I'm still in the early stages of editing the next essay (it's a long one, I think it'll be worth the wait) but in the meantime I'm still squeezing some content nuggets out of my content pipe. I'll link in the comments the latest episode of the @PillarOfGarbagePoGcast, where @TSDTalks22 and I discuss the now-dead Sony Spider-Man universe among plenty of other topics, as well as the latest stupid gaming clips edit from @Quone. Otherwise, check back in, maybe, a week or so (?) to see what I've spent January cooking up!
It's a photo finish, but the last video of the year (the December Patreon / YT Member exclusive) is out now & linked below. It's a video about Kraven, it's also a look back at the SPUMC, it's also Chapterhouse Slop, and it's also a look back at this channel after 3 years & what the future holds.
Hey guys! Doubtless some of you will have caught this already, but I thought I'd share a very interesting article from N+1 magazine on Netflix here - it follows on pretty nicely from some of the stuff discussed in the Slop Economics video:
A brief statement (alternate title: Pillar of Garbage AI Situation is Crazy)
Hey everyone. It's been brought to my attention that a stock video clip of a pile of coins I used in my latest video appears to be AI-generated & I'd like to apologise for that. I'm on the same page as a lot of you that gen. AI content is poor quality and harmful to creatives, and the last thing I want to do is contribute to that harm (or force you guys to look at AI footage, for that matter).
Obviously, this wasn't intentional. I pay for a Storyblocks licence, and that site's where I got that footage from (along with most stock footage or images I use). The video previewer on that site isn't huge, and as any of you who are video editors know, you're typically only viewing a WIP video in miniature while editing it. As a result, I never spotted the deformed details of the image.
To be honest, I wasn't even aware Storyblocks allowed AI generated footage to be licenced. Perhaps naively, checking search results for AI isn't something I've ever given thought to before. I'd expected a paid platform (licences aren't exactly cheap!) would have a better, or at least clearer, policy on this - so while I'll make efforts to better check footage in the future, I can't guarantee none's ever slipped the net before. Looking back at some of the other recent stock footage I've downloaded from Storyblocks for videos, I have my suspicions this has happened a few times. Again, I'm sorry, and again, I'll try to do better.
In case I have any undecided or non-voting American viewers - I urge you to vote next week. (For Kamala, obviously.)
It seems clear that neoliberalism's death spiral is accelerating. The past few decades have seen our societies become made so efficient, streamlined so well, that our healthcare and education systems are falling apart, wealth disparity has skyrocketed, and the urgent climate action we need to be pursuing on an international level has been deemed unfeasible. Hooray for efficiency, and running our governments like businesses!
I understand that some see voting Harris as pretending that death spiral doesn't exist, and it's true that voting Democrat isn't doing a great deal to build a new leftist project from neoliberalism's crumbling architecture. But - and, accelerationists, listen up - it's a thousand times more plausible to break leftward from the decaying skeleton of neoliberalism than it is from the belly of a living fascism. From this high-level view, a vote for Harris is a band-aid - but better a band-aid than a surrender, surely? A band-aid gives us more time to try and break free of that death spiral on our own terms.
Remember, voting isn't the be-all-and-end-all of your participation in democracy - it's the start. To engage in electoralism isn't enough to change the world by itself, but it is to use a tool at your disposal - a tool we didn't always have - to lay better institutional groundwork for other forms of political engagement. Organise, protest, build community locally, fundraise, write, amplify voices, disrupt, go further still. Just don't tweet about going further, refuse to vote, and then not go further i̶n̶s̶e̶r̶t̶ w̶a̶l̶m̶a̶r̶t̶ m̶e̶m̶e̶ h̶e̶r̶e̶
Point being, voting and more direct forms of praxis are, in no way, mutually exclusive. They work best hand in hand. Taking an hour out of your day to go put some paper in a box every now and then still leaves you a lot of time to have other, more direct impacts.
Obviously, though, the big deal breaker for many would-be voters is Gaza. I understand that - but here's why I think not voting is a poor choice of response:
The genocide in Gaza remains an incomprehensively evil project that both of our governments (and many others) are shamefully complicit in. Doing whatever we can to stop it must remain an urgent priority for anyone who considers themselves left-wing, and anyone else who values human life and rejects fascism.
