1y ago

What do you all think of Mental Outlaw

Personally, I find his Linux and privacy-related endeavors commendable, but I widely disregard of his political stances.

81 comments

I think he's a good source of knowledge, but definitely has his biases. I especially think it's funny when he laments corpo bullshit, but then defends their right to do the bullshit. As with most libertarians, he gets close to the point and then nose dives off the bad takes cliff.
As with most things, learn what you can, lionize no one.

He's very edgy, I don't like his content. If I want someone to talk about tech, I'd rather they just talk about tech and not make wojack thumbnails and constantly making fun of politics.
- If he only knew anything about politics, it wouldn't be so bad. He seriously applauded Elon Musk for "fighting" against media bias by "the far-left democrats". 🫠
- It's because he just regurgitates all his takes from /g/ on 4chan.
  
  For people on 4chan that is as close to developing an own personality as possible. I feel pity for them.
- I agree, but the thumbnails are nice.
- This, never liked his content TBH. Luke Smith is similar but Luke's Linux content is good.

Good on privacy and monero. I wish he would do more hands-on I2P and Monero stuff.
Dislike the politics. But alt-right sympathizers have been part of the scene ever since I can remember.
I prefer the European cyperpunk scene. Less guns and bootlicking, more sticking it to the man. Sadly, we aren't really producing much English language content, so Americans still have an edge online.
- I love how you casually ignored the existence of English speaking countries in Europe. I think at least Ireland deserves better lol
  
  For sure, but population wise they are also just smaller. Not that many British/Irish content creators relative to the Americans.
  The USA dominates the anglosphere.
  
  I've been to Ireland many times but didn't know they can speak english over there.
- How can I get into this "European cyberpunk scene"? I am bilingual. Do you mind linking some channels or online communities you like?

Same as Luke smith, good linux content but they both cryptofascists. Also its funny that they both turned into grifters, one with monero and one with a shitty dropshipping merch.
- This exactly

I spent so much of my time in the Gentoo community fixing things that have gone wrong through newbies taking his advice as gospel. I'd be happy if he never made another video, and that's outside of, well, everything else.

I disagree with his right-wing libertarianism, as many have said. I found him when i was getting into tech privacy stuff and watched it, then youtube started giving me more of the harder weirdos who were a little more fashy. I dont think Mental Outlaw is a facist, dont get me wrong - but the youtube algorithm may send you that direction.
I think his older stuff was better and just had more content in each video. More recent videos (last 6-12 months?) it seems like he's got two news articles he reads but then he just goes on big tangents to fill space.

as an American who just recently got into Linux, I genuinely thought he was a parody channel when I first found him. everything from his mannerisms to his motivations seems perfectly in line with the less than pleasant stereotypes of Linux dweebs, and I think if he was my only source of Linux content I probably wouldn't have gotten into Linux when I did.

His political stance is garbage but has some usefull videos llike degoogling lineageos

Anything with pepe the frog or anime in the thumbnails or anybody that says "based" is not worth it in my opinion.
- Well he's kinda ironic about that
  
  Yeah, nah, I don't think that's true my dude. I've heard his opinions on the gay agenda, 5g, trans people, and 'cultural marxism' being taught in our schools. I think it's just as serious as the place he gets alot of his views, the image boards we all know. It's the same irony you see on 4chan

I'd prefer not to associate linux content with politics of any kind, but he's enjoyable sometimes

Tech content is passable, wish he'd stick to that. Been losing points with politics, cheap merch and lazying out with what basically amounts to reaction videos.
Any other recommendations for tech content? Seytonic and The new oil are nice.
- Brodie Robertson and The Linux Experiment are probably my favorites for non-vintage tech content

Love his content, he is quite entertaining, even when just doing a cooking video, has some good takes and some bad takes but who doesnt at this point.

I like his content, he covers open source tech pretty well imo. I don't agree with his opinions on guns, but I live in a country where any sort of weapons are pretty hard to get and violent crimes are very low. I won't understand the fear/anxiety of Americans living in open carry states, so take this opinion how you will. I don't really have any opinion on anyone's political opinions, including his. I do think it's cool how he has a chicken farm, a step towards self sustaining ig.
- As an American who has to hear about shootings pretty consistently, I'd like to say the fear can be pretty justified. I don't really know what it's like to live in a world without guns and their presence, so it's hard to imagine life without the necessity of them to protect yourself. It's just one of those things that's hard to understand unless you've lived in it I guess.
  
  I suspect the whole geographic thing also plays into it.
  Where I live, you're never more than 15 minutes from a police station. Maybe half an hour if you live in the middle of nowhere. There are also more than enough cops to go around. I can imagine if you live 4 hours from a police station in the middle of nowhere, or somewhere with 24hr response times, you would want a gun for protection. I certainly would.
  
