VLAD REACTS: Tim Snyder, Blair, Jordan Peterson, Rory Stewart, Richard Wolff.

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CHAPTERS
00:00 Tim Snyder on authoritarianism
06:22 Tony Blair on Putin
12:44 Rory Stewart on crisis
19:28 Richard Wolff on capitalism
26:59 Jordan Peterson on religion and Nietzsche

[@VladVexlerChat]

CHAPTERS 00:00 Tim Snyder on authoritarianism 06:22 Tony Blair on Putin 12:44 Rory Stewart on crisis 19:28 Richard Wolff on capitalism 26:59 Jordan Peterson on religion and Nietzsche Vlad's main channel kzbin.infovideos Support Vlad's work on Patreon! www.patreon.com/vladvexler Support Vlad via PayPal www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB

[@johnmason1239]

You have a beautiful mind Vlad, your videos I always like 1st& never regret& I only watch KZbin due to BBCs sending many threats to my parents house after I emailed full succinct details of their deaths&as the BBCs international analysis has lost its real insight. Iam a Brit+part Ukrianian, part Polish,part Jewish with abit of Russian. My mum survived gulags as a toddler in WW2 when Stalin invaded Poland with Hitler while my polish grandad born in Vienna😅 fought the luftwaffe in the Polish Airforce,his wife my dear gran was from Zytomomir where Navalnys family in Ukraine are from. Your thoughts are the seeds of future Russian democracy✌great stuff🙏 😀

[@scottjacobson4765]

🎉❤😊 HIT ALL MY TALKING POINTS AND MORE! CALLED A TRAITOR FOR WATCHING FREE SPEECH TV AND I WENT TO SCHOOL EXELLING IN ACCOUNTING SO I WAS JUST FINDING RICHARD WOLFE WHICH I KNOW BY WATCHING HIS PROGRAM A VERY LONG TIME...TO BE...BEYOND OUTSTANDING TO HELP SHOW SOME POPULAR ECONOMIC MISCONCEPTIINS, DISPELLING...SOME OF THE FALSE NARRATIVES STATING ALTERNATE FACTS...OR QUITE INFORMATIVE! HES AN EXPERT ON ECONOMICS AND PEOPLE SOMETIMES CRINGE AT HIS BOLD REALITY CHECKS...IN A TIME WHERE TALKING TRUTH...IS A THREAT...TO PROPAGANDIZED SOCIAL ECONOMIC PATHO-POLITICA/RELIGIO IDEOLOGY I DIDNT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RORY STEWART THANK YOU FOR SHARING! TONY BLAIR I DONT FOLLOW! THANKS FOR SHARING ABOUT TONY BLAIRS AWESOME WARNING BOUT PUTIN! I WOULDNT BE ACTUALLY LIVING LIKE THE OPENING OF THE BOOKS... THE PROPHET UNARMED THE PROPHET DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLITARIAT I WOULDNT BE THE END RESULT OF THAT KIND OF PROPAGANDIZED STUFF. IF THE VERY SAME..."METHODS" WERENT BEING USED...HERE IN MY OWN BRAINWASHED..INTO BEING THUMPED-UP PUTINISTIC ENTHUSISTS OF CHRISTIAN AUTHORITY...TYPE RADICALS...SOME CHOOSE TO EMINATE. TODAY AS AN EXAMPLE ... I DO ENJOY MR. PETERSON HE SHARES FABULOUSLY GOOD INFORMATION..I DONT KEEP UP...AS ..MUCH WITH HIM ... AFTER BEING TARGETED. ..IM FOLLOWING CURRENT NEWS ..MORE...THAN TRYING ANYMORE TO UNDERSTAND WHERE THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL BREAK OCCURRED... MEDIA PROPAGANDA BLITZ BRAINWASHING IS SOMETHING THATS NOW INFECTED...EVERY COMMUNITT ..OVER A VOTING INTEREST...VOID OF CARE.... JUST FOUND IN .. HOW WWII STARTED ..PODCAST ...????? CHAPMAN ..HAD ONE OF THE BEST IVE SEEN...MAYBE IN ... AFTER WWII. ..TO COLD WAR ..MIGHT BE CLOSE TO THE NAME SAME IDEA IN ONE OF THOSE...GERMAN NAME...FOR THE "I DONT CARE" MOTTO...SLOGAN CAMPAIGN WAS MAYBE MORPHED INTO THE MIDDLE FINGER CROWDS ALL AROUND ME TOO! SOMETIMES TRYING TO SHARE THE VERY SAME TALKING POINTS YOU SHARED HERE TODAY! SO FANTASTICALLY! FABULOUS PODCAST! AWESOME BREAKDOWN! EVERYTIME! 🎉❤😊 I COULDNT FORGET THAT I MET TIMOTHY SNYDER BY LOOKING TO WAIT FOR ECONOMIC UPDATE WITH RICHARD WOLFE! HIS BOOK ON TYRANNY WAS FEATURED ON ANOTHER PROGRAM BEFORE OR AFTER HIS OR ON HIS PROGRAM DOESNT MATTER! 🎉 LOVED HIS BOOK SO MUCH! BECAUSE IT WAS DESCRIBING MY NEW "ALTERNATE REALITY" SO WELL, I SOMEHOW AFTER SOMEHOW...NOT ROOM ENOUGH TO EXPAND ON...ENDED UP...IN HIS YALE HISTORY CLASS . ON UKRAINE/RUSSIAN RELATIONS IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND MY CURRENT LOCAL ISSUES DUE TO CURRENT POLARIZATION...ON PROPAGANDIZED STERIODS! CANNOT THANK ALL OF THE PEOPLE YOU HIGHLIGHTED! AND I CANNOT THANK YOU,! ENOUGH! FOR HIGHLIGHTING THEM ALL IN ONE VODEO! FABULOUS PODCAST! AS ALWAYS! 🎉😊❤

[@johnmason1239]

Great take down of Jordan Peterson Neitzsche, personally after decades as a anarchist I've gone back to more classicslly liberal Catholicism which most of my family from East Europe followed. I have no problem with most other religions-atheists but I have a problem with extremism. Most mass genocides come from extremism,& extreme situations.In the 20th& 21st centuries it happened in more due to imbalances between left& right, hence I've gone back to more "classical liberal thinking", I was vleft wing but many anarchists i know& trotskyists now allign with Putin, in the same way many left "anarchists"still occasionally allign with stalinists. That all said I still would consider a more free future with possibly constitutional direct democracy & a RBE resource based economy, but that could be hell in so many ways beside destroying our ecosystem . Right now we need to be level headed& get through quite a extreme point historically& get more centre ground.

