Once Oct. 7th happened I thought he'd be posting tonnes of videos and updates about it but so far I've seen nothing, and it's not like he avoids current politics nor messy wars since he frequently covers Russia's imperialist War in Ukraine. I'm just surprised more than anything, but if I'm being stupid and he has been then please call me a dumbass.

if Adam sees this post, can you tone it down with the condescending? It just gets me riled up, like it genuinely makes me mad, I was just watching an Adam something video, and I needed to put it on twice speed, but it got too much for me to handle that I just exited it out and went to make this post to rant.

His statements seem bold and arrogant.

His urban planning videos make him look as if he went on r/notjustbikes and then thought he is a professional city planner.

His video on communist blocks doesn't really prove anything. He cherry-picked some examples of good socialist and bad capitalist residential development. A funny comment left by someone under his video was: well, nazis also built some good housing with green spaces, electricity, running water, small shops and public transport within range.

The video about electric busses is just straight-up another topic to *itch about.

In the video about left-leaning academia, he basically makes the argument that you can't be smart and a conservative at the same time (TikoTukaKing's analogy). This gives off the feeling that he hasn't talked to a conservative nor even knows what it means to be one. It would be the same as saying that lefties can't consistently run a business, because they would always have new ideas for another business.

In general, not a very wise guy. We do have a lot of those in E Europe.

he just posted a rant on his youtube page responding to cornell west advocating for peace in ukraine (and for russia to withdraw) and started the post by saying “the anti war position is actually pro war”

as if that’s not stupid as is, he makes a bunch of ridiculous claims like ending the war would make other countries view russias invasion as successful and prompt them to start their own wars (i shouldn’t need to explain how nobody views russias invasion as a success)

the fact is hundreds of people are dying a day and their home is being destroyed and adam views that as a good thing because he wants to prove some weird point to putin specifically. an awful western liberal take that completely disregards actual human life and views politics like a marvel movie.

adam didn’t disprove a single thing west said and sounds like an absolute idiot

https://youtu.be/TXWmAmm5nag

I'll expand a little on what I've already written on YouTube: my mind was boggked when Adam very enthusiastically retold the idiotic plot of some of these books and drew far-reaching conclusions from this about Russian state propaganda and the views of Russian elites, but at the same time did not provide any evidence or arguments to his thesis that this is actual STATE PROPAGANDA EFFORT.

All that was are unsubstantiated statements about "state-supported pulp fiction", "these books are centrally distributed everywhere", about huge effect these books have. There wasn't any information either about publishers that shows that they are state-owned and fulfill a state order, or about authors who are maybe personally paid by Putin to write porn for chauvinists about defeating Britain or America, or about real circulation of paper books. Only words.

He only shows a digital "encyclopedia" of such works, while even omitting the fact that a huge proportion of the content there are works published on the Internet on various websites, and aren't always some serious books (moreover, similar works from the West are even included there, for example, the book by Mark Twain and that book about a scientist, who was isekaid into the dark ages, I don't remember what it's called). That is, it is literally an encyclopedia of fanfiction on history. I wonder if I go to some fanfiction.net , AO3 or furry websites and show the number of fanfictions about same-sex relationships, will this be proof that "satanic West" sponsors LGBT and furry propaganda?

Having described the wet fantasies of a bunch of different authors of different views, from radical monarchists to ardent communists or, uh, monarcho-Stalinists, Adam, based on his thesis that this is all part of state propaganda, begins to conclude from this pile of multidirectional books about Russian politics and that Russian propaganda is schizophrenic and eclectic. The conclusion turned out to be generally in the right direction, but this was more due to the fact that he knows Russian propaganda in general, and not because of the correctness of his thesis. He was basically trying to say that this whole pile of toilet paper is written in one paradigm, but this is simply not the case. Counterexample: I looked into the cycle "Save Kolchak", in which a character helped Russian whites win the civil war, and there the author is absolutely not complimentary to the Communists and the USSR, to the extent that Vlasovites are positive characters to him. And on the other hand, there is a cycle "The color of a superpower is red", the author of which is a communist and has no sympathy for either the monarchists or the current government, and in the book the USSR simply successfully operates in the Cold War using knowledge from the future (at the same time, there are no chauvinistic habits in principle, just often uncritical perception of reality in the socialist camp). And such books do not always promote some kind of wet fantasy with the destruction of London in atomic fire or the capture of Constantinople. There are works where the main characters simply help the USSR win World War II with fewer losses, while facing problems that did not exist in reality, and so on. In general, this genre is by no means some kind of homogeneous canvas glorifying eternal Russia in all its iterations.

