Philosophy Tube

Britain Still Has Conversion Therapists. Here's Why.

Philosophy Tube — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 18:35:38 +0000

Where did conversion therapy come from, why is it so difficult to ban, and SURPRISE - why the hell is it so accepted in British politics and media??? Strap in.

LIVE Romcom About Parasocial Relationships! | 2026 Casting Announcement

Philosophy Tube — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 13:52:24 +0000

BLINK is on at the King’s Head Theatre from February! Get exclusive front row tickets: https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/blink-df19

Unlock the front two rows with code FRONTROW

Why the Thought of Having Kids Freaks me Out

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 18:00:08 +0000

Having children is a decision with huge ethical implications, and one that shapes our view of what kind of future is possible. So let's explore it!

You're Wrong About Birth Rates & Aging Populations

Philosophy Tube — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:24:37 +0000

Are birth rates and ageing populations actually worth worrying about? Or is there some philosophical shenanigans at work here? (Content warning for shenanigans.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Janet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros, “U.S. Population Growth, an Economic Driver, Grinds to a Halt,” in The Wall Street Journal

Sophie Alexander and Dana Hull, “Elon Musk Wants You To Have More Babies,” in Bloomberg

Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion

Amnesty Internatonal, “Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians”

Ashton Applewhite, This Chair Rocks

Étienne Balibar, We, the People of Europe?

Josh Boerman & June Sternbach, Ill Conceived

Elizabeth Bruenig, “The Pro-Baby Coalition of the Far Right,” in The Atlantic

Elizabeth Bruenig, “Why the Left Should Embrace Pronatalism,” in The Atlantic

Judith Butler, Who’s Afraid of Gender?

David Calnitsky, “Why the Left Should Care About Population Decline,” in Jacobin

Alexander Cockburn, “The Triumph of Crackpot Realism,” in The Nation

Millie Cooke, “Palestine Action terror ban risks ‘I am Spartacus’ moment, Labour peer warns,” in The Independent

Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism

Michel Foucault, “The Order of Discourse”

Sammy Gecsoyler, “‘Police would like this to go away’: disabled man arrested at Palestine Action event defends protest,” in The Guardian

Agnieszka Graff and Elżbieta Korolczuk, Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment

Tia Goldenberg, “After tumbling in polls, Netanyahu clings to power and aims to improve political standing during war,” in PBS News

Emma Green, “The Rebirth of America’s Pro-Natalist Movement,” in The Atlantic

Richard Jackson, “The anet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros, “U.S. Population Growth, an Economic Driver, Grinds to a Halt,” in The Wall Street Journal

Sophie Alexander and Dana Hull, “Elon Musk Wants You To Have More Babies,” in Bloomberg

Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion

Amnesty Internatonal, “Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians”

Ashton Applewhite, This Chair Rocks

Étienne Balibar, We, the People of Europe?

Josh Boerman & June Sternbach, Ill Conceived

Elizabeth Bruenig, “The Pro-Baby Coalition of the Far Right,” in The Atlantic

Elizabeth Bruenig, “Why the Left Should Embrace Pronatalism,” in The Atlantic

Judith Butler, Who’s Afraid of Gender?

David Calnitsky, “Why the Left Should Care About Population Decline,” in Jacobin

Alexander Cockburn, “The Triumph of Crackpot Realism,” in The Nation

Millie Cooke, “Palestine Action terror ban risks ‘I am Spartacus’ moment, Labour peer warns,” in The Independent

Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism

Michel Foucault, “The Order of Discourse”

Sammy Gecsoyler, “‘Police would like this to go away’: disabled man arrested at Palestine Action event defends protest,” in The Guardian

Agnieszka Graff and Elżbieta Korolczuk, Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment

Tia Goldenberg, “After tumbling in polls, Netanyahu clings to power and aims to improve political standing during war,” in PBS News

Emma Green, “The Rebirth of America’s Pro-Natalist Movement,” in The Atlantic

Richard Jackson, “The Epistemological Crisis of Counterterrorism”

Bianca Jagger, “Why I am marching for freedom of speech,” in The Independent

Sam Kriss, “The law that can be named is not the true law”

Taras Kuzio, “How Putin’s Russia embraced fascism while preaching anti-fascism,” in Atlantic Council

