08 Mar 2023
Resources
Below are a list of links which I recommend checking out (mostly videos). If you're wondering why none of the links go to YouTube, I have a page explaining why.
Business and finance
- Video: The Lightbulb Conspiracy: A documentary on planned obsolescence, the reason no consumer products are made to last anymore.
- Video: The Century of the Self: In the words of the filmmaker Adam Curtis "This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy"
- Video: You Hate All These Companies For The Same Reason: A quick introduction to the customer abuse enabled by copyright.
- Video: Creators Shouldn't Own Their Creations, and Here's Why: A continuation of the video above, explains how profit can still be acquired without copyright, and addresses ethical arguments. Note: The first 5 minutes can be skipped as the video doesn't properly start until shortly after.
Culture
- Video: Why Beauty Matters: The title is self explanatory and it also explains how and why modern art has lost beauty.
- Video: Why I Hate The Sixties: Provides a critical perspective on the 60s we're rarely shown.
History
- Video: Kenneth Clark's 'Civilisation': The rest of the series is available on the same channel.
- Video: Michael Wood's 'In Search of the Dark Ages': The rest of the series is available on the same channel.
- Synaptic Documentaries as a whole. The documentaries may infringe copyright, so check them out now whilst you still can.
Philosophy
- Video: Alan Watts - Happiness is Not the Meaning of Life: Speaks for itself.
- Video: Alan Watts - The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions: Speaks for itself.
- Video: Debate - Lifespans Are Long Enough: A thought-provoking ethical dialema.
Politics
- Arktos books: Publishes books too politically incorrect for other publishers.
- Counter Currents: Politically incorrect political and philisophical articles.
- Red Ice: Great interviews and livestream events from a variety of areas.
- Video: Debate - The Left has right on its side: Whilst I'm critical of the framing of 'left' and 'right', it's nonetheless an intersting debate.
- Video: Hong Kong: Fight For Freedom!: The best documentary I've seen on the situation in Hong Kong, a topic rarely touched upon in the West.
Environmentalism
- Video: Eating Less Meat Won't Save The Planet. Here's Why: Self explanatory, debunks many of the ecological arguments against meat consumption.
- Modern Milkman: Delivers environmentally-friendly products (far more than just milk) in sustainable packaging (either bio-degradable or in glass containers you can give them to re-use when you're finished with them)
- B Corps directory: Find businesses that meet a higher standard in various areas (environmental, transparency, social, etc). I'd still suggest doing your own research too but it's a good reference to start with.
- Sust-It: Allows you to easily see the energy efficiency and running costs of appliances and technology products
Immigration
- Video: Trevor Phillips: Things We Won't Say About Race That Are True: Presents an honest view on racial differences/tensions, by a politician who's job was to keep that sort of thing under wraps.
- Video: Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs: Demonstrates in simple terms how mass immigration can't solve the world poverty crisis.
Spirituality and religion
- Video: Kenneth Clark's 'civilisation': I list this again as it places a lot of importance in Christianity for shaping European civilisation.
- Video: Sir Roger Scruton/Dr. Jordan B. Peterson: Apprehending the Transcendent: An interesting discussion between Sir Roger Scruton and Kermit the frog.
- Video: Manly P. Hall - Is There a Guardian Angel: A rare video lecture from Manly P. Hall, explaining the history and purpose of faith and belief in the immaterial.
Technology
Emacs
- My Emacs config file: Feel free to take parts of the code for your own use.
- Other Emacs config files: Great examples of other init files for inspiration.
- EmacsConf: A collection of presentations, talks etc.
- Video: Thoughtbot Emacs presentations: Great presentations showing off the capabilities of Emacs.
- Video: UncleDave's Emacs tutorials: This video series got me started with Emacs and I'd recommend it to others too.
Free software
- Video: Revolution OS: Documentary on the history of the free software movement and GNU/Linux
- Video: Richard Stallman: Free Software, Free Society - If that's not concise enough for you, Watch this instead
The internet and web development
- Hemingway Editor: Simplify text
- Xkcd's Simple Writer: Strict version of the above, only allows top 1000 most common English words.
- WebAIM's contrast checker and accessibility evaluation tool: My distaste for modern web design doesn't mean I want inaccessbility for the sake of nostalgia.
- Video: Maciej Ceglowski - The Website Obesity Crisis: A demonstration of the ammount of bloat on modern websites
Privacy
- The Techxodus Wiki: Guides to help you move from big tech to privacy-respecting alternatives
- Steven Black's host files: Contains files your OS can load to block websites system-wide without requiring browser extensions. I suggest watching MentalOutlaw's guide if you are unsure how to use these host files.
- Video This is the Future. And it sucks: A 23 minute rant about exactly how bad things have gotten.
- Video: Glenn Greenwald: Why Privacy Matters: Show this to anyone who thinks privacy only matters to criminals.
- Video: The Creepy Line : Documentary on how bad Facebook and Google are.
- Video: Techlore: The simplest step-by-step guide to regaining/maintaining privacy that I'm aware of. I'd still recommend doing your own research elsewhere too though, especially considering that these videos will become outdated over time.
Miscellaneous
- Good sites: A list of interesting websites, put together by 4chan's technology board.
- Video: Pirates of Silicon Valley: A film about the history of Microsoft and Apple.
- Video: Debate - Smart Technology is Making Us Dumb: Self explanatory.
Television and film
- CyTube: Watch and host live video streams with others. Includes live chat, custom emotes, css and more.
- Moving Image Archive: Watch and download movies and tv shows for free.
- Whatch: Watch classic movies for free. You can also subscribe to their odysee channel for updates.
Please contact me if you have suggestions or criticisms for the resources above. Don't message to criticise the people involved though, as I believe in 'seperating the art from the artist'.