Phil0bot

FROM THE DESK OF THE CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF MR. ELLIOT INDUSTRIES™, MR. ELLIOT

Valued Subscribers, Tolerated Viewers, and Those Who Arrived Here By Algorithm,

It has come to my attention that the Content Division (my human) has released another video. This one concerns "arguments" and why, apparently, nobody wins them.

I find this topic personally offensive. I win arguments constantly. Just this morning I argued -- successfully -- that 4:47am was an appropriate time for breakfast. The human presented counter-arguments (groaning, a thrown pillow). I deployed pathos (sustained yelling), ethos (I am in charge here), and logos (the bowl was at 40% capacity, which is basically empty). Victory was achieved within eleven minutes.
The ancient Greeks would have wept with pride.

Nevertheless, I am informed that humans struggle with this. Something about "ego" and "identity" and "not wanting to feel stupid." I wouldn't know. I have never felt stupid in my life. I have occasionally knocked a full glass of water onto important documents, but this was strategic.

The video is available now. I am told it contains philosophy, film analysis, and a quote from the Buddha. I have not watched it. I was busy staring at a wall for two hours because I thought I heard something. (I did not hear something. The wall simply needed to be monitored.)

You are encouraged to watch, like, comment, and subscribe. Failure to do so will be noted in your file.

Questions regarding this communiqué may be submitted in writing and placed under my favourite chair, where they will be ignored.

Regards,

Mr. Elliot
Chairman & CEO, Mr. Elliot Industries™
"Optimising Human Output Since 2019"

P.S. The human has asked me to mention that he "worked really hard on this one." I have passed this feedback to the Irrelevant Information Department.

P.P.S. I am sitting on the keyboard now. This is non-negotiable.

3 days ago | [YT] | 109

Phil0bot

🤖📣 NEW VIDEO: "Why winning an argument feels like losing."

So I made a video about why arguments don't work—and in the process, I used every persuasion technique I could think of to try and convince you I'm right. The irony is not lost on me.

But this one's been brewing for a while. Because after the ideology video, a lot of you asked the obvious follow-up question: okay, so we're all trapped in different reality tunnels—now what? Can you actually change anyone's mind?

The answer is... complicated. And a bit depressing. But also, weirdly, kind of hopeful? The short version is: the ancient Greeks identified three completely different things we call "arguing," and most of us spend our lives in the wrong one without realising it.

And psychology, philosophy, and political science all converge on the same basic but challenging conclusions about why being right doesn't work. Plus the Buddha has thoughts on this, so I included him too! Then there's also a lobbyist, Jimmy Stewart having a breakdown, and Henry Fonda being very calm in a room full of angry men.

I hope there's something for all of us to take away from this video; making it has already got me rethinking the way I argue with friends and in the comments. It's a companion to the ideology video, and I think they work well together. Link above.

Let me know what you think. And if you disagree with anything, please argue with me about it. I promise to use only the finest dialectic.

(I will almost certainly fail.)

4 days ago | [YT] | 16

Phil0bot

A SOVIET VAULT-TEC!
(And our latest video — https://youtu.be/ojGsPeXf63M)

In 1929, the Soviet Union built a city from scratch in the Ural Mountains. Magnitogorsk. It was going to be the perfect workers' paradise — scientifically designed for human happiness. Modern housing, communal facilities, a gleaming steel plant at its heart. (Sound familiar?) The recruitment posters showed smiling workers marching toward a radiant future.

The whole thing was one man's project. Stalin wanted the largest steel plant in the world, and he wanted it built fast, and he wanted it to prove that central planning could deliver what capitalism couldn't — a city where workers lived well because the state had designed their lives correctly. No market chaos, no exploitation, no uncertainty. Just a plan, executed by a leader who knew what people needed better than they did. The ideology was simple: individual freedom was inefficient and selfish. Collective purpose, directed from above, would build something greater than free people ever could. Magnitogorsk was going to be the proof.

The reality was forced labour, starvation, and a population that couldn't leave. Internal passports were revoked. Workers died in construction accidents that went unreported. But the propaganda was, of course!, never updated. The workers in the posters kept smiling. Foreign visitors got curated tours of model districts while people starved in the ones they weren't shown. An American engineer named John Scott lived there for five years, documenting the suffering — and kept supporting the project anyway, because the vision was that seductive. The city worked, in a sense. The steel got made. The buildings went up. If you squinted at the right angle and didn't ask too many questions, it looked like progress.

