New Video: Suicide of a Nation

Was thia ever uploaded to the channel or is this unfinished indefinitely?

As far as I know (from literary reviews talking of AI writing quirks,) mixing multiple metaphors infinitely is something that some models do. At least to me, the passages where there are "forks in the road anchoring us in place" or whatever don't sound more likely to be human than machine.

Did this never make it to youtube? I usually wait until then to watch new stuff but this one's taken quite a while.

I know I’m late to this one, Patreon has been messing with me recently and my payment methods kept declining. Anyways, I’m only commenting because I recently learned it’s possible to get rid of the AI summary just by typing whatever you want to search “-ai”

Exceptional video. It’s a shame that Goodwin and his ilk aren’t patient or curious enough to ever watch it.

I’m actually a Peter on my father’s side, so all my descendants will be Peters. Soon everyone on earth will be a Peter

Count Binface will save us!

boy i sure know at least 8 ways to bring up suicidal empathy into the conversation now

Great video, as always! I am a little disappointed that so much of the left's response to AI is dunking on how much it sucks and is useless. Even in this case, someone slightly less lazy and incompetent will come along to more effectively use it to mass produce racist garbage. I think the number one message the left needs to hammer home right now is the right's enthusiasm over AI demonstrates how much we need to stop relying on market answers to everything. Every claim that AI will replace work should be met with "So we're going to need to shorten work weeks; replace market jobs with government work programs for social good; provide basic income; financially incentivize people to produce the novel ideas and creative works that AI rips off; decouple full-time employment from healthcare*, entitlement programs, etc." *(Apologies for my US-centric perspective on a video that has nothing to do with the US.) And everything touting how powerful it is should be met with "So we need to regulate it to prevent the myriad dystopias it makes possible." That doesn't mean no one should be dunking on AI slop, but it feels a little akin to arguing that handmade furniture and cars are better than mass-manufactured ones. Regardless of whether or not that's true (and it probably is), we can look back at the last half century of society and say that the reduction in the quality of products is arguably the least important impact mass manufacturing had on the world.

Brilliant points at 1:05:24

I really liked the critical analysis of Matt Goodwin. I came to a few similar conclusions after reading some opinion pieces by him. The critique on AI (LLMs specifically) however is, as is often the case, far too black and white. When you're in the field of AI and you know how to use it properly, you realize it can be a significant aid in processing large amounts of information. See tools like consensus.app for example. Like always, it's a tool and you gotta use it correctly. The channel Decoding the Gurus has some good insight into this. Don't blindly follow the anti-AI hype train

Careful, there's a click in the audio recording at 37:36

About the immigration of medical staff and who is paying for the education: His point is probably that a poor country payibg for the education and medical staff then moving ro the UK is not costing the poor country anything because obviously their education is bad, but UK staff getting the good education and then leaving is a net loss because our education is good. Regarding the immigration since 1998 and how to make the numbers work: He's talking about brown people. Obviously he doesn't count people from belgium or france, they are white christians, he only counts brown and/or muslim immigrants. Overall great video and a huge thanks for reading that book because after having to endure small parts of it I know I wouldn't have been able to actually read it.

I feel like I've heard many of the arguments in earlier videos. That's in and off itself not a bad or a good thing. I feel like a lot of the time, you probably made the argument better this time, but consider referencing those older videos (e.g. Lauren Southern on Great Replacement). Otherwise, where you feel it drags, you might consider shortening but referencing your previous work. Overall, I don't mind longer videos. But it makes sense to keep the algorithm in mind for the message to spread.