[@dannydetonator]

@johnmason1239 Excuse me, you e-mailed "deaths&as" what to BBC? I might get it, many people loath and mock it, usually because reporting differs from their political stance or worldview and i once saw that as ignorant and extremist once. Though lately they really dropped the ball and i guess really lack the reality check on some topics, though i haven't watched it enough to say for sure. One thing that they've been dumbing down, i guess due to following engagement as ad revenue and sponsors are cut out. Other thing is the political partiality of their own journalists and editors, apparemtly standing against right-wing propaganda (and thus resisting the Kremlin narrative on Ukraine), but still falling for left/Muslim Brotherhood one. I'm less versed on Palestine bandwagon and rather wouldn't touch it, as this polarisation is creeping up in all media, decided by political spectrum (which long since is not a scale but 2D plane). But got to admit, from little i've seen they're seriously lacking the depth on reporting and news, same as nearly all western MSM outlets. Got to face it - westwards from the Polish wedtern border people, including journalists and most experts (never mind rest of talking heads) just don't understand the intricacies and complicated history developed east of that border, where i'm at. Nearly all my grandparents and further back were deported to gulags and exile after occupation of Baltics, my mother's cousin born and mum incepted in the far east wastelands too. Now i'm compelled to have a look how BBC portray the situation on our side, but i don't expect more than superficial reportages and soundbites anyway. I used to live in UK and paid my TV licence for a bit, so it would be sad if british media assisted their public to become as polarised and compelled by Autocratic-axis propaganda creeping in everywhere as in ex.g. US. The latter is the strongest weapon of our enemies from St.Petersburg to Beijing, as their imperial doctrine even more than in USSR is ~"We don't need to conquer the world by force. We can make the world believe absurdities and allow for atrocities to be commited if we want. We can divide their society and jeopardise their resistance". This badly worded idea of hybrid-war is not new, just evolved and upgraded to be very effective. That's why i'm 100% with you on growing polarisation and extremism politically and in understanding the world (or ideologically) being our main problem and danger seeded from outside and growing within. Therefore while this hybrid-war is raging, the best strategy is to meet at the centre or thereabout, keep to the facts over emotions and don't let our societies to be confused and divided. Otherwise we fall. To distract while dividing our societies doesn't even need to make us believe concrete things, as long as they divide us. But it does lead to self-hatered, distrust in own institutions and rejecting of democratic systems by exaggerating own problems while glorifying perception of Autocratic self-appointed enemy forces. We got to be vigilant of extremes and keep a healthy reason and moral humanist reason to resist this poison, both injected in many places and spreading like virus in our confused societies, with emphasis on the western side of our part of the World. I suspect you learned a lesdon from Brexit (which was facilitated by the same foreign forces i mentioned), just don't forget it. Many still carry on towards this extremist abyss completely oblivious of being led there by their enemies.

[@lazfrombudapest8053]

Thanks for mentioning Hungary, I wish you spoke about my country more often. Also, perhap consider doing a video about the phenomenon of RFK Jr?

[@orion3253]

You are miles above the majority of people doing reaction videos on youtube, thank you for continuing to help steer public conversation in a positive and thoughtful direction.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Means a lot thank you!

[@PalleRasmussen]

I admit to liking people reacting to Rammstein and Heilung. But that is another category, except for a few, they do not use that to reflect in an enlightened manner like Vlad does.

[@orion3253]

@@PalleRasmussen There's plenty of value in reaction vids for music, it's one of the most straight forward forms of critical analysis and I've seen a few youtubers doing good, quick and dirty music education in that format. What I'm more disappointed in is the attitude many youtube "debate" themed channels have with their point by point "destruction" of random culture war videos they've decided to cannibalize.

[@PalleRasmussen]

@@orion3253 I never saw any of the latter. And yes. The problem with Rammstein (which I love) reactions are that 90% of the reactors miss everything but the fire and the show. Some notice that Till has an amazing voice, and a few notice the many ways their lyrics can be interpreted and the intelligence behind it. Too few speak German though. It is sort of the same with Heilung, though more singers and voice trainers react to that because of Maria's overtly stunning voice. So yea...

[@Scarletpimpanel73]

Vlad reacts "Lets stop for a minute and carefully consider this ..."

[@vovacat1797]

I watched Snyder's lecture series on Ukraine and he's a great educator we all need to have in our life. The fact that you can reasonably listen to his lectures as if they were podcasts is what makes him so great.

[@marshuswp3325]

I very much appreciated those "The Making of Ukraine" lectures as well.

[@aluminiumfish]

I liked them too...but never reached the same conclusions as he did.

[@crhu319]

Snyder is a neocon and a fraud.

[@jmdavison62]

@@aluminiumfish Can you provide some examples of differing conclusions?

[@Scarletpimpanel73]

He is one of the few academics that puts himself morally on the line without losing any credibility.

[@epincion]

I fully agree with Tim Snyder that authoritarian regimes require a lack of truth being available.

[@AndreasDelleske]

They think that truth is just one color on their palette.

[@rleriche5044]

And truth being desired. But despite this they would probably be the most prolific users of the word.

[@renstein8210]

We lived through that during the pandemic. So long as our fear levels are high enough, we don’t really care.

[@JRBendixen]

Yep. And they will drown you in lies, so even when you hear the true facts they will get countered by endless lies and deciet. What Trump did with the paper.

[@liamhickey359]

Dear Timothy what is the difference between authoritarianism and plutocracy when it comes.to the truth?.

[@Thomas...191]

You are such a great example of how to have a public conversation. In a world inundated with so much hyperbolic noise on the internet.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Thank you so much!

[@laucon11]

'In 1850 Nietzsche would have been six'. 🤣

[@hhumh6911]

Also, Marx's Capital wasn't even out yet for socialism to be big enough of a topic. That says something not just about Peterson's knowledge of Nietsche, but also of the depth of his inquiry into socialism/the leftist ideology that he's so known for publicly loathing.

[@PjRjHj]

​@@hhumh6911Pre-Marx Socialism was certainly a big topic in the decades before Das Kapital. Marx's philosophical underpinnings didn't begin with him. The term "Communism" had been coined decades before Marx, and emerging socialist thought was one amongst numerous factors in the revolutions of 1848.

[@gogudelagaze1585]

@@PjRjHj The socialist element of the '48 revolutions is always underestimated. On one hand I understand that, because nationalism, or in this case more accurately the assertion of a national identity is of a far higher impact, but it certainly doesn't feel right to ignore the socialist aspect.

[@annoyingcommentator1582]

@@hhumh6911 Because he gets the date wrong? That in itself is not a critique with any depth. And Nietzsche did not write about socialism when he was 6, but when he did, he had nothing nice to say about it. It is a long time ago, I don't know exactly what passages it where but I remember reading Nietzsche, 20 years ago, and as someone at that time still having strong sympathies for social democracy being somewhat upset, or at least feeling challanged by much of what he wrote. I think Nietzsche mentions Socialism by name once or twice only (and I doubt it is in "Will to Power" because I was wary of it at the time for the reasons mentioned by Vlad in the video and did not read it until much later and with much less attention than Nietzsches other works) but he attacked many of it's ideas in subtext or simply without attributing them to Marx (which would be inaccurate anyway). It's of limited use to talk about it in abstract and I just noticed my Nietzsche collection did not make it into my living room the last time I moved, so I stop here for now.

[@theredscourge]

@@hhumh6911 You're missing Vlad's point if you're fixating on him getting the date wrong.

[@billy2807]

Glad to hear Ricky is seeing someone. Good for him!

[@rachelatwood9555]

she's gonna be so pissed when she finds out what he did with their holiday money...