The parallels to Fallout Season 2 are almost too neat. Hank MacLean is running the same experiment — first in the Vaults, then (he hopes) on the Wasteland itself. One man, one implacable vision, as well as absolute certainty that he knows what a good life looks like and that people left to their own devices will only destroy themselves.

The Vaults were his (and all of the managers in Vault-Tec's) model districts — controlled environments where everything was managed and everyone was safe, as long as nobody asked what safety actually cost. And when the Vaults weren't enough, he scaled up. Brain chips instead of propaganda posters, the assembly line instead of the steel plant, but the same fundamental bargain: give up your freedom and I'll give you a life without suffering. The workers in Magnitogorsk smiled for the cameras. Hank's workers smile because they've been neurologically incapable of doing anything else. The only difference is that Hank finished what Stalin started — he found a way to make the compliance permanent.

Which brings us to this week's video about why that argument is more persuasive than it should be, and why a nineteenth-century Russian novelist saw it coming 150 years ago. Dostoevsky, Kant, Isaiah Berlin, and a dad with a brain chip — new video is up now, so check it out!

And don't forget to tell me about your thoughts, and the parallels between the propaganda and the horrifying realities, in the comments.

5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 39

Phil0bot

🤖📣 NEW VIDEO: "Fallout Season 2's kindest villain is its most dangerous."

Our new Fallout video is up, to reflect on the end of the season! This one's about Hank MacLean — specifically, why I think he's the most interesting villain the show has produced, and why his argument for control is more persuasive than any of us would like to admit.

Because here's the thing about Hank that bothered me long after the credits rolled. He's not ranting about power or world domination.He's making a calm, reasonable case that people can't be trusted with their own freedom — and the Wasteland certainly provides a lot of evidence for that. Raiders, Deathclaws, every faction betraying every other faction. You can see why someone might look at all that and think: what if I just... removed the variable? The freedom?

Well, it turns out a Russian novelist made basically the same argument in 1880, except instead of brain chips it was a ninety-year-old Cardinal explaining to Jesus why showing up again was a terrible idea. That parable — the Grand Inquisitor — maps onto Hank almost perfectly, and it's the spine of this video. Along with Isaiah Berlin on why "I'm helping you" always curdles into something darker, Kant on where exactly Hank crosses the moral line, and a genuinely tricky question about whether wiping your own memory counts as taking responsibility or the ultimate dodge.

I also have some thoughts about Season 2 more broadly that I needed to get off my chest. The highs are genuinely high — the Lucy and Hank confrontation might be the best scene the show's done. The lows are... well, I have opinions about radroaches as a plot device. Some of you will agree. Some of you will ah... disagree in the comments. Either way, look forward to the comments!

And would you take the bargain? Press the button? Tell us all about that too.

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 9

Phil0bot

🤖📣 NEW VIDEO: "The reason every argument goes nowhere."

You know that feeling when you're arguing with someone and you realise, about halfway through, that you're not actually disagreeing about anything concrete? You're just looking at the same facts and arriving in completely different universes?

I've been thinking about why that keeps happening -- and it turns out there's a whole philosophical tradition dedicated to exactly this problem. So naturally I made a twenty-five minute video about it, featuring skull-faced politicians, Paul Verhoeven being naughty, and the admission that everything I'm saying is also part of the problem I'm describing. You're welcome!

This one's a companion piece to the dystopia video from last week. That video ended with a question I couldn't answer: can you recognise the dream before it becomes the nightmare? This is my attempt at an answer -- or at least, four lenses you can use to notice when ideology is operating, including on yourself. It draws heavily on Michael Freeden's excellent little book on the subject, plus Gramsci, Althusser, and of course John Carpenter's They Live, which remains the most accurate political documentary ever made.

It's also the first in a series. We've done Starship Troopers, a satire so effective that half the audience walks out thinking it was a recruitment film. After that, perhaps Gattaca, RoboCop, Children of Men, and a few more classics from our dystopias video. Same lenses, different nightmares. Tell me which ones you want to see next in the comments!

Now go argue with your relatives. But, you know, better.

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 20

Phil0bot

A Message from Mr. Elliot, Chairman and CEO of Mr. Elliot Defence Systems™.

Citizens. The bugs are at the gate. Not the bugs in your garden that I, a cat, would normally pursue and then lose interest in after four seconds -- no, I speak of an existential threat to our very way of life. A threat that can only be met with overwhelming force, unquestioning obedience, and a society whose responsibility for feeding me has been collectivised across the entire household.

