“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there,” Harold Pinter once wrote, and Niven’s memoir is a very glossy ethnography of the Golden Age of Hollywood. My cousin (incidentally also named Olly) in in TV; since I’m starting out on my own acting career he got me this - the autobiography of one of Britain’s most famous movie stars, back in the age when movie stars were a...
2018-01-14 10:16:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! Here's a brand new series about reason and rationality. This part 1 deals with what your motivations are, i.e. reasons internalism Vs reasons externalism! Enjoy!
2018-01-12 19:04:10 +0000 UTC View PostThis book was a recommendation from a friend of mine who runs a robotics company, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The hook is that people apparently tend to interact with computers in much the same way we interact with other people, i.e. we tend to treat computers as if they are social agents. For instance, if you ask people to use a piece of software and then answer a questionnaire about how muc...
2018-01-09 14:18:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely patrons! Here's the first video of the New Year - it's me going over your comments from December and looking ahead to what comes next! Enjoy!
2018-01-05 19:01:23 +0000 UTC View Post<CW for all kinds of horror associated with Witch Hunts>
Holy crap this book is excellent. It’s about the Witch Hunts of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries in Europe and the Americas. Federici’s thesis is that the mass persecution of women as witches was just as foundational to the development of capitalism as colonialism, slavery, and the theft of the common land through ...
2018-01-03 09:19:51 +0000 UTC View PostDear Lovely Patrons,
As 2017 shuffles offstage in ignominy I wanted to say thank you for your support, especially this December. It has been a very difficult month for me. You already know or can guess about the fallout from the Antifa video, some of which was predictably unpleasant, and the Patreon fracas (if you missed that don't worry, it's resolved though it was highly stressful at the time)...
2017-12-31 19:29:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely patrons! Here's a new video talking about Benedict Anderson and imagined communities, as applied to YouTube! Enjoy!
2017-12-29 19:11:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely patrons! Here's a new video - it's about access to knowledge and what that might mean for our moral responsibilities! Enjoy!
2017-12-22 21:49:07 +0000 UTC View PostI had the pleasure of meeting political activist Ashton Applewhite not too long ago, the even greater pleasure of receiving a signed copy of her book, and the even greater pleasure of reading it! This Chair Rocks was an eye-opener for me: it’s about ageism and how we measure the value of older lives. I’ve read texts on racism, sexism, transphobia, and almost ev...
2017-12-15 21:42:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! Here's my latest book haul, loosely grouped around a theme of 'Ideas and How They're Transmitted' - hope you enjoy!
2017-12-15 19:14:30 +0000 UTC View PostHello lovely Patrons! If you missed the Patreon debacle of the last week then lucky you - it's all over now, so don't worry! No need to read any more, except that I am supremely grateful to all of you! <3
If you were following along, Patreon have just announced they will not be making the proposed changes to their fee st...
2017-12-13 21:48:56 +0000 UTC View PostI’m not too proud to open by admitting that there were chunks of this book that I didn’t understand because it is a tough read - especially if you haven’t read already the core texts it’s discussing - so this can only be a ‘General Impressions’ rather than a thorough review. I’m familiar with Marx and Fanon, and Ciccariello-Maher does a decent job catching me up with Sorel, Dussel, a...
2017-12-13 10:54:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! Here's something I'm super excited to tell you about, it's very different and a bit special... I was invited to a conference in Madrid to meet academics, activists, CEOs - all sorts of people! Here's what it was all about...
2017-12-08 22:23:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely patrons! Here it is, the enormous project finally completed! The Philosophy of Antifa! I hope you like it!
Next series - something not political!
Hello you fantastic patrons! Here's me looking at your comments from the last month. Those of you pledging $20 or more will also find your names in this month's credits!
2017-11-24 19:08:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! Here's the second in my Philosophy of YouTube series, talking about artistic creation and communication Vs artistic expression! I think it's a distinction that has some pretty big ethical implications for the way we use YouTube. Hope you like it!
