Thoughtcrime Newsletter!

The most important parts of men cannot be seen. Most learn how to protect their body in school and from their parents, but the plane on which humans have most been abused is that of the mind, through parasitic ideas, logical fallacies, metaphysical contradictions, rationalization, bad faith, religiosity, and stolen concepts. Not only will Thoughtcrime inform you of the bad, but also suggest innovative thoughts and alternative perspectives on current and enduring issues.

The Thoughtcrime newsletter was began when I wanted to create a publication which undertakes the task of making you a better person. It still exists in support of knowing your values, clear thinking, holding an allegiance to reality, the recognition of choice, and to skepticality. It began as a podcast, but now it's shifted to a newsletter which will be available in physical and digital form.

Year Four Begins with a Boom

YouTube has terminated my channel! You can subscribe to my new channel here, at thecaster2: http://www.youtube.com/user/thecaster2. As always, you can view the archive of all past videos at video.thecastsite.com/vlog_archive. I am looking into solutions to make this catalogue easier to view and browse.

New Banned Video

A copyright claim by Pennsylvania State University on this video was the final blow to the termination of my account.

In "Redistribution of Responsibility" I suggest that responsibility, a consequence of freedom, is itself a form of wealth, something you can watch to determine the virtue of a society or person. A society in which no one feels responsible for causal chains they have chosen to initiate because someone "higher up" has ordered it done, is one on thin ice. Freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. When you remove one, you also destroy the other.

This video contained a 5 minute excerpt of a 45 minute film. If you would like to purchase the full film, only available on DVD, you can purchase it here for the low price of $330 (just under $7.35 per minute).

download video: [.mov (640x260 pixels, 196 MB)]

download video: [.f4v (560x315 pixels, 56 MB)]

New Forum

I've updated our forum infrastructure to a newer, lighter, style that meets our needs better. Old accounts can not be preserved, so you'll have to sign up again. It only takes 5 seconds to join. The old forum can still be found here thecastsite.com/forum2

Update!: I changed it back.

thecast Philosophy Circle

I've finally been able to create a platform in which anyone can come to a singular place to have an intellectual conversation face-to-face with other interested persons. Philosophy.thecastsite.com incorporates a reading catalogue, record of past conversations, and a simple way anyone with a webcam can instantly join the discussion.

"thecast" cited in the big bad world of academia

Recently, while browsing the interwebs, I happened across... well, me!

It's not the sort of thing you see every day. Today I found myself quoted and examined in a paper presented to EPIC 2007, an ethnography conference which seems to be sponsored by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), not to be confused the car insurance company.

The ability to wander from one person’s story to another linked story to another and so on is infinite. It is easier than ever before to join in the conversation and add your story to the mix. Consider this colorful entry from a YouTube contributor called “the caster”. He’s a young man, possibly still in high school, with very decided opinions. His video was a featured video on YouTube one day. He calls his video blogs “the philosophical scientifical half-journalal just-add-water video blog...rant...talk show...thinger” and “it’s basically some intellectual stuff (science, skepticism, philosophy) with some funny stuff, and my connection to the outside world.” Thecaster is very aware that he is in fact connecting to thousands of people. He actively cultivates interaction by inviting video and text reactions from viewers. Other YouTube users video their responses to his argument and upload their clips to his page which increases the visibility of all voices participating in the current topic of discussion.

“This is a video essay conversion on an essay I wrote before on profanity. Tell me what you think, I’d appreciate it, mac.thecast@gmail.com , there’s also a comment box down there and stuff. What’s wrong with profanity? There’s nothing. Fucking shit, this essay is about how profanity is a load of fucking bullshit. You can say god’s balderdash humbug. These were once vulgar words and if the wrong person heard it you would have been beheaded. Profanity, as we see it today, is a remnant of before the Christian religion was reformed and evolved.” (thecaster 2007)

I found the two authors' analysis of me and my videos quite lucid:

Thecasters’ enthusiasm and indignation animate him as someone who is learning of injustices for the first time and broadcasting his awakening to anyone who will listen. At the point of this paper’s writing, he had 17 video responses and 2502 text comments to his profanity video.

You may view the paper here. It was presented in October of 2007.

You may view the video on YouTube or download the original version here, at the master archive.

Copyright and YouTube

Well, I finally had it. YouTube has blocked the last four of my video uploads from being seen due to "copyright claims" by Viacom and Warner Music Group. I thought back to why I opened this site up in the first place: to preserve whatever it is that is the pure form of thecast, even if it documents activity deemed unacceptable to public video sites. I worked to open up a page on my site dedicated purely to banned videos, the ones they didn't want you to see.