Blithering Genius

T. K. Van Allen, better known as Blithering Genius, is a Canadian philosopher, biologist, sociologist, computer scientist, book author, and YouTuber with 3000+ subscribers.
He has a Blogspot blog, TheWaywardAxolotl, and a Substack blog, Expanding Rationality.
He started making YouTube videos and blogging in 2013, and he continues to publish content to this day.
== YouTube ==
His usual YouTube video style is to feature an image from Wikimedia Commons or some other publicly available source and overlay the image with audio. As he's once said himself, many of his videos are more like podcasts than actual videos.Blithering Genius. Anarchy and Lions. Spreaker. 2020. 4:40 of https://www.spreaker.com/episode/anarchy-and-lions--18285814.
Most of his YouTube videos fall into roughly four categories:
# Audio versions of essays that he's written on his blog, TheWaywardAxolotl.
# Slideshows with bullet points on the screen, paired with audio.
# Discussions, debates, or responses with other people.
# Comment response videos where he responds in voice and in depth to comments posted on his YouTube videos.
Blithering Genius has a few videos on other platforms that are not available on YouTube, like the "Art of Propaganda", "Biological Realism", and "Imagine".
Other videos and discussions which aren't fit for being shown on YouTube can be listened to on his Spreaker channel.
He also has two videos where he shows his face, including "Showing My Face", which he created for that purpose specifically.
He got his first burst of subscribers when Karen Straughan mentioned his channel in one of her videos.Blithering Genius. Thanks Karen and Welcome New Subs!. YouTube. May 18, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYr8_wgS1so.
Since 2019, Blithering Genius has had a feud with another YouTube philosopher known as Inmendham over his philosophy of Efilism.
Inmendham has declined to have a recorded voice debate with Blithering Genius, so the feud has resulted in a series of response videos between the two YouTubers.
Blithering Genius has a playlist that features most of his Efilism-related videos and response videos to Inmendham. Blithering Genius. Efilism Playlist. YouTube. July 14, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTpAXDT40cuhkXoUWZlfyY6vsxyt1Mels.
=== Content Themes ===
Much of his content talks about recurring themes:
* The Phenocentric Theory of Evolution
* Selfishness versus Altruism
* Race Realism
* Sex Realism & Anti-Feminism
* Sexual Market & Relations
* Academic Skepticism
* The Nature of Truth and Knowledge
* Population Dynamics and Fertility Rates
* Eugenic Population Control
* Theism & Atheism
* Axiology
* Amoralism & the Nature of Morality
* Political Theory
* Game Theory
* Memetic Theory
* Ideologies and Humanism
* Motivation and Emotions
* The Nature of Technology
* Evolutionary Mismatch
* Efilism
* Humanism
* Rationality vs Irrationality
== Personal Life ==
=== Bibliography ===
As of 2024, Blithering Genius has published five books:
* On the Edge, published on 2017 December 18.
* Immanentizing the Abyss, published on 2021 January 16.
* Futurist Fantasies, published on 2022 December 12.
* Debunking the Selfish Gene, published on 2022 December 12.
* Lucifer's Question, published on 2024 January 4.
On the Edge, Immanentizing the Abyss, and Lucifer's Question are three collections of writing (mostly essays) on biology, culture, society, and philosophy. The books talk about some of the biggest questions and issues of modern times, and they present ideas outside the Overton Window that many would consider to be controversial or even heretical.
Most of the essays are about abstract topics. A few deal with specific events or political issues of the day. The main focus is on the problems of modern civilization.
The stated over-arching goal of Blithering Genius's writing is to expand rationality.T. K. Van Allen. On the Edge. Kindle Direct Publishing. 2017 December 18. https://www.amazon.com/Edge-T-K-Van-Allen-ebook/dp/B078H8KJLK.
Lucifer's Question is arguably the most different from the other two books since it has more essays that focus on value, ideologies, and epistemology than the other two.T. K. Van Allen. Lucifer's Question. Kindle Direct Publishing. 2024 January 4. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRQN9T94.
Debunking the Selfish Gene is a book that claims to debunk Richard Dawkins' concept of the selfish gene, which situates biological purpose in genes, rather than the organism as a whole. It also presents the phenocentric theory of biological purpose as an alternative to the genocentric "selfish gene" theory.T. K. Van Allen. Debunking the Selfish Gene. Kindle Direct Publishing. 2022 December 12. https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Selfish-Gene-Van-Allen-ebook/dp/B0BPXJ85W7. Blithering Genius argues that the genocentric and species-centric theories of biological purpose are wrong because they mistaken an instance-type relationship as a part-whole relationship.Blithering Genius. Debunking the Selfish Gene (Book Summary). The Wayward Axolotl. November 27, 2023. https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Selfish-Gene-Van-Allen-ebook/dp/B0BPXJ85W7.
Futurist Fantasies is a book that claims to debunk popular futurist ideas, using basic physics and economics. It deals with megastructures, space flight, asteroid mining, space colonization and industrialization, robots/AI taking over the world, the Fermi paradox, and the Star Trek worldview. It also describes some of the more overlooked dangers of modern technology.T. K. Van Allen. Futurist Fantasies. Kindle Direct Publishing. 2022 December 12. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPXKWDVC.
== Controversies ==
On August 15, 2018, his video "Imagine" was removed from YouTube for violating YouTube's Community guidelines.
The video is a parody of John Lennon's song, "Imagine", that mocks the violence of radical Islamic extremists.
Blithering Genius created the video in response to the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.
He uploaded the video to BitChute two days after the video was removed from YouTube.Blithering Genius. Imagine. BitChute. August 17, 2018. https://www.bitchute.com/video/q4TI6YBCyMVP/.
On January 1, 2020, his video "The Art of Propaganda" was removed from YouTube for violating YouTube's Community guidelines.
The video features an analysis of how mass propaganda and rhetoric works, as well as some excerpts from The Triumph of the Will and Mein Kampf.
He uploaded the video to BitChute on the same day that it was removed from YouTube.Blithering Genius. The Art of Propaganda. BitChute. January 1, 2020. https://www.bitchute.com/video/q4TI6YBCyMVP/.
On RationalWiki, Blithering Genius has been accused of being sympathetic to white nationalism, racialism, and anti-feminism.LiamM32. Blithering Genius. RationalWiki. February 16, 2024. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Blithering_Genius.
Blithering Genius has written a response to the RationalWiki article.Blithering Genius. Response to my RatWiki Entry. The Wayward Axolotl. November 17, 2023. https://thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com/2023/11/response-to-my-ratwiki-entry.html.
== Trivia ==
* The reason why the blog is called "The Wayward Axolotl" is because when he first created it, he had to choose a random name until he found one that was available. Back in 2013, you had to guess a unique name for a blog.Blithering Genius. Response to my RatWiki Entry. The Wayward Axolotl. November 17, 2023. https://thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com/2023/11/response-to-my-ratwiki-entry.html.
* The reason why his online screen name is "Blithering Genius" is for the same reason. He needed to choose a unique name, and he came up with "Blithering Genius" in less than a minute when he created his YouTube channel, and he has stuck with that name ever since.
* Many people have made puns on his name like "Coherent Moron", "Articulate Idiot", "Blithering Idiot", etc as compliments or insults. Some people have also criticized the name for being "arrogant", but it's really just a joke name and an oxymoron that was randomly created since he needed a unique username for starting his YouTube channel.
==References==
Category:Canadian YouTubers
Category:Educational YouTubers
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2013
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