Huw Lemmy, “Who’s Afraid of Palestine Action?” in The London Review of Books

Anu Madgavkar et. al, “Dependency and Depopulation,” McKinsey Global Institute

Samuel Miller McDonald, “There Are Many Threats To Humanity. A Low Birth Rate Isn’t One of Them,” in Current Affairs

Phil Mullan, The Imaginary Time Bomb

Michael Naas, “Comme si, comme ca” in Derrida From Now On

Tom Nicholas, “Baby Bust: Why Conservatives Are Obsessed with Birth Rates Now”

Frank W. Notestein, “The Facts of Life,” in The Atlantic

Marc Novicoff, “The Loneliness of the Conservative Pronatalist,” in The Atlantic

Fred Pearce, “The World in 2076: The Population Bomb Has Imploded,” in New Scientist

Jonathon Porritt, “I was arrested at the Palestine Action ban protest – and it all still seems surreal,” in The Independent

Population Matters, “Elon Musk and the Population Apocalypse”

David Renton, “What is the Meaning of Support?” in The London Review of Books

Emine Sinmaz, “Almost 900 people arrested at Palestine Action ban protest, say Met police,” in The Guardian

Amanda Taub, “The Feminist Case for Spending Billions to Boost the Birthrate,” in The New York Times

TLDR News, “Has Japan’s Demographic Crisis Become Unsolvable?”

Darin Tenev, “La Déconstruction en enfant: the Concept of Phantasm in the Work of Derrida”

UNFPA, The Real Fertility Crisis

Stephanie van der Berg, “Israel is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Scholars’ Association Says,” in Reuters

Various, House of Commons Debates

Robyn Vinter and Ben Quinn, “Protester arrested over ‘Plasticine Action’ T-shirt: ‘How ridiculous is this?’” in The Guardian

Rebecca Wilks, "They’re just waiting for her to die": How austerity turns mental health patients into prisoners,” in The Lead

How Colonisers Lied About Indigenous American Land Use

Philosophy Tube — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 08:51:20 +0000

Early colonists in North America liked to pretend that American Indians weren't really "using" the land, and therefore it was okay to take it. This was never true! In this bonus segment to our Thomas Jefferson video, we bust this myth.

Rationalising Colonialism - How the US Stole Indigenous American Land

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 18:30:07 +0000

Thomas Jefferson's views on American Indians hugely shaped what the USA has become. Let's go super in depth to find out what he thought and the impact his ideas had, including his possible participation in settler colonialism and genocide. This episode features Jonathan Frakes as the voice of Thomas Jefferson.

Credits Musics:

'SMOKE' by Luke Levenson, ft. Abbey Smith

https://open.spotify.com/track/2DvonT751gQIRikzKDDGId
https://www.instagram.com/lukelevenson?igsh=NzVjbzFoNTJya2tl&utm_source=qr

The Problem with Video Essays

Philosophy Tube — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 16:30:10 +0000

An exploration of the limits of the video essay format, using a particular book as an example. Along the way we'll also learn about the gridding of the early USA, so there's some history and geography in there too! It's a weird one lol. You'll see,

The Outer Worlds: Coping with Nihilism | Nebula Plus

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 19:30:09 +0000

An artsy video about how playing a lot of video games is helping me confront nihilism. This video puts into practice a lot of what we learned in both Nietzsche videos, as well as some themes from Nolan Gertz's book "Nihilism."

Was Nietzsche MAGA?

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 19:30:16 +0000

Continuing our exploration of Friedrich Nietzsche, we apply his work to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement to learn about the Will to Power and Antimodernism.

Was Nietzsche Woke?

Philosophy Tube — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:00:09 +0000

An examination of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, putting him in his historical context and asking the big questions like, "Yo, this guy woke?"

Analysing Acting Performances Like A Pro

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 18:13:35 +0000

A little bonus video for the end of the year on my creative process when it comes to both acting and writing! Enjoy :)

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend Watch-Along Commentary | Nebula Plus

Philosophy Tube — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:31:23 +0000

Abigail Thorn and Morgana Ignis sit down to watch Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend, giving you their authentic reactions and a behind-the-scenes glimps!

TikTok Vs Democracy

Philosophy Tube — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 16:44:41 +0000

Social media impacts democracy in huge ways beyond the obvious "fake news" and "free speech" issues. It restructures the economy around "surveillance capitalism" and changes the way we communicate. Democracy and elections need information to function, so what's the fallout from altering the public information space with digital technology?