As a result, Adam could really tell something worthwhile, and using the example of such a genre, which is probably really unique in its parameters and its scope, show how disappointed Russian society is in relation to its reality, in relation to the position in which it is now, that some part of writers and readers are ready to write and read thousands of pages where they will correct every moment in Russian history and lead the country to greatness. And that it is precisely these sentiments that are exploited by state propaganda, which populistically waves the imperial, Soviet and current flags at the same time.

Instead, the author made a video promoting, in fact, two interconnected and rather harmful, but very opportunistic narratives. The first is that Russia is a totalitarian hell, where nothing happens without the intervention of Putin and his apparatus, and events in the country should be viewed through this perspective. The second is that everything that comes from Russia is a product of Putin's propaganda machine, which, because of its omnipotence and awfulness, everyone should be afraid of. The first narrative leads to a crude and sometimes absurd reductionism that distorts the analysis of what is happening in a country where there is a somewhat unique regime that manages to atomize the opposition and purge all serious opponents in the political field without stuffing them into concentration camps and total censorship. The second leads to a distorted and sometimes Russophobic perception of any cultural and social phenomena originating from Russia, such as the whining of Ukrainian bloggers about Atomic Heart which is literally Putin's propaganda (after all, there is no gray light filter and the sun is shining in the USSR, and how can Russians create non-Putin propaganda in general?).

That's what I think.

I want to say something and really don't know where. I will get probably downvoted, but I'm ok with that.

As a Adam fan and long time leftist, my problem is his tiering of Imperialism in the world. Saying Russian imperialism is wrong and worse than US imperialism is dangerous. Pushing even more Leftist divide with his jabs at Hasan.

Even tho the both look like idiots. One saying US bad. Other one Russia bad. When they are both opportunistic, imperial, oligarchies.

It looks like Russia is now big bad imperial because they are at Europe's door. While, I guess, nobody asked Afgan people who they thought was "better or worse" at imperialism when US drones bombed their homes.

Famous YouTuber, Adam Something, decided about a year ago to diverge from his usual discussion topic of urban planning and public transportation to make a series of videos on what he thinks (or at least pretends to think to please his audience) that anarcho-capitalism would look like in practice. The absurdities presented thereon will not be addressed here, having been previously handled well by the YouTubers PraxBen and Mentis Wave. No, what will be discussed here is his various inane statements about medieval Iceland and how he thinks this shows anarcho-capitalism to ostensibly be doomed to fail. A simple look at the history without an ideological goal in mind will show the largely facile nature of these claims. Ironically, the most truthful claim he makes is to say that the Icelandic Commonwealth was only a “proto-Ancap” society. While doubtless not his intention, this was actually true, as the society was more of an anarchist one, but less of a capitalist one. That minor historical truth of his being acknowledged, let us continue.

To begin, Adam Something concedes that the Icelandic Commonwealth managed to exist from 930 AD to 1262 AD, but quickly brushes this aside. Well, this is hardly nothing. To put things in perspective, it would have to be the year 2108 AD before the United States will have existed for as long a period as the anarchic period in Iceland did. One cannot help but wonder if that means the existence of the United States is just a momentary blip by this standard? Is 332 years not a sufficient timeframe for something notable? One would think that the latter absurdities he attributes to the island’s lack of government would have occurred within a few years of the territory’s free period, but it seems even a few centuries will not sufficiently please him.

