contained in a sacred discourse. Gnosis is not a philosophy. At any rate, ancient gnosis culminated and in a certain sense also ended in Manichaeism.", Paul Hendrick Fick, “Traces of Augustinian ‘Gnosis’ in Julianus Pomerius’ De Vita Contemplativa,” in In Search of Truth. Augustine, Manichaeism and Other Gnosticism: Studies for Johannes Van Oort at Sixty, ed. Jacob Albert van den Berg et al., Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 74 (BRILL, 2011), 15. Fick also asserts Augustine's Christian theology remained influenced by the "gnostic component" of Manichaeism even after he left the sect. "Even after he departed from the religion of Mani, the gnostic component guided the Catholic component permanently. The gnostic component that remained with Augustine manifested in several phenomena, such as asceticism and Christocentricity.", Paul Hendrick Fick, “Traces of Augustinian ‘Gnosis’ in Julianus Pomerius’ De Vita Contemplativa,” in In Search of Truth. Augustine, Manichaeism and Other Gnosticism: Studies for Johannes Van Oort at Sixty, ed. Jacob Albert van den Berg et al., Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 74 (BRILL, 2011), 15. 2. In my next video in this series, which I have already made, I differentiate strongly between mature Manichaean and Gnosticism, and observe that Manichaean doesn't meet the narrower definitions of Gnosticism common in current scholarship. I also note how during the Middle Ages "Manichaean" was used as a general catch-all term for heretics of all kinds, regardless of their specific beliefs, though people weren't called Gnostics. I also observe that although groups such as the Cathars and Albigenses have been called Gnostics in modern times, there was no real continuity of either Gnosticism or Manichaeanism into this era. 3. With regard to the Byzantine art to which you refer, I still think that's not an example of Christians believing "God is trans" and consequently believing THEY MUST BECOME "trans", especially in the sense of being neither a man or a woman, which was TIK's very specific claim. It's certainly not an example of transhumanists believing that surgery can make them one with God as TIK claimed they believe. I didn't comment at all about Christians believing that surgery could make them closer to God, but although I did think of citing the Russian Skoptsy sect in this regard, their removal of external genitalia was for the purpose of restoring themselves the pre-fall state without Original Sin, since they believed Original Sin resided in the genitals. They weren't trying to erase their gender so they wouldn't be a man or a woman, and they weren't attempting to be come "transgender" on the basis of believing God was "transgender". I also thought of citing Origen's misapplication of Jesus' words about becoming a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom of God, but even that is just too far removed to be relevant. I don't want to draw tenuous connections between the nonsense TIK is spouting, which has no historical grounding, and the actual facts. I just really don't think there is any historical evidence at all that any Christians ever thought God was transgender and that therefore THEY should be transgender in the sense of being neither a man or a woman. Even being as generous as possible, I don't think there's any evidence of it being even plausible. 4. I agree the Nag Hammadi texts are mixed on the issue of deity and gender, but I didn't need to comment on that because it wasn't relevant to TIK's argument, since he was talking about God as represented in the Christian Bible, not the Gnostic texts. Not to mention the fact that when it comes to what "God" means in the Gnostic texts, I don't think TIK would even know where to start. Would he mean the pleroma, the archons, the aeons, the demiurge, the Monad, Yaldabaoth, Sophia, or something else? 5. I don't think there are any texts in Gnostic or non-Gnostic forms of Christianity which talk about becoming TRANSGENDER because God is TRANSGENDER. I think there's a real danger in submitting to TIK's false equivocation between "transcending gender" and "transgender", since these are very different terms in the context in which he is using them, and he is using "transgender" in particular in a very modern sense which did not exist in antiquity or the pre-modern era. 6. Similarly, I don't think it's helpful to say "Well even if TIK is wrong about transhumanism, there's this other thing called Singularitarianism which he never mentioned which is sort of closer to some things he was talking about, so let's read him as referring to that instead of referring to transhumanism". I wouldn't call that a steel man of his argument since it isn't actually his argument at all. The real issue is that his entire transgender/transhumanism = Gnosticism argument is completely unhistorical and nonsensical, because it is borrowed straight from culture warrior James Lindsay, who made it up specifically to attack progressive politics. None of this is in good faith, none of it is grounded in history, it's an abuse of history in order to try and give credibility to a regressive and oppressive narrative.