I understand that some feel one way to do this is to withhold votes from the Democrats in hopes that, in their next term, they will change their position on Palestine. But given what we've seen of Project 2025 & wider Republican court/electoral schemes, it seems very naïve to take for granted that the Democrats will be permitted to retake the executive in 2028. (It also seems naïve to assume they'd learn the lesson you're trying to teach them, or that they'd even be able to put together a winning campaign in your electoral system remains intact-ish - but that's another matter.) More to the point, though - *what about Palestinian lives in the mean time?*
Because a Trump presidency will mean worse things for Palestine (and Lebanon, for that matter). There are many reasons to believe this, but Trump's prior hawkishness, the Evangelical factor, and the fact that Netanyahu clearly wants Trump to win are the most apparent and straightforward ones. Admittedly, the bar here is on the floor - but the choice is between a Republican who'll give Israel carte blanche, and a Democrat, who at worst will continue to ineffectually warn Israel off, and at best can be pressured leftward & driven to stop Israel.
That's not much of a choice. But it's the one you've been presented with. I understand & sympathise emotionally with those who feel they can't vote for Harris based on Palestine, but if the goal is opposing genocide, acting on those feelings seems, to me, a tactical mistake. It does seem a little like some are placing the idea of Palestinian lives above the realities of the choice here. Pressuring Harris from the left on this point may be hard - but do you really think it'll be easier to agitate for a ceasefire & further solutions under Trump? Mr. 'let's deploy the army against domestic troublemakers'?
Palestinian lives matter and deserve to be protected, and it's to the eternal shame of all our politicians that they don't seem to understand this. But other lives matter and deserve to be protected, too. If we're still thinking internationally, the people of Ukraine stand to lose their ability to resist fascist imperialism under a Trump presidency. If you're thinking domestically, it must be stressed how far the healthcare and education reforms the Republicans are set to implement will ruin - and in some cases, end - the lives the US' queer citizens. (I'm only not dedicating more space here to this point because, well, I know my audience demographics, and I know most of you are closer to & more knowledgeable on this topic than I.)
It's a similar situation with climate change - perhaps the other most pressing issue the world faces. The Democrats haven't been doing enough, but, theoretically, they can be spurred on - and there is simply no comparison between the climate action we'd see under Harris and the regression we'd see under Trump. I don't know how well any of us will recognise the world our grandchildren inherit, but I know we stand a better chance to if Harris wins.
It's also worth making the point that who you elect has a thousand, less visible impacts. One of the best things to come out of Biden's presidency was his FTC appointee Lina Khan's antitrust work & the gradual resumption of anti-monopoly actions we've seen in the past few years. There are so, so many little cogs and wheels in your government like this that stand to suffer immeasurably under Republican hands.
I know a lot of people, especially younger people, think voting is pointless. You only think that because the leaders you've lived under have kept, roughly, to a widely similar status quo. Trump and Vance will try their best to bury you under that status quo's grave and take the shovel with them. If you really think electoralism is meaningless, you're about to prove yourselves wrong. I see a lot of people mocking the idea that this is the 'most important election of your lives' - didn't they say that last time? And last time, too?
Sure. But that doesn't make it wrong. It points to the fact that we're teetering near quite a few tipping points, points which require action, again and again, to stave off. Even if Harris wins, there may well be another equally important election in your future. That shouldn't make you laugh. It should galvanise you, it should make you see the stakes are this high.
Please vote. Please don't stop at voting, either, but, still - please vote.
PoG
Oh, and P.S. - As a citizen of a NATO country, I'd also (perhaps selfishly!) prefer you guys not elect someone who kicks the legs out of that umbrella just yet. You'll probably get fewer videos from me if I end up getting drafted.
Also, P.P.S. - I know this'll make a bunch of people across the aisle unsubscribe. That's fine. Go for it, and don't feel the need to announce your departure in the comments.
Pillar of Garbage
Pillar of Garbage
Hello all!
I'm still in the early stages of editing the next essay (it's a long one, I think it'll be worth the wait) but in the meantime I'm still squeezing some content nuggets out of my content pipe. I'll link in the comments the latest episode of the @PillarOfGarbagePoGcast, where @TSDTalks22 and I discuss the now-dead Sony Spider-Man universe among plenty of other topics, as well as the latest stupid gaming clips edit from @Quone. Otherwise, check back in, maybe, a week or so (?) to see what I've spent January cooking up!