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend | Nebula Original

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 19:00:30 +0000

Discuss the film on Reddit.

Two former rivals reconnect over drinks and a quick bite. One is compulsively running through men and can’t kick the habit of drinking their blood, and the other is working through her trauma and settling down with a new career in monster counseling. Things get a little uncomfortable when the conversation turns to the same toxic lover that connected them — Count Dracula — one of whom is still entangled with him.

Watch the behind the scenes here.
Watch the outtakes here.

Abigail Thorn’s Dracula’s Ex-Girlfriend, directed by Valentina Vee, starring Morgana Ignis, Abigail Thorn & Brandon Rogers.

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend — Official Trailer | Nebula Original

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 15:30:19 +0000

Follow the channel to get notified when the film drops: https://nebula.tv/dex

Discuss the trailer on Reddit.

Abigail Thorn’s Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend is a short film premiering exclusively on Nebula September 13, 2024.

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend is directed by Valentina Vee and stars Morgana Ignis, Abigail Thorn, & Brandon Rogers.

How Philosophers Confront Death (ft. Caitlin Doughty)

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 17:00:09 +0000

Death is certain: we don't like thinking about it but it's true! But on Philosophy Tube we think about everything, so this episode confronts death head-on. We talk about why individuals find it so difficult to think about and plan for the end, what happens to YouTubers' channels when we die, and from there we shift gears. This is a video about Gaza, and COVID, and climate change, because our refusal to think about death enables us to keep ignoring it on a mass scale, even when our societies are implicated in it. From there we go into some broader artistic reflections about the difficulty of making art (or indeed content) about dying.

Pride Stream & Fiction Book Recs (Stream Highlights #2)

Philosophy Tube — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 22:34:50 +0000

The highlight reel from my most recent livestream, talking about the previous episode of the show ("I Read the Most Misunderstood Philosopher in the World") and how we made it, plus some queer fiction recommendations

Blooper Reel - 'The Most Misunderstood Philosopher in the World' | Nebula Plus

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 24 May 2024 17:26:23 +0000

We have fun on set hehehe

"I'm You From the Future" | Nebula Plus

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 10 May 2024 09:51:53 +0000

A dramatic scene we shot for an episode of Philosophy Tube, presented here in full without the video essay bits in between.

Starring Abigail Thorn & Rhys Tees
Filmed with MannBros Media
Sound Engineer Charlie Hurst
HMU by Jenny Morrell

The Most Misunderstood Philosopher in the World

Philosophy Tube — Thu, 09 May 2024 20:03:39 +0000

I read as much of Judith Butler's work as I could. They're often misunderstood, the subject of HUGE backlash, and perhaps best known for their theory of gender performativity. On this episode we learn about what they said and why so many people get them wrong.

Book Recommendations & Being Safe Online (Stream Highlights #1)

Philosophy Tube — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 14:30:24 +0000

Highlights from my most recent livestream where I explain how Philosophy Tube gets made and have some laughs!

Blooper Reel - 'Why We Can't Build Better Cities' | Nebula Plus

Philosophy Tube — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 13:57:51 +0000

Sometimes filming doesn't go as planned...

Why We Can’t Build Better Cities (ft. Not Just Bikes)

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 18:00:05 +0000

The building I was born in used to be a hospital - now it's luxury flats. Let's talk about how cities are developing, and the challenges to building better ones. We'll discuss gentrification, and then we'll pivot to talking about 15-minute conspiracy theories and the obstacles we face to thinking smarter about urban design.

We're Making a Vampire Movie with the Stars of Helluva Boss!

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 18:00:05 +0000

Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend has announced our cast - Morgana Ignis and Brandon Rogers will be starring alongside me!

How to Go From YouTube to Hollywood

Philosophy Tube — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 17:16:28 +0000

A little announcement - I've written a film, 'Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend,' and it's coming to Nebula! Also, an explanation of how Nebula works and what 'creator owned' actually means.

A Man Plagiarised My Work: Women, Money, & the Nation

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 19:00:08 +0000

An odyssey into womanhood and its meaning in the economy, its connection to The Family and the Nation, and the ways it's been abused... Covers both leftist and conservative arguments, and examines the history of fascist women in 1900s Britain.

What Ethical AI Really Means

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 16:09:38 +0000

What does 'ethical AI' really mean? Can we actually build it, or is it just marketing for tech companies?

