Feral Historian

[Sargon's wife's son]

The most intelligent and interesting media critic on YouTube basically a mixture of a crazed historian former computer scientist wandering around the woods talking about science fiction and fantasy novels mainly from the 1980s nineties and some from the 2000s.

Someone who's genuinely refreshing who is in a political ideologue of any kind I also find these transitions hilarious where he's clearly just wandering around where the parts of his state hiking while talking about science fiction like a crazy person and fantasy

And occasionally some interesting stuff about America's involvement with national socialists after the war

 

[Nomadic Snake Hunter]

Agree. Im glad and surprised modern YT happened to randomly recommend this guy to me one day. He definitely comes across like a libertarian sort of guy.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I rather like this guy. The algorithm spat out his Star Trek vs. Starship Troopers analysis and I loved it.

I have honestly come to the conclusion that the best way to determine if someone is a smooth brain is if that someone declares the Terran Federation to be "Fascist".

That means several things. 1. They never read the book. 2. They didn't watch the movie critically, and 3. They have no grasp of the underlying philosophical tension and debate at the heart of the story in both the book and the film. Where does the boundary between Rights and Responsibility lie? What does it mean to be a Citizen? For that matter, what does it mean to be a human in the context of a galactic spanning war?

What is rather hilarious to me is the United Federation of Planets, absent Gene Roddenberry's hippy dippy guidance has veered massively towards the Terran Federation model. Sisko in DS9, or for that matter the Mary Sue Bernum in Nue Trek, are not idealistic savants. They are hard nosed soldiers saving civilization from the incompetent and the weak through the judicial use of violent force.

Consider DS9's depiction of a Galaxy Class exploration cruiser attempting first contact with the Dominion.

Section 13 exists because the writers knew it was impossible for a government to exists solely on reason, logic and debate. There needed to be a fist behind the velvet glove.

Heinlein won the debate of the Science Fiction future. What is amusing to me is that the same people who write this victory instinctually into their stories will swear up and down that the Terran Federation is Fascist. Which it is not. It is a Liberal Democracy, "woke" to the fact that people are stupid, and the purpose of the State is to exact violence upon its enemies. Foreign and domestic. Restrained solely by the Citizens who make up the body politic. The Terran Federation attempts to square the circle by making citizenship something that has to be earned rather then given. So that the people voting on issues and electing the people making the decisions have a fundamental understanding of state craft beyond "what can my Country do for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE".

 

[Pedophobe]

Temporarily embarrassed idealist. I'll bet he loves the movie House (1985).

Also he's overthought Fallout 3 to the point his skulgun headcanon is now the best game in the series. Gotta respect that.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Also he's overthought Fallout 3 to the point his skulgun headcanon is now the best game in the series. Gotta respect that.

She needs to come to the light about new vegas's superiority

 

[Breadbassket]

His video on Wizards is nice.

 

[Sho'nuff]

I have honestly come to the conclusion that the best way to determine if someone is a smooth brain is if that someone declares the Terran Federation to be "Fascist".

Are you saying this guy realizes that Starship Troopers isn't fascism? If that's the case I'm already going to subscribe.
I hate having to hear about the Terran Federation being fascist from people who don't understand what fascism is.
I also hate when people bring up Verhoeven said Starship Troopers was supposed to be Fascist and will say "he lived under it". He lived under Nazism in an occupied country (not fascism) and the war ended when he was 8 I believe. How many 8 year olds have deep firsthand knowledge of the system of government they live under? Fucking none, he didn't know what fascism was either.
If I had to argue over what SST movie shows as the government, it's very similar to a proto-democracy. Ie look at Greek city-state style democracy and it's closer to SST. Citizenship needed for certain rights, a secondary class of non-citizens who had their own rights (Rico's rich parents), elevation of the citizen above all, etc... it's all very early democracy.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

If I had to argue over what SST movie shows as the government, it's very similar to a proto-democracy. Ie look at Greek city-state style democracy and it's closer to SST. Citizenship needed for certain rights, a secondary class of non-citizens who had their own rights (Rico's rich parents), elevation of the citizen above all, etc... it's all very early democracy.

Universal suffrage democracy is a mistake the simple fact of the matter if someone has no investment in the future of a nation they're going to vote to strip the nation down to the wire.
Starship Troopers is the American idea taken to its logical conclusion all citizens are soldiers and all soldiers are citizens.
This is what America was based off the republican system based on ancient Rome yes we're not based on Anglo-Saxon common law we're based on Roman republicanism and the idea that every citizen is a soldier.
Because everyone is pretending to be the Roman Empire we're the only country that pretended to be the Roman

 

[crowabunga]

Thanks for posting this, I'd never have found this man's channel if not for you.

