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Don't care about any of that. What's with that shirt?

Absolutely love your stuff. I did a video praising you as latter day Edmund Wilson. Keep it up!

Black stands out against a light backdrop, so does light against darkness. Grimdark is best when it highlights the little moments of common humanity, which no tragedy can undo. The act may be forgotten, but it still happened.

I don't quite agree that there is necessarily a contradiction in the trans people are viewed, but I do see how the battle for equal rights isn't always straightforward nor independent from exceptionalist views.

what shop did you crawl out of?

'This Perfect Day' by Ira Levin

A Beautiful description and very concise. Be Seeing you .

But it's CNN, so we know that's bullshit 😂😂😂

Excellent analysis, thank you.

That show sounds amazing! No wonder it had to die so quickly. Le sigh.

Bill Cooper mentioned this show on his shortwave program. As I recall he described it as the future plan for our country

This was quite the good analysis, though I disagree when it comes to the ending. When I read the book (the 1990 version), I interpreted the hand of God as something more metaphorical. Closer to divine intervention setting of the nuke and leaving Stu Redman the only survivor of the sacrificial four, which lead to what in my opinion was the best part of the book, as Stu and Tom travel back to Boulder. It might have been that I misinterpreted the sequence. Regardless, this video has let me find a channel which seems quite interesting through a novel by my favourite author. Thank you for making this. Hope you have a great day.

Good video

I'll tell you what, I would take up art as soon as I have built a few wind turbines and server boxes.

Your closing lines always get me. 🤣

we have advanced. We are so good at hiding our flaws we are making jobs out of it.

Conscription can be good if it were done say inb the following case: conscripts cannot be used outside of home territory, even better they would train and be ready on their own terrain. Conscripts would all be infantry basic as yes it's the military but would learn a trade or and introduction to a profession and would stay in the military to learn the basics if not able. Something like a combo of first year college, high school and camping. Maybe a way for a country like the US to enact free college, something quite popular in Europe for instance. And then say that only the volunteer force would be used outside the home territory. If we are talking a mild but also usable peactime force of conscripts. Someone has to drive the trucks, build the barracks, maintain the pipes, clean the weapons. This idea might be taking out of the industrial complex a little even. But 2 years of courses as well as service with pay would bea great thing for the country and the people. I am aware that this idea takes more out of the budget than adds but the return is a person who instead of going abroad to search for themselves stays in their original place and develops skills that they are free to use after, paid for by the government and in case there's a war they stay and defend their home. Quite different from the offensive wars of the US. In Space terms it would be something like building a tall empire.

I guess the red glasses are a metaphor for someone seeing everybody else as a shade of commie.

Be seeing you!

The Prisoner is a critique of consensus international politics, but it's not very entertaining. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. had similar themes (In the Prisoner, Number 2 was in charge, and, in the Man from U.N.C.L.E., Russian Ilya Kuriakin wore badge 2 and American Napoleon Solo wore badge 1-1), but the Man from U.N.C.L.E. attained an audience. The Prisoner was deadly serious, while the Man from U.N.C.L.E. was camp.

I've been binging your videos and enjoying the subjects and your perspective on them. Cheers.

Lost cause myth? Thumbs down, end of viewing.

I'm going to be an outlier here and say I didn't mind the Stand's ending. I just thought it should have ended when the person chosen to carry the story back to Boulder got back to safety. That point where we knew he'd be all right... that's where The End belonged. I also will leave this thought here: After SO MANY stories (as a horror fan, the list is endless) where Evil is shown to have an undeniable power in the world but the Grace of God does NOT... It is honestly refreshing to see the Hand of God made EXPLICIT, even if it is with bad CGI.

The other movie with the original name was so bad I began rooting for the aliens to kill all the human characters; sadly, they failed.

What’s less believable? A kid making a nuclear bomb, or the feds running away in humiliation?

Logos Spermatikos

Land value tax (revenue collection), combined with UBI (public expenditure and social safety net), while reducing other social security( specially welfare and bloated bureaucracy) can get us closer to your proposed system.

6:40 Brother Dredd using white phosphorus against civilians, with prejudice (in its classical definition) is one hell of an image. If you wanted to communicate dystopia, this is how you do it.

So forever war is Helldivers?

The United Federation of Planets is every bit as totalitarian as the Romulan Star and Klingon Empires that they look down on. The only major differences are how they acquire territory. And that they don't (openky)execute prisoners. The UFP merely puts a velvet glove on THEIR iron fist.

Thanks for this. As a first cadre Gen-Xer who grew up in the ‘80s myself, it’s good to remind people that yes, the Russians have always been the bad guys, regardless of their economic or political ethos of choice. We’ve still got a decent chance of ending up as we were in the miniseries, but at least we’ll be able to take comfort in knowing that we’d more likely go out like Rome, rotting from within; “You do it to yourself; that’s why it really hurts.”