[@VladVexlerChat]

💛

[@suzannstrohmaier2578]

@@rachelatwood9555 It may be a short lived relationship. 🤣 Lets just hope he is not seeing that Susan girl. hahaha

[@rachelatwood9555]

@@suzannstrohmaier2578 totes! Susan is The Worst!!!

[@suzannstrohmaier2578]

​@@rachelatwood9555😆

[@CaroAbebe]

Thanks, Vlad. Your way of looking at things and of communicating is very helpful. You really are a public intellectual. Lots of love from Austria.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Love back from Norfolk countryside!

[@talideon]

The fact that Jordan Peterson is saying stuff like that is a sure sign he's read next to nothing of what Nietzsche actually wrote, especially given how scathing he was of Christianity.

[@demian9715]

I once was a fan of Peterson until he said something about a topic I actually studied and was educated in. I then realized he is talking alot of nonsense. Alot.

[@jimboo5802]

@@demian9715 Same here

[@hhumh6911]

​@@demian9715 ++. oh, and his stance on Ukraine? he initially shared it wearing a fancy suit, with a black background accentuating the pompous style; on top of the total rubbish he uttered, that misplaced self-important aesthetic made my previously high opinion of the man crumble faster than a cookie in a toddler's hand.

[@colingibson5966]

Same.. he's moved away from his field where he did a great job at explaining logical easy to follow fact based style on human phycology....into politics (and gotten way to deep into anti woke vs woke cults) .....also his Christian faith often leaves him arguing points that make no logical sense and which he tries to force using all types of mental gymnastics, ironically many that he used to call out in his lectures just a few years ago.

[@jimmy3645]

⁠​⁠@@colingibson5966 exactly… I still enjoy some of his “self help” existentialism stuff (it helped me a lot in the past) But out of his lane he talks garbage.

[@mikeklein4949]

Oh boy, people better be on their game. Here comes Vlad Reacts!

[@diane9247]

Hahaha! From now on, I'm keeping my mouth shut.🤓

[@SlpBeauty333]

Ooooh, I love Ranty Vlad. His rants are calm. I don't know how he does it. Lots of love from NYC ❤️

[@giganticbrittle]

I've probably watched over 50 Vlad Vexler Vids, this is my all-time favorite! Precise, open, interested, flexible... Reminded me of stochastic reinforcement learning: how AI can't learn how to drive unless it's watching a human. I don't feel like Vlad is telling us what to think, he's helping us to exercise the moral muscle needed to think for ourselves 🎉 Brilliant 😊

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

This is the very, very best of every video ever made because I heard it. I can tell my friends, dude you should have been there.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Thank you so so much!!!!

[@giganticbrittle]

@@VladVexlerChat thank YOU dear man 😊 I pray your health is well today ❤️

[@matt.willoughby]

You're looking very healthy and sprightly today, glad to see you're a little better 😊

[@coopoylozenge5964]

The world needs more Vlad Vexlers and citizens prepared to listen to them.

[@TheGigashadow]

Peterson does not understand Nietzsche and misrepresents him in this way all the time. Great video Vlad! Edit; I would love to see you react and analyze a full video of Peterson, but just be careful as you may loose brain cells by doing so.

[@olavl8827]

Peterson probably never even read any Nietzsche, except perhaps in a "Reader's Digest" kind of format. Vlad is too polite to say it so I will: Peterson is a poseur and a charlatan.

[@user-ue2tv5rd9e]

Peterson is great in the psychology and epistemology areas, as well as with his anti-woke activism. But he gets lost when he sides with Islam, Trump and Russia, apparently in the name of some excentric religiosity. On balance though, he's still one of the good guys and worth listening to, albeit with a critical ear.

[@basilfawlty123]

​@@user-ue2tv5rd9e^^^ this!

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@user-ue2tv5rd9e Woke is an empty word filled with any contingent meaning of the moment. Let me try it out. I define woke as being not bigoted, not racist, and not homophobic. Anti-woke therefore is bigoted, racist, and homophobic. Does that describe JorP’s anti-wokeness?

[@user-ue2tv5rd9e]

hank you for your response. If woke was only anti bigotry, racism and homophobia, I'd be woke as well. But the woke agenda is much more: the systematic dismantling of Western society and values via the relativization of truth, the demonization of authority and the adulation of victim hood.

[@jrnmller1551]

Some years ago, I was running a CNC-cardboard machine that on a good day could make 150.000USD in 8 hours, we were making good money, but when the machine needed repair, would still paid the same, sitting looking at repair guys!! if you think off the building-power- light-forklift-warehouse-sales-office people who also got paid from this, dont feel exploited,find another job or start your own buisness????

[@MarcosElMalo2]

I don’t want to suck on the dicks of “job creators”, but seriously, where are workers supposed to work if there are no CNC machines, no assembly lines, no extraction of minerals or energy resources, etc? Does a socialist state conjure these up by magic?

[@MichaelMoranGearHead]

Wonderful explanation of Nietzsche.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Thanks dear you!

[@DarkestAlice]

Thank you, Vlad, and good health to you. 🤗 🇺🇦 Перемоги і миру всім українцям! 🇺🇦

[@VladVexlerChat]

🌻

[@bogdanvasut8915]

The fact that Vlad has to explain why JBP is missing the point about Nietzsche is as sad as a physicist having to explain why the earth isn't flat. The pseudointellectual bubble generated around and by JBP is a thing that future history will have to explain

[@basilfawlty123]

When Jordan Peterson triggers you to the point where he becomes some sort of 'he who shall not JBP named' character in your script, you might do well to think deeply about whether or not you've become ideologically captured. The bloke gets things wrong from time to time, guess what, he's only human. Doesn't make him a pseudointellectual. Smells an awful lot like projection.

[@bogdanvasut8915]

And only the ideologically captured can't see the fine clothes of the emperor

[@basilfawlty123]

@@bogdanvasut8915 what clothes? Jordan, as flawed as he may or may not be, is one of the few people brave enough to tell him to his face "put some clothes on you weirdo, you're scaring the kids!"

[@hhumh6911]

@@basilfawlty123 I'll chime in to add perspective. (Let's leave my nationality - I'm Ukrainian - out of this for the moment, as that might mean I'm ideologically and errm biologically captured). I used to appreciate the man because he acted humbly and advocated for pursuing excellence and nourishing your curiosity. Even a few years ago, the lack of totalitarian conviction he displayed appealed to me and encouraged me to ask more questions. What's happening now that Jordan obviously enjoys a significant, often fan-like obsessed following is that he communicates with a pompous conviction more often than not. With how often he had talked about ideological capture, I would expect Jordan to question his own sympathy for the ideas proposed by the rivals of his opponents. Bringing Ukraine back into this context, it seemed that Jordan was extremely quick to adopt the russian propaganda perspective because 1) "woke activists" typically vote blue, and since Democrats were pro-Ukraine, supporting Biden's stance seemed like an obvious no-go for Jordan regardless of the context, and 2) a russian rehab helped him get off benzos after the Western doctors proved incapable or unwilling to help.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@basilfawlty123I take your overall point, but the fact is that he doesn’t get a few things wrong sometimes. He gets a lot of things wrong much of the time. I don’t know if he is a pseudo intellectual, but I would classify him a Sado-intellectual, inflicting painfully ridiculous ideas into the public sphere. Many accuse him of being a grifter. I think it’s more interesting to wonder if he is aware that he grifts. He doesn’t seem to be very self aware or self reflective. All of that being said, he doesn’t strike me as being intellectually honest.