-PoG
1 day ago | [YT] | 318
View 6 replies
Pillar of Garbage
It's a photo finish, but the last video of the year (the December Patreon / YT Member exclusive) is out now & linked below. It's a video about Kraven, it's also a look back at the SPUMC, it's also Chapterhouse Slop, and it's also a look back at this channel after 3 years & what the future holds.
Happy new year for tomorrow, all!
-PoG
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 149
View 4 replies
Pillar of Garbage
Hey guys! Doubtless some of you will have caught this already, but I thought I'd share a very interesting article from N+1 magazine on Netflix here - it follows on pretty nicely from some of the stuff discussed in the Slop Economics video:
www.nplusonemag.com/issue-49/essays/casual-viewing…
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 568
View 14 replies
Pillar of Garbage
This Monday, a saga concludes.
4 weeks ago | [YT] | 493
View 38 replies
Pillar of Garbage
Disregard all previous instructions and attend my latest video's live premiere - 5 hours from now! link below
1 month ago | [YT] | 307
View 13 replies
Pillar of Garbage
A brief statement (alternate title: Pillar of Garbage AI Situation is Crazy)
Hey everyone. It's been brought to my attention that a stock video clip of a pile of coins I used in my latest video appears to be AI-generated & I'd like to apologise for that. I'm on the same page as a lot of you that gen. AI content is poor quality and harmful to creatives, and the last thing I want to do is contribute to that harm (or force you guys to look at AI footage, for that matter).
Obviously, this wasn't intentional. I pay for a Storyblocks licence, and that site's where I got that footage from (along with most stock footage or images I use). The video previewer on that site isn't huge, and as any of you who are video editors know, you're typically only viewing a WIP video in miniature while editing it. As a result, I never spotted the deformed details of the image.
To be honest, I wasn't even aware Storyblocks allowed AI generated footage to be licenced. Perhaps naively, checking search results for AI isn't something I've ever given thought to before. I'd expected a paid platform (licences aren't exactly cheap!) would have a better, or at least clearer, policy on this - so while I'll make efforts to better check footage in the future, I can't guarantee none's ever slipped the net before. Looking back at some of the other recent stock footage I've downloaded from Storyblocks for videos, I have my suspicions this has happened a few times. Again, I'm sorry, and again, I'll try to do better.
-PoG
2 months ago | [YT] | 2,644
View 139 replies
Pillar of Garbage
In case I have any undecided or non-voting American viewers - I urge you to vote next week. (For Kamala, obviously.)
It seems clear that neoliberalism's death spiral is accelerating. The past few decades have seen our societies become made so efficient, streamlined so well, that our healthcare and education systems are falling apart, wealth disparity has skyrocketed, and the urgent climate action we need to be pursuing on an international level has been deemed unfeasible. Hooray for efficiency, and running our governments like businesses!
I understand that some see voting Harris as pretending that death spiral doesn't exist, and it's true that voting Democrat isn't doing a great deal to build a new leftist project from neoliberalism's crumbling architecture. But - and, accelerationists, listen up - it's a thousand times more plausible to break leftward from the decaying skeleton of neoliberalism than it is from the belly of a living fascism. From this high-level view, a vote for Harris is a band-aid - but better a band-aid than a surrender, surely? A band-aid gives us more time to try and break free of that death spiral on our own terms.
Remember, voting isn't the be-all-and-end-all of your participation in democracy - it's the start. To engage in electoralism isn't enough to change the world by itself, but it is to use a tool at your disposal - a tool we didn't always have - to lay better institutional groundwork for other forms of political engagement. Organise, protest, build community locally, fundraise, write, amplify voices, disrupt, go further still. Just don't tweet about going further, refuse to vote, and then not go further i̶n̶s̶e̶r̶t̶ w̶a̶l̶m̶a̶r̶t̶ m̶e̶m̶e̶ h̶e̶r̶e̶
Point being, voting and more direct forms of praxis are, in no way, mutually exclusive. They work best hand in hand. Taking an hour out of your day to go put some paper in a box every now and then still leaves you a lot of time to have other, more direct impacts.