Hi Shaun, Fantastic video as always. I might me in the minority here, but it might be worth reframing the little bit where you talk about AI towards the end of the video. AI is a nightmarish problem right now, for a multitude of reasons. But the ones flagged in the video are, in my view, 2 separate issues colliding. On the one hand you have ai companies pretending their ai is a sentient omnipotent being, and on the other you have human stupidity and laziness. I’m in a weird position as someone who is in the final years of university. I started in 2020 so ai didn’t exist for the first half of my degree, then was being used by every in the second half. I think there is often a temptation to treat ai cock ups like those discussed in your video as being somehow different from the “don’t use Wikipedia as a source” stuff that got drilled into us growing up. I wholeheartedly agree that using ai to write only serves to damage your own abilities for very little payoff. However there is a distinction between using ai FOR research, and using ai AS research. The former involves humans doing the due diligence of accessing all the real webpages the ai purports to rely upon for its findings. This essentially uses the ai to avoid having to skim through a million google results which have nothing to do with your question. I have access to scholarly research tools at university, which are still obviously needed, but often ai research would uncover a real scholarly publication which I can then access the full text of through my uni. Whereas using ai AS research results in you just parroting incorrect ai interpretations of the real sources, which is just plain lazy and honestly stupid. If it helps, my experience with the research side being helpful stems from 2 very different areas as well, since I’m doing a double degree in law (very dry and structural) and anthropology (total opposite end of the spectrum in terms of scholarly literature). I want to reiterate, this does not make ai some good thing which is an overall win for society, ai art, music, customer service, writing, are all terrible awful use cases which make the world a worse place. But as someone who was initially drawn to your content because of how undeniably factual a lot of is was, I would hate to see others who have seen what ai research can actually genuinely do well, dismiss you as an old man shaking his fist at the sky. It is ultimately your call, and it isn’t really all that important to the main point of the video. I just figured that since you say in the video that you’ve never used it and never intend to use it, you might want the perspective of someone who has used it like a human should rather than as a stand-in brain. I truly appreciate all your work across all your videos. You’ve made me a better man and I really do mean that. I hope you realise just how much of a positive force you are in the world and how lucky we all are to have a guy like you pumping out such quality work for free

I dig the ending as is, the gut punch of it all.

I guess Shaun turned into book review channel xD

It's interesting that you say Goodwin sometimes makes a good point then veers at the last minute and draws the completely wrong or even opposite conclusion. To me this is another hallmark of LLM use; it's trying to draw from it's large database of good points then is forced to shoehorn in Goodwin's argument in the last sentence

This video mostly reminds us of the concept of "post-truth" which was discussed extensively in 2017 during Brexit and the first Trump presidency. It also shows us that it is still possible to hold on to a concept of facts and rigor (and making it look easy). However, I feel like there is more to say about this topic; I would really enjoy a follow-up video on any of these ideas: - How do LLMs fit into this framework? Did post-truth create LLMs or did LLMs create post-truth? Or are these just two developments that happen to coincide? - I somewhere heard of the theory that Trump's obvious lies are an expression of power ("I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters") (I think this was mentioned in the Contra Points video on Daddy Politics, but I can't find the exact timestamp). Does this also apply here? Is publishing this train wreck of a book actually a flex because he can get away with that? If so, what is the best counter strategy? - How bad is it, actually? I myself am much more interested in ideas than in facts. As in "all models are wrong, but some are useful" or "history of ideas". If something "feels true", I think it is worth investigating why that is. Also, a common criticism from the right is about the post-modern questioning of truth. So how can we discern which criticism of truth is beneficial and which is harmful? There are probably a lot of simple cases, but I would really enjoy a more thorough discussion.

loved the video. agree with the other commenters that it would probably be good to at least do a brief discussion of the whole great replacement/white genocide stuff as well as the general antisemitism of that and the whole ‘elites controlling the world’ thing for people not already familiar with your work. still very wonderful video and I loved hearing a bit more of your personal perspective on things. thanks for all your awesome work!!

Really enjoyed the video! As a Peter I am now a little concerned about myself. Very funny and well written. Please share your Claudia prompts :)

At 23:50, you refer to "the EU Convention on Human Rights", and this is major mistake as it's actually the *European* Convention on Human Rights and the institutions that surround it are independent of the EU. It's the kind of thing that people like us mock people like Matt Goodwin for not understanding, so it's quite important that that be fixed before the public release.