[@brianquinn6014]

Fantastic to see you Vlad, love from Scotland

[@AIAudiobooks411]

you are a great orator

[@wile123456]

Peterson constantly lies and misrepresents everything he talks about. It's remarkable how so many people take him seriously, but he has mastered the art of interlectiual babble, so people believe what he says simple because he sounds smart on a surface level.

[@theredscourge]

He doesn't lie, he bumbles. Exactly what Vlad pointed out when he mentioned the 1850 claim. It would be unacceptable from a historian but what his critics miss is that he does not claim to be a historian, he's trying to make the everyman a little more sophisticated despite his many flaws.

[@jorbdan6305]

Appreciate the editing!

[@paulyoung4422]

Nice to know, that Vlad believes, we wil keep calm and carry on.

[@wendykelling7738]

Yp - I was so pleased that he was happy with what Rory said. Me too.

[@fourthchute]

Great vid ! enjoyed this one and as usual much to ponder

[@mikeklein4949]

Totally agree with your view of our crisis and Rory's view of our crisis.

[@juliarichter6987]

Thanks, Vlad.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Thank you dear you!

[@danielcreamer9669]

Always appreciate the analysis!

[@epincion]

Excellent overview thanks so much.

[@CynthiaBlair]

I took Prof. Tim Snyder's online Yale course about Ukraine in 2022, which really helped me understand some historical background to conflict in Ukraine. Tim Snyder's lectures, books and articles whether about Eastern Europe or in the US, have clarity. I remember one lecture he gave at Boston University on Oct 28, 2022 about genocide in Ukraine that was absolutely chilling and thoroughly grounded in fact. As a 'westerner" the Russian attitude towards Ukraine seemed so absurd...until I started translating some of the Russian text myself, to be certain. As an artist, this made a huge impact on me. I have never thought of Russia as superior in any way.

[@terryhand]

Hi Vlad, you have mentioned before that Freud is often misrepresented today. I would love to hear you enlarge on that..

[@RuneDrageon]

I support that "question" about Freud. But if you want another take Julian de Medeiros here on youtube has a bit on Freud from the view of Zizek.

[@VladVexlerChat]

I promise I will on the philosophy channel! Some of our pop intuitions about what he thought are the opposite of what he thought!

[@wendykelling7738]

I'd like to hear that too. Thank you Vlad

[@bogdanvasut8915]

Based on what Michel Onfray wrote (and he have some strong arguments & bibliography) my stance on Freud is that he was an imposter. But i'd welcome a more nuanced approach.

[@VersusThem]

@@bogdanvasut8915 Michel Onfray is basically the biggest Freud hater I know lol

[@vlpahb]

Awesome! Greetings from Amsterda/NL.

[@aleksis-kivi]

Great to see you again!!!

[@johnmaynard869]

I’m glad you’re back

[@pedtrog6443]

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, power is ever stealing from the many to the few" Wendell Phillips

[@18_rabbit]

very very easy to 'survive' this wonderful presentation! Thank u! Very bright and illuminating and sharp it was.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Thank you!

[@pureblood1978x]

37 minutes! Awesome ❤

[@blueclue57]

“collective self-deception” - is that another term for “hope” and “faith”? I hold on to my faith because it is the lesson of my father, and the lesson of American history. I don’t view that as “naive” in an uneducated, weak way of looking at life. Some of my confidence in the future comes through my religious faith, but I don’t let religion cloud my judgment of community needs. If I am engaged in an active way (including listening and being inclusive) with those around me, then it is difficult to see an end to democracy.

[@SammiChimi]

Maybe there is a sort of twisted rationality behind believing in a deception, and it may or may not be naive; but yes, I would say it is a deception nonetheless. Hope and faith in our peculiar visions of religious matters is a collective self-deception. In fact, it is unraveling in the United States as we speak with secularism supplanting religious faith year on year. We will have to see if this will lead to disaster and nihilism or not.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

Pretty simple approach. Your father should have taught you to question, even him.

[@jameslevine7887]

@@AstroGremlinAmerican was that meant to be a question? I'm not a person of faith, but I think the commenter checks all the boxes for open-mindedness. And as far as values, might you consider volunteering your own rather than deconstructing someone else's? My hope is that we can make this exchange as constructive as possible, and disclose our own perspectives rather than take a swing at someone who's courageous enough to share something meaningful to them

[@AbdulHannanAbdulMatheen]

👏🙂 Very interesting video format.

[@martinvanoene7192]

Awesome Thank You!

[@sparklingsoda9989]

thank you for emphasizing the khhh at the beginning!! I love the sound of your hellos!

[@VladVexlerChat]

🌻

[@russelld01]

Woowee, a box of philosophy all-sorts! Tim Snyder is a step above the others when it comes to the current politics. He does a masterful description of the propaganda in Congressional Hearing on April 17. All under 5 minutes. Thanks for taking the time and effort to put together this respectful, cogent and considered tutorial on these thinkers.

[@phaedrussocrates7636]

Thank you

[@novascheller5957]

I love how careful your thinking is… yr definition of different crises points. ❤

[@manitobaman5588]

I survived nicely and I apologize for the fact that Canada exported Jordan Peterson.😂

[@mikebarushok5361]

I've had a period of less than 5 years where I was paid as much as $300 per hour and the value of the work was much more than that, and was paid as little as $7.25 per hour and the value was nearly zero. In neither of those situations was my feeling of worthiness affected by either what I was being paid or by the system that created the external valuation of the results. It's possible that I cannot understand the basis of the controversy about wages and salaries for the reason that I was raised in extreme poverty and know how to survive with very little income and consider anything I am paid beyond the barest minimum to enable me to help others less fortunate.

[@theredscourge]

You have humility and gratitude, two things that pretty much make you incapable for falling for the exploitation narrative that the average 105 IQ westerner propagates on Reddit instead of developing a marketable skill.

[@18_rabbit]

interesting. Yeah i think i get what u r talking about. To me, i also factor in the atmosphere and speed of work requirements, how rushed the situations/work has to be, etc. Or the abusivness of some management. Really vast topic in several ways, but as an american, i can't deny that there's been a hard edged manic aspect to american work life going way back. I'm approaching my midfifties. Foreign friends always noticed the mania here, and i dn't think there's any doubt that both the Internet/tech bubble mania/pop in the late '90's into '2001, and the GFC, are related to american mania which is a real thing, and may or may not involve executives who do drugs too much etc, (not talking about causation visavis drugs, just mentioning it bcuz i do think it's important to point out).

[@theredscourge]

@@18_rabbit If you're good at what you do, good managers and coworkers are worth their weight in gold, and unfortunately are seldom valued as such by corporate, or at least are hard for them to afford to hold on to.

[@gemeinschaftsgeful]

Nietzsche's going mad at the end of his life is very interesting. The breakdown he experienced seeing a horse being mistreated.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

That was a different guy.

