the republic of heaven
Added 2024-12-01 13:36:32 +0000 UTCThe His Dark Materials / post-election discourse crossover that literally nobody asked for.
(Sorry about the slight background hum. It’s my ancient mini-fridge that I forgot to unplug before filming. It’s where I store all my fun lil beverages, though, so I can’t be too mad at it.)
Helpful links
Me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/pagemelt.bsky.social
My (not-actually-monthly-anymore) newsletter: https://pagemelt.substack.com/
Kyle Chayka on Bluesky (a good tech writer and a good follow): https://bsky.app/profile/chaykak.bsky.social
People who made a Bluesky post so good that ceej.online showed their wife: https://bsky.app/starter-pack/ceej.online/3lbhyfajmjl2c
Hbomberguy: https://www.youtube.com/@hbomberguy
Contrapoints on Cringe: https://youtu.be/vRBsaJPkt2Q?si=iaKmuP0FMyvK2Y0X
Comments
Ahhhh, I love this question!! I'll talk about it in next month's vid!
Mel Thomas
2024-12-13 17:08:59 +0000 UTCI love it when you put into words things I had thought of in a nebulous way. What you were saying about ignoring bad faith actors in TikTok, especially when they are people who really have no interference within a community and how they are used for morality points. That's a big problem that I think permeates a lot of communities. Optics over substance. The need to prove that you're ethically superior, even though you're not really helping your community. Mel, I'd also like to get your take on a discussion I've seen on Twitter/TikTok about why so many YAs are about elite schools. I hadn't noticed that, but it's true. I thought it was some sort of lore because of Harry Potter but now I notice that they also inform a very particular idea about modern society isn't? Idk, I wanted to hear your pov. Cheers!
Sara Andrade
2024-12-13 16:51:23 +0000 UTChatred of religion is truly some white people shit (or more precisely a form of neo colonialism), and talking about it is what most of my career is about!
Evie
2024-12-10 17:24:45 +0000 UTCAhhh it's my absolute pleasure!!! ♥️
Mel Thomas
2024-12-07 19:03:04 +0000 UTCLoved every single second of this. Thank you so much. I love your content and I'm so glad to be here on Patreon with you
Crystal's Bookish Life
2024-12-07 18:53:58 +0000 UTCthis was excellent, thank you! i haven't read pullman but i did dip my toe into some old scifi recently with The City and the Stars by Clarke and boy was i not expecting such a strong anti-religion theme. he basically views religion (and mythmaking in general) as a coping mechanism keeping humanity from "progress" – very "opium of the masses" type stuff. kinda similar to pullman in that the endgame is a complete eradication of religion, which like... come on dude you're a storyteller trying to tell me we should stop making up stories? hmmm
alliwag
2024-12-07 04:18:06 +0000 UTCit’s an rpg and based on ttrpg so you literally only move the character around and pick decisions (dialogue and actions) so i don’t think any experience is necessary but obviously backseat gaming is incredibly fun too (i made my friend play elden ring to do the exact same thing). and it is incredibly narrative heavy. there’s over a millions words in the script. obviously not trying to force you to play but just want to let you know i think it is video game beginner friendly
Syd
2024-12-03 17:11:27 +0000 UTCoh neat, I'll look into it! I probably won't play it because I kind of CAN'T? Like I never really learned the mechanics of how to work any game more advanced than a platformer, and I find it very hard? BUT I'll see if I can convince Seth to play it so I can watch him, which is my preferred way to experience video games, haha
Mel Thomas
2024-12-03 11:52:21 +0000 UTCgreat video as always! i always need a reminder to be less reactionary and be more deliberate. i know you said you don't really play video games but if you or your partner haven't played it, i highly recommend disco elysium. i really feel like you would vibe with it and it always touches upon a lot of political themes i think you would find intriguing.
Syd
2024-12-03 05:17:44 +0000 UTCThanks for your thoughts, great video! Stay safe out there too ❤️
Jennifer Marten
2024-12-02 22:45:06 +0000 UTCright?!! and all just so I can, what, give them a pat on the head? "thanks i guess" indeed!
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:42:18 +0000 UTCahh thanks for sharing this. I'm in a tangentially similar situation (though with no one as close to me as a sister), and I'm gonna be thinking about your words the next time I see them. ❤️
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:41:18 +0000 UTCmy pleasure, thanks for watchin'!!
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:37:54 +0000 UTCthank you friend!!!!
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:37:40 +0000 UTCahh thank you for the kind words, I always love hearing from you here ❤️
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:37:31 +0000 UTCYeah I loved the weird-as-an-insult stuff, because it’s so open-ended that the people who tend to feel the most bothered by it (people who want to be pandered to as humanity's default) are precisely the people who need to be bothered by it.