[@AC-dk4fp]

My bigger problem is addressing the transgender section of his video at all since its clearly a gish gallop. I understand that I'm addressing it in my comment but when I considered doing a reply myself I noted that I would just skip over it with at best a tired laugh. I think TIK's video would be better debunked in a 15minute video starting with unpacking his use of the word religion and its uselessness for objective analyis and then a direct refutation of Vogelin's first book concluding in stating that Nazi Germany was an entire country and in spite of its alleged totalitarianism did not actually have a single center and is therefore hard to judge from the example of singular citizens. Then I would maybe end in a short description of Muscular Christianity and Volkism as the actual religious positions of the Nazi state and how they had parrelels in Britain and the USA. I understand that you're doing something different by going into the detail of his terrible arguments which is more about explaining broader problems than actually refuting him (even if any section of your series is also enough to demolish his credibility). The main reason I completely abandoned any attempt was that he put out two subsequent videos and I wasn't able to put up with his insufferable attitude to see how his position evolved over that latter content. Attacking his first video on the topic might seem uncharitable. I don't know anything about recent developments in Manichaen studies but have read a lot on attempts to seperate Iron Age and Second Temple religion into distinct phases of development and am very skeptical of all such efforts so I'm doubtful that there's enough evidence to even sort that way with Manichaenism. Pretty sure Augustine is just a Neo-Platonist follower of Pseudo-Dionysus and any similarity with gnosticism is just that the gnostics aren't as weird or out of place as narrow readings of the earlier Church fathers make them sound. As sources alone the Church fathers are too disconnected to contextualise how normative their beliefs actually were and interpreting early Heresiology in light of the 13th century Inquisition is way more ahistorical than considering Eunuchs through a transgender lens. Basically everyone literate was a small g 'gnostic' in some form and the focus on Christ and Gnosis is just Augustine reading the same verses of Paul that Valentinius was. Transgender history mostly is Eunuch history. When revisionist historians view history through a transgender lens and claim "we have always been here" they aren't denying that modern transgender identities are modern social constructions or that non-western third gender identities should be interpreted as direct equivilants to western individuals. Pointing out that literal transgender identifying individuals didn't really exist pre-1990 is so trivial to the application of queer lenses to history that it has no place outside of introductory discourse. Byzantine Eunuchs are an example of Christianity tolerating non-binary gendered individuals and Amelia R Brown's point is precisely that angels and third sex groups were considered related topics. Adam and Eve are explicitly transgender in Bereshit Rabbah 8:1 using Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium as the proof text and the idea of a primordial androgyne human is just normal Neo Platonism. I don't know anything about Skopje but we just don't have data to connect how the pagan Galli connected to latter Orthodox movements any more than we know how medieval flagellants connect to bloodletting among Dionysian movements. Extreme self-selecting body modification movements like Galli and Skopje aren't just motivated by their rhetoric and theology. Skopje theology could just as easily be the secondary development. Maybe I'm just too influenced by reacting against Sam Harris' terrible idealist arguments but nobody gets theologically talked into body modification. Saying Skopje aren't transgender because their motivation is theological sounds too similar to saying that the transgender experiance isn't real because their motivation is idiological, sorry if that's unfair. Obviously TIK isn't actually trying to take Queer theory seriously but he's also just gish galloping to pick up controversy upvotes in the comments section. Except that Duane Gish wouldn't have gotten anywhere through a live event with that Anal Retentive Mancunian Drawl of TIK's. Its not worth steel manning TIK's transhumanist argument to be about the AI obsessed 'Rapture of the Nerds' crowd but people casually taking him at face value might do that so it seemed worth noting to me. James Lindsay has no imagination, he doesn't make stuff up. The multi-episode series from I Don't Speak German is a pretty good summary of his character (I witnessed some of his journey at the time and don't remember that podcast leaving much out but the Embrace the Void podcast episodes on Soveriegn Nations are less of a time investment and flesh the more recent side of things out). @@veritasetcaritas

[@UdarRusskihPudgei]

I get strong vibes of modern Christian apologetics "you actually believe in God, but you can't admit it" stuff. Seems like some international right wing trick of dragging communists down to their level of world view, because Russian liberals who I often debate use this 'argument' all the time.

[@veritasetcaritas]

TIK's arguments are certainly at that level.

[@AC-dk4fp]

That's because he's referencing Eric Voegelin who was literally a Christian apologist and was trying to make that exact argument. Voegelin's argument that Marxism can stray into eschatology and milleniariansm has some merit but not when used as a blanket refutation of every Marxist argument ever. Voegelin's concept of 'Imantanizing the Eschaton' is also just a really pretentious way of saying millenarianism which is the term preferred by anthropologists who have actually studied real world religious movements and unlike Voegelin not just made connections up and claim that Coptic scholars will soon prove him right (they did not and Voegelin himself abandoned the whole gnosticism argument so Lindsay and TIK can't even use up to date Voegelin let alone up to date research on gnosticism).