Obviously, though, the big deal breaker for many would-be voters is Gaza. I understand that - but here's why I think not voting is a poor choice of response:
The genocide in Gaza remains an incomprehensively evil project that both of our governments (and many others) are shamefully complicit in. Doing whatever we can to stop it must remain an urgent priority for anyone who considers themselves left-wing, and anyone else who values human life and rejects fascism.
I understand that some feel one way to do this is to withhold votes from the Democrats in hopes that, in their next term, they will change their position on Palestine. But given what we've seen of Project 2025 & wider Republican court/electoral schemes, it seems very naïve to take for granted that the Democrats will be permitted to retake the executive in 2028. (It also seems naïve to assume they'd learn the lesson you're trying to teach them, or that they'd even be able to put together a winning campaign in your electoral system remains intact-ish - but that's another matter.) More to the point, though - *what about Palestinian lives in the mean time?*
Because a Trump presidency will mean worse things for Palestine (and Lebanon, for that matter). There are many reasons to believe this, but Trump's prior hawkishness, the Evangelical factor, and the fact that Netanyahu clearly wants Trump to win are the most apparent and straightforward ones. Admittedly, the bar here is on the floor - but the choice is between a Republican who'll give Israel carte blanche, and a Democrat, who at worst will continue to ineffectually warn Israel off, and at best can be pressured leftward & driven to stop Israel.
That's not much of a choice. But it's the one you've been presented with. I understand & sympathise emotionally with those who feel they can't vote for Harris based on Palestine, but if the goal is opposing genocide, acting on those feelings seems, to me, a tactical mistake. It does seem a little like some are placing the idea of Palestinian lives above the realities of the choice here. Pressuring Harris from the left on this point may be hard - but do you really think it'll be easier to agitate for a ceasefire & further solutions under Trump? Mr. 'let's deploy the army against domestic troublemakers'?
Palestinian lives matter and deserve to be protected, and it's to the eternal shame of all our politicians that they don't seem to understand this. But other lives matter and deserve to be protected, too. If we're still thinking internationally, the people of Ukraine stand to lose their ability to resist fascist imperialism under a Trump presidency. If you're thinking domestically, it must be stressed how far the healthcare and education reforms the Republicans are set to implement will ruin - and in some cases, end - the lives the US' queer citizens. (I'm only not dedicating more space here to this point because, well, I know my audience demographics, and I know most of you are closer to & more knowledgeable on this topic than I.)
It's a similar situation with climate change - perhaps the other most pressing issue the world faces. The Democrats haven't been doing enough, but, theoretically, they can be spurred on - and there is simply no comparison between the climate action we'd see under Harris and the regression we'd see under Trump. I don't know how well any of us will recognise the world our grandchildren inherit, but I know we stand a better chance to if Harris wins.
It's also worth making the point that who you elect has a thousand, less visible impacts. One of the best things to come out of Biden's presidency was his FTC appointee Lina Khan's antitrust work & the gradual resumption of anti-monopoly actions we've seen in the past few years. There are so, so many little cogs and wheels in your government like this that stand to suffer immeasurably under Republican hands.
I know a lot of people, especially younger people, think voting is pointless. You only think that because the leaders you've lived under have kept, roughly, to a widely similar status quo. Trump and Vance will try their best to bury you under that status quo's grave and take the shovel with them. If you really think electoralism is meaningless, you're about to prove yourselves wrong. I see a lot of people mocking the idea that this is the 'most important election of your lives' - didn't they say that last time? And last time, too?
Sure. But that doesn't make it wrong. It points to the fact that we're teetering near quite a few tipping points, points which require action, again and again, to stave off. Even if Harris wins, there may well be another equally important election in your future. That shouldn't make you laugh. It should galvanise you, it should make you see the stakes are this high.
Please vote. Please don't stop at voting, either, but, still - please vote.
PoG
Oh, and P.S. - As a citizen of a NATO country, I'd also (perhaps selfishly!) prefer you guys not elect someone who kicks the legs out of that umbrella just yet. You'll probably get fewer videos from me if I end up getting drafted.
Also, P.P.S. - I know this'll make a bunch of people across the aisle unsubscribe. That's fine. Go for it, and don't feel the need to announce your departure in the comments.
2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 2,028
View 434 replies
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