Philosophy Youtube: 2 Sides

Aww, look at that little guy— how could you say no to someone like that? No, really— how would it be possible? Richard Nozick would like to know!

Anyway-- this comic draws on two fairly well known (I think?) philosophical concepts— Nietzche’s Blonde Beast, from the Genealogy of Morality, and Richard Nozick’s utility monster, a thought experiment that attempts to show the flaws in utilitarianism. (I don’t know that it actually does, but… let’s not get into that.) I was a philosophy major, so these two are old friends of mine.

If you’re confused, both characters have wikipedia pages that sum them up pretty succinctly— maybe give those a read if the joke here doesn’t make much sense.

The Blonde Beast is obviously meant to resemble a Super Saiyan, a reference to the Nietzschean version’s blonde hair and high power (and possible, uh, Aryan-ness? I think this maybe up for debate among philosophers— like, to what extent The Genealogy of Morality is overtly a proto-nazi, or just something that was later bastardized by the Nazis— which is what the second video title is in reference to. Funnily enough, Hitler appears in DBZ: Fusion Reborn, and comments “blonde hair, blue eyes, super strength? I should be recruiting them!” to Super Saiyan Goten and Trunks. Anyway…)

The utility monster is meant to resemble Kyubey from Madoka Magica, but you can’t really tell that in the comic. Maybe it looks better here:

A few other unused joke ideas:

-The utility monster eating, like, a saltine or something, and then pulling an ahegao face because he enjoys it so much

-The same commenters who hate the blonde beast in someone’s livestream, someone who owns the utility monster as a pet, spamming the chat with stuff like “GIVE HIM THE COOKIE” “FEED HIM TREATS” or stuff like that. Like, demanding that the streamer stop what he’s doing and give all his snacks to the pet? I dunno.

A lot of weirdo alt-right guys seem to like Nietzche, and maybe even agree with the notion that morality is a bullshit concept, invented to try and keep down society’s alphas— like morality is “cope” or “soy” or whatever. And yet, if you look at the concept of people making up their own systems of morality purely out of resentment, its those same guys who come to mind! People who can’t get laid, so they decide that modern women are all whores? People who think black people are supposedly stealing all their women, so they adopt 19th century racial attitudes? You aren’t the blonde beast, buddy— you’re the fucking jew! (According to Nietzsche, that is, according to Nietzsche!)