  I'm clueless european now living in a country where guns are generally available to trained and vetted to some degree public and I was always puzzled by US self-defense culture, some parts of it simply do not compute to me.
  Like how does it work? Are gun owners in America spending reasonable amount of time at the range? Any gun is as good as your training. Safe handling should be muscle memory at the very least to promote an individual from a danger to themselves and people around (not necessarily to an attacker) to someone who is able to hold a gun. Then comes actual shooting practice, which will improve chances of achieving intended things with this gun.
  Also strange obsession with high-power calibers, even knowledgeable gun bloggers mentioning things like .357 magnum in self-defense context. Did people really try to shoot them indoors without hearing protection? Do they really mind what's behind their target, i.e your kid sleeping in the room next door. High-powered round is a responsibility, however a lot of people talk about them like they are toys.
  I really hope I'm missing something or maybe gun handling culture is really common knowledge over there not worth mentioning, because looking at the general public pretty much everywhere I've been - there's no way I'd trust them with a gun. It takes some dedication to learn, even if it seems simple.
  
  I totally get qhat you're saying, but I can't help but feel bad about what you're saying too, because this isn't how it's supposed to be.. You're not supposed to have to live with constant fear. I wish it was different 😔

Informative tech content. I'm right leaning but more towards the center so I don't agree with everything he says politically speaking, but I have no issues viewing his content since at the end of the day he's still libertarian and anti-establishment. I also have no problems holding conversations with the anarcho socialists on lemmy, because at the end of the day they're also not advocating for more control over my life, we just have disagreements on the technical details of how society should work.
- Holy shit as a socialist this is the most grounded and respectable take I have ever seen.

Very much agreed, his tech stuff and farming is good content, but the rest I do not agree with in any shape or form.

I agree, come of as an american libertarian, but at least he's not on the weirder side of the political ideology with age of consent (from my limited knowledge of him)

I actually haven't found much value in his videos lately. I followed him during the time that he was covering more informational topics like android ROMs and a smattering of how to walkthroughs. Haven't seen anything like that in awhile. The few I have watched have basically been news bites about some event in the tech world. I guess those are OK, but still not super helpful in discovering new tech or services.
Now that I think back, he did do a video on how to switch from sudo to doas in Linux, which was awesome. One or two videos like that are enough to keep me monitoring the channel.

I see everyone talk about his politics but what do you expect the man to do. Not stand up for his ideological support for FOSS technology and not talk about radical new technology such as the 3D printing of guns?
- It feel's like being a genuine human being is enough to throw people off nowadays. It's not like he's a grifter, he has given critique on right wing social media, the "freedomphone" and republican legislation regarding tech.

Is that supposed to be the name of a person?
- Youtuber

What are his political stances?
- Guns, mostly.
  
  😂
- Pretty right-leaning.
  
  Right wing libertarian, to be a bit more precise.
- I don't know about Mental Outlaw specifically, but there's a vein of FOSS YouTube influencers who are very American libertarian in nature. And the important thing to understand abour american libertarians is they are largely fascists. They fly don't tread on me and pro cop flags together. Its not that theyre anti authority. They're pro authority beating up minorities. Does that make sense?
  
  And the important thing to understand about american libertarians is they are largely fascists.
  So let me get this straight, the people that are always complaining that the government should have less power and interference into people's lives and want guns for regular people in case the government starts oppressing them are aligned with... checks wikipedia "a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."?
  I don't agree with the libertarian view and think it's way too ignorant of the nature of Man and society, but I think that in your ramble of buzzwords you just created a very cute incoherent contradiction.
  
  This is abjectly wrong. I was, for a brief period of time, a delegate in the part for California. To simplify, it would be closer to a sort of anarchy light. With the minimalist amount of government allowed to exist.
- Based, mostly
  
  Based and tech pilled

He tends to just read a few articles and that's boring to me. I like how schizo anti government he is.
I'm curious what political stances you disagree with because he only seems to talk about online privacy and guns.
- He really seems to be into guns

Overall, Based.
- based.win reference?
  
  XD

The next Terry Davis. Starting with the open source chicken farm of course.

Can't remember ever hearing that name.

I'd agree on the problem with the political stances. He often gets is right but then somehow jumps to the wrong conclusions.

Disagree with his politics, but otherwise based.

Why does his political stance on anything matter? Is your mental skip button broken?
- Mental outlaw wears his political stance , in doing so its very in your face, I'm aligned with European libertarianism and communism so for me to watch an unboxing channel would be uncomfortable as the idear are juxtaposed to mine so I can see how some may find it difficult. To me he's a wholesome dude

I really liked watching him at my beginnings with privacy and Linux, but now all things he talk about I already know earlier from Lemmy and Mastodon.

I used to like his content and his videos got me into linux but i feel that his newer videos have a lot more politics compared to the older ones and i very much disagree with most of his political views i don't realy watch him anymore