I just saw his video on Blindsight, and it's been long enough since I read it that his tangent on modern AI was a real "wow" moment: with his comparison in mind I might recommend this book instead of tedious philosophy to try and explain why I think (present-paradigm) AIs are probably mindless.

 

[Vecr]

I just saw his video on Blindsight

Nature has plenty of overlapping right angles. Probably enough over a lifetime that you'd get at least one with 30% or more of your visual field.

 

[Meriasek]

Agree. Im glad and surprised modern YT happened to randomly recommend this guy to me one day. He definitely comes across like a libertarian sort of guy.

It's interesting how he there are most hints at his own political leanings; at most one can tell he's not a far-left kinda guy.
A new video dropped some hours ago, quite interesting:

 

[mindlessobserver]

It's interesting how he there are most hints at his own political leanings; at most one can tell he's not a far-left kinda guy.
A new video dropped some hours ago, quite interesting:

Really enjoying his talks. He also has impeccable fashion sense. So nice to see a well dressed autist. Proper male fashion is a lost art, drowning in a sea of ghetto rags and gangster chic.

 

[Meriasek]

Really enjoying his talks. He also has impeccable fashion sense. So nice to see a well dressed autist. Proper male fashion is a lost art, drowning in a sea of ghetto rags and gangster chic.

Makes me want to dig out my own soviet greatcoat again... Or wear the random taekwondo jacket I have from a short stint in some martial arts.
I like his changing shoulder patches he has on some jackets. SG1 and such.
Also like how often he talks about Space: Above and Beyond, because I agree that that show had huge potential.

 

[Pedophobe]

His new video on the original film adaptation of Things to Come is pretty iconic. I can see this guy becoming a big man on YouTube, he hits all the notes pop culture Breadtuber and Tumblr Foreign Affairs Wonk fans love but doesn't feel the need to derail every interesting line of thought with an overwrought apology for intersectional idpol the way they do.

(Seriously, ACOUP almost did a great takedown of the shitty new Gladiator movie but it felt like he spent nearly as many words hand-wringing over the poor oppressed victims of queer-coded villainy then he did slaughtering the sacred Ridley Scott cow. Such a waste.)

 

[Ravier Xavenblood]

He has some based takes and I like his videos.

 

[Gog & Magog]

Universal suffrage democracy is a mistake the simple fact of the matter if someone has no investment in the future of a nation they're going to vote to strip the nation down to the wire.
Starship Troopers is the American idea taken to its logical conclusion all citizens are soldiers and all soldiers are citizens.
This is what America was based off the republican system based on ancient Rome yes we're not based on Anglo-Saxon common law we're based on Roman republicanism and the idea that every citizen is a soldier.
Because everyone is pretending to be the Roman Empire we're the only country that pretended to be the Roman

1. Civil service guarantees citizenship, not only serving in the armed forces. Most citizens in Starship Troopers aren't soldiers.
2. It is far easier for the citizenry to accept restrictions on their freedoms when human civilization is being besieged by evil giant bugs from outer space.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Really enjoying his talks. He also has impeccable fashion sense. So nice to see a well dressed autist. Proper male fashion is a lost art, drowning in a sea of ghetto rags and gangster chic.

Now I think about him and Luke Smith have never been seen in the same room together they both wander around the wilderness they're both formal computer programmers they both libertarian leading definitely the same person

His new video on the original film adaptation of Things to Come is pretty iconic. I can see this guy becoming a big man on YouTube, he hits all the notes pop culture Breadtuber and Tumblr Foreign Affairs Wonk fans love but doesn't feel the need to derail every interesting line of thought with an overwrought apology for intersectional idpol the way they do.

Only 100% does have his own personal politics it's just that his politics are actually coherent on like left wing sorry tubers.
If I'd have to take a crack at it he is a anti totalitarian classical liberal but unlike James Lindsey he's not completely and utterly insane.

People just find actual liberals like feral historian weird because this is what liberals actually believe in they don't support totalitarianism of any kind woke really has nothing to do with liberalism

 

[Breadbassket]

Feral Historian did a video on The Guns of the South.

 

[WhiskeyJack]

So I found this guy's channel a week ago and I've been binge-watching ever since. He is the Paul Harrel of history/literature analysis channels.

The videos are just long enough to cover a topic, without dragging on and repeating himself, and the topics themselves are very interesting. I'm painfully tired of so much of modern Youtube commentary, so it's great to see someone covering older scifi series and books that most have forgotten in the Disney rush to own all of human culture.

His vids are exactly what I would make if I ever got into doing Youtube, only far better than I could make. Though I'd probably dedicate my channel to just scathing reviews of Scalzi's works and covering old post-apoc and military SF books, rather than forgotten 90's scifi shows.

 

[Breadbassket]

Feral Historian released a video on Stargate.