Superb analysis and interpretation of 'The Prisoner' 👍

In just this morning you have made me a big fan. Love the way you lay all your points out with a lovely backdrop! Cool knowledge with great scenery!

I read something once that really seemed like it was applicable to this piece of media; Either you don't uphold laws that are unjust and are a shit cop, or you apply laws unlitarerally and ignoring context making you a shit person. Dredd is a character I understand but hate, and I say that as someone working in the field. The Law should be Just, but it isn't because of how it's applied and how it is bent to the needs of the department or the moment, not held to the ideals of justice. How Dredd is depersonalized in the 2012 film is the best representation of it; He has no personality, no character, no self, no *face* other than the helmet and the bit of his chin we get to see. He is no longer a person, just an extension of the system made necessary by the times. The rookie actually having a face is the biggest part of this; You see *who* she is, not *what* she is. As such you can see the ideal of justice over law. Dredd's the opposite, you see *what* he is, not *who*. Law is now applied over justice.

What an awesome movie.

Your wrong. In the movie Starship Troopers, the Earth government is Fascists'. Recall the Amish colony SUPPOSABLY killed by the alien bugs and gee, the Earth military just HAPPENS to be there to witness this. It's pretty clear they were murdered by Earth's military and then Earth used propaganda to further cause hatred of the bugs. What was the crime the Amish settlers on that planet committed that caused the Earth forces to murder them? They were an UNSANCTIONED colony. In other words they had somehow escaped Earth, found a suitable planet and colonized it for themselves - wanting a future without the dictatorship of Earth. Oh, and the bugs SUDDENLY attacking Earth, but not in a very organized manner - inconsistent at best. More likely the military again decided they wanted the territory of the ET Bugs. So they need to go to war against them. How to justify? Oh, let's imitate some of their bio weapons - just a few and destroy a few selected cities on Earth. We can claim the bugs were to dumb to actually do a real attack that would have conquered or destroyed us. Walla - you have justification for a war. Kill the Amish settlers and point out it was THEIR fault for having an unsanctioned colony - and you get the message to any other humans who think they can escape and create their civilization on some other world. The movie was far different than Heinlein's book. In the movie, humans ARE the bad guys. In the book, humans don't want the war but don't see a way not to fight it. In the movie - typical fascists propaganda shows killing and torturing OTHERS - especially if they are not human is GOOD! Not so in the book. In the movie it's clear - you are WITH the fascists, or you are a nobody and if you speak up - accidents can happen.

The village is what life will be like under Trump's second term... Prepare yourselves.😐

Who will do the bad jobs tho? Who processes the chickens? There are some jobs that need to be done.

I like your idea about splitting up characters and episodes.

My main problem was that the show did crazy stupid things. The USMC spends big bucks to turn these kids into hotshit pilots and then uses them as ground pounders? Umm, no, don't think it works that way.

Wicked and weak, sounds just like a libtard to me.

5:07 I can't believe I yelled out LAAAW at that exact time.

Oh, of course Starscream and Cobra Commander had the same voice actor. What an incredibly distinct voice, and apparently the only one he could do. I bet there's a toothbrush ad floating around where not-actually-Starscream tells me about getting at the ol' gum line.

the problem with this thesis is that requiring service to vote or take office is that it amounts to a poll tax. it doesn't take much, once you have that requirement, to deny admission to service (not just military, but other forms like health care, teaching, peace corps, etc). it's easy to look at the current debate starting from conservatives about women and LGBTQ+ folks in the US military. these can easily be extended to other forms of service, although keeping women out of teaching or health care would be unlikely. but keeping folks from certain countries or religions would be popular for a segment of the current population, and it's easy for many folks to keep out LGBTQ+ folks from just about any profession. if we have such a poll tax-like policy, it will make it easy for folks to be marginalized. and you best believe that the wealthy will find ways for their children to "serve" without actually serving. at minimum, i would expect such a system to shunt "undesirables" into the most dangerous work, minimizing their chance to exert the citizenship they earned. it would either be directly in the law, or effectively work that way as the wealthy exploit the system and are put in positions where they make the decisions on who gets assigned where.

It's a metaphor for Britain IMO. A genteel, twee place - not threatening. But f around and find out as the kids say.

This may be the most important video tying this movie to our current reality

"why did you think a big balloon would stop him" "*Shut up* that's why"

I don't know if it means anything that it's the only Stallone film I like...(Okay I'll admit it. I tolerate J Dredd because of the world it's set in) But Demolition man is something special, and while everyone does a great job, Simon Phoenix definitely stands out...

Remember the millions of documents and thousands of videos of American war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and how it let to the downfall of the US and ultimately the NATO? No? Oh then it wouldn't have happened... I must've dreamed about it...

I feel like that shift is already happening, although it hasn’t been cemented yet by any major world events. These days the “bad guys” are more likely to be the pawns of some almost supervillainish megacorporation than clones of those wacky Nazis.