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@AC-dk4fp I addressed this in my previous video on TIK's errors on Gnosticism, and will be going into more detail about Voegelin in my next video (which I've already made), including mentioning how Voegelin eventually realised his interpretation and application of Gnosticism was a non-starter.

[@AC-dk4fp]

Good but I'll probably still be complaining when that one comes out ;) @@veritasetcaritas

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@AC-dk4fp I don't mind you complaining, because I know you'll do so from an informed and educated perspective.

[@avus-kw2f213]

27:46 i don’t in fact I now know the truth about Tik thank you for revealing it

[@dracorex426]

What does Tik have against Gnosticism?

[@veritasetcaritas]

He thinks it's an unrealistic religion which leads to collectivism, socialism, and ultimately communism. He doesn't really know anything about it, he has just been misled by culture warrior James Lindsay.

[@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin]

TIK has said that the people he quotes believed differently than him, and that he focuses on what the sources admit to, rather than also their opinions. Could it be that this is what you mean by "not quoting the full source"? Because he skips the part where they give their opinion?

[@veritasetcaritas]

He does that in some of his videos, but not in any of the case I cite here. In these cases he is claiming to say exactly what the source says, despite not actually saying what the source says. In some cases he only quotes the source partially, or he just replaces the words the source used, with his own words meaning something different, but still claims to be telling you what the source actually said.

[@airl10]

Transfats are the best fats since they are the most like God.

[@dextrodemon]

i don't usually think of you as a funny guy but the you to be stuff was hilarious. bit worried about tik, the free associative nature of his reasoning comes off a bit like mania.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks! I did let myself go a bit with that part. I know what you mean about TIK and free association. I'm convinced he genuinely doesn't realize what he's doing, which is concerning enough from the perspective of logical reasoning and critical thinking, let alone anything else.

[@emmasnow7478]

i can't believe i am a gnostic without me even knowing smh

[@briandavies7402]

whats interesting is that you have critiqued TIK about 3 times - separate episodes - your a history channel? are you covering history or historians?

[@veritasetcaritas]

I'm a history channel, which is why I'm critiquing TIK's inaccurate presentation of history. In a future video I'll critique his false history of Gnosticism.

[@mojowwwav4357]

I mean he has a bunch of other videos about history, and isn't covering the inaccuracies of other "historians" just good peer review in action, lmao.

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@mojowwwav4357 yes, peer review is very much how I see it. my channel has always focused on correcting bad history from a range of sources, and recently I have been focusing especially on showing why people are wrong, explaining how to detect poor research and how to understand correct research methodology.

[@dijek5511]

lmao at "profits" or "prophets"

[@veritasetcaritas]

I was taught by the best!

[@notapplicable4734]

I've never seen somebody try to own christians and trans people all at once, very odd.

[@veritasetcaritas]

TIK's content does tend to be very odd, due to his biases.

[@jonathanmason3495]

Man, TIK is so sad. Best case scenario, he was an entertaining military hist. youtuber eventually falling to the alt-right conspiracy super-ego crap, or, he's actually just trying to generate cash off of a gullible and self-assured niche of political headcases.

[@patrickholt2270]

He did drop out of a history degree after one year, if I remember rightly. That's never good. The kind who drop or fail out after a year are the ones who came believing they already knew everything and only wanted to learn how to _sound_ academically legitimate.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I remember when he was a relatively inoffensive mil-hist KZbinr making a genuine effort to raise the bar for historical research on KZbin. He really didn't have to go in this direction.

[@veritasetcaritas]

If that's correct it certainly explains a lot.

[@mojowwwav4357]

He's released a new video that seems to take and twist (based of the title only tbh) the overall point you make in this video and use it to criticise and again attempt to link Marxism and fascism, so it's safe to say your on his radar lmao. But to be honest it's 4am here in Australia and it's far too early to suffer through his diatribe, so I could be wrong, it could be even crazier.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I am watching it now, and yeah it's pretty wild. He repeats some of the same mistakes I've already called out, such as claiming Marxist materialists believe matter doesn't really exist. As usual he tries to make detailed conspiratorial connections between everything he doesn't like.

[@Anita.Cox.]

Wasnt marx an open critic of religion?

[@cookingwithtool159]

Yes, less a critic of the existence of religion itself but he saw it as a way for the oppressed people to make themselves feel better by imagining that there’s cosmic justice, without actually getting justice and making the world better, and he saw religious institutions as willing peddlers of that opium

[@Anita.Cox.]