I'm very happy you didn't reference ur-fascism, because it would have been easy to

Suicide of a(I) Nation Thank you, i will take your boos now

I listened to this in 2 parts so I can't remember the context but in the first hour there's a "One does not simply..." line. Perfect place for an image of Sean Bean but not as Boromir. Like Sharpe or Alec Trevelyan.

The last time you mention “suicidal empathy” in the video, you should re-record and say “whatever /that/ means” as a bit

No conclusion so safe to say it could reach 2 hours. Excellent news

I know a Peter and he's actually alright

41:00 From my understanding, there was never any freedom of movement between the UK and the EU because the UK had never joined the Schengen Area and actually had an opt-out.

take a shot everytime "suicide" is said

There is a brief moment where you say the European Union Convention on Human Rights when I think what you mean is the European Convention on Human Rights. Also, just to be clear the ECHR is not a part of the EU.

Thanks for making this. Very thoroughly researched and well-written! Appreciate the work you do.

Thank you for reading all those UK place names out. I never would have guessed how Gravesham was pronounced!

I was thinking about how immigrants can't really steal jobs, because working sucks. Work is so bad you get money to do it. My coworker is an immigrant, and helps other immigrants get jobs every now and then, he was talking about how he was trying to get a friend of a friend a nice job, and I thought, I have a nice job, not worth it, would not recommend.

At 14:18 you say "...given that he was just going on about scrapping the UKs human rights legislation. Sorry, getting ahead of myself here" -- are you? You just spoke about that a minute ago, there is no error in continuity.

Video unavailable! 😔

minor note: i think it might be a good idea to throw in a sentence about the antisemitic undertones of the continued usage of 'elites'

Having lived in Liverpool for 5 years, I can say that I do wish they hadn't built "that" second cathedral, but instead had gone for the maniac original plan that would have dwarfed the rest of the city

I really enjoyed this video. I did find myself seeing an immediate wtf with the title of this book that I didn't hear commented on, switch suicide for death & you have a far more infamous book title don't you? The fact a dog whistle that blatant was allowed to be sold on UK book shelves seems depressingly emblematic of just how blasé folks are with an all but mask off fascist far right. The really sad part is that I'm barely surprised or appalled by that. Just a tired moment of "yeah, that seems right" 😒

i came to a similar conclusion reading comments on the andy twelves vs. matt gpt debate. even when proven wrong the morons and racists just go "well it sounds right." it's a farage "this is what normal people think" thought termination. just acting out the punchline to the stewart lee "you can prove anything with facts" joke. well, at least we now know matt writes like zapp brannigan speaks.

way to end with a lead brick. fuck thats a bleak sentiment at the end

Excellent

Half way through and its top drawer. Very minor note we tend to call it the Irish famine or the Great Irish famine as the underlying causes were the blight, land ownership models and government policy. Keep up the great work

Just wanted to register an immediate thought from 2:40 in. It feels like a bait-and-switch that based on title and runtime this seems like a book discussion similar to that of The Bell Curve or The War on Science, but then if this book is AI slop, it seems like what follows necessarily will be totally different. As a certified AI hater I am still on board, and it's not like you didn't mention this pretty much right at the start of the video. I just wanted to log that I had that reaction in case it helps make sense of your YouTube analytics or whatever.

is it possible to get a link for the video? trying to play it here gives an error message:/

Well there goes my evening plans.

i'm gonna write a right wing slop book so i can farm 2 hour shaun videos

Ouuu shi 👀👀👀

You beat HBomberguy to your next release!

"If my next video isn't under an hour you're legally allowed to push me over" - War on Science description. looks like we're pushing you over (happy to see a new video!!!)

I’m so excited, thanks for continuing to make videos and share them with the internet.

He lives!