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:36:34 +0000 UTCYeah I think that’s a huge part of it—we HAVE to trust each other, and there’s so much reason not to, but we have to anyway. And we have to give people grace when they come around! Ursula K. Le Guin said “Nobody who says, ‘I told you so’ has ever been, or will ever be, a hero” and I’ve been thinking about that a lot.
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:33:18 +0000 UTChaha i will take this under careful advisement!!
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:29:03 +0000 UTCahh thank you for the kind words. it ain't over 'til it's over, and it'll never be over.
Mel Thomas
2024-12-02 22:28:49 +0000 UTCThis was the exact thing I needed to here after the election, and your reminder that there have been cultural shifts before both good and bad, and ones spearheaded by people like Hbomberguy, who are still around and bigger than ever (and hopefully future content creators who haven’t even started yet), is the first thing that’s genuinely given me hope for the future if we consciously choose to build it.
Jay Marquez Durst
2024-12-02 16:31:27 +0000 UTCHEAR ME OUT!!! Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage tho 👀
Jilly Panilly
2024-12-02 13:25:17 +0000 UTCI am also reading Doppelganger! Less far into it than you but your thoughts are making me more excited to keep going. I think you touched on a tension I always feel when I talk to my friends about antivax in general - we can’t tell people that medicine is always trustworthy, and yet we have trust in science and doctors. Ties in really well with the safety to change your mind aspect you bring in at the end as well. I read an interesting article a while back about a mom who changed her opinion on being antivax, and all the vitriol she experienced by admitting she was wrong, not from antivax folks, but from vax supporters she was now agreeing with! Sometimes we have to stop reaching to scratch the “told you so” itch. “Put it in the book if you want me to read it so bad” took me OUT and is also the best take. I read something recently on NPR about the funding of influencers, actors, musicians, etc who are conservative to “wipe out the liberal majority” in those spaces, and your commentary here really resonates with that. I find your thought process on when to respond and how to respond really interesting! I certainly am not a poster, but I think that the kind of reflection needed before you post is as important as if you were looking to and speaking to a person in front of you. We don’t become less human with a screen between us, even if it can make it easy for us to eschew our kindness and compassion for others.
LG
2024-12-02 05:48:55 +0000 UTCExcellent and insightful takes as always! Hbomberguy's response to Gamer Gate reminds me of what Tim Walz was trying to do by calling conservatives weird. That tactic maybe worked better for those of us born & raised in the Upper Midwest (where weirdness is unambiguously an insult, which I've found isn't always the case on either coast), but still an interesting thing to consider while political pundits continue to commentate ad nauseam about how to fix the Democratic party.
JJ
2024-12-02 03:24:48 +0000 UTCThe internet is simply not a place conducive to The Riff
Bailey
2024-12-02 02:59:48 +0000 UTCAs someone who does play a lot of video games, unfortunately I have to report that GamerGate HAS been happening again, and has been for a while. I don't mean in the personal harassment sense, but more that there is a massive ecosystem of "anti-woke" creators sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and it really doesn't feel like there exists enough of a counter ecosystem - at least not effective ones. I get the sense that this is partially the fault of video game journalism being absolutely decimated in the past 5 years, to the effect that there's VERY few outlets that exist anymore, plus the crumbling mainstream game development industry itself. It makes me genuinely worry about the consequences on the culture at large, given, well...everything.
Gabie
2024-12-01 23:15:00 +0000 UTCReally really enjoy your thoughtful takes, as always! I've also been pondering how to be strategic and effective as a creator, and this helped clarify some of my own reflections as well.
Maia Kobabe
2024-12-01 20:56:01 +0000 UTC"People need to feel safe in order to change their mind about something" is a hard won lesson i learned very young in large part to my sister, who was in active addiction throughout my teenagehood. It's the reason rehab works at all, even if it's not perfect. Faced with a family member who would not quit doing something destructive for anything--no plea nor lecture nor reward--until she was able to stay in a place where she felt safe, removed from her triggers, taught me so much about human nature. I also worry that we're shamefully unprepared to offer safety to those on the other side of the cultural line, but I hope to continue to forge myself into someone who can do so. Thanks, Mel <3
Rome Parker
2024-12-01 19:49:09 +0000 UTCMy gd, I love the way your brain works. This was a delight
KrustyFrank27
2024-12-01 19:48:55 +0000 UTCGreat video, thank you!
Pips
2024-12-01 18:34:05 +0000 UTCThe whole politics on booktok thing reminds me of the many times I've seen people stitch/quote/whatever a bigoted post with nothing more to add than some joke about how they're stupid and the grand effect of that, every single time, is that I was forced to see yet another post by someone who'd prefer me dead, and the jokes are never even funny. Like, thanks I guess
Pas
2024-12-01 16:43:22 +0000 UTC
