Talking About Political Philosophy (& misc. update on learning Chinese, diet & exercise update).

hey guys this is a bit of an update
video for my peoples on patreon um nothing too dire not good news not bad news really except that I had this cold for like 15 days really really really 15 days I cannot believe how much that took out of me my whole weight situation is now really nicely organized but man I've been doing less than ten percent of what I want to be doing in terms of weights and push-ups and even reading and writing what have you you guys ain't seen me had a book out in a minute and you know if you use the old school Chinese text books before you know computers had their act together for four typesetting Chinese a lot of these older textbooks you actually get hand-written paradigms to copy you know so this is a textbook really for practicing grammar and for me it's valuable to train your eye to cope with Chinese handwriting to work from you know the imperfections of Chinese and fighting as opposed to you know a perfect typeset model from a computer or calligraphy or what have you I do mess around with some old texts because I've got a really good textbook on my computer issue that's over a hundred years old you know have it as a PDF oh yeah Corey minor irony for my life this is a sign that I just thought was hilarious it really just means please refrain from drinking alcohol and gambling no I'm sorry I'm sorry not really using using drugs of any kind or gambling so please don't use used drugs or gamble in the premises and I'm actually going to attach this to my fridge so I haven't taped that up yet that's sitting on the table because i was going to tape it up in my fridge you know sorry one digression leads to another in my life I've lived for long periods of time without having a desk a writing desk of any kind it may sound silly to some of y'all but you guys know where I was living cambodia laos even in canada even was in saskatchewan where long long periods I didn't have no desk in my life and I now tend to kind of overcompensate like when I've got control over my situation I set out a lot of space not a desk and you can imagine why so for me I know this may look ridiculous having the iphone here with the cable into the wall but you can put in a lot of hours that that iphone is really my my Chinese dictionary I have Chinese dictionary software set up there and you know if you've got you need a lot of real estate you need a lot of empty space to be doing work on hand written Chinese as a language you doing writing practice and you know you're taking on little side projects like this so you guys already know I'm going to have some not even book review so much you're going to have some discussions and debates about the intellectual legacy of Garrett frenzy Oh name and this is really I guess his crowning book is his final book summarizing his approach to politics & activism veganism 2015 publication so we assume that's his kind of swan song publication and yeah in case you were wondering how I'm surviving now I really just made the decision today that I'm actually going to eliminate sewing up for my diet and soy milk has really been the main source of fat my diet and so a more dependent on whatever on on job's tears oh where my job's tears that oh right sorry here they're here they are draining draining is true this is just job's tears with them yeah the seam is still rising off it sorry fogging up the camera job's tears with shitake mushrooms anyway so that's if you guys saw the last video giving the apartment tour in a subtle but profound way my main space here has changed so they got my my writing desk set up for long hours of studying Chinese and preparing the new book reviews on vegan politics and philosophy and whatever else crosses my mind and my whole gym situation got together even though really been too sick to be able to use it which to be frank kind of blows my mind anyway look what I want to tell you guys you know about this thing with with the more kind of political philosophy book reviews I put a lot of thought into that this may sound silly dis Emile but you know the truth is if I talk about politics philosophy political philosophy in response to something vegan gains said as shallow as that may seem at least I'm talking about politics and philosophy in a format that my audience wants to hear about you know I'm answering questions the people are asking and the problem is if I do a book review of Gary français ona here or and I've really been thinking a lot about this if I take on something that to me is just a major text in history of a history of political science history political philosophy what have you which have really been thinking about partly to leave that kind of review for my daughter to see in the future so whatever shown Jacques Rousseau or through siddha tease or Socrates or Plato or I don't know any any major major figure in the history of political science be they you know mainstream or anarchist or what have you this this is a text by the way that it's infamous especially in Latin America the left-wingers and right-wingers this really in the 1970s cast a very big shadow this this book although if you're not in a political science major you may have never heard of it and it's a book I've been of them into getting around to discussing a four years I guess you could say um if I if I if I make a video talking about that again even if it's a big name like play-doh or if it's a relatively minor name like Eva Ivan Illich or let's say max Turner any given philosopher whatever Arthur Schopenhauer you name it the problem is that I'm presenting my audience is something they're not just they're not expecting to hear and they don't want to hear even if it's interesting so it's an interesting challenge an interesting tightrope i'm looking at walking well i have time to walk it in these next few months um but you know i mean i'm deeply gratified the last book review i did like that was the the book review talking about rules for radicals and it's wonderful that more than a thousand people have watched that video but when i make a video like that my challenge sorry when i make a video like that on my channel the truth is I could bring up the same points in response to something vegan gains said some controversy of the moment or in an interaction with some other vegan youtuber and you can present the same philosophical political points that way in framed in a format where your audience wants to hear it where they're already asking the question that they already want to know about it and the problem is if I proceed from a text whether it's a famous text or you know a nice text text it's important to a small number of people in some specialized field you know the problem is even if I'm challenging my audience I'm answering questions that they haven't asked yet or as again even if it seems like I'm starting from a relatively shallow and a scandal mongering premise like you know I know like for example should I make a video that really directly criticizes peter singer or do i start from the fact that somebody who's already known to my audience like how natural vegan has made a statement that relates to the philosophy peter singer it's a challenge and that's really what I've been thinking about a lot lately is how you get some more substantive political philosophy on to the channel and to what extent that want to do that in a format that's meaningful to me that's meaningful for my audience or you see from our needs to relate to and to what extent to want to do it in a format that may be meaningful to my daughter 10 years from now