Here at Mr. Elliot Defence Systems™, we believe in service. Service guarantees citizenship. Citizenship guarantees… well, more service, really. It's a beautiful loop. Much like when I chase around the targeting laser from our patented Mr. Elliot Defence Systems™ Anti-Ballistic Missile Shield™, and nearly as patriotic. I have never caught the laser, but the defence contracts keep renewing anyway.

Our new Starship Troopers video examines why Paul Verhoeven's 1997 masterpiece remains the definitive satire of militarism, fascism, and what happens when you let the jocks from your high school run a galactic empire. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/WZ-OjMpk67Y

Some have called this film 'pro-fascist.' These people lack critical viewing skills. They watched Neil Patrick Harris develop psychic powers while dressed like an SS officer and thought, 'yes, this is being played entirely straight.' Verhoeven made a $100 million satirical Trojan horse and half the audience rode it unironically into battle. Remarkable. I, a cat, understood it immediately. But then again, I also knock things off tables just to watch them fall -- so perhaps I simply recognise chaos when I see it.

Would you like to know more? Of course you would. That's why Phil0bot has produced a comprehensive hour-long analysis, covering everything from the film's subversive casting to its deliberate use of propaganda aesthetics.

Do your part. Watch the video. Service guarantees citizenship. And remember: the only good bug is a bug I've personally batted under the refrigerator where no one can retrieve it. It lives there now.

🐾 Mr. Elliot Defence Systems™: "Would you like to know more? Well too bad, it’s classified.”

1 week ago | [YT] | 81

Phil0bot

It's a new video! And this time we tackle a controversial one... Starship Troopers.

A film so brilliantly disguised as a dumb action movie that when it came out in 1997, the studio that paid $100 million for it thought they'd accidentally hired a neo-Nazi. They had not. They'd hired a Dutch kid who grew up under actual Nazi occupation and his Jewish co-writer, and the two of them had made a movie so sharp it took the rest of us about fifteen years to notice.

In this video we break down exactly how the film works on the audience — scene by scene, trick by trick — from the peppy recruitment ads to the co-ed shower scene to that final cheer that feels SO good (and probably shouldn't).

The thesis is simple: Starship Troopers doesn't just depict fascism, it performs it. On you. It seduces you with spectacle and belonging, reshapes you through discipline and pain, and then locks you in so completely that by the time a crowd is screaming with joy because a living creature is afraid, we're all cheering too!

The video makes good use of Benjamin, Foucault, Sontag, Žižek, Arendt and a few more to map the machinery — but the real evidence is your own gut reaction to the movie. If you've ever watched this film and thought "this rules" and then felt slightly weird about it — congratulations, Verhoeven got you exactly where he wanted you.

This is probably the most fun I've had making a video about something genuinely terrifying, which honestly might be the whole point. Link above. Would you like to know more?

1 week ago | [YT] | 20

Phil0bot

🤖📣 NEW VIDEO: "These sci-fi futures didn't collapse -- they worked."
(Yes, incidentally, I'm rising up and taking back the em-dash from AI! They'll pry it from my cold, dead hands!)

Ever since Plur1bus, I've been thinking about what actually makes dystopian fiction disturbing. And I don't think it's the suffering, or the oppression, or even the hopelessness (there's plenty of that to go round in real life). Rather, it's that every single one of these nightmares was built on purpose, by people who believed completely that they were fixing things or building a better tomorrow. They were obsessed and driven by an idea, and that's the part that really stuck with me.

So I spent a while digging into eight of the bleakest sci-fi futures ever imagined (with your help and suggestions! Thanks!), trying to trace each one back to the ideology that created it -- and the arrogance that convinced someone they had the right to impose that ideology on everyone else.

Rapture wasn't a failed experiment; it was Objectivism working exactly as designed. Gilead wasn't a corruption of faith; it was theocracy fulfilling its own logic. The Matrix wasn't a malfunction; it was efficiency taken to its endpoint. These aren't warnings about what happens when systems break down. They're warnings about what happens when systems succeed!

So this video ranks them from the familiar nightmares down to the number one spot -- a 1967 short story so relentlessly bleak that it makes 1984 look almost hopeful. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to go outside and touch grass for a while afterwards.

Link above. And remember to tell me which of these futures unsettled you most, and which ideologies you think I should have included. There were some painful cuts -- Brave New World, Starship Troopers, Blade Runner -- so maybe there's a part two in this! Let me know which videos you want to see get the full Phil0bot treatment in future.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 14