rchapman

Why Americans Fight Over Identity

Hey all, I released the identity politics video yesterday. It basically combines three theories together: one on the rise of identity and identity politics in liberal societies that we see from thinkers like Fukuyama and Trueman, a second theory on inherent tribalism and group conflict from people like Haidt and Chua, and a third on the nature of political division in America, mostly from Huntington. I thought any one on its own wasn't satisfying, and that bringing them together gives a fulle...

Rome's Influence On American Politics (Members Video)

Hey all,

Here's the first mini video, covering Rome's influence on the American constitution. I think it's an interesting little piece of political theory that I haven't been able to fit into a full-length video so far. Let me know what you think!

If you liked it, let me know if there are any other topics you'd like to see covered. I get a lot of topic requests for my YT channel, and I obviously can't take them all since each topic is about a month's commitment. It would be a lo...

Update

Hey everyone, I have a couple updates. 

My last post floated a few subject ideas and asked for feedback. Pretty much everyone responded that they wanted me to cover America and the culture war, so that turned into my next project. I'm planning to title the next video 'Why Americans Fight Over Identity,' and to combine the top few theories into something satisfying. I'm currently reading a Samuel Huntington book on it, and plan to start writing a script once I'm done with it. <...

The Taiwan Conflict

Hey all, here's the video on Taiwan. I went through three different editors trying to get it done and ended up doing most of it myself as they struggled to edit in my style. So there were some complications there. I tried again upping the production value on this one (like the After Effects mapping sequences towards the beginning), hoping to make the content a little more entertaining. I think it worked but slowed down the process quite a lot. I'm going to focus on pushing this next one out f...

SOCIALISM - An In-Depth Explanation

Hey all, here's the latest upload. The time between uploads here has been the longest since I became dedicated to this channel. It's been a painful wait for me. I was amazed to check my Patreon page after all that time and see that very few people had dropped their subscriptions despite the lack of uploads. Thank you for that. It was heartening to see. The delay mostly came from the intense research load (if you look at the sources for this one you'll see). This was also the most technically ...

Why The Government Wastes So Much Money

Hey all, here's my latest vid. I think the public spends so much time focusing on race, sexuality, guns and abortion that we neglect subjects like these. But they're important. So I'm hoping to be able to cover stuff like this while politics are relatively calm, and hopefully provoke some thought among the people who watch it.

Thanks again for your support, and hope you guys liked the vid. 

- Ryan

Was The Media Ever Unbiased?

Here's the video on media bias. I wanted a fresh angle on the subject, something other than purely pointing out modern bias. This is what I came up with. Hope you guys like it.

If you can't tell, these videos are more heavily produced and edited than my older ones, and it's really been kicking my ass. I'm doing everything myself right now. My priority right now is growing the channel so that I can hire an editor, so I'll be more free to spend my time researching, writing, and shooting t...

Next Vid & A Note Of Thanks

Hey all,

To give an update: I spent a solid 10 hours brainstorming topics after I uploaded the duck-rabbit video and decided to shift away from my previous road map. 

My next video is going to be about media bias, looking into the claim that there was a 'golden age' of objective news in the 50's and 60's. I'm about done with the research phase and am into the 'compiling notes into a rough script' phase. I should start recording within a few days. 

You guys have bas...

The Drawing That Explains Political Divides

The duck-rabbit video is done. I've been wanting to cover polarization for a while, but I looked around and saw that people weren't really watching videos that covered it in a straightforward way (who spends their free time watching material on political psychology?). So I tried to find a more interesting, kind of fun way to approach it, to hopefully convince people into clicking and learning about this stuff. 

Let me know what you guys think. 

Categorizing The Nazis

I made a quick follow-up video to my last one while I do other research on the side. Since I had already done the research for this one it freed me up to focus on the production more this time too. Let me know how you guys like it. 

Updating the path again, I'm actually planning on covering Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit next and then Soros after that. 

Edit: I reuploaded the video after becoming aware that the first had a spelling mistake. 

- Ryan

What Is Fascism?

I finally finished the fascism video. I dramatically underestimated how much work I'd end up putting into the research and production of it. This kind of undertaking won't be sustainable going forward, so I'm going to have to do less ambitious videos for a while to grow the channel out. But let me know what you guys think/how you like it.