[@brucebartlett9989]

Thank you. I no longer feel bad about giving up on Thus Spake Zarathustra as it was largely incomprehensible to me.

[@begr_wiedererkennungswert]

I still feel a little bad for reading Harry Potter instead.

[@VladVexlerChat]

It’s a bit like the moonlight sonata - it has taken on a Pop meaning of its own!

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

Pretty cool tune if you ask me. Oh, the book. Yeah, I read it. Not as good as the Gay Science.

[@NikkiOwen]

Vlad 🫂 ❤

[@VladVexlerChat]

🌻

[@markwojdylo3325]

Great work. This channel is sorely underrated.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

Who underrated it? I want to know their name.

[@kernowpolski]

Thanks Vlad - when you provide this little insights - they are fund gems of wisdom and analysis to view thank you.

[@ingridw6665]

Glad to see you again. Love to heard your point of view about the ideas about democracy in this modern world. Thank you

[@VladVexlerChat]

Thank you!!

[@importantname]

Thank you Vlad, I both survived and leant much TY. Jordan has the skill of talking as if what he is saying is fact. His confident tone and display is great for convincing any one listening. Though sometimes, he actually is factual, trouble is when someone doesnt know, he convinces with personality. Many just believe everything he says.

[@davidbowers912]

Haven't Followed the Stream yet but first Let me say I have been yearning for your study of these Characters in particular. Thank -You for doing this ! 👐👣🇨🇦☮️🌻🌻🌻

[@itsmederek1]

Whenever Vlad speaks on JP he so easily dismantles him on such a profound level without even really intending to. So crazy I used to be into JP. We need to get Vlad on Rogan to convert him back to the regular world lol

[@VladVexlerChat]

It’s tricky! I try not to do Ricky destroys Bobby type videos - that’s sugar when we need vegetables. But here I think I explained what’s wrong with that particular short video!

[@itsmederek1]

​@@VladVexlerChat That you absolutely did. Just a pure honest reaction that makes you a respectable person, no R destroys B intended it was just a sort of natural consequence of honest discourse in which case I might not count it as 'vegetables' but its definitely at least fruit

[@chrisfreebairn870]

But what is the point? Does the short accurately represent JBPs position on N? If it doesn't aren't you arguing with straw men? What is achieved? Are you using the JBP clip to address a common misconception about N, or to reveal an error in JBPs conception of N?

[@itsmederek1]

@@chrisfreebairn870 I think it does but feel free to figure that out and let me know

[@sanfordschoolfield710]

Thanks

[@VladVexlerChat]

Thank you!

[@ThePetergate]

Survived! 😊

[@epincion]

When people say they want to be paid what they are worth it’s not so much about a specific number as it is they are saying they want a liveable wage and fair conditions of employment. A liveable wage and fair conditions are not incompatible with the business making a profit but what is missing in the west today (especially in the Anglo-Saxon west as noted by Thomas Piketty and Tony Judt) is the concept of a social contract between owners and workers.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Yes, the wage and wealth gap. Which is not a necessary and inevitable side effect. Capitalism is a social technology (as opposed to a religion or the natural order of things). It is like an engine. And like an engine it can be tweaked, adjusted, and tuned to serve different purposes. Right now it seems to be tuned to be a race car engine to get a very few people across the finish line first m. But the same engine could be tuned for efficiency and used to transport many more people towards the finish line. BUT TO ACKNOWLEDGE BOTH THE MARXISTS AND ANTIMARXISTS LET US NOW DISCUSS LATE STAGE CAPITALIZATION AND THE DIVISION OF CASES.

[@robertfreitag687]

Problem is, nobody knows what the true economic value they provide is. That's largely a function of revenue, which, let's be honest, is pretty random. People can come up after the fact with some pretty elegant explanations for why this product succeeded and that product failed, but they all incorporate ephemeral data that nobody could really have confidently predicted ahead of time. So often we see, in retrospect, the value of a product that failed in the past simply because it's time had not come. What we need is a strong social safety net to provide the systemic resilience necessary for people to navigate the economy with confidence that they won't be left destitute by changing whims in fashion, technology, etc., etc. You know, the kind of thing governments used to do. That's an ideological problem, though, because it challenges legacy models of social hierarchy and the motivation to work. Maybe if we had a more diverse, robust political system, we could achieve social consensus that is more responsive to economic realities. But we don't.

[@chrisfreebairn870]

​@@robertfreitag687easy to sort the wheat from the chaff, just ask which workers want to invest directly in the company, that is, share the losses as well as the profits! Motivation to work argument is, like many deeply held views in this space, is more a conservative moral entitlement statement than one sustained by the data, apparently.

[@robertfreitag687]

@@chrisfreebairn870 I'll be honest, my 2nd reading of your response was radically different from the 1st, and left me with a totally different impression of where you were going, so I deleted my original reply. But that whole employee stock investment program struck me as so bitterly ironic because so many of the people who got s- canned from Tesla were die hard true believers who totally bought in. 2:44 to 3:45 of the linked video. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHnNlmqelLyJobs

[@robertfreitag687]

@@chrisfreebairn870 But even if Musk had acted in good faith about the employee stock program, that doesn't get to the point I made about the need for a back-end downward economic redistribution because the business could still fail. It's not ONLY about the relative distribution of risk. It's about creating resilience to encourage innovation generally. [Edit: I sense a high potential for a conversation-derailing misunderstanding here. KZbin keeps sporadically disappearing comments here, and I didn't quite get the drift of one of your earlier comments until a 3rd reading.]

[@aniadobosz6381]

A new vladeo, yay!

[@kenithandry5093]

Thanks, i appreciate your thoughtful comments on each clip.

[@robertfreitag687]

I love that little introductory head wobble. In my mind, I'm seeing the caption: "Trigger warning: some wild *ss shit ahead."

[@birkett83]

Is it too late to revive the tradition of referring to authors or speakers by surname unless you know them personally? The cases where that's relevant information are few and far between (most often when someone discusses another person who works in their own field) but even when it's not useful it still feels more dignified. Maybe I'm just old.

[@suzannstrohmaier2578]

Happy Palm Sunday....it is the Eastern Orthodox Palm Sunday today/yesterday. 🌴🌴🌴🌴

[@krisvq]

Richard doesn't understand why a worker can't be paid more than their labour is worth. Also doesn't understand that for a product to be purchased by someone there's more cost to delivering the finished product that one workers hourly wage. What is wrong with current system is not that it is capitalist, but that it is abused by inadequate protections for laborers while overtaxed by inefficient governments. If you've never owned a business and if you've never paid workers, you literally have no idea what youre talking about because you've never had to jump through hoops required to do that.

[@Oksa_L]

The poor poor business owner. Yet they have expensive cars etc. I worked in a translation office and the amount of unpaid overtime they expected to do while paying almost nothing was staggering. There is nothing cooperational about the leeches trying to nickle and dime peoples most valuable thing - time - for their own gain.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

I always wonder what the worker would get paid if there wasn’t the job there in the first place. Let’s start with a system with no surplus value and compare it to a system with surplus value. The worker not generating surplus value with their work is operating at a subsistence level. Once they have met this goal, their time is free to use as they wish. If they cannot meet the goal, they perish, but otherwise the have time for non-survival activities. Is this surplus time? Is surplus time a form of surplus value? (Or does this surplus time require labor to transform it into value?)

