Ep 83: Deconstructing w/ The Chain Slayer

Well, I went to college for humanities and sociology and my mom's a journalist.

So I've always been into like reading and just, you know, history and just like, you know, your average like fun fact history buff.

So ever since I graduated, I've just been reading.

I'd just be reading shit and, you know, watching videos.

And I try to see the things I'm reading and I try to translate them in a way that is dialectical and material.

And so, for example, I was just reading about the Christianization of what is now known as Northern Germany, but of the Saxons, and how Al Quinn, one of the Frankish King Charlemagne's advisers, was writing to him and telling him that you know the way you making people christian ain't really it's kind of crazy like you're murdering them and you're burning their trees down and this is not how people should this is not how faith is built faith is is like a bottle of milk you have to uh feed it to the womb it's not like meat that you that you stuff in their mouth so um and uh yeah it was just so i was doing my research on that and it made me think like yeah like why are we christian because i'm christian so it's like why am i christian you know it's like i'm christian because my i have family that were probably slaves and the people that were enslaving them were christian and gave them christianity but those people why are they why were they christian why is europe christian and it's because of warfare it's because of power it's because of institutions.

It's not just because of people's beliefs.

And, you know, I always try to, as I'm reading through stories, as I'm taking in information and engaging in the marketplace of ideas, I guess, it's really fascinating to, like, see how people interpret things and then to really go through the historical record and accurately interpret it through um dialectical materialism through a class struggle through understanding that you know Christianity wasn't just people praying and it didn't just come about by people finding God like Constantine's mom was a Catholic and she was gonna get killed for being a Catholic that's why he made Christianity this um or helped usher in Christianity as the Roman official state religion Christianity became the Roman state religion because they was getting a lot of money.

They had physical institutions, physical buildings of institutional power that the ruling class at the time could pull from.

This is why when Rome, quote unquote, falls, we see the Roman power concentrate into the Vatican.

So I always look through stories and I try to get down to the truth of it and the material reality of what's happening rather than the narratives that were told.

Yeah, I think that's such a good point.

Here, Americans, we really believe that we have this separation of church and state because we're told that we have that and it says it in the founding documents.

But like you mentioned earlier, it was something that was imposed upon enslaved people as a way to control them, right? And so much of, I think, the way we, so much of Christianity, especially like the evangelical side of it now that really has taken this hold on not just the country but like the people in power are really really far into that so much of it is it's okay to suffer now because we'll have this greater reward after we die and it allows for people to accept this position of a suffering worker where instead of being motivated to like fight for something better while we're here you know Um, so yeah, when it comes to like your videos and stuff, I scroll through the comments, right? And it seems like you get a really good reception.

Um, do you find that you tend to reach your intended audience or does sometimes it get a little crazy out there?

You know what's really fascinating is I was just having this debate, in fact, in my head a couple days ago.

It's like, well, one thing first, I kind of like curate my audience.

So it's like when I first started, I had organized a group of people to kind of monitor my analytics.

So I have like not a team, but like just people who volunteer who are like some tech bros.

They monitor my analytics.

And give me like a weekly report on the algorithm and things like that.

So I purposely do things to make the algorithm react to me in a certain way.

Or like, for example, I try to respond to more love comments than hate comments.

Because then the algorithm will give you more love comments than hate comments.

So I see a lot of content creators get a lot of hate.

Well, I went to college for humanities and sociology and my mom's a journalist.

So I've always been into like reading and just, you know, history and just like, you know, your average like fun fact history buff.

So ever since I graduated, I've just been reading.

I'd just be reading shit and, you know, watching videos.

And I try to see the things I'm reading and I try to translate them in a way that is dialectical and material.

And so, for example, I was just reading about the Christianization of what is now known as Northern Germany, but of the Saxons, and how Al Quinn, one of the Frankish King Charlemagne's advisers, was writing to him and telling him that you know the way you making people christian ain't really it's kind of crazy like you're murdering them and you're burning their trees down and this is not how people should this is not how faith is built faith is is like a bottle of milk you have to uh feed it to the womb it's not like meat that you that you stuff in their mouth so um and uh yeah it was just so i was doing my research on that and it made me think like yeah like why are we christian because i'm christian so it's like why am i christian you know it's like i'm christian because my i have family that were probably slaves and the people that were enslaving them were christian and gave them christianity but those people why are they why were they christian why is europe christian and it's because of warfare it's because of power it's because of institutions.

It's not just because of people's beliefs.

And, you know, I always try to, as I'm reading through stories, as I'm taking in information and engaging in the marketplace of ideas, I guess, it's really fascinating to, like, see how people interpret things and then to really go through the historical record and accurately interpret it through um dialectical materialism through a class struggle through understanding that you know Christianity wasn't just people praying and it didn't just come about by people finding God like Constantine's mom was a Catholic and she was gonna get killed for being a Catholic that's why he made Christianity this um or helped usher in Christianity as the Roman official state religion Christianity became the Roman state religion because they was getting a lot of money.

They had physical institutions, physical buildings of institutional power that the ruling class at the time could pull from.

This is why when Rome, quote unquote, falls, we see the Roman power concentrate into the Vatican.

So I always look through stories and I try to get down to the truth of it and the material reality of what's happening rather than the narratives that were told.

Yeah, I think that's such a good point.

Here, Americans, we really believe that we have this separation of church and state because we're told that we have that and it says it in the founding documents.

But like you mentioned earlier, it was something that was imposed upon enslaved people as a way to control them, right? And so much of, I think, the way we, so much of Christianity, especially like the evangelical side of it now that really has taken this hold on not just the country but like the people in power are really really far into that so much of it is it's okay to suffer now because we'll have this greater reward after we die and it allows for people to accept this position of a suffering worker where instead of being motivated to like fight for something better while we're here you know Um, so yeah, when it comes to like your videos and stuff, I scroll through the comments, right? And it seems like you get a really good reception.

Um, do you find that you tend to reach your intended audience or does sometimes it get a little crazy out there?

You know what's really fascinating is I was just having this debate, in fact, in my head a couple days ago.

It's like, well, one thing first, I kind of like curate my audience.

So it's like when I first started, I had organized a group of people to kind of monitor my analytics.

So I have like not a team, but like just people who volunteer who are like some tech bros.

They monitor my analytics.

And give me like a weekly report on the algorithm and things like that.

So I purposely do things to make the algorithm react to me in a certain way.

Or like, for example, I try to respond to more love comments than hate comments.

Because then the algorithm will give you more love comments than hate comments.

So I see a lot of content creators get a lot of hate.