2017-11-17 19:39:13 +0000 UTC View PostThis book is great. It’s about the concept of race and how it’s used in medicine, pharmacology, and surveillance. It reminded me a lot of Falguni Sheth’s Toward A Political Philosophy of Race, which is a favourite of mine, but whereas that book stuck to a fairly abstract viewpoint this one puts specific medical research studies and legal cases under the microscope. Lovely t...
2017-11-17 12:26:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! As prior reading to my video on the philosophy of Antifa, which I'm writing, here's me discussing Mark Bray's new book! Hope you like it!
2017-11-10 19:02:36 +0000 UTC View PostIt’s amazing how thorough Said is. He seems to have read just about everybody, which has its positives and negatives for readers of this classic survey of Western attitudes towards the East. He goes back centuries, examining not just political speeches and literature about “the Orient” but academic works too; he doesn’t just discuss the gung-ho speeches of Lord Cromer and Arthur Balfo...
2017-11-08 12:26:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! Here's the pilot of a new series - the Philosophy of YouTube, applying philosophical ideas to YouTube itself. I hope you like it - let me know what you think!
2017-11-03 21:50:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely patrons! Here are the last few books I've been reading, including Mary Shelley, Sara Ahmed, and Noam Chomsky! Enjoy!
2017-10-28 08:11:59 +0000 UTC View PostHello lovely Patrons! As a great man once said, "Here's an Idea!" - Philosophy Tube merch.
I've been thinking for a while about the possibility of getting some, designed by a proper artist as well (who I'd pay) - I love what @skutchdraws has done for ContraPoints, designing some awesome T-shirts for her channel.
First of all, I wouldn't have T-shirts made unless the suppl...
2017-10-26 08:51:06 +0000 UTC View PostHello lovely Patrons! I promised a while ago I would update you all on my financial situation once I graduated from drama school, so here we go!
For the uninitiated: I am an actor renting and working in London. About 99% of actors also have another job that they do to survive because acting jobs are very few and far between, most are very badly paid, and it costs to be an actor: you have to pay ...
2017-10-16 10:54:26 +0000 UTC View Post[CW for discussion of rape, murder, and police violence - no graphic details]
I read this book for the first time years ago and only now revisited it with fresh eyes. Before reading it the first time I had, to my shame, assumed that nobody would willingly enter sex work - in fact I hadn’t really thought about sex workers at all, just their labour - and I had heard big promises ab...
2017-10-14 07:22:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! Here is the fourth and final part in the 'What Was Liberalism?' series. I hope you like it - this series has been fun for me!
2017-10-14 07:16:17 +0000 UTC View PostCritchley’s goal in this book is to put forward an entirely new view of meta-ethics and then apply it to both theology and politics. Easy Peasy! The meta-ethics bits are actually quite good - he has interesting ideas about how the self comes to form around ethical demands that maybe can’t even be met. He also takes an interesting stance on where moral reasons come from. I do think those sectio...
2017-10-12 13:33:51 +0000 UTC View PostHorkheimer was part of the Frankfurt School, who you may have heard alluded to in dark tones by raving swivel-eyed racists, because the School features at the centre of the legendarily batshit ‘Cultural Marxism’ conspiracy. According to this conspiracy theory, which originated with the Nazis, Horkheimer and pals were secretly trying to undermine Western civilisation (whatever that means) ...
2017-10-09 19:59:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello lovely Patrons! Here's Part 3 of my 'What Was Liberalism?' series, talking about the ideology of Thatcher and Reagan. Enjoy!
2017-10-07 07:43:48 +0000 UTC View PostThis book is written around a really interesting concept: rather than a history of feminism and feminist progress it’s a history of the steps backwards taken as a result of misogynist reactions to feminism, what Faludi calls the Backlash.
The book came out in 1992, and so it covers the Reagan Era most thoroughly, though the patterns it identifies are still operating...
Hello lovely Patrons! Here's Part 2 in my 'What Was Liberalism?' series, talking about the invention of capitalism and the English Civil War leading to John Locke. Enjoy!
2017-09-30 13:49:06 +0000 UTC View Post