Thanks again for your support and patience.

- Ryan

Fascism's Almost Done

Hey all, thought I'd give another update. I'm about halfway done shooting and editing the fascism video, hoping to be done in about 3 days. It's going to be ~30 minutes long. 

This one's been an absolute monster when it comes to research and organization. I think you guys will like it though. It's coming together well. 

I'm planning on doing something faster and more lighthearted after. I've been planning a piece on George Soros, exploring who he is and why people hate h...

Update

Hey all, so I've been slightly distracted by the Russia/Ukraine situation. If Russia invades I'll stop what I'm doing and record a video about it.

For fascism, I read a couple more books than I initially planned, but am finishing up research there. So that should be finished by tomorrow afternoon. Then l'll compile notes and record. I plan on spending a bit more time editing than I normally do to see if I can improve the production quality anywhere, but either way it should be out prett...

Fascism's Next

I'm going to cover fascism next. I've already done a good deal of research for it and have a good sense of what I want to say so hopefully it won't take too long to produce. I'm hoping something like mid Feb. As always, thanks for your support and your patience. 

- Ryan

What Makes For A Good Argument?

I finally knocked out this argumentation video. Pretty happy with it. 

Let me know what you guys think

Rule of law coming tomorrow/the day after

Hey all, hope you had a good holiday. I started recording the rule of law video yesterday and should finish it tomorrow or the day after at the latest.

I decided to knock rule of law out before the argumentation one. I know for the most part what I want to say on argumentation by now too, so hoping to go into recording that one shortly after. 

Thanks again for your patience. I want to turn up the momentum in 2022 and basically spent the last month preparing for that.  2022-01-03 16:13:58 +0000 UTC View Post

Potential Change Of Plans

Hey all, to keep the updates going: I have a video pretty much ready to record on rule of law and how it compares in the US and China. 

But something's been bugging me. I keep running across arguments - even by respected intellectuals - that I consider low quality and even disingenuous. A couple bad habits have been bothering me, but the one that stands out the most is when people bend the definitions of terms in order to make their arguments appear stronger. 

It occurre...

Recording tomorrow

Hey all. To give an update, I'm starting recording on another video on China tomorrow. It's going to be a few China videos in a row, I think in pretty quick succession. Most of the research has already been done. Then I plan on circling back out to broader subject matter. 

Subjects on my short list besides China:

Comparing capitalism and socialism

Fascism

Nationalism

Polarization

Ayn Rand

As always, thanks for your support. I understand that the ...

Discord Server

Hey all, Carston here made a Discord server if anyone's interested in checking it out and talking on there. I'm going to post the link on my Twitter and Youtube over the next few days but thought I'd post it here first.

Here's the link: https://discord.gg/6PkJ86QujH

A Sketch Of What's Ahead

Hey all, I'm going to be shifting direction for the next batch of videos. I'll be moving away from focusing on Marxism and the radical left, and moving more broadly towards populism and partisanship domestically, and towards China as an international subject. 

I've been preparing many of these videos for a while now so I'm hoping to be able to upload one of these about every two weeks. Some of the bigger subjects I'm sure will take longer, but I'm hoping to balance that out with so...

Back To The Basics

Working on an overview of Marxism next. Been at it for a while. Hope it doesn't take too long to finish but we'll see. 

The Politics Of George Orwell

Just finished the latest vid. Tried something a bit different this time in terms of format. I'm going to see how people react to it, and might do more like it in the future on different thinkers. Enjoy!

Orwell's Next

Hey all, I wanted to pivot to material I enjoy more so I'm going to lay out the politics of George Orwell for the next one. Should also be a quicker process this time around. 

Up Next

Making a guide to critical race theory next. This one should be coming out a little quicker

New video soon

Thanks for your patience! I've been busy researching and will be recording the next video soon.

Thanks for your patience! New video coming soon

The Gulag Archipelago - Book Review

Hey all, I made a satirical video review of Gulag Archipelago a while ago for my Youtube channel that I ended up deleting once I decided to commit to a more somber, straightforward approach to the channel. I wrote a serious review at the time because I had thoughts that didn't fit in a satire format that I wanted to share, so I thought I'd share them here. So here's my serious review:

The Gulag Archipelago works on two levels: as a polemic against the atrocities the Soviet Union committ...