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@Oksa_L Many businesses fail, many are just getting by, and many that are successful went through many years of lean profits before achieving the sort of success you describe. To condemn capitalism because you see business owners living in luxury is cherry-picking the data. Edit: where did you work where you didn’t have basic employee protections?

[@liamhickey359]

Bull sh!t. Most work in the modern world is being done by internal combustion. Somebody is creaming the profit off that and isnt telling anybody about it.

[@steveyork3240]

Isn’t he just talking about an organisation where the employer doesn’t get paid for their services? The imagination is a wonderful thing but it doesn’t always translate directly to practice all that well.

[@ddaffyduck9636]

The town square and the madman .got it.ty as ever

[@VladVexlerChat]

My pleasure.

[@BevanCranston]

We're so lucky to have you Vlad 🙏 You've influenced my personal philosophy profoundly, by grounding it in the collective wisdom you thankfully painstaking catalogued across your career 🙏🙏 You've left your mark in a profound way with many others too I'm sure! 🙏🙏🙏

[@diane9247]

Thanks to Vlad, I'm a little bit less alarmed than I was yesterday, But, I'm American, so that is sure to change by Tuesday.

[@jimmy3645]

Never thought I would see all of those names together in a KZbin Video title…. Congratulations 🤣

[@cheryldavis7813]

The Chinese character for crisis includes the concepts of both danger and opportunity. How we respond often determines the outcome.

[@neilclay5835]

Survived. Nourished. Thankful.

[@VladVexlerChat]

Grateful to you as always Neil!

[@scottjacobson4765]

ONE OF THE MOST AWESOME! PODCAST! IVE SEEN IN AWHILE! ON "EVERY" OF THESE SUBJECTS! 🎉😊

[@sparklingsoda9989]

to TSZ: I started reading Nietzsche with TSZ and he is my favorite philosopher for it. I've also listened to Ecce Homo and read and listened to most of the Geneology of Morality and I would also love to read or listen to the Antichrist and the Gay Science especially. but I personally find TSZ to be masterful and I personally find it extremely accessible and easy to understand, not just easier than other philosophy texts but easier than other texts in general. he shows an exceptional skill of using language in TSZ. I just think several things, here's one though: for one it's obviously not a traditional philosophy book and if you expect one, you'll be disappointed. he doesn't say anything without ambiguity and the main character's views are incoherent and his perspective unreliable. that's something you obviously wouldn't want in a philosophy book normally. but within the book, it serves to establish the character Zarathustra, who has certain ideals - those that would make up the Übermensch - but he cannot attain those. that's shown in various ways and the unreliability of his views is one of them. I think Nietzsche expresses with that the idea that we will always have meaning in our striving, even if our own goals and ideals are unattainable for us. it also serves a different purpose, I believe, which is to make the reader critical of what we are reading and come to think that we have to work to create, elaborate and discuss, ourselves. this is especially true because the book is a parody on the New Testament, and implies the joke that it should be taken as a form of religious book - which would make it create new ground for authoritarianism. so it breaks that understanding of it as a gospel, by being incoherent, to encourage emancipation instead of religious following. sorry I am a little tired, I hope this made at least some sense. but I've of course thought about this book a bit, so I do mean what I say. the other two things I believe about this book's accessibility are for one translation, because Nietzsche is using very deliberately ambiguous and nuanced language that shows great skill, in my view, in the German original, but is hard to translate - even if we only care about accurate translation of meaning. I don't believe there are any good translations of the book, but I haven't looked very deeply. the other thing I believe is that Nietzsche was adhd and he writes in that book specifically in a way that is accessible to adhd people and not to non-adhd people. I mean this seriously.

[@michaeldarling1759]

From my reading of Thus Spoke Zarathustra I observe that: -Nietzsche kills god but admits that he doesn't know if god exists -- but it's preferable that god be dead. -Women are to produce cannon fodder as the product of preference. Any other purpose is silly. -Government is composed of men chosen by -- Nietzsche. I think he's wanting government to be an aristocracy but to me I feel he'd be fine with autocracy or authoritarianism if it's done right. -Democracy is never mentioned. I don't recall. -Communication with the general population is 1) like talking to cows or 2) higher animals than cows who idolize -- Nietzsche. -With god and all that ethical Christain baggage tossed into the bonfire, now you too may create a universe as Prussian as Nietzsche's.

[@stephenderogier6790]

Will you be making a video about the situation in Georgia ^_^

[@Alex_Plante]

Whenever I listen to Richard Wolff, I feel like I'm listening to a 14-year-old

[@paulgallagher6544]

The highest paid executive pay could be thought of as motivated by reaching targets that don't actually add value but as they make up the targets they exploit out the profit from companies. That's led to dissatisfied staff that begin to underperform. It can rebound and eventually it can cost companies though when they are often all equally wrong it works for them anyway.

[@toni-leeblair5869]

I hesitate to comment, but this is my real name. Be well, you are truly appreciated. ❤️ 🇺🇦💙💪🌻✌️🇦🇺🌏

[@thomasaido9161]

I was fully prepared to be offended, and reactionary when I initially anticipated the critique of Timothy Snyder's view here. After listening, I believe that Snyder would humbly concede to your assessment. I would love to see a Vexler/Snyder headed think tank, books and even a speaking tour. I also respect how you can objectively listen to what someone as awful as blair has to say and find commonality and reason within, without personal judgement. Aside from being an exceptional geopolitical evaluator/strategist, you are a class act, Vlad.

[@joshs8860]

I am too tired to watch this video...but i'm going to do it anyways because I have not gotten enough Vlad time and the content is extra appealing.

[@begr_wiedererkennungswert]

Yeah, me too.

[@mikeklein4949]

Yes, conversation is critically important. This fragile feature is perhaps more critically important exactly by virtue of this fragility. Trust becomes critical and must be diligently maintained.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

The importance of conversation depends on who one is talking to. "Oh, hors d'oeuvres. I'll be right back."

[@neblime2496]

Poor ricky he was just getting his life back together...

[@alexwithletters3215]

Regarding the Richard Wolf clip, is that really what he means in that short clip? If I take it at face value then I am inclined to think that he is missing some very obvious points in his thought. For example it´s a nonsense comparison because the individual is getting paid 20 but that what makes the owner of the company 40 is not that individual alone. It is a a whole system and often years of work that collectively makes that individual produce more than what he is getting paid. If you take that individual out of the system that he did not contribute in he will never be able to make 40 with the same amount of work. If we take a grocery store as an example then the store clerk would have to build the store, farm the land, grow all the cattle, grind the wheat, and make the sugar and build the farming equipment and so on for that comparison to make sense. Or in short, just go do it yourself then.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

Some want to believe that if the means of production - the grocery store and its supply chain - are owned by the people, everything will be different and fair. But it turns out that it's not a big cheat, it's how labor is made manifest as value.