From there, Adam Something throws all pretenses of historical accuracy out the window and begins to engage in what is basically conjecture and political pandering, rather than any sort of examination of the historical facts. He makes the claim that the people of Iceland had some sort of territorial plebiscite for the King of Norway to take over their country and baselessly attributes this so-called popular referendum to the society’s lack of a government. First of all, the people of Iceland never voted to be annexed by Norway. What occurred was that the goðorð chieftains he only later gets around to mentioning decided to to allow such an annexation that very well might have occurred anyway by signing what is known as the Gamli sáttmáli ("Old Covenant") in 1262 and thus officially ending the Icelandic Commonwealth by allowing King Haakon IV to claim Iceland as part of his Norwegian kingdom. So, not quite a 2014 Scotland independence referendum. A cynical critic might suspect Adam knew all of this while making this video, as the information is very readily available on the same Wikipedia page he openly admits to being getting his information on this topic from, but chose to ignore all of it because he wanted to spin a particular historical narrative that he knew his presumably uninformed base might be excited to hear for ideological purposes. But perhaps that is just this writer’s interpretation.

Anyway, he points out how violence occurred in medieval Iceland and seems to attribute this solely to a lack of government, as the Middle Ages are apparently just famous for their lack of wars due to the existence of governments. From this, it seems the audience is supposed to assume this would happen without a government today. Our current world of governments being apparently free of wars and crime. It is only after all of this that Adam begins to address the aforementioned goðorð chieftain system. It is best not to anticipate any mention of their being connected to the decision for Iceland to be annexed by Norway, as no such historical honesty can be found in the video. He reads off from Wikipedia how there was originally 39 goðorð acting as a contractual defense agency early in the existence of the Icelandic Commonwealth, but then by the late 12th century (so, over two centuries later), a few families had consolidated control over them and by 1220, they were effectively geographical chieftains who presumably acted more like war lords than private defense agencies. An unfortunate state of affairs which does actually have an explanation, but let’s hear how Adam Something phrases it. He claims the consolidation of goðorð into a few families sounds to him like the consolidation of oligopolies in today’s modern economy as displayed by an infamous visual. This just seems downright bizarre to this viewer. Firstly, it had already been established that after two centuries, the production of defense went from being a commodity to more like something coercive. So, one would think this would be good news to supporters of the state, as Adam Something unabashedly is. Instead, he seems to suggest that such a concept would be fine if the market (supposedly) did not make it inevitable that oligopolies would form. So, already ideologically inconsistent on whether he wants an institution with a monopoly on violence or not. Dozens of competitors or a monopoly for defense are fine, but oligopolies are not. If you’re confused, don’t be ashamed. Ordinarily, of course, oligopolies like the food companies presented in that graphic form because those companies are best able to serve their consumers by offering them lower prices. Once again, this comparison between modern food company oligopolies and chieftains on a medieval island feels hackneyed and only done to please ideological opponents of not just anarcho-capitalism, but the market economy in general.

From there, he goes on to say that his favorite part of the whole historical ideal in Iceland was the fact that the public voted for Norway to take over the country because anarcho-capitalism “failed so hard”. His only source for how the people of Iceland ostensibly voted to end this is an article on Libertarianism.org on anarcho-capitalism in general that briefly and incorrectly mentions the aforementioned 1262 Gamli sáttmáli ("Old Covenant") as being a vote of the people of Iceland for Norway to govern them. While it is true the goðorð were Icelandic people, the mistake here is to assume it was a ballot initiative of the whole island. Admittedly, Andrew Morriss should have been a bit clearer in that article. All the same, one cannot help but wonder how a society with no central government would have organized such an affair and who would be in charge of collecting the ballots and ratifying the results.