@@cookingwithtool159 then how the hell is marx a gnostic?????

[@cookingwithtool159]

@@Anita.Cox. He wasn’t lol

[@Anita.Cox.]

@@cookingwithtool159 then what is TIK yapping abt😭😭

[@cookingwithtool159]

@@Anita.Cox. medless behaviour

[@doejersey]

“Gets them wrong” or just calls them socialist 😂😂😂😂 ❤ great vid man love your work

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@Somebodyherefornow]

10/10 final part

[@Somebodyherefornow]

i meant 10/10

[@Somebodyherefornow]

cant edit

[@Somebodyherefornow]

lol

[@Somebodyherefornow]

i love your videos

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@PlatinumAltaria]

I don't agree with Marx's dialectical materialism, and it seems ridiculous to me to compare Marxism to gnosticism... like... what? Yeah dude Marx famously said "we're made of atoms, therefore we don't exist."

[@veritasetcaritas]

Yeah it's wild that TIK can cite a materialist and accuse him of idealism.

[@hime273]

​@@veritasetcaritas Materialist, meaning the Government get's all the Material, and everybody else gets 1/4 Cup of dry rice once a day if they're lucky.

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@hime273 sounds like one of Mao's badly implemented plans.

[@hime273]

@@veritasetcaritas Oh....So it was simply a screw up on the implementation of the "Plans?" Because I'm sure those "plans" when implemented correctly, by the right Guy, would result in the Unicorn "Utopia" fantasy land.... With Rivers that flow whatever your choice of Viscous Liquid...Wether it be Lemonade, Moonshine, or Chocolate, or Beer.. Right? Why do y'all play this Gaslighting Game?

[@veritasetcaritas]

​@@hime273 no sometimes it was because the plan itself was doomed from the start because it was a bad plan. As an anarchist I'm not surprised by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic revision of China. Anarchists knew these systems wouldn't work. We predicted they would fall due to their internal dysfunctions. Some of their plans worked, some of their plans could have worked but we're badly implemented, but overall they were always doomed to failure.

[@Louisus]

The business of truth is the lord’s work, thank you

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks!

[@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin]

"I'm not a marxist myself, but marxists deserve respect." - A man telling a joke

[@veritasetcaritas]

Something I never said.

[@martinidry6300]

I dixlike narrow history anything. TIK purely examines WW2 - and a massive over concentration on Commies and Fascists. The red flag for me was his acute armchair generalitis. A smug, arrogant, know all, who judges from on high Wehrmacht capabilities, admires Red/Soviet armed forces' & is at such pains to state how much he's read and showing books behind him. He airily waives away the Icebreaker theory, i.e., the Axis forces attacking the USSR on 22nd June 1941destroyed a vast Soviet force intended to attackthe Axis countries, with a view to conquering Europe. He doesn't consider Profesdor David Glantz, who provides TIK with the same declaration, needed ex Soviet archives to write his books.

[@veritasetcaritas]

He also has a very narrowminded view of academia, and sees conspiracy where it does not exist.

[@oatz1991]

An excelent video about why people should read books and improve their critical thinking capability

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thanks very much.

[@EZPZ_SoBadItsGood]

His word games are so tendentious. He keeps saying that communism is anti-Semitic because it opposes the bourgeois, which comes from the word "Borough" (it doesn't), which is where Jews lived in the 1920's. One could just as easily argue that the word "Ghetto" comes from the old Italian word "Jetta", which was the name of the region of the city where iron works were done, and since iron-working is the type of factory work that helped give rise to communism, it's actually PRO-Semitic.

[@veritasetcaritas]

A word salad indeed.

[@InspiriumESOO]

Finally someone calls him out on KZbin. Outstanding videos on WW2 ruined by his delusions about politics.

[@veritasetcaritas]

He didn't even have to go in this direction, I don't understand why he didn't just stay with mil-hist.

[@steinarvilnes3954]

@@veritasetcaritasI am a bit curious. How is his military history videos really? Must admit he talks about topics I am not extremely interested in, but have anyone ever tried to factcheck them?

[@page8301]

Oh there have been several channels who have called him out like "The Finnish Bolshevik" or "DemocraticMarxist".