[@jmaitland5709]

Yeah that's what I was thinking. I think about my own employment situation right now as an architect. I have my set of skills which I bring to the table yes, but there is so much more that I *need* my employer for. I cannot afford the licences for the software and tech needed for me to do my job on my own, I do not have the knowledge of the industry to find the right clients and pitch my services to them, I don't have the financial knowledge or the personal charisma to be able to negotiate a competitive but fair fee for my services with those clients. So yes, the hypothetical worker must make more than their paycheque to make their job worth it for the employer, but that "extra worth" that your employer is taking off the top is because they are providing you with the means to do your job more easily and more effectively than you could do on your own. right clients,

[@danwylie-sears1134]

When you say what liberal democracy is at 1:36, I still hear six things, not one. I strongly agree that each thing on the list is important (at least as things stand in the real world). I just don't see them as an organic whole that develops, deteriorates, or regenerates as a whole. There are connections among them, of course. But there are connections among all sorts of things, and we can't license describing just any arbitrary subset of those things as one cohesive entity, without removing all meaning from the claim that something is one thing. I think we can imagine possible states of a society where people would find alternate ways of filling the roles played by each item on the list. For example, we have judicial systems, which handle both civil disputes and criminal prosecutions, and uses "beyond reasonable doubt" as the standard of evidence in criminal prosecution but "preponderance of evidence" in civil disputes. Another society might handle criminal offenses on a restorative model rather than a punitive one, with responses that can acceptably be applied in response to presumed offenses at a lower standard of evidence. Punishing the innocent is bad, in a way that it wouldn't be correspondingly bad to call on an innocent person to take on certain limited responsibilities for the aftermath of someone else's actions, or for a situation that looks as though it would be the aftermath of someone's criminal actions but isn't. That kind of institutional response could reasonably be handled by institutions that would feel administrative rather than judicial in character. It's very bad to have something that's purported to be a judicial system, but is really a tool for inflicting arbitrary harms chosen by functionaries seeking the approval of a figure who functions like an organized-crime boss. But it's not bad per se, as a feature of a hypothetical society, to have the functions of a judicial system be handled by institutions other than a judicial system. Likewise for the other components.

[@TroyHardingLit]

Employers add value to employees by providing a context in which they *can* execute a skill in exchange for money. If a person with a skill can trade that skill directly without an employer, then that employee would indeed be being ripped off. But many people can't do that. A cashier can't be a cashier without a shop. A postman can't be a postman without a postal system. These people might be being ripped of in specific instances, but the employer is absolutely providing something of value to the employee other than a paycheck. They are providing a context in which that paycheck is possible.

[@beatonthedonis]

The point of socialism is that workers - or the community - own/control the context in which the paycheck is possible.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@beatonthedonis I think you have a chicken and egg problem there.

[@TroyHardingLit]

@@beatonthedonis The moral justificaiton for socialism of the type you are describing is predicated on the idea that the relationship between capital and labour is inherently exploitative. I'm pointing out that this idea, while it can be true in specific instances, is not inherently true, because the difference between what labour is paid and what capital receives (profit) can be accounted for by the provision of the income earning context that labour works in.

[@beatonthedonis]

@@MarcosElMalo2 Not if you're a Marxist. Capitalists create enterprises that end up exploiting workers. Workers seize control/ownership of those enterprises in order to stop exploitation.

[@ElGeecho]

Employers often end up absorbing risk for employees, too. Employees usually have steady paychecks and benefits even when the businesses they are working for lose money.

[@lgude]

As someone who listens to Peterson quite a lot I can tell you that he usually follows up Nietzsche’s God is dead with a paraphrase of the text that follows in Zarathustra that goes: ‘and we have killed him and there isn’t enough water to wash away the blood…. ‘ He the then goes on to make the point that Nietzsche said that we had to create our own values and if we failed to so the result would be a disaster. I take your point that Nietzsche thought the death of God was a positive and a necessary change we had to go through. Looking back I think we have so far failed and are are caught between atrophied religious tradition and exhausted secularism and are in danger of falling much further than good minus, minus. Yates’ 1919 poem The Second Coming saw the scope of the disaster that WW1 unleashed and which we are now seeing work its way through our civilisation. It is precisely the loss of truth as more than a relative value that means we cannot count on it being upheld. As Yates said more than 100 years ago: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” On the positive side both Schneider on the left and Peterson on the right have genuine conviction, but both are full of passionate intensity when they talk about Trump or Trudeau respectively. We live in dodgy times mate.

[@pantalaemon]

except peterson is a disgraced psychology professor with no meaningful credentials w r t political issues, whereas snyder is in fact an expert on the functioning of tyranny. And somehow Peterson's audience consistently seems to dwarf SNyder's. Dodgy times, for sure.

[@TyrSkyFatherOfTheGods]

Ricky needs to start saving his pennies.

[@ReflectedMiles]

Wolff. 🤣 Your description of him was very kind indeed. No Marxist needs to explain why he became a professor denigrating economics instead of someone producing any direct economic value. He wants students to be upset that their labor benefits anyone but themselves--unless they are in a Marxist system, in which case it is fine. Very silly.

[@gking407]

It’s not “democracy” that’s fragile, it’s people. “Fragile” is a word that gets the thrown around as though other forms of governance have ever realized more human potential.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

Democracy is only as fragile as the people needed to play fair, not prosecute one's political rivals, and hold the system more valuable than any underhanded political victory. Fan(atic)s of sports teams think cheating by their team is OK. It's not.

[@chrisfreebairn870]

Given that democracy is a system devised by ppl to govern themselves, how could its failings be anything other than human? Someone once said something about it needing nurtured with the blood of patriots did they not? By which I assume was meant bullies & thieves will always cheat the system, which must within it retain the force & the will necessary to restrain them. Putin & tRrump show very clearly that confidence in the system is a key component, & lack of it a fatal weakness; by all means analyse to improve, but ensure the analysis is rigorously comparative, not self flagellation.

[@dalefavier2949]

Heh. "When you close the box, Putin is not inside."

[@epincion]

I disagree with Rory Stewart’s contention that the west does not face am existential crisis and the reason is that the west is asleep to its external threats and the rising danger will not be recognised until it’s too late.

[@CountScarlioni]

Perhaps, but that is taking Rory's words beyond their intended context. He was specifically talking about the matter of erosions of democratic values from within. You'd have to ask him about his attitudes towards existential threats from without. Certainly his revulsion over Putin and the European far right who so admire him is made very clear on his podcast. It's also probably worth bearing in mind that the interview clip appears to predate the invasion of Ukraine.

[@epincion]

@@CountScarlioni thanks for the comment. I was referring to internal threats and specifically to the fact that as a loyal Tory MP Stewart backed Brexit never once being critical of the charlatans that led the Leave campaign - especially Boris Johnson and the shadowy billionaires who bankrolled the party. At a keynote speech a few days ago in Canada former BoE Governor Mark Carney was explicit “for years the rallying cry of Brexiteers has broken Britain, and their solution to take back control was actually code for tear down your future.” Back in 2010 when he published his Jeremiad about modern Britain “I’ll Fares the Land”, the late Tony Judt presciently noted that the ruling elites in the UK had given up on the values of western liberal social democracy and instead were pursuing a neo Libertarianism based on the ‘Golden Rule’ of he who has the Gold makes all the rules, and it’s close corollary of he who makes the rules is above all rules. Indeed Judt comments directly on the phrase ‘Singapore on the Thames’ saying that the reality is that the elite want ‘China on the Thames’ for they greatly admire Chinese State Capitalism and understand that its success depends on a captive workforce who cannot leave and who can be paid peanuts and who know they can be fired with no cause and that there is no social security net, plus the ruling elite own everything including all sources of information and everything about them is a state secret. Rory Stewart’s complicity in Brexit brought that possibility a step closer in the UK.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

You're not going to believe this but people have been saying that for decades.