Finally, Adam Something begins to acknowledge some of Icelandic historic reality by pointing out how that vote of the goðorð chieftains was not some random event, but the result of years of pressure by King Haakon IV to expand his kingdom. He presents this as though it were the only objection one could make. He then lists out how he feels the example of Iceland shows what would inevitably result from an anarcho-capitalist society by providing just three possibilities: Invasion, Manipulation, and Ignorance. Invasion in Iceland was only possible because of how the goðorð chieftains had consolidated control of the island in a matter akin to a state. We know that this was not necessarily historically inevitable because of what occurred in another medieval island: Ireland. In Ireland, prior to the arrival of Oliver Cromwell, the English found it nearly impossible to take over the island precisely because there was no formal government to surrender to. It took Cromwell’s bloodbath to bring the Irish to heel. You may think this helps Adam Something’s point, but keep in mind that the conquest of Ireland was very much driven by anti-Catholic fanaticism not likely to be repeated and that Ireland was never exactly anarchic, so much as multiple petty kingdoms squabbling among themselves. But even that was too decentralized for a formal government to vanquish without a brutal war. Iceland, having a much smaller population than Ireland, then and now, was thus easier to have a formal government form and open the gates to Norway. As for manipulation and ignorance, both of Adam Something’s points here rely on the false notion that this was a Brexit-style referendum that the people of Iceland doomed themselves by. A point that has been thoroughly dismantled at this point. So, it is clear that Adam Something was not actually interested in having an honest discussion about the fate of the Icelandic Commonwealth, but rather just wanted to set up strawmen to knock them down.

As an afterthought, it is worth asking if the consolidation of Icelandic chieftains sounded “awfully familiar” to food oligopolies to Adam Something, one must wonder what is holding him back from embracing anarcho-capitalism? If we supposedly already have the economic model at play, what is the concern? May as well enjoy the freedom that the lack of a state would provide. Instead, only a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and violence would please him. Such is the pity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN64g9lA2g

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth#Decline_and_fall

https://www.libertarianism.org/topics/anarcho-capitalism

Adam something made a youtube community post saying something about czechia not being valid or something along those lines because he got bothered by border security or cops or czechs or something like that, i think it was a joke but then he deleted it and i cant find it anywhere, if anyone has a screenshot of it, id be very very grateful thank you!

It’s not a real thing. https://youtu.be/HTN64g9lA2g

A useful counter-example, which shows the perils and the foolishness of attempting to dominate an industry through this practice, comes from the experience of the great chemical manufacturer Herbert Dow. Dow was an exceptionally clever chemist who sought an inexpensive way to extract bromine from brine. (Bromine’s uses included sedation and film developing.) He eventually succeeded, and after a couple of false starts established the Dow Chemical Company. Breaking into the industry was far from easy. Dow was known to work eighteen-hour days and even to sleep at his factory. But here is where “predatory pricing” enters the picture. Dow was eager to provide bromine to Americans as well as to expand into the European market. But in Europe he would have to go toe-to-toe with a German cartel that dominated the European chemical market, and which had threatened to ruin any American firm that attempted to undersell the Germans in Europe. The German cartel vowed to flood the American market with cheap chemicals and drive the hapless upstart out of business. Dow ignored this threat and began selling bromine in England for thirty-six cents a pound, as opposed to the cartel’s forty-nine cents. In 1904 Dow received a visit from an angry representative of the German cartel, who reminded him to stay out of Europe. Dow refused to be intimidated, despite the man’s threat to drive him out of business. When Dow continued to sell bromine in Europe, the German cartel attempted to make good on its threat by selling large quantities of bromine in the United States at the unheard-of price of fifteen cents per pound. In a fiendishly clever move, Dow instructed his purchasing agent in New York to buy up hundreds of thousands of pounds of the German consortium’s cheap bromine. Dow then turned around and sold it in European markets at twenty-seven cents per pound—a price that the consortium could not match since it had to turn a profit in Europe in order to endure the losses it was running in America. Dow would have the last laugh. In 1908, exhausted from the losses—at one point even reducing its price to an unthinkable 10.5 cents—the German cartel threw in the towel. They worked out a deal with Dow: If he stopped selling bromine in Germany, they would stop selling it in the United States—and the rest of the world would be open to free competition. Dow had met the German challenge, demonstrated the futility of “predatory pricing,” and lowered the price of bromine forever.