Subscribe! http://tinyurl.com/pr99a46

TWITTER: @PhilosophyTube

INSTAGRAM, TIKTOK, TUMBLR, BLUESKY: @theabigailthorn

FAKEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/PhilosophyTube/

MERCH: https://store.nebula.tv/collections/philosophy-tube

MUSIC:

Readers! Do You Read by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/reappear/
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/

Original Music by Nina Richards: https://www.ninarichards.co.uk/

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Ulrich Aïvodji et al., “Fairwashing: The Risk of Rationalization,” in Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Machine Learning
Sam Altman, “Moore’s Law for Everything”
Robert V. Andelson, “Henry George and the Reconstruction of Capitalism,” in Robert Schalkenback Foundation
Sarah Andersen, “The Alt-Right Manipulated My Comic. Then AI Claimed It,” in The New York Times
Etienne Balibar, We, the People of Europe
Ashley Bardhan, “Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them,” in Futurism
Kyle Barr, “Just A Month After Launch, Sam Altman’s Worldcoin is Already Dying,” in Gizmodo
Fabian Beigang, “On the Advantages of Distinguishing Between Predictive and Allocative Fairness in Algorithmic Decision-Making,” in Minds and Machines
Blake Brittain, “AI-Generated Art Cannot Receive Copyrights, US Court Says,” in Reuters
Simone Browne, “Digital Epidermalization: Race, Identity, and Biometrics,” in Critical Sociology
Hasan Chowdhury, “ChatGPT cost a fortune to make with OpenAI's losses growing to $540 million last year, report says,” in BusinessInsider
Nicole Clark, “Amouranth made a chatbot clone to outsource flirting — and protect herself,” in Polygon
Kate Crawford, Atlas of AI
Neil Crawford & Laurenz Hudetz, “Variation semantics: when counterfactuals in explanations of algorithmic decisions are true,” in Philosophy of Science
Kathleen Creel, “Transparency in Complex Computational Systems,” in Philosophy of Science
Oliver Darcy, “BuzzFeed’s CEO says AI could usher in a ‘new model for digital media,’ but warns against a ‘dystopian’ path,” in CNN
Jeffrey Dastin, “Amazon Scraps Secret AI Recruiting Tool That Showed Bias Against Women,” in Reuters
Oisín Deery and Katherine Bailey, “The Bias Dilemma: The Ethics of Algorithmic Bias in Natural-Language Processing,” in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Sina Fazelpour and Zachary Lipton, “Algorithmic Fairness from a Non-ideal Perspective,” in Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society
F.D. Signifier, F**k the Police
Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch
Robert Fischli, “Data-Owning Democracy: Citizen Empowerment Through Data Ownership,” in European Journal of Political Philosophy
Sam Francis and Becky Morton, “Strikes Bill: Unions Criticise Plans as Unworkable,” in BBC News
Iason Gabriel, “Artificial Intelligence, Values, and Alignment,” in Minds and Machines
Timnit Gebru, “Effective Altruism is Pushing A Dangerous Brand of ‘AI Safety’,” in Wired
Henry George, Progress & Poverty
Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow, Chokepoint Capitalism
Ben Green, “Data Science as Political Action: Grounding Data Science in a Politics of Justice,” in Journal of Social Computing
Leif Hancox-Li, “Robustness in machine learning explanations: does it matter?” in Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
Jordan Harrod, Do Creators Need Generative AI?
Jordan Harrod, How AI caused the WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes
Fredrick Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty
Sara Hooker, “Moving Beyond ‘Algorithmic Bias’ is a Data Problem,” in Patterns
Lily Hu, “What is “Race” in Algorithmic Discrimination on the Basis of Race?” in Journal of Moral Philosophy
Darren Iversen, “When Marx Attacked The Single Tax,” in Merrion West
Jessicata, “My Experience At and Around MIRI and CFAR (Inspired by Zoe Curzi’s Writeup of Experiences at Leverage” in Lesswrong
Phil Jones, Work Without the Worker
Anja Kaspersen and Wendell Wallach, “Now is the Moment for a Systemic Reset of AI and Technology Governance”
Jodi Kantor, Karen Weise, and Grace Ashford, “The Amazon That Customers Don’t See,” in The New York
Os Keyes, “The Misgendering Machines: Trans/HCI Implications of Automatic Gender Recognition,” in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
David Kinney, “On the Explanatory Depth and Pragmatic Value of Coarse-Grained, Probabilistic, Causal Explanations,” in Philosophy of Science
David Kinney & Tania Lombrozo, “Evaluations of Causal Claims Reflect a Trade-Off Between Informativeness and Compression”
Anna Lauren-Hoffman, “Where Fairness Fails: Data, Algorithms, and the Limits of Antidiscrimination Discourse,” in Information, Communication & Society
Tiang-An Lin & Po-Husan Cameron Chen, “Artificial Intelligence in a Structurally Unjust Society,” in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly
John Locke, “Of Property,” in Second Treatise of Government
Annie Lowrey, “The Monk Who Thinks the World is Ending,” in The Atlantic
Arwa Mahdawi, “Nonconsensual Deepfake Porn is an Emergency that Is Ruining Lives,” in The Guardian
Emanuel Maiberg, “Inside the AI Porn Marketplace Where Everything and Everyone is For Sale,” in 404
Gary Marcus, “What If Generative AI Turned Out To Be A Dud?”
Karl Marx, Letter to Friedrich Adoplh Sorge in Hoboken
Morgan Meaker, “These Prisoners Are Training AI,” in Wired
Charles Mills, Blackness Visible
James Muldoon, “Data-Owning Democracy or Digital Socialism,” in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
James Muldoon and Paul Raekstad, “Algorithmic Domination in the Gig Economy,” in European Journal of Political Theory
Joanna Partridge, “Long Delays At Panama Canal After Drought Hits Global Shipping Route,” in The Guardian
Carole Pateman, “‘Self-ownership and Property in the Person: Democratisation and a Tale of Two Concepts,” in Journal of Political Philosophy
Alex N. Press, “The Hellish Reality of Amazon’s Human Resources Department, “ in Jacobin
Nat Raha, “A Queer Marxist Transfeminism: Queer and Trans Social Reproduction,” in Transgender Marxism
Marco Tulio Ribeiro, Sameer Singh, and Carlos Guestrin, “"Why Should I Trust You?": Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier,” in Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
Soraya Roberts, “AI Art Only Looks like Art if You Don’t Care,” in Defector
Riley Snorton, Black on Both Sides
Sophie From Mars, AI - Our Shiny New Robot King
Sophie From Mars, The World is Not Ending
Trashfuture, The Brian Georgetown Massacre
Trashfuture, Hell is Other Human Resources
Trashfuture, The Great Leap Orbward
Trashfuture, The Scab-Gig Economy
Trashfuture, The Queen’s Own Regiment of Captchaliers
James Tully, “Rediscovering America”
Kate Vrendenburg, “The Right to Explanation,” in Journal of Political Philosophy
Ben Wagner, “Ethics as an Escape from Regulation,” in Being Profiled
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Matteo Wong, “AI Doomerism is Just A Decoy,” in The Atlantic
Katherine Zyskowski et al., “Accessible Crowdwork?: Understanding the Value in and Challenge of Microtask Employment for People with Disabilities,” in CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

