December 2020 Favorites

By Stefan Imhoff
14 min read

It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in, no matter the odds or consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move. Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world:

No, you move.

—Mark Twain

Videos

Science & Knowledge

History & Culture

Cinema & Film

Politics

Humor

TV Shows

Movies

Music

Podcasts

New Discourses

I like this podcast even more than The Joe Rogan Experience. James Lindsay is an excellent speaker and observer of culture and politics.

The Joe Rogan Experience

  • 1572 – Moxie Marlinspike – Matthew Rosenfeld, known as Moxie Marlinspike is an American entrepreneur, cryptographer, and computer security researcher. He is co-founder of the Signal Foundation and currently the CEO of Signal Messenger.
  • 1575 – Bill Burr – Bill Burr is a standup comedian, actor, writer, musician, producer, podcaster, and social critic.
  • 1576 – Mariana van Zeller – Mariana van Zeller is an award-winning journalist and documentarian. Her latest project is Trafficked, a National Geographic television series that takes her deep into the most dangerous black markets in the world.
  • 1574 – Jacques Vallée & James Fox

The Art of Manliness

TRIGGERnometry

Conversations With Coleman

Science Salon

The Megyn Kelly Show

Books

Articles

Inspiration

Quotes

A harmless man is not a good man.
A good man is a very, very dangerous man, who has that under voluntary control.

—Jordan B Peterson

Mark Twain wrote about the responsibility of each person to stand up for what they believe in, as in a Republic each person has to determine about right and wrong for themselves. It’s our reponsibility to stand up for what is right, no matter if every body else calls a wrong thing a right thing:

Each of you, for himself or herself, by himself or herself, and on his or her own responsibility, must speak. It is a solemn and weighty responsibility and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government or politician. Each must decide for himself or herself alone what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man, to decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor. It is traitorous both against yourself and your country.

Let men label you as they may, if you alone of all the nation decide one way, and that way be the right way by your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country, hold up your head for you have nothing to be ashamed of.

It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in, no matter the odds or consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move. Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world:

No, you move.

—Mark Twain

In Superman: American Alien the young Clark Kent is frustrated and destroys the mirror and wall behind it in a bathroom in a cinema. The next day his father is asking him, what he is thinking about:

The Mirror. I was thinking … somebody had to make it, like somebody at the factory took time to make it. Then somebody had to sell it to the movie theater, and then other people had to fit it to the wall which somebody else built for them. When you break something, you’re not just breaking the thing, you’re like hurting every one who made it the way it was.

Sean W. Malone summarizes the quote by Clark Kent (Max Landis) above in his video essay Superman Is the Hero We Need Right Now why the stories we tell each other matter and why we need heroes:

That is one of the most insightful realizations anyone could ever have about the world around them, and it was written in a comic book. These stories have survived for decades. They’ve been retold in dozens of languages and they’re known all over the world. They are mythology. And like all mythologies, they’re about human values. They’re how writers and artists convey their ideas and share lessons about character and morality with everyone else. But not every value anybody puts on screen or in a book is good. The ends don’t justify the means. The collective isn’t more important than the individual. Appealing to the “greater good” is often just an excuse for the abuse of power. Not every moral lesson anybody takes the time to write down is actually going to make the world a better place. So, the stories we tell each other matter. […] I think we need to start reminding each other that there are some values that are worth standing up for and some that really aren’t. We need more truth, justice, and respect for individual freedom. We need fewer people trying to lie and mislead in order to impose their values on everyone else by force. We need more humility, compassion, and kindness. We need less anger and division. More calm. Less noise. What I’m saying is… We need actual heroes.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

—Philip K. Dick

We know, of course, that there is no freedom of speech. But few persons realize that there is no freedom of silence, either. Residents of a communist state are required to make positive statements of belief and loyalty.