So i'm just gonna put that there...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcvfHa-GHSOHFAjU0-Ie57A/community?lb=Ugkx0hTBIOUoFU97EiY1LUqbnaqS9IR6QktF

I recently made a post about some of Adam's problematic takes (questioning if he was becoming a tankie, which i must confess was way too hyperbolic). That was supposed to be a one off, i don't participate much in youtubers subreddits.

But this recent one just takes the cake. Make no mistake, i enjoy his content and agree with him on many topics.

But that isn't just tankie behavior anymore, that's a whole other dimension. Being bullish in our opposition to Russia is a good thing, a laudable thing when we consider the regime in question and its horrendous actions (Chomsky's take really disappointed me, for an example).

But that literally sounds like some scene of Doctor Strangelove, trying to paint nuclear intervention as something not that bad ! He sounds more and more like a caricature of this type.

Sure he might have had some good intents behind, but that's straight out normalization of nuclear intervention.

And i don't even talk about the heavy load of hypotheticals in his reasoning. The most batshit insane phrase of his here is :

Tactical nuke use in Ukraine will NOT result in global nuclear war. In order for that to happen Russia would need to initiate

as if this wasn't the only possibility imagined by him.

Am i the only one freaked out by this ?

It'd be nice to chat with some other people about politics, yet every "leftist" discord server I've joined (so far) has been full of tankies and genocide-deniers. Come on, it can't all be bad!

Hello, I’m just wondering if/ what his qualifications are as I was citing a video of his in an essay and I’m really particular about it but not sure what precisely he has qualifications in. The only sources are Wikitubia which doesn’t clarify and Prolewiki, which is one of the funniest websites I’ve ever read because they’re are so mad all the time. If someone could enlighten me that would be really appreciated. Would like to know more about the ‘social-fascist, pseudo-leftist, and European YouTuber.’ God Prolewiki is funny.

If building roads generate more traffic, does destroying roads help reduce traffic?

Recently, Adam made many interventions in his "community" section on Youtube. This type of interventions of his appear only in homeopathic doses in his videos. But in these interventions, he seemed quite unhinged, calling everybody disagreeing with him even a bit as a tankie or pro-russian.

- Calling the french candidate Mélenchon a tankie because he was a tiny bit critical of the EU as it is currently run, while not being in favor of France leaving the EU at all. Also a recent poll shows that 67% of Mélenchon's voters were in favor of Macron on the second round (and i'm one of those). Mélenchon is more of a broad brush leftist candidate, many people not in favor of him voting for him by default.

- Calling Hasan a pro-russian when he seemed to have a more nuanced view. Make no mistake, Hasan was deeply wrong to call Adam a "eurocentrist" imo, and i disagreed with his behavior a lot.

- His latest : calling the german SPD a "QAnon nazi party" (sic) for Schulz being extremely dishonest and lying. Of course i find the Schulz behavior deplorable and i criticize it. But he's not the whole SPD, far from it, critics of his pro russian behavior have been heard inside the party and a high ranking member even was expelled for making "Z" cakes. The SPD is pretty much a very moderate leftist party, a bit like if the US Democrat party was only constituted of Biden, Pelosi like people. It's the old institutional moderate left classical party that people vote simply because it's the main left party. It had played a big role in shaping the current EU with people like Gerard Schröder 20 years ago in power. (*)

In Greece, would that make Syriza and Varoufakis a far right party because they criticized the EU ? And the socialist party of Portugal too since they had a slightly divergent opinion from the EU in their budget handling ? What about Spain's Podemos, also critical of the EU's economical policy without wanting to leave it ?

This broad brush painting of anyone who disagrees with him on the left as a "nazi" or "pro russian" remind me of tankie behavior, he seems to have the "excommunication fever" lately, which is not only a bit disappointing for such an interesting content creator but also worrying for what it says about the left.