How Police Make Up The Law (ft. LegalEagle)

Philosophy Tube — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 19:00:08 +0000

A deep dive into the work of philosopher H.L.A. Hart, who wrote a lot about legal rules and what the law is, and a comparison of Hart's theory to the practical reality of policing in post-austerity Britain. Featuring a sexy demon, a latex bikini, an all-star voice cast, and more! This is the uncensored cut, featuring language that would have been restricted on YouTube!

Ancient Therapy for Modern Problems: Stoic Philosophy Explained

Philosophy Tube — Tue, 09 May 2023 22:01:39 +0000

Stoicism is an ancient philosophy and a modern movement. It overlaps with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, a method for reducing negative feelings like anxiety and depression. But what is it, why did people believe in it, and does it actually work?

The Prince: Special Edition | Nebula Original

The Prince — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Discuss the Special Edition of The Prince on Reddit.

All the world’s a stage and Jen (Mary Malone) and Sam (Joni Ayton-Kent) have learned the hard way, being trapped in a Shakespearean multiverse. On their quest to discover the doorway back to reality they notice something unusual about Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy (Abigail Thorn).

Written by and starring Abigail Thorn, creator of Philosophy Tube, The Prince is a transformative new play that has everything: sword fighting, lesbianism, Hamlet, and disappointed parents. This special edition has been remastered and has enhanced audio and visuals.