What YouTube Dramas?

It would seem that many YouTubers spend the bulk of their time creating videos and watching a key set of other people's videos. Perhaps they use Twitter and Skype behind the scenes. But if you have things to do in real life and miss a few moments, a drama or two might unfold in your absence. And good luck trying to figure out what it's all about. It's like the community has collectively turned a page and are now in a private club with inside jokes.

I don't have any actual videos yet that would let others in that community have a better idea of where I am coming from. All I have posted so far are just archives of Google Hangouts livestreams. I do hope to correct that in the near future.
I figure I can do recordings of myself reacting to the weekly news as I read through it. The format is probably overdone, but I suspect it is a useful thing to do since everyone reacts to different stories and the way they process that information will always be slightly unique.
But I also intend to do some camera work of natural scenes where I talk as a monologue in the background. These sorts of videos would be more rare since they'd have to be at least lightly scripted. I think this could also serve a useful function, as it gives us a chance to vent our personal frustrations as we cope with our experiences.

Participating regularly in YouTube is almost intrinsically a dramatic affair. That is not so appealing to me now as it once was. Some of my own interest has been in learning how to cope with SJW's, and I am trying to distance myself from that whole range of issues, It just gets so boring after a while. But I do understand why those issues spin people up and they end up talking about them endlessly. It just seems to me like YouTubers are utilizing the medium to engage in some version of a group therapy, hence why I named my own hangout after that impression.

I will probably be changing my schedule for my Group Therapy livestream, since Fridays are too busy in real life.

Reflections on 3rd Group Therapy hangout

Wow. We had quite a few technical difficulties in this episode. But I feel like it was a pretty good start trying to tackle the questions we raised. We as a community still have a long way to go before we can work out how to work through this stuff.

I think there are many points within the conversation that could be delved into more deeply. I'd really appreciate some feedback on what other people believe are worth looking into in greater detail and why you see think it is worthy of discussion. We need to sift through it and focus our attention on key points in a framework that makes them more manageable.

I appreciate Danny Duchamp and Ad Verdiesen coming on as my guests. 

ANTI-SJW's- We Need You!

I am in full support of efforts made by anti-feminists such as Milo Yiannopolous and many others in the YouTube community and Social Media generally. However, I do want to move past that in my own life. I continue to hear criticisms of Feminism or Social Justice Warriors, and that is good for the general culture, but many of us are ready to move to the next step, since most of what is being circulated is just re-hashing the same thing. But, then, what is the next step?

Look at the labels being thrown around. The alt-right and cultural libertarian crowds call the SJW's the “regressive left,” which is meant to poke fun of the fact that they call themselves, “progressives.” What would it take to actually progress? Progress is not just change, though many lefties believe that any change is good. Even a moment of self-reflection should prove the case that this is false. Some change is bad. We want positive change. We want change for the better. But that requires that we know what is better and worse, and these kinds of evaluations come dangerously close to having an objective set of standards by which to judge better and worse. But Social Justice Warriors are cultural and moral relativists. They view any objective standards as intrinsically discriminatory, probably because by any reasonable standard, Western Culture is the most humane culture. That is not to say that it is perfect, or that it doesn't have anything left to learn.

I should make a quick note here, that relativism invariably deteriorates into hedonism, and then to Nihilism. Nihilism has a couple of relevant meanings that can be applied in this context. There is the one side of it having to do with the non-existence of objective moral facts, and the consequence of such a belief, that life itself has no particular meaning. There is no way to save relativists from this fate. They must be reformed.

Next I want to point out that Feminism has been described as a type of religion. Is it a fair characterization? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And maybe this is not a dictionary definition, but we all know that practicing feminists do not subscribe to the dictionary definition when they mount their attacks on us. It would be better to describe it as a cult. So, if this is true, we need to start addressing it as such.

Therefore, we need to look at how people have dealt with cults in the past; that is, how to help the victims of cults to come back to a healthy view of reality. Which means that we need to have at least some compassion for these SJW's, when seeing them as victims of an unhealthy ideology. Even though they may not treat their adversaries as human, we should not respond to them in the same fashion.

Furthermore, it's not only Feminism that we have to confront with this. We have to be able to apply this to all manner of Social Justice Warrior insanities, now and in the future. So we are going to dedicate this episode of “Group Therapy” to the investigation of cults behaviors and the treatments utilized when treating their victims. This way, hopefully, we will be properly armed to dispelling whatever crap comes from their mouths.

Anyone who understands what I am arguing for (and why), and who is willing to do minimal research into how cult victims have been treated clinically for those experiences, please help us out. We need to figure out how to adapt those forms of treatments to the SJW's. So look into it, if you can, and contact me if you feel like you have something to contribute to the conversation. 

Postmodernism & Current Social Ills

I'm thinking I will try to do a Group Therapy hangout every week, probably Fridays. I just did one with Ad Verdisiesen from the Netherlands that I thought was great. I hope that in the future we have more guests on simultaneously to better serve the mission of it being a group setting with a therapeutic effect, however for this one it may have been better that it was just the two of us. It did get a little deep in terms of theory, so it may not appeal to a wide audience. I'd actually like to dig in even deeper to that stuff, but I worry that most people will not have the patience or discipline to come along for the ride. On the other hand, the material certainly does warrant a further investigation, so I'm going to have to think about how I should proceed with it.

The topic in question has to do with the fact that there are so many people online who complain about and mock 3rd wave feminism, but little appreciation for the underlying ideology that gives feminism it's foundation.

I had met Ad in a chat room during somebody else's hangout. Now I also follow him on Twitter and  look forward to further collaborations. 

Reflections on first "Group Therapy" hangout

So I did my first Google Hangouts live stream using YouTube. I have to say the technological integration is not so seamless as you would expect, given that both pieces of software are owned by the same company. But at least it worked, so I shouldn't complain. The early parts of the video are pretty rough, but at some point we start to develop a rhythm in the conversation. So if you want to watch it, you probably want to just skip some of the earlier parts. Maybe the first third should be thrown out. I'm not too worried about it, though, since it was just a maiden voyage.

I look forward to doing this on a fairly regular basis. At this point, I'm thinking I'd like to do it about once a week. And I'll probably want to add a couple of people, but I won't want more than say 5 at a time in there. But it was fun to do, so why not. And it might even do some good, too, so sure. I'm in.

I figure that as I use the software I will get better at using it. Once I don't have to dedicate so much of my attention on what the software is doing I can focus on the conversation a bit better. So I'd like to think the quality will continue to improve over time. 

Please let me know if you want to get involved with this stuff. It's an exercise in community building, so it's kind of by definition that I can't do it by myself.