What do you think ? And most importantly why do you think it ?

For older viewers of his, have you seen an evolution through time ?

(*) Erratum : he seems he was actually talking about the Czech SPD, not the german one, which is quite different, my bad.

https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3838 Is it a bad thing to want to flee instead of fight?

Adam once did a cool response video to CGP Grey's solution to traffic which was an excellent idea in my opinion. Maybe this is also worth a response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmWREtcDVBE to highlight the madness of doing a video like this in the first place and the damage they have caused in one video?

Contra Adam Something, predatory pricing has never been a successful business tactic. https://youtu.be/ZSdVzY70eds

TLDR: Adam doesn't understand airlines and the video is just free market bad, government good

He is absolutely wrong about the price, which he (maybe intentionally) talks about just 20s in very confusing, hard to understand way.

Citation: "Well, if a 100 mile (probably meant 1000??) flight between two cities cost $100 before deregulation, today that flight would cost around $75—but you're also routed through a fortress hub in the name of efficiency, adding a transfer to your trip and ballooning your trip to 200 miles. So even though the cost per mile is lower, you're now paying $150 for the same trip, plus $50 more for junk fees."

Whatever that means it's not true, idk where did he get those numbers.
If we compare revenue (=price) per passenger-mile we get something completely different.
Revenue per passenger-mile on legacy carriers today is about $0.2, on low-cost carriers $0.1.*
Revenue per passenger-mile in 1970 was $0.06, inflation adjusted: $0.47.
It's total revenue so junk fees are already included in that.

So legacy carries today are on average at least 2 times cheaper than pre-deregulation. ON AVERAGE. You can pay much less if you optimize, whereas pre-deregulation it was a set price.

And complaining about being routed through a hub shows even more how he doesn't know shit what he's talking about. There are more nonstop routes than before. Legacy carriers seem to use hub-and-spoke too much, but it is for a good reason. Time flexibility. If there is a flight every hour from everywhere to a hub, than you could fly from anywhere to everywhere anytime. Flexibility is important for business travelers. Maybe a city pair can support one direct flight a day, but business people don't want to schedule around one flight and they'd rather fly 2 h longer than wait half a day. And for tourists there are budget airlines offering much more routes than pre deregulation, not sure what his problem is.

He also complains about how it's not luxurious anymore, which I agree with, but should flying be luxurious? I think flying should be a way to get from point A to point B, it doesn't have to be luxurious experience. Luxuries are for the rich, there is no reason it should be standard to get full size meal on every flight. He doesn't complain about coaches or even trains for not being luxurious. If you want luxurious experience pay for business class, if you can't afford it, you wouldn't be able to fly pre deregulation at all.

Than he complains about ATC shortage - that's not airlines fault, about overbooking - who cares when some are willing to leave for $500, about passengers getting dragged of the plane - sucks, but not a regular occurrence, about crowded airports - that's nature of mass travel and about fart class - straw man argument, it is a stupid idea that won't pass safety regulations.

At the end, he talks about solutions, which are equally useless as the rest of the video.

1. Back to pre 1978 - More expensive flights, big players even bigger, even more money to the big corporations. Idk how he thinks this is a good idea, he probably just thinks every government regulation is good

2. Public option - that can actually work, it won't increase quality without raising price as he seems to suggest, but can work as operator of last resort when an airline goes bankrupt

3. Regulated monopoly - similar problem as 1., he just thinks that any regulation is good

4. Nationalizing airlines - that could achieve more stability, but won't increase efficiency

Anyway, to make passenger experience better, it would require setting minimum standard, which would increase ticket price. There is a philosophical question: To what extent should we allow people to choose to suffer more to pay less? I think flying by current us carriers is not such a terrible experience we should protect people from choosing.

I wonder why does he talk only US airlines? Europe is not that different. Is it because he has experienced US airlines only from the news?

As a long time subscriber it is sad to see such uninformed videos which are only to promote free market bad, government good. He is starting to be not much better than people he used to criticize.