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@steinarvilnes3954 I don't have enough knowledge to assess his military history myself, but from the many comments I have read critiquing him online it seems his mil-hist videos range from "competent if basic re-telling of events", to "sub-standard interpretation of events", and occasionally even "bad distortions of the historical sources". Here's an example of a very thorough critique. www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Essay-alt-view-TIK-presentation.pdf TIK responded to that critique, and here's a link to his response and discussion from people who think his response was inadequate. www.reddit.com/r/RebuttalTime/comments/i7xjea/tik_responds_to_nigel_askey/

[@steinarvilnes3954]

@@veritasetcaritas What I have noticed is that he usually chose one single source and mostly follow that rather uncritically. WW3 history is very different from ancient ones. When it comes to ancient battles there are mostly only one or at best two sources, while on WW2 there is a lot on each event!

[@ottz2506]

Would you consider looking into Jimmy Dore as part of your analysis of leftist youtubers? Especially when it comes to Ukraine which is in the same vein as the Grayzone and the like. I often find people like him baffling as many of the arguments he uses against Ukraine (that clearly parrot Russian state propaganda) are the same as the arguments Israel uses to justify their actions against the Palestinians.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I've thought about it, and I do have a couple of videos demonstrating how wrong Grayzone and Richard Medhurst were in their predictions on Russia's invasion, as well as demonstrating that they're not the noble independent political analysts they claim to be, but Jimmy Dore is such low hanging fruit he's just embarrassing. I might do a video on channels like his, on my other channel, Academic Anarchist.

[@xibalbalon8668]

Dore is still calling himself a leftist, huh

[@ottz2506]

@@veritasetcaritas Yeah your Richard medhurst was the first vid I saw on yours. I’m glad it exists as I’ve seen so little pushback against the guy who, like many leftists during the Russia invasion, has gone so against the idea of being anti imperialist and colonialist that I’m surprised people still buy what he sells. I did think about those two videos as I made the comment as he has almost the same views as the two others but he’s been growing more insane and is on another level when it comes to “America bad” contrarianism that would make the Grayzone blush.

[@ottz2506]

@@xibalbalon8668 I don’t necessarily mind the approach of the leftist who dedicates their time to critiquing people on their side. I think that is good and can be refreshing. But Dore is just one of those annoying people who always has to be the devil’s advocate and has to have the contrarian view, and then cries “they just hate freethinkers” when they experience any kind of push back.

[@patrickholt2270]

They're correct. It's a US proxy war, and the US empire is the only empire. Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism, is a world system, which since 1945 has morphed from an oligopoly into a monopoly since the risks to the continued existence of capital from inter-imperialist wars had become prohibitive. Taking account of the historical and geo-strategic contexts makes it obvious. Look at the previous 30 years of history in eastern Europe, including the relentless eastward expansion of NATO, forced through by a series of "colour-revolution" method US coups to install government which would seek NATO membership where public opinion and election results had opposed it, and look at the globe, and where US bases are on it, and it's obvious that the US-NATO empire is the strategic and long term aggressor.

[@ssatva]

I've no knowledge of or interest in TIK and this video was fascinating. Just commenting to placate our evil 'god', but I'm earnestly surprised at how engaging you make whatever you've taken on that I've seen.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Thank you!

[@jorndebello7317]

You should do a collaboration on Christianity with Dan McClellan

[@veritasetcaritas]

Who is that?

[@jorndebello7317]

@@veritasetcaritas he's a really good biblical scholar. He has a small youtube channel (his name is the channel name). He is trying to make it easier for people to get access to scholarly work on the Bible

[@veritasetcaritas]

@@jorndebello7317 thanks, I will look him up!

[@Wallyworld30]

I used to love TIK's Channel in fact is might have been my favorite History Channel at one point. Then a few years ago he starts saying weird stuff like Hitler was a Left Wing Socialist and now I can't trust the sob. He really thinks he's doing amazing things and I sure he means well but WTF bru? He took his catch phrase "But is that really the case" too far. He's become a conspiracy theorist channel that does really nice WW2 Campaign video's on the side. I'll stand by the 9 hour video series TIK did on "Battlestorm Operation Crusader" is the greatest in depth analysis of any Battle Campaign on KZbin. It's really sad to see how far he's fallen. He does an insane amount of work on his Battlestorm video's and I really think it made him crack. TIK please seek help from a Therapist. Regards, Wallyworld.

[@veritasetcaritas]

I think the understandable success of his Battlefield series went to his head.

[@shingshongshamalama]

Would a "trans God" be someone who identified as one God but now identifies as another God? You know technically I could make an argument that the Biblical God is in fact thusly a "trans" God because he went from minor unimportant god of war to All-Encompassing Singular Creator.

[@veritasetcaritas]

Well that's a pretty niche definition of "trans" which I expect few academics would accept. There are already established terms for that kind of change.