Melody, Phantom, Brain, Cash, Drive

Jean-Paul Sartre: Your Life Is Like A Melody

Then & Now | YouTube | 29th April 2021

A less depressing view of existentialism, in which life becomes a beautiful melody where each note falls into place as it is lived; "the notes don't mean much in isolation; they only have meaning in relation to the wider project." Sartre is attempting to "clear away all the philosophical clutter" as part of a "massive academic cleaning project, leaving a transcendent, free you" (25m 06s)

The Bizarre World Of Fan Edits And Restorations

The Royal Ocean Film Society | YouTube | 22nd April 2021

The weird, liberating world of fan edits: Planet of the Apes recut as a half-hour black-and-white Twilight Zone episode, The Phantom Menace with Jar-Jar edited out, La La Land with all the dancing edited out, etc etc. Sometimes these are silly experiments, sometimes they are earnest attempts to fix flaws, but all are part of a "remix culture" that seeks to (sort of) democratize filmmaking (22m 34s)

The Future Of Reasoning

Vsauce | YouTube | 28th April 2021

Moving toward a collective theory of belief. When we reason alone, we exhibit deep biases that seem less like mistakes and more like features; perhaps reasoning is a group activity, so "when people appear to be lazy reasoners or to have bad reasons or none at all, it's just the case that they're using reason as it evolved: socially" (30m 02s)

Universal Basic Income

New Tribes | YouTube | 26th April 2021

Elegant defense of Andrew Yang's flagship policy. Millennials are arguably America's "first truly poor generation"—bogged down by debt, low pay and automated jobs, they are increasingly financially unstable and even suicidal. UBI could act as an emergency brake, though it still faces criticisms, such as the claim that it will induce mass laziness (23m 16s)

Hypnotizing Video Of The Week

Apocalyptic animated snapshot of a world in flux

Browser Video Of The Week: Digital Art

Carla Rapoport, founder of the Lumen Art Prize, on Beeple's Everydays and the place of NFTs in the broader world of digital art (2m 31s)

Watch The Viewer's recommendations each week as a handy YouTube Playlist.

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Editor: Abe Callard
Publisher: Jacob Silkstone [jacob@theviewer.is]