I haven't really made a script for this video so I apologize if it comes off as Brambley, but I felt like this was something that I needed to talk about. I've noticed lately that a pretty significant amount of my viewers are on the younger side of things, which makes sense because I mostly make videos that are aimed toward people who are just getting into politics and need sort of simple explanations for things. And I wanted to just say a few quick words to these younger people in my audience, or really anyone in my audience who's new to politics doesn't actually have to be young people. And by young people I'm talking like 13 to 18 around there, young is a relative term. Let's not get caught up in semantics. First of all, I know what it's like to be talked down to by old people. I'm not here to tell you that you don't know anything that you need to grow up, that your generation is so bad and my generation is so much better blah blah. That's baloney, you know it. I know. That's not what I'm here for. What I want to do is give some advice to people that may be going through what I went through when I was young and I first started getting into politics. It might not apply or be relevant to every younger person watching, but if it helps out just one person, then that's worth it. Gen C and Gen Alpha will be the first generations to have grown up, not only with the internet, but in a world actively threatened by climate change and the long term consequences of neoliberalism and the capitalist powers winning the Cold War. The world looks bleaker and bleaker every day and it gets harder and harder to deny that something is fundamentally effed up with the world. I think that means that these generations are going to be more politically radical than the ones preceding them for the people who choose to become educated in politics to find out what's wrong with the world and what can be done about it. It can often feel like you need to find answers very quickly that you need to find an ideological label to put on yourself to pick a side in every sectarian conflict or debate. When I was young and getting into politics, joining the Communist Youth League gave me friends, gave me a community and it gave me an identity and I think it's that last part that can be a bit tricky and maybe a bit problematic. Being young and entering my teenage years, I had this need to find out who I am and what I believe. I was obsessed for a while with all of the different socialist ideologies and sub ideologies, like anarcho-communism versus anarchism, Stalinism versus straticism, Mao Zedong thought versus Kansalov thought. I made a whole video about the semantic differences between socialism and communist Marxism. You've probably seen it. It's by far my most watched video and a lot of people in the comments have asked me to go into even more detail about the semantic differences between Luxembourgism and Leninism or whatever. But the truth is that this is not politics. This is astrology dressed up as politics. The political compass is a personality quiz more than anything else. Like authoritarianism and libertarianism aren't even respected phrases used in political science anymore. All of this stuff is all just like vibes based. It's a way to give yourself an identity and to create an in-group of people who are like me and an out-group of people who believe the wrong ideology. And political forms can feel like you're in a candy shop with hundreds of identities to try out and choose from. But honestly, that stuff is like poison when it comes to actually having a nuanced understanding of politics. Now I don't want to come across like I think that all you need to have read all of capital to be a real Marxist or whatever. But if you've only been interested in politics for like a year and your research is just reading the political compass ball wiki page for Marxism and Leninism and Maoism, I'm gonna be honest. You're not Chairman Gonzalo's most loyal follower of the Shining Path. You found an ideology to use as a personal identity for yourself, maybe even complete with a hat and a flag and a book that you keep in your pocket but have never actually read beyond a couple of pages. And that's fine. You're exploring your identity and you're trying to find out who you are. That's great. But from future me to past me when you're engaging in this kind of thing, I never call myself a MLM Gonzaloist. But like when you're engaging in this kind of thing, you're wasting your time. And by the time that you get serious about politics, it really honestly doesn't matter what like hyper specific brand of Marxist you identify as. What matters is understanding the fundamentals of Marxist analysis and being able to use that in any situation to confront new problems and not just problems that other Marxists have written about in the past. Dogma, sectarianism and just thinking you know more than you really do are dangerous. You're gonna read a couple of Marxist books and some articles about China. Like you know everything and then be absolutely humbled by a member of the Chinese Communist Youth League in your email whose understanding of dialectical materialism is at the level of like a sociology professor in Sweden. Get used to listening, being patient, being open-minded and the thing that was the most difficult for me, being willing and able to change your mind about something and admitting when you don't know. You can't know everything. And skimming through a Wikipedia page gives you no authority to assert that you do. When you master these skills, you're going to have much better and more productive relationships with other leftists. You are, after all, fighting for a better world, just like you. You don't have to worry if you don't know what kind of socialist you are. Labels really aren't that important. So just focus on studying and organizing. Try to be self-reflective. It's easier said than done. I know I can't just say be reflective and then you're like, oh my god, you're self-reflective about everything. But just keep it in mind. Think about who you are and what biases you might have before speaking out of turn. Things like our gender, our race, our birth country, whether we're from a developed or developing country, they all affect our worldview, whether we intend it to or not. You are not immune to propaganda and you're not immune to having preconceived ideas or prejudices just because you don't want to have those things. No matter how scientific and logical and materialistic that you believe yourself to be, you're still human and preconceived ideas, prejudices, biases, they are things that affect everyone, no matter what. The person who says that they are without bias is going to be the most biased out of anyone. So keep that in mind. If you want to understand African socialism, it's probably best to learn from African socialist. If you want to understand the Palestinian struggle, learn from Palestinian socialist. If you want to understand women's struggle, learn from socialist women. And keep in mind that there isn't always a universalist solution to every problem across the globe. The world is complicated. People are complicated. Politics is complicated. But theology is complicated. It's going to take time to wrap your head around all of it. And that's okay. Don't be in a rush. And if you want to be in a community that has other people new to socialism and which values being curious and learning more and having an open mind, then I have a discord server. I'm pretty active on it and I honestly think that it's a really nice group of people. And I like being part of it. And if you're looking for just people to talk to or you have questions or you need book recommendations or anything else, then just pop in, say hello and we'd be happy to have you. Unrelated to the rest of the video, I've been getting questions and comments about why it's taking so long for me to put out new videos. And the truth is that I've been dealing with a kind of nebulous health complications. I've been undergoing various treatments and trying different medications. And I've just always been thinking that I'm going to get better soon and then I'm going to be able to get back to work on making new videos. And then I don't get better or I get worse and then I can't work. And then I have to try new treatments and it's just annoying. But yeah, that's that's basically it. And I also don't want to like pressure myself into making content for this channel just for the sake of making new content. I want to try to make the kinds of videos that I want to make and not just make videos for the sake of making videos, you know, that's why I've set my Patreon to be only one tier and it's one dollar and it's not per month. It is per video and a maximum of once a month. So that means that if I upload a video this month, my patrons get charged a dollar. If I don't upload a video this month, then no one gets charged anything. If I upload 10 videos this month, it's still just one dollar. That's how my Patreon works. Shameless plug for my Patreon. But I thought I would throw that in there and I made that change because I felt guilty basically taking money from people every month even though I wasn't making a new video every month. So yeah, that's why it is like that. If you like to become a patron, then you can do that. You get access to the Shrek video. I did a very long Marxist analysis of the entire Shrek movie with a friend and that's on Patreon. So if you would like access to that, just one dollar. Alright, that's it. That's my rant. That's my rambling. That's everything that I wanted to say. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening and I'll see you next time. Goodbye.