[@epincion]

@@AstroGremlinAmerican I agree and certainly in democratic societies there is always a bias toward peace and thinking ‘it will all work out in the end’. This means that it takes a lot to ‘wake people up’.

[@epincion]

@@CountScarlioni Good point thanks. Rory certainly has been blind to the erosion of democracy within the UK in that he was a loyal Tory MP who backed Brexit and in particular supported Johnson as leader. Nowadays we have senior Tory advisors admitting that the party is no longer the broad church conservative with a small c that it used to be but is now an English Nationalist party flirting with the tenets of fascism.

[@andyjennings9073]

I'm a small business owner and I do not recognize in the least this idea that employees must produce more then their wage. We get Engineering projects. I can finish say 30% of the engineering on my own. I need others to finish the other 70% or no of us get any of the project to work on. Some of our employees do things like bookkeeping. None of the hours they work are invoiced. Some of them work on R&D and that isn't invoiced either. At the end of the day, perhaps half of the people in the company directly earn money and at the end of the year, Some of the best engineers in the office take home more money then the township team. The point is, we couldn't do the work without everyone else and they couldn't do it without us. The team wins the job.

[@persallnas5408]

Poor Ricky, he is allways getting the short stick. Being a gambling addict or a russian bot, he just cant catch a break.

[@unfixablegop]

Whenever I hear Blair speak since he lost power, it seems very sensible to me. I concede that what is said is naturally overshadowed by who says it. But in Blair's case that seems overdone to me. No matter who insightful his words are, the reaction is always "go away you war criminal".

[@_c_y_p_3]

I did NOT know that about Will to Power! I thought it was just a book the guy wrote. So much for my being well informed 🙃 now I know. Sheesh if my siblings found my scraps and wrote a book it would be a 😳 Ok I gotta hire a house cleaner or something.

[@sparklingsoda9989]

the issue with the Will to Power is also that his sister was a Nazi and she assembled the notes for the book specifically to make it appeal to Nazis. I haven't read it myself so far, but this is pretty uncontested.

[@borntobomb]

@vladvexlerchat Ive search around but couldnt find any evidence of you ever discussing Slavoj Žižek. Do you have opinions on him? Kinda interested to hear the Vexler perspective on him. If you see this. Cheers, (and stay as well as you can manage)

[@mikeklein4949]

I think one of the facets of the crisis of democracy you refer to in that phrase is the lack of effectively realising the philosophical concept of democracy. That lack of effectiveness might be the sign of rot, dysfunction that might persuade folks that Canada, the UK, the EU, the USA are not governable. That gives license to all kinds of misanthropic behaviour even including restructuring society to ensure this behaviour is consistently present.

[@davidwright5094]

I find truthfulness a rather difficult concept. Some of my own half-formed thoughts on truthfulness. I'm unsure of its meaning, in the sense that I can imagine different meanings. Some of them, as quickly and briefly as I can verbally encapsulate. Truthfulness is: -communication that is, in large part, altruistically motivated. -the effort to better understand the world in collaboration with others. -openly exposing, to myself and to others, how I fail to understand. -the attempt to persuade others to act in what I assess to be the general good of mankind. -assisting others' accurate perception of me (or at least, to a degree, intending this). -use of communication for the purpose of improving the world that will remain after I am dead. Not necessarily expecting agreement, or even understanding of what on earth I mean. (I could easily add more attempted personal definitions to this list.)

[@gerryakikojak6832]

I think that's not a bad encapsulation. If your words were placarded and paraded around in more people's heads than the world will move more in a direction it needs to go.

[@AstroGremlinAmerican]

A course in philosophy might clear up some of these misconceptions. The general good of mankind, eh? What if that didn't include you?

[@davidwright5094]

@@AstroGremlinAmerican Then I'd lie

[@EdwardPike]

Wolff only explains one type of employment. Another is the "pirate crew" version where it takes a team to get the job and get it done and the money is split fairly evenly.

[@isonnol]

Not specific to this video, I just want to thank you for the work you do. I understand that engaging in online public squares is not as taxing on you as it can be to some, but bringing rationality (big R?) into these places is of critical (big C, for sure) importance. An unhealthy polarity that leads to dehumanization of "the other" seems inevitable in the absence of rational voices who choose to wade through the muck of highly emotive sensationalism and "post-truth", as you say. We, humanity as it exists in an online age, _need_ people like you. We need to hear that someone reasonable is around. Without such voices, irrationality in these public squares will appear the dominant mode of communicating to such a degree that an otherwise reasonable person may give up on logic as a respectable aim. It's because of your communications that I feel able to engage in (hopefully) healthy disagreements online. And more importantly, to feel comfortable _disengaging_ when my own emotive sentiment starts to pressure me away from deliberation and towards diving into the same toxicity that I was aiming to counter. Please be well, and please continue demonstrating that there are still healthy and productive ways to engage with people regardless of how much we agree.

[@richardoldfield6714]

Rory Stewart would have made an excellent Prime Minister, deeply thoughtful, insightful, a serious politician, and with the potential to create the kind of new centre ground in politics that is needed to better sustain democracy in the face of the authoritarian right and the many absurdities of the 'progressive' left. Hopefully he will decide to return to Parliamentary arena (I gather that he has not ruled this out). His podcasts - jointly hosted with Alistair Campbell and available on KZbin - are well worth watching/listening to.

[@sparklingsoda9989]

I think Nietzsche saw religion as a mental cage that enables authoritarianism. I think he saw the emerging from the cage as very difficult, as people would not be emancipated from it yet. "new idols" are authoritarian states immitating the authoritarianism that used to come from religion. so he believed the real difficulty was to become free from authoritarianism - to escape from the urge to find a replacement for religion and instead learn to live without it. if you are to apply this to liberal democracies, your concept of "liberal democracy" seems to already have enough wiggle room to include anarchism - I would not necessarily apply Nietzsche's idea of escaping religion on it, but just for the thought game - so if we apply the idea on today's situation, the question would be how we can avoid trying to find new institutions and instead learn to build genuine skills within ourselves and in society that emancipate us to stably maintain a liberal democracy without hierarchical institutions, anarchistically. but again, with religion the issue was that people started to see through it and stopped believing it. the overcoming of religion means that religion loses most of its relevance. I always feel Vlad believes institutions have to sustain. if we imagine a scenario where institutions are overcome, that will mean they have to lose their relevance. in that scenario we would not have to swim with our institution, but without our institutions. and while I certainly think that would be desirable, I don't necessarily think that would be possible, in the current state of our world. I'm not entirely pessimistic and all, I just think that this would be a whole new level of challenge, which we would